Pro Tools

What you need

What a worker can do

Ask in plain words. After a change in Pro Tools’ windows the worker reads it back, and tells you if it matches what you asked, if it could not confirm it, or if it failed.

Session and tracks

• Read the tracks, clips, selections and the state of the session.
• Import audio files as new tracks.
• Create and rename tracks.
• Mute, solo and record-arm tracks.
• Select ranges on the timeline.
• Save the session.
• Bounce the mix.
• Put tracks, names, mute, solo and record-arm back as they were when a series of changes fails.

Routing and folders

• Route the main output of one or more tracks to an output, a bus or a routing folder.
• List the session’s outputs and busses, and read where each track goes.
• Move tracks into a folder, back to the top level, or before or after another track.
• Set a track’s input.

Inserts, sends and AudioSuite

• Put a plug-in in an insert slot, on a mono, stereo or multi-mono track, never on a slot already in use.
• Point a send slot at a bus, an output or a track.
• Render an AudioSuite plug-in on the selection, as new files.

Editing

• Run Strip Silence with the threshold, minimum duration and pad you ask for.
• Set the grid value, from 1 bar to 1/64.

Mix

• Set the automation mode: off, read, touch, latch, touch/latch or write.
• Set the pan: one value on a mono track, left and right on a stereo track.
• Read each track’s automation mode, input, inserts and sends A to J.
• Read the session’s groups.

Windows and track presets

• Scroll a track into view.
• List and recall window configurations.
• Recall a Track Preset (.ptxp).

What it leaves out on purpose

An AudioSuite render always makes new files. A worker never chooses Overwrite Files, so the original audio files are not overwritten.

Known limits

• One background desktop at a time. Work in Pro Tools’ windows runs on it, and the other workers wait their turn: a waiting worker’s row reads Waiting for the computer. Background explains the queue.
• Pro Tools may come to the front for a step that needs it, for that step only.
• The Mac’s own display must stay awake.
• Stopping a worker does not undo what it has already done.
• Routing has been checked in the background on a real session. The other window operations have been checked on Pro Tools itself, and are being checked one by one in the background.