Editing in Pro Tools: Split, Trim, Duplicate, Crossfade, Nudge - Sound Arts Intro

Six moves are most of what you'll ever need to shape recorded sound into a piece. This is the hands-on toolkit. Inside: the Selector and the Grabber and why the Smart Tool lets you stop thinking about which one you're in. Split with Command-E, your digital razor blade, where every cut is a compositional decision. Trim by dragging a clip edge, which is non-destructive, so trim fearlessly. Duplicate with Command-D. Crossfade by highlighting across the boundary between two touching clips and pressing Command-F, then hear the same two sounds go from abrupt to dissolving. Nudge with the plus and minus keys, because fifty milliseconds can change the feel of a moment. And zoom zoom tool or Cmd + [ or ]. The one thing that trips everybody up: a crossfade only works if the two clips are actually touching, edge to edge. If it won't let you create one, that's almost always why. Part of a short series on the basics of working with recorded sound. Previous: importing, normalizing, and fading field recordings. Next: mixing, levels and panning. Chapters: 0:00 Just the tools, the why is elsewhere 0:00 Selector, Grabber, Smart Tool 0:00 Split (Command-E) 0:00 Trim, and why it's non-destructive 0:00 Duplicate (Command-D) 0:00 Crossfade (Command-F) 0:00 Hard cut vs. crossfade, listen 0:00 The adjacency gotcha 0:00 Nudge 0:00 Zoom habits (Z and R)