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easy protools playback


Arn

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Hi all,

i find the last years phonak invisible ears are commonly seen as standard in an audio-set.

I mostly use them for music-playback or telephone conversations where the other side of the phone has already been filmed.

i make a montage of the best take in pro-tools on my laptop, but find myself putting to much time in the right cue's for the playback than recording the good sound of the scene.

i am not that big of an expert in protools, but does anyone have a solution i'd just have to enter the spacebar for playback of the next response?

so i don't need to scroll with the mouse, but just divide each response in audio-blocks and press space-bar a couple of times.

maybe another software than pro-tools is more fit for this?

 

What would be even more interesting is that the director could cue these samples.

sometimes the director wants a longer silence in the scene and wants the cue later...

so if he'd have hands on an app on his iphone that would connect to my laptop/protools/....

true wifi, bluetooth... (i know delay...)

any thoughts?

 

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Almost all audio editing apps have a way of jumping to the next marker with a hot key.  Many of them let you specify which key is used (Reaper).   Another tack, commonly used for playback in theatre and dance, is QLab.  Mac only, but the basic version (which will do everything you need) is free.   It IS hard to manage a "live interactive" playback and properly record a scene, esp if you are working in the currently fashionable "shoot the rehearsal" mode.  If this is an ongoing thing on your job maybe consider asking for a playback-op?

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Go Button, for iPad and iPhone. There is a fully functioning free version, but you can only have one playlist in it. You can take the full convo in one file, and load it into many cues in Go Button. You can edit in and out points for each cue. It makes a big red button on the screen (might be green, I am working from memory) and each time you hit the button it plays the next cue. We were doing 7 and 8 minute long phone calls recently, and it worked brilliantly, 50+ cues......

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Like others have mentioned there are lots of "sound cart" or clip shot type of apps to make playback easy.  I'd definitely not rule out ProTools playback though, because I've been in too many situations where some sort of change to the playback is requested on set and it is nice to be able to quickly make and edit right on the spot.

There is no single spacebar solution like you mention, but by using a combination of region layout in logical groups, some markers for quick reference, and "tab to region", you should be able to navigate very quickly through your playback session.  Just make sure that in the tool bar you don't have the "tab to transient" waveform looking button pressed, otherwise the tab key will just select the next transient leading edge on your current region.  alt/option tab will take you to the region start or previous region.

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For Dialog I'd use QLab (or Show Cue System on Windows), however if you want to use ProTools I have a Keyboard Maestro shortcut set up to <stop and re-cue to the top of the next region> that achieves a similar result. I use it for multitrack music playbacks where a conductor has to 'cut and restart' through a vamp of unknown length. You need Keyboard Maestro, of course, though there are others like QuickKeys that'll do the same thing. The shortcut (assigned to a spare function key) is:

- type <SPACE>    (stops playback of previous clip)

- type <TAB>        (moves cursor to start of next region - Tab to Transient should be off and Insertion Follow Playback has to be on)

- Mouseclick on Play Button position with <OPTN> modifier      (Prime For Playback - gives you a faster start on large track counts)

If there's a gap between clips, you need to have passed the end of the previous clip for this to work, otherwise you need to double-tap. You then press the Space Bar to play again. I have played with using Keyboard Maestro's ability to trigger macros from MIDI (coming off a Midi Track in the ProTools session) to automate this re-cueing, but it wasn't quick enough to react in half a bar of music or less reliably - might be fine for conversation sides though.

 

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4 hours ago, Bash said:

Go Button, for iPad and iPhone. There is a fully functioning free version, but you can only have one playlist in it. You can take the full convo in one file, and load it into many cues in Go Button. You can edit in and out points for each cue. It makes a big red button on the screen (might be green, I am working from memory) and each time you hit the button it plays the next cue. We were doing 7 and 8 minute long phone calls recently, and it worked brilliantly, 50+ cues......

Awesome. 

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Hi, thanks for all the responses! The go button app seems interesting but as tom mentioned, i like to have an editing software by hand for quick changes.

An other idea: (please help me with the software/hardware part)
A pulse trigger at the director's side going to an ew100 transmitter. Receiving the pulse at the cart from an ew100 receiver going to a footswitch input on an audio-cart. Triggering 'play' of a sample in the software. Ending from itsself. The second pulse will trigger play of the second sample.

This way i could still make quick changes...
And the director would be wireless with good range (better than bluetooth keyboard).
Possible?
Whats the best hardware/software?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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I would like to recommend the Pro Tools Control app for iPad once more, because it does everything you want.
It's wireless via wifi, so range should be ok
It has 37 pages with 12 softkeys each. Each softkey can be assigned with a shortcut of your choice. Using memory locations you can assign each location a softkey, which will cause a jump to that location and start playing. Just add a lot of silence after each cue, in case the director wants to roll a little longer.

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Thanks constantin!
Must have read over it...
Just tested it, definitely the best option!
My only worry is the bad wifi environment on set and my 1watt zaxnet-amplifier right next to it.
But sure worth a try!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Thanks constantin!

Must have read over it...

Just tested it, definitely the best option!

My only worry is the bad wifi environment on set and my 1watt zaxnet-amplifier right next to it.

But sure worth a try!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That could be a problem. I have been able to kill my home wifi just with a larger antenna for the ifb100.

If I'm not mistaken you could use a 5ghz wifi?

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