Hi. This time, I would be writing about some things that I don’t see or use usually in Pro Tools and some alternate ways of using plugins.
1. Clip Back or Forward
This is one thing that had skipped my mind for a long time until I realised this feature existed. So basically how it works is you can have a clip nudge or move under or over a clip. The default behaviour is over the clip. This can be changed under the Clip Menu with the Send to Back or Send to front option. The video below will help explain that.
2. Pro Compressor for Performance Reverbs
This is one trick I do with the Avid Pro Compressor. It works using the listen button on the compressor. This plays back just the gain reduced signal. So, how I use this is to have a send from a track to a reverb aux. Before the reverb plugin, I insert the Pro Compressor and also engage the listen. I adjust the threshold to a point where the gain reduction happens only on higher levels of the voice or snare. This means whenever the singer throws his voice, it will be reverbed. (Or you can add any process you like). This is really cool and saves a lot of time compared to riding a fader for the same effect. You can also side chain and have some cool effects with that.
3. Pro Multiband Compression Split
Ok, this is not little known but not that famous either! Like the Pro Multiband Splitter, the Pro Multiband Compression plugin is also one that allows for something called AOS or Auxillary Output Stems. This plugin allows the different bands to be split to different auxes with each aux having a certain part of the band. You can then add for example a reverb in just the low mids after compression, bring up the attack on the highs and add a bit of delay or a Devil Loc for crush etc.
4. Fabfilter MB internal Sidechain
On the Fabfilter dynamic EQ, there is a mode on the expert section to trigger the reduction of the frequency using another range on the same signal as the key. We all know multiband compression or EQ with external sidechain. This is the same concept but using the frequencies of the same signal to do so. This is very useful if say you want to control the extended bass or the tail of the bass guitar but triggered by the attack. Or if you want to duck the cymbals when the snare hits. Or even reduce the low freqs in a dialogue as the pitch rises. It’s anything! You can read more about this function here.
There are some more that will come up in subsequent blog posts. Until then, enjoy!
-FM
Film Mixing and Sound design 
Hi there! I had seen this post here and then I saw it shared by the Pro Tools Expert team and, just as I did there, I wanted to share a couple of tips some readers might find interesting.
1) If you need a simple tremolo plugin you can use the built-in AutoPan (mono>stereo, available for mono tracks only) followed by the DownMixer (stereo>mono). The tip here is to mute one of the sides of the DownMixer plugin and to control the depth of the tremolo you adjust the Width on the AutoPan, as well as the LFO options to achieve the desired effect.
2) The DownMixer also serves as a dry/wet control for mono sources. Let’s say you wanna use the SansAmp PSA-1 on a kick drum in parallel. You duplicate the (mono) kick track, move both clips to a stereo track and insert the PSA-1 as a multi-mono instance, then bypass one of the sides on the PSA-1 (I suggest bypassing the right side since every time you open the plugin it will bring up the left side by default). Now add the DownMixer after the PSA-1 and you’ll have control over the amount of bypassed (right) and processed (left) signals. After the DownMixer you can insert whatever you want as if you had a mono track (which you originally had), subsequent instances will be mono, as well as pan control.
Bonus: use both tips and you might find very interesting results. On a mono track add the AutoPan, followed by a multi-mono processor with different settings for left and right, then add the DownMixer. You won’t get your typical tremolo effect, instead you’ll have a mono signal that ranges from left setting to right setting. In fact, the AutoPan also has an envelope trigger and sidechain, so there’s a lot of crazy possibilities there.
Cheers!
Those are really interesting ones! Thanks for sharing those!