A quick guide to using the Pro Tools First Shuffle Mode

In this Pro Tools First tutorial, we’ll learn how to use the Pro Tools First Shuffle mode. In Pro Tools First, the Shuffle mode ensures that edits such as reordering or trimming of regions are automatically accommodated by the surrounding regions. This maintains a continual line of regions which eliminate both gaps/spaces and also overlaps.

To enter one of the four Pro Tools First edit modes, select the mode that you’d like to enter in the top left corner of the edit window:

By clicking on any of these, you will enter a different edit mode. The different Pro Tools First edit modes are: Shuffle mode, Spot mode, Slip mode and Grid mode. The different Pro Tools First edit modes give you different options for the way that you can move and edit regions on your timeline. To enter Pro Tools First Shuffle mode, simply click on the ‘Shuffle’ edit mode button.

Using the Pro Tools First Shuffle Mode

Once you have enabled Pro Tools First Shuffle mode, your surrounding regions will automatically snap to the beginning or end of the region that you have edited. Therefore, if you were to move a region and insert it between two other regions, all of the regions after the one you have inserted will automatically move to accommodate the new region and will also snap to the end of the new region to ensure that there is no gap. This is really useful because it means that you do not have to manually slide all of the regions that follow the inserted part along to make space. You also don’t need to line them up with the end of the new region. All of this happens automatically.

The same is true if you trim the end of a region. All of the following regions will automatically snap to the end of that region. In other modes, trimming a region would create a gap, but not in Pro Tools First Shuffle mode. In this mode, the following regions will simply snap to the end of the trimmed region.

Do you think that the Pro Tools First Shuffle mode is a function that you could make use of in your sessions? What kind of music do you record most, and do you think Shuffle mode would be useful in that genre? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below.

Click here to get your free copy of Pro Tools First.