At the beginning of December 2017, my wife asked me to teach her how to use Pro Tools so that she could track, edit and mix her own music. Within a couple of weeks she became quite good at getting around Pro Tools, however, a mutual friend suggested she buy a set of Pro Tools Keyboard Shortcut Stickers to help her work faster in Pro Tools. My wife asked me if I had ever used Pro Tools keyboard stickers in past, I had not, but I can see how these can be useful, especially for those new to Pro Tools.

It's no secret, becoming a Pro Tools Keyboard Shortcut Ninja is the key to developing a quick and productive Pro Tools workflow. Being able to visually see Pro Tools keyboard shortcuts below your fingertips is a great way to effortlessly learn essential shortcuts. In this article, we share a handful of Pro Tools keyboard stickers Pros & Cons my wife and I have discovered, yes, there are negatives to stickers!

Pros - Pro Tools Keyboard Shortcuts Stickers

Cost Effective: We were not sure if we would both get on with the keyboard stickers. Luckily these are quite cheap to buy. The cheapest price we found a set of Pro Tools Keyboard Stickers for was £10 off eBay, not bad, it was well worth a punt.

Easy To Apply/Remove: It took me around 15 minutes to stick all the labels on our keyboard. I made a couple of mistakes mixing up the top row of keyboard numbers with the numeric keypad, luckily these stickers were easy to peel off and reapply (no damage to keyboard or sticker).

Keys To The Kingdom: Let me describe this with an analogy - There is a momentous day in every guitarist's development that instantly takes their guitar skills to the next level. This day is when guitarists fully understand fretboard notation (not Tab). It's a similar kind of thing for those learning DAW keyboard shortcuts. When one learns a number of important Pro Tools Keyboard Shortcuts their workflows become easier, faster and more productive. If you struggle to learn Pro Tools Keyboard Shortcuts then stickers could be just the ticket to give your workflow the keys to the kingdom.

Cons - Pro Tools Keyboard Shortcuts Stickers

Hides Mac Shortcut & Function Keys: Pro Tools and other DAW Keyboard Stickers give with one hand and take away with another. The symbols on the top row of F keys (F1 through F12) such as the symbols for Mac Display Brightness, Volume etc will be hidden. You will need to remember which F key does what in the Mac OS. For some, this may not be a big deal but we thought it was a slight negative so worth mentioning.

Not All Shortcuts Are Featured: That goes for commands as well. I consider a "keyboard command" to be when two or more keys are needed to be pressed in order to perform a single action such as "UNDO" Command Z. Undo is features in the stickers along with other commands such as Cut, Copy, Paste but a fair few Pro Tools "keyboard commands" that require modifier keys (shift, option, command) are not shown such as Duplicate in Pro Tools... or even Save.

Stickers Ruin The Feel Of The Keyboard: This is by far the biggest negative of Pro Tools/DAW Keyboard Shortcut Stickers. We use the Apple keyboard which feels amazing to type on. Stickers ruin the surface feel of the keyboard. It may not be that noticeable in general Pro Tools operation but try typing a long form email, or blog with these stickers on... you'll quickly notice that the surface of the keys and edges of the stickers feel nasty.

We are not 100% sure if these stickers will stay on our keyboard for long because of how they make the keyboard feel.

Have you used or do you currently use Pro Tools Keyboard Shortcut Stickers? If so, let us know your experiences or if you use a different option, products from Editors Keys or DNA Music Labs maybe?, do share your experiences and Pros and Cons below.