This article focuses on the creative potential within the recently released Pro Tools feature, Folder Tracks. Usually Folder Tracks are used for session organisation; however, with powerful viewing and routing options found within Pro Tools, we can turn this unsuspecting feature into something incredibly creative and powerful.

Pro Tools has long been the go-to DAW for audio professionals everywhere. The expansive feature set for recording, editing, and mixing is clearly the focus of Avid's industry-standard program. However, today we will shine some light on the music production capabilities Pro Tools can bring to its more creativity-focused users. We will show you how to create a drum sequencer for your Maschine 2 plugin right inside the Pro Tools Edit Window.

This article builds off a wonderfully informative Avid blog that focuses on a significant new feature for Pro Tools, Folder Tracks. As stated in the Avid blog, Folder Tracks are great for session organisation, but what you might not know is they can also play a role in music creation.

After following the link to the blog post, scroll down to find the MIDI Grid Editor track preset.

Once you have downloaded this, we need to unzip the file and place the preset someplace where Pro Tools will see it. The easiest way to do this is to click on the downloaded file once it is completed; this will automatically unzip and reveal the preset contained inside.

When you have found the unziped preset file, open up a blank Pro Tools Session. Once inside the session, hit Alt+i/Opt+i to bring up a new default workspace window.

Click on Track Presets in the lefthand column, and this will reveal all the track presets found within Pro Tools, including all of Avid's presets and any created by the user. We have two options for this next part. We can save this new track preset in the Avid folder and keep it with the rest of the Pro Tools track presets, or we can create a new folder to store our user-created presets for future use. To do this, right-click in the empty space and select "New Folder". Name it accordingly then click "OK".

Once you've decided where you will save our newly downloaded preset, right-click on that folder and select Reveal in Explorer/Reveal in Finder. Doing this will open up a window, showing you where these files are located on your systems hard drive. All we do now is drag the .ptxp file from our unzipped download and move it into the desired location.

Now we can close all other windows and focus on Pro Tools.

In our workspace, open the folder you moved the GRID EDITOR preset to, and drag it into the Pro Tools Edit Window. As you do this, you may get a dialog box saying you are missing the BOOM plugin that this preset includes. This is fine since we are going to swap that out for Maschine in a moment. Click "No" if you receive a dialog box asking if you would like to visit the Avid Marketplace to acquire the missing plugin.

You can now see that Pro Tools has created multiple tracks following the GRID EDITOR preset. On the track titled "Drums" we are going to replace the first insert with Maschine 2

As explained on Avid’s blog post, the idea is to have an individual MIDI track for each drum that you wish to trigger; then, these will all feed into a single virtual instrument. All of these housed in a Folder Track gives the workflow of a step sequencer right in the Pro Tools Edit Window. Avid's track preset is great for instruments like BOOM, Battery 4, Steven Slate Drums, and other virtual instruments where a different note pitch triggers different drums. For this to work with Maschine 2, we have to make a couple of adjustments.

First, we need to tell Maschine how to accept the notes sent from Pro Tools. To do this, go to your Maschine group and click on the routing icon. This is found directly above the plugin icon, to the left of "Master", then click on Input and MIDI. Set Source to "Host" and Channel to "1." Our Channel number corresponds directly to the sound you have selected.

Follow these steps for all 16 sounds you have in Maschine, setting Source to "Host" and matching the Channel number with the sound number.

Maschine is ready to accept incoming notes from Pro Tools. We can close the Maschine plugin window.

Now to ensure Pro Tools is sending the correct notes via the proper MIDI channels.

Select all the tracks under the Drum track containing Maschine. Do this by clicking the first track "KICK" and Shift+Clicking on the last track "LOWTOM." To set proper MIDI outputs for all the tracks at once hold Ctrl+Alt/Ctrl+Opt when setting the MIDI output of "KICK" to "channel-1."

By doing this, Pro Tools will cascade your settings down each track, automatically setting "channel-2" for "SNARE," then "channel-3" for "RIM" and so on.

The last step is to click on the musical note icon to the right of the MIDI output and set every MIDI track below Maschine to Single Note View, with C3 as the note. We do this because Maschine uses C3 to trigger every sound at its default pitch.

We are done! I recommend saving a track preset with all these settings so in the future, you can load up the track preset with Maschine already instantiated and proper routing set up.