Most of us are aware of the commonly used keyboard shortcuts for things like New Track, Save Session, making an Edit, etc. However, there are some less well-known keyboard shortcuts in Pro Tools based around the 3 fingered salute and it’s these we are going to focus on in this article.

What Is The Three-Fingered Salute?

The 3 fingered salute on a Mac is a keyboard shortcut that uses the three modifier keys at the bottom left and bottom right of a computer keyboard. On a Mac, they are Command, Option (Alt) and Control, whereas they are Start, Alt and Control on a Windows computer. For simplicity, we are going to quote the Mac shortcuts in this article. Windows users can use the following modifier key substitutions…

Editing

Avid added a number of keyboard shortcuts to Pro Tools 2018.7. Commands related to the Edit selection are now organised in the Selection submenu as follows:

Move Edit Left - Moves the entire current Edit selection to the left by the duration of the selection.

• Command+Option+Control+L (Mac)

• Control+Alt+Start+L (Windows)

• In Commands Keyboard focus, press L.

Move Edit Right - Moves the entire current Edit selection to the right by the duration of the selection.

• Command+Option+Control+’ (single quote) (Mac)

• Control+Alt+Start+’ (single quote) (Windows)

• In Commands Keyboard focus, press ’ (single quote)

Halve Selection - Maintains the current Edit selection start time but reduced its duration by half.

• Command+Option+Control+Shift+L (Mac)

• Control+Alt+Start+Shift+L (Windows)

Double Selection - Maintains the current Edit selection start time and doubles its duration.

• Command+Option+Control+Shift+’ (single quote) (Mac)

• Control+Alt+Start+Shift+’ (single quote) (Windows)

Duplicate and Extend Selection - Pro Tools now lets you duplicate the Edit selection (including all track data in the selection), keep the selection start, and extend the selection to the end of the duplicate. This facilitates working with audio loops and repeating MIDI content. To duplicate the Edit selection, maintain the current selection start, and extend the selection to end of the duplicate, do one of the following:

• Choose Edit > Selection > Duplicate And Extend Selection.

• Press Command+Option+Control+Shift+D (Mac) or Control+Alt+Start+Shift+D (Windows).

Duplicate Backwards - We all know that Command D will duplicate a clip forwards in time, but did you know that there is a keyboard shortcut to duplicate a clip backwards…

• Use Command+Alt+Ctrl and click with the Grabber on the clip.

Learn more…

If you want to know more about using Pro Tools keyboard shortcuts when editing, check out these articles…

• Essential Pro Tools Edit Window Keyboard Shortcuts For Editing Audio Clips

• Editing Audio In Pro Tools? 6 Overlooked Pro Tools Shortcuts You Should Know

• 20 Pro Tools Shortcuts - If You Want To Become A Pro Tools Power User Bookmark These Hot Tips Now

• Trim Clip To Extend To Edit Selection In Pro Tools - Free Expert Tip

• Do You Know These Pro Tools Shortcuts?

• Tip - Changing Keyboard Focus In Pro Tools Using Shortcuts

• Pro Tools Quick Tips - Essential Clip Gain Shortcuts

• 30 Pro Tools Keyboard Shortcuts Tips You Should Know

Zooming

Fit all shown tracks in the Edit window - This shortcut changes track height to fill the screen. Julian uses this all the time, usually in combination with Option + A to quickly see his entire session horizontally and vertically. Obviously, if your track count is too high it can't fit everything on the screen but for my typical sessions, it's perfect.

• Use Command+Option+Control with the Up or Down arrow keys

Change to previous/next Track view on all tracks

• Use Command+Option+Control with the Left or Right arrow keys

Reset waveform zoom to default - This resets the vertical zoom to show default waveform height on audio tracks.

• Use Command+Option+Control [ (square bracket)

Learn More…

If you want to learn more about Zooming keyboard shortcuts, check out these articles…

• Pro Tools Zooming Shortcuts

• Changing Track Heights In Pro Tools Using Keystrokes

Playlist And Rating Clips

This shortcut enables you to duplicate the main playlist for each track in the session

• Use Command+Option+Control+\ 

This shortcut is a variant of the previous one that works on tracks that have been selected. To duplicate the main playlist for each selected track in the session

• Use Command+Option+Control+Shift+\

Pro Tools has a system for rating clips and filtering them so that only playlists containing clips rated above or below a certain number are shown. To access the rating system do one of the following:

• Right-click on each clip and select a rating 1-5

• Use the three-finger salute (Ctrl-Opt-Cmd) and 1-5 on the numeric keypad. You decide whether 1 or 5 is best.

Learn More…

You can learn more about rating clips and manipulating playlists for vocal comping and more, check out these articles…

• Getting To Grips With Pro Tools - Playlists, Vocal Comping & Labels

• Free Tutorial - How To Use The Playlist Comping Features In Pro Tools

• Free Tutorial – Make Quick Vocal Comps Using Playlists in Pro Tools

Automation

This shortcut will open Plug-in Automation dialog…

• Use Command+Option+Control and click on Track View selector (in the Edit window)

In Pro Tools Ultimate you can access the Plug-in Automation commands to enable/disable plug-in automation…

• Use Command+Option+Control and click on parameters (in Plug-in window) 

Learn More…

If you would like to learn more about Pro Tools automation tips and shortcuts, check out our article Pro Tools Automation Tips To Make Your Mixes Faster And Easier - Do You Know These Shortcuts?

Clip Effects - Pro Tools Ultimate Only

Clip Effects is a Pro Tools Ultimate Only feature and comes with a set of 3-fingered salute shortcuts…

Cut Special Cut Clip Effects

• Use Command+Option+Control+X

Copy Special Copy Clip Effects

• Use Command+Option+Control+C

Clear Special Clear Clip Effects 

• Use Command+Option+Control+B

Learn More…

If you would like to learn more about using Clip Effects in Pro Tools Ultimate, check out these articles…

• Setting Keyboard Shortcuts To Access Clip Effect Presets In Pro Tools

• Access Pro Tools Ultimate Clip Effects From The Keyboard - Expert Tip

• Do Pro Tools Clip Effects Come Before Or After Clip Gain?

Soundbase

Avid introduced Soundbase in Pro Tools 12.7 back in late 2016, adding tagging in the Workspace window.

Soundbase enables you to tag audio loops and sounds to make finding the one you want much quicker and easier. Effectively SoundBase adds tags to the Workspace Browser.  Tags can be added to any audio file, not just loops and samples and then Workspace indexes those tags to speed up searches.

Once content is tagged you can click on a tag in the top section and it will appear in the search bar above and you can select as many tags as you like to help narrow down the list of files to be only those with all the selected tags.

Sounbase comes with its own raft of keyboard shortcuts and the 3-finger salute Soundbase shortcuts are as follows…

Show/Hide Tags pane 

• Use Command+Option+Control+T

Show/Hide Favorites for the selected Location or search results

• Use Command+Option+Control+F

Learn More…

If Soundbase is not something you have used in Pro Tools then to learn more about Soundbase in the Workspace browser, check out our article Avid Announce Pro Tools 12.7 With Revision History, Tagging And 2GB Loop Library.

In Conclusion

There you have it, a useful set of shortcuts for diving deep into controlling Pro Tools with keyboard shortcuts. Although it seems like there are a lot of keys to hold down, the great advantage of the 3-fingered salute is they are all next to each other and there are 2 sets on an extended keyboard, one lower left and the other lower right, making it easy to get your fingers around them and commit these shortcuts to muscle memory