Like its non-destuctive brother Track Punch, Destuctive Punch lets you punch tracks in and out individually (one at a time) or punch multiple tracks in and out simultaneously.
If any of these criteria are not met, you will be prompted to Prepare DPE tracks when you try to initiate recording.
The file has to start at the beginning of the session, and it has to meet the Destructive Punch file-length duration you’ve set in the Pro Tools Preferences Operation tab. You can only punch into an existing audio file, not into empty space. In order for this to work, a track must be ‘Destructive Punch Enabled’. Destructive Record by its very nature is not undoable, so you need to be careful when using this feature!ĭestructive recording or punching in on a track permanently obliterates existing audio on the timeline.Another option in the Record button contextual menu is an HD-only record mode that operates in a similar way to Destructive Record, but with the added feature of being able to selectively punch in and out of a recording as the session runs. When you do this, the new audio is written directly into the original file.
Rather than re-bouncing the whole programme (which, in the days before offline bounce, was a real-time process), you could import the bounce to a track, and either patch the small area where changes are needed, then consolidate the clips to create a new final master programme file - or drop in in Destructive mode. For instance, suppose you have to make one small change in an hour-long radio drama. In certain situations, this can be useful. This allows you to record over existing audio on the timeline, permanently replacing the original. If you right-click on the record button in either the Transport window or in the Tool Bar at the top of the Edit window, a contextual menu pops up showing a range of Record options. There are still, however, certain operations in Pro Tools that are destructive, meaning that the original files are permanently overwritten - and in this Pro Tools workshop we are going to take a look at six destructive Pro Tools features to be aware of. Digidesign and then Avid have tried to make almost everything in Pro Tools non-destructive you can go back and undo edits, because you are not changing the source media, and if you get yourself in a complete mess, you can always pull the source material out of the Clip List and start again, which was not something we could do in the analogue world! With Pro Tools 12.6 you can even get back edits and clips that have been completely covered over by another clip. When it first appeared, technology that allowed us to undo an edit or a drop in was revolutionary. If you missed a vocal drop-in point, you clipped off the previous word, and would then have to drop in earlier to fix the error, and so on. If you didn’t cut tape in exactly the right place, you would end up hunting through the pile of tape on the floor for the correct bit, then trimming a very small piece of tape off and sticking it back on - and so on. This stands in complete contrast to working with analogue tape, where so much of what we did was destructive, including editing and dropping in. Most Pro Tools operations are undoable - but some give you the option to commit permanently.įor many people, a big advantage of digital audio workstations is that everything they do is non-destructive and undoable.