Specifications

Pro Tools Reference Guide224
Edit Modes
Pro Tools has four Edit modes: Shuffle, Spot,
Slip, and Grid. (With Pro Tools 6.x, Grid mode
provides two modes of operation: Relative and
Absolute, explained below). The Edit mode is se-
lected by clicking the corresponding button in
the upper left of the Edit window.
The Edit mode affects the movement and place-
ment of audio and MIDI regions (and individual
MIDI notes), how commands like Copy and
Paste function, and also how the various edit
tools (Trimmer, Selector, Grabber, and Pencil)
work.
Shuffle
In Shuffle mode, you can move, trim, cut, or
paste regions freely within a track or to other
tracks, but their movement is constrained by
other regions. That is, if you place several re-
gions in a track, they automatically snap to each
other. You can then “shuffle” their order, but
you cannot separate them from each other and
you cannot make them overlap as in Slip mode.
However, if there is silence between existing re-
gions, and the regions are shuffled, the silence is
maintained, and not removed.
In Shuffle mode, adding another region to the
beginning of a track moves all subsequent re-
gions to the right by the length of the region
added.
When using the Trimmer in Shuffle mode,
changing a region’s start or end point automat-
ically moves the adjacent regions as necessary.
The placement and insertion of MIDI notes is
not affected by Shuffle mode.
Slip
In Slip mode, regions can be moved freely
within a track or to other tracks. In this mode, it
is possible to place a region so that there is space
between it and other regions in a track. When
the track is played back, this space is silent. It is
also possible to move a region so that it overlaps
or completely covers another region.
Use Slip mode when you want the Trimmer, Se-
lector, Grabber, and Pencil tools to work with-
out any restrictions to placement in time.
Spot
Use Spot mode to place regions at precise loca-
tions. In Spot mode you can specify a frame lo-
cation (or a location based on any of the other
time formats), capture an incoming Time Code
address, or use a region’s time stamps as refer-
ence points for spotting. This can be particularly
useful when performing post production tasks
around SMPTE frame locations.
When Spot mode is enabled, Pro Tools asks you
to specify a destination location when a region
is dragged from either of the Regions Lists, or
from a supported DigiBase browser.
Edit mode buttons
You can also use F1 (Shuffle), F2 (Slip), F3
(Spot), and F4 (Grid) to set the Edit mode.