Fiver Friday #47: Stuttgart Office Special Edition

Guys, as I am in Sweden for 2 lovely weeks – totally of the grid I WON’T BE ABLE to give you Andy’s Fiver Friday as usual. But for the time being I can give you something even better :)…The Special Edition. All of the guys here in the Stuttgart office gonna share something awesome with you while I am gone! Enjoy that Stuttgart Office Special Edition!

1. Plugin(s)

Soundtoys Little Microshift
Soundtoys describes this little helper with three words, and they are enough: MAKE – IT – WIDE! (Ok, it also adds a warm, analog “hardware” vibe, because soundtoys emulates some hardware classics).

Presonus X-Trem:
This one comes with Studio One. Found it by chance and will miss it in every other DAW. You can easily add tremolo or panning to your track and modulate that with an LFO or simple step sequenzer. In combination with the nice automation curves in Studio One 3 for the depth and beats (speed) knobs a fast and easy way to spice up risers and downshifted

2. Inspiration

I recently watched a film called “The Lobster”, which inspired me to think about the possibilities of abstracting conditions in today’s society. It’s a pretty crazy story, and something I never saw in this way. Maybe a bit exaggerated in my eyes, but in an interesting kind of way, as it criticises todays possibilities of dating platforms and the method to get to know a partner. Check the Trailer:

3. Music

– KAYTRANADA Album “99.9%”

“Amazing Album that brings HipHop, Jazz, Funk, House together with incredible sampling art. And as fan of his debum Album from 2001 I was happy to hear Craig David again :)”

– Brasstracks Song “Say U Won’t” (Artist Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/brasstracks)

“Maybe somebody said to them “U won’t bring typical brass sound and modern electronic music together!” But they do! (And produced a track on Chance The Rappers amazing Mixtapalbum “Coloring Book”!)”

4. Web/Social/Whatever

It was very hard to google that: SkillClipz! Stop Your Pants From Dragging! Had to think of them because I don’t understand why everybody wears jeans that are too short these days. Mine where definetly too long back then!!!

5. Imaging

This week “Imaging” becomes “Quick Pro Tools Tip” by Oli.

While having a look at Pro Tools’ menues, you will see that there are several functions which are not assigned to a shortcut. But there’s a small trick to change that:

1. Open the System Preferences

2. Go to Keyboard

3. Tab Shortcuts

4. In the left column select “App Shortcuts”

5. By clicking on the Plus (+), you can select an App -> Pro Tools. Now you have to enter the exact name of the function you want to shortcut. In my case this is “Save As…”. Then choose a Shortcut combination or single key for this function. But note, that this shortcut isn’t already in use!

6. Try it! Go To Pro Tools – you can see that the shortcut was assigned.

It takes a small workaround to do this, but it will save you a lot of time! E.g. I’ve got my 3 most used Audio Suite plugins on F13, F14 and F15. Love it!