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Step 1
Set your editing mode. There are 4 editing modes in Pro Tools designated by the buttons in the upper-left of your edit window: shuffle, spot, slip and grid. When editing music, you will use slip and grid often, but don't neglect the usefulness of the other two. Slip lets you move and edit regions freely down to a sample-size level. Grid allows you to edit in relation to the tempo of the song, so that you can always keep your time right on target. Shuffle mode snaps regions to adjacent regions and eliminates overlap, and spot mode lets you move regions to exact time locations.
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Step 2
Get familiar with your editing tools. These are designated by buttons, starting with a magnifying glass and proceeding right to the pencil icon. The tools are, from left to right, the zoomer, trimmer, selector, grabber, scrubber and pencil tools.
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Step 3
Use your smart tool. The smart tool is activated by clicking the bar directly under the trimmer, selector and grabber tools. The smart tool combines these 3 tools and will let you trim, edit and grab without having to switch tools. When you move your cursor over an audio region, it will change into a bracket, which designates the trimmer tool, an I-beam cursor (like a selector in a text editor), which designates the selector tool, or a hand, which designates the grabber tool.
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Step 4
Place your selector tool on a region of audio where you want to make an edit and click. This will place your selector cursor. Press "Command E" on a Mac or "Control E" on a PC to make an edit point. This will split the region at the selected spot. This is the basic editing procedure that you will use quite often. Use the grabber tool and trimmer tool to move and trim the new region to fit where you want it.
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Step 5
Try out Beat Detective for advanced editing. Beat Detective can be complex, but it is a powerful tool for editing, especially for applications like quantizing drums. You can find Beat Detective in the "Event" menu.
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Step 6
Create duplicate playlists to edit on. A duplicate playlist is helpful if you want to try out an edit but want to be able to return to the original quickly if your edit doesn't work out. To create a duplicate playlist, click the button directly to the right of the track name in the edit window and choose the "Duplicate" option. If you need to switch back, click the same button and choose the previous playlist.
