Shift Markers Beta

Put markers back where they belong. Shift Markers moves the markers on a Pro Tools ruler all by the same amount — or lines the first one up with your selection — and shows you on a timeline where they'll end up before anything moves. Perfect for review comments on a bounce that land too early in your session.

Requires StudioTools 2.4.0 or later and Pro Tools 2025.06 or later. Coming soon to the Mac App Store — beta testers have it now.

What it's for

Sometimes a whole set of markers is in the wrong place — every one of them off by the same amount. Shift Markers moves them all at once.

The typical case is review comments. You send a mix out for review, bounced without the count-in — or without whatever comes before the song in your session. The reviewers leave comments, and a review service such as Dropbox Replay sends them to Pro Tools as markers. But the comments are timed from the start of the bounce, not from the start of your session, so every marker lands too early — by exactly the part you left out.

Shift Markers moves those markers to where the comments belong:

• By an offset you type — for example the two bars of count-in.
• Or by snapping the first marker to a spot you select in Pro Tools.

It works on any marker ruler, so you can also use it to move other markers by a fixed amount.

What you need

• StudioTools 2.4.0 or later.
• Pro Tools 2025.06 or later, with the session open. StudioTools connects to Pro Tools automatically — see Pro Tools connection.
• The markers you want to move in the session — for example review comments imported as markers.

To open it, choose Utilities… in the StudioTools menu and click Shift Markers in the sidebar. If something is missing, the utility says what — see When a utility can't run yet.

Choose a ruler

The Ruler menu lists every ruler in the session that has markers, with the number of markers on it:

• the main Markers ruler,
• your named marker rulers (Pro Tools has up to five marker rulers),
• track markers, listed as Track: Lead Vocal and so on.

Pick the ruler the comments were imported to. StudioTools remembers your choice for next time. Imported more comments, or changed markers in Pro Tools? Click Reload to read the markers again.

If the session has no markers yet, the utility shows No Markers in This Session — import the comments, then click Reload.

Set the offset

Type how far to move the markers in the Offset field, and choose the format next to it. The format starts as the one your Pro Tools main counter uses.

Then choose the direction: Later moves the markers to the right — the usual choice when the comments landed too early — and Earlier moves them to the left.

Every marker moves by the same audio time, because the bounce the reviewers listened to is plain audio. A bar|beat offset is measured from the song start: 2|0|000 is the length of the first two bars, even if the tempo changes later in the song. Markers that are bar|beat markers stay bar|beat markers, and their names, comments and colors are kept.

Snap to Selection Start

Don't know the exact length of the count-in, but know where one comment belongs? Line it up:

1. Check the comment you know, and make sure it's the earliest checked marker (or uncheck the earlier ones).
2. In Pro Tools, make a timeline selection that starts where that comment belongs.
3. Click Snap to Selection Start.

StudioTools sets the offset so the first checked marker starts exactly at the start of your selection; the other markers move by the same amount. A note next to the button says which marker snaps. The offset is written in samples, so it's exact. Changing the offset by hand afterwards removes the note.

Preview before you shift

Nothing moves in Pro Tools until you click the shift button. Until then, the table and the timeline show what the shift does.

The marker table

Each marker on the ruler has a row with a checkbox, its Marker name, its Current time and its New time after the shift. Only checked markers are moved. Select All, Select New and Select None change the checkboxes in one click.

A marker that would move before the start of the session is flagged Would move before the session start and isn't moved.

The timeline

Above the table, a timeline shows your markers in their Pro Tools colors on two lanes:

• Now — where the markers are in the session.
• After shift — where they land. It follows the offset as you type. Unchecked markers stay where they are, dimmed.

Click a marker in the Now lane to include it in the shift or leave it out — the same as its checkbox in the table.

• Time rulers. Choose which rulers to show from the ruler menu: Bars|Beats and Min:Sec are on by default, Samples can be added.
• Full timeline. With Full timeline on (the default), the timeline starts at the session start, so the markers appear where they are in the session. Turn it off to start just before the first marker.
• Zoom. Use − and + to zoom, and Fit to see the whole timeline again.
• Selection. A blue Selection line shows where your Pro Tools selection starts, and follows it while the window is open — handy for checking that the comments line up before you snap or shift.

Shift the markers

When the preview looks right, click Shift 5 Markers (the button shows how many markers are checked). StudioTools moves them in Pro Tools, then checks that Pro Tools really moved each one — and tells you about any that didn't.

Afterwards the offset is cleared, so clicking the button again by accident doesn't move the markers a second time.

Importing more comments

Reviews often come in rounds. StudioTools remembers which markers it has shifted in each session — also after you quit and restart StudioTools — so a new round doesn't move the old comments twice:

1. Import the new comments into Pro Tools.
2. Click Reload.
3. Markers that were already shifted show Shifted and aren't checked; the new ones are. A line above the timeline sums it up, for example 3 already shifted — not selected · 2 new.
4. Set the offset and shift the new markers.

Want to move an already-shifted marker again? Check it, or click Select All. To start over, click Forget Shifts…: all markers in the session count as new and are checked again. Nothing moves in Pro Tools when you forget, but Undo Last Shift is no longer available for those shifts.

Undo

Undo Last Shift moves the markers of the last shift back in one step — as long as they're still where the shift put them. A marker you've moved since is left alone, and StudioTools tells you which ones weren't moved back.

Pro Tools' own Edit › Undo works too, but it undoes one marker per step.

Tips and troubleshooting

• Find the offset once, reuse it. If every bounce for a project starts at the same place, the offset is the same each time — type it, or snap the first round and note the value.
• Check a few markers by ear. After shifting, play from a couple of comments to make sure they point at what the reviewer meant.
• The utility shows Open a Session in Pro Tools. Start Pro Tools and open the session; StudioTools connects to it automatically.
• The utility shows Pro Tools 2025.06 or Later Needed. Moving markers needs features added in Pro Tools 2025.06. Update Pro Tools.
• A marker isn't in the list. Check that the right ruler is chosen, then click Reload.
• A marker shows Would move before the session start. The offset is too large in the Earlier direction for that marker — check the direction and the amount.
• A marker isn't checked. It probably shows Shifted: an earlier shift already moved it to where it is now. Check it to move it again, or use Forget Shifts….