Play List

Often written as playlist (one word), the term has come into use with hard disk recording systems. It refers to a list, or some sort of view of audio items that can be defined to play in a particular order (usually the order shown in the list). One track of Pro Tools (or almost any digital audio program) can be thought of as a play list. The shown audio regions will play back in order, even though they may have nothing to do with one another. Though the term is used more loosely like that these days, it originates with early disk recording systems that simply showed the sound files in text form in the order they were to be played. One of the earliest of these, Digidesign’s Sound Designer, was very popular with rap and R & B artists for making dance edits of their tunes. Though we have progressed quite a bit since then, some relatively high-end systems still use a play list style of editing to this day. And there are people who still swear by Sound Designer for the ease of use in doing this type of editing.