My version of PT is considerably older so I can't be more specific, but the term you're looking for in your manual is probably listed as vertical zoom.

The PC PT keyboard shortcut for vertical zoom of the wave height is [ctrl] + [alt] + [ (increase) or [ctrl] + [alt] + [ (decrease). On a Mac, replace [ctrl] with [command] and [alt] with [option].

There is a good tutorial on on keyboard shortcuts here.

[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.puremix…"]Pro Tools Shortcuts Best of - PUREMIX[/]="http://www.puremix…"]Pro Tools Shortcuts Best of - PUREMIX[/]

It's long, so you will need to take notes, and you have to translate from Mac to PC if necessary.

I think maybe the question is more directly related to the FFT image? It would appear to be too hot within PT itself even though it did not clip on the Saffire interface. The wave definitely appears to be clipping which while not always a bad thing looks excessive in the jpg. This could be caused by the fact that the Saffire has a higher tolerance for dBV than PT9 has for recording same dBV. PT9 is I believe limited to a 24 bit resolution and the Saffire can likely handle and feed PT more than that. Cut your signal down at the Saffire preamp and see if PT doesn't like it a little better.

We go through this a lot around here, digital recording levels should be FAR lower than back in analog only days. Peaks should be no hotter than -6dB and I like to keep them somewhere around -16dB to -12dB. Normalizing the waveform after the recording is done is very easy in today's world of the DAW.

exactly, and to add:

more track count, less level on each track. Mission is not to overloaded the entire mix when it hits the 2-bus. Like trying to cram 16 fully uniformed football players through a double wide door all at once. Plan ahead and everyone get through unscathed :)

I'm not so convinced on normalizing once again. When I used my older PT it really did some ugly things to the tracks and I vowed never to normalize unless absolutely necessary. It seems to be less effected in Sequoia so I've experimented. (Including a few tracks I sent you a few months back John). After Big D said he did it all the time I thought I should revisit this, and now feel it had a negative effect with regret. I know people say it has no effect but I swear I hear the openness change. Plus, you do this to every track it just created a big pileup in the end. Don't you all think so?

To add, I do normalize but only during the mastering.

I generally only normalize during mastering/finalizing myself because I get the levels I want on the way in. I am one of the few however that pulls faders down when mixing (or so it often seems).

Inre levels: one of the fears of many folks is that too low of a level means they didn't get all the sonic information they wanted. What they really need to understand is that mic position is the answer and not pumping up the mic level which only garners extraneous unwanted sonic info. Good mic position is king and actually allows one to use lower levels more easily.

This is too too true for classical recording.

I am one of the few however that pulls faders down when mixing (or so it often seems).

From my understanding, this means you have a good ear and are listening to whats happening in the 2-bus. In busy mixes I have been close to the bottom more than once. Hybrid helps this issue.

There were definite advantages to learning audio on 8 or 12-bus live consoles! Group and balance your sections and scene mutes and then worry about balancing the groups into the two bus. Ahhh the old days!

I often normalize when I'm comping multiple vocal takes. If the takes are at different levels - for instance, if I've made a preamp adjustment between takes or even during the scratch track I'll normalize so that they are at the approximately the same level. In PT10 you could just use clip gain. I don't hear any difference between normalization and simply applying the equivalent level of gain. I suppose it is possible that some bright light at Avid decided to come up with complicated algorithm to replace...you know...multiplication, but I find it hard to believe.

Back to the OPs question it looks like very wide hash marks on the left bar indicating that the waveform was expanded, but I could be reading it wrong - kind of hard to see.