IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:04 | Hi! I'm David Franz and this is Pro
Tools 8 Essential Training. In this course,
| | 00:09 | I'll unveil the inner workings of the
industry standard software for music and
| | 00:13 | postproduction including all the
concepts and techniques necessary for
| | 00:17 | recording, editing, mixing
and mastering in Pro Tools.
| | 00:21 | Specifically I'll cover how to set up
your Pro Tools studio and explore all
| | 00:26 | facets of the Pro Tools interface.
I'll show you how to record and edit audio
| | 00:30 | and MIDI in a Pro Tools session.
| | 00:32 | I'll explain how to work with virtual
instruments, plug-ins and video as well
| | 00:37 | as how to comp tracks with playlists and import
any kind of data into your Pro Tools session.
| | 00:42 | I'll show you how to utilize Elastic
Audio for time and pitch manipulation and
| | 00:47 | how to create a musical
score with the new Score Editor.
| | 00:50 | Finally, I'll show you how to use Pro
Tools for mastering and how to archive a
| | 00:54 | Pro Tools session for backup and storage.
| | 00:57 | This course is applicable to all
versions of Pro Tools, from LE and M-Powered
| | 01:02 | up to HD, and the techniques I teach
in this course will show you how to use
| | 01:06 | Pro Tools for any aspect of
music and post production.
| | 01:09 | So, let's dive into the videos and get
started with Pro Tools 8 Essential Training.
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| Exploring the different versions of Pro Tools| 00:00 | There are three different versions of
Pro Tools 8: Pro Tools LE, Pro Tools
| | 00:04 | M-Powered and Pro Tools HD. However
they are extremely similar in operation.
| | 00:09 | LE and M-Powered are considered the project
versions while HD is the professional version.
| | 00:15 | Although I know many producers using
the project versions for professional,
| | 00:19 | that is, paid work. The main point is
that the concepts and techniques described
| | 00:24 | here in these videos apply to all
versions of Pro Tools unless otherwise noted.
| | 00:30 | The main differences between the
project versions, Pro Tools LE and M-Powered,
| | 00:34 | and the professional version, HD,
involve the track count, available sampling
| | 00:38 | rates and supported hardware.
| | 00:40 | For example, the highest sampling
rate available within M-Box 2 is 48
| | 00:45 | kilohertz. However, if you are using
192 interface with Pro Tools HD you can
| | 00:51 | get a sampling rate up to 192 kilohertz.
| | 00:54 | There are also a few software
differences. For instance, Pro Tools HD has
| | 00:59 | multi-channel Beat Detective whereas
Pro Tools LE and M-Powered only support
| | 01:03 | two tracks of Beat Detective at once.
| | 01:06 | However Pro Tools HD has a much wider
array of features suited towards working
| | 01:10 | with video than do LE and M-Powered
versions. Unless you upgrade Pro Tools LE
| | 01:16 | with the DV Toolkit, an add-on
software bundle from Digidesign.
| | 01:20 | Pro Tools LE can also be upgraded
with the Music Production Toolkit.
| | 01:24 | The complete Production Toolkit consists
of both the DV Toolkit 2 and the Music
| | 01:29 | Production Toolkit 2. Pro Tools M-
Powered can only be upgraded with the Music
| | 01:33 | Production Toolkit 2. DV Toolkit 2 and
the complete Production Toolkit are not
| | 01:39 | compatible with Pro Tools M-Powered.
| | 01:41 | Look on Digidesign's website for
the latest information on additional
| | 01:44 | capabilities and software that are
included with these upgrade packages.
| | 01:49 | Pro Tools 8 works on Macs running
compatible versions of OS X as well as
| | 01:54 | Windows computers running either Vista
or XP. The session files you create in
| | 01:59 | Pro Tools are interchangeable between
Macs and PCs as well as between different
| | 02:04 | versions of Pro Tools.
| | 02:05 | For instance you can create a session
in Pro Tools LE on a PC running Vista and
| | 02:11 | then open up that same session on a Mac
running Pro Tools HD. Because the HD, LE
| | 02:17 | and M-Powered versions of Pro Tools are
so similar and there is parody between
| | 02:21 | Pro Tools on Windows-based computers
and Macs, everything you learn in this
| | 02:26 | course is applicable to
every Pro Tools 8 system.
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| Optimizing your computer before installing Pro Tools| 00:00 | The first step in having a successful
Pro Tools experience happens before you
| | 00:04 | even install Pro Tools on your computer.
Before installing Pro Tools check to
| | 00:09 | make sure that your computer meets
the requirements to run Pro Tools.
| | 00:14 | Check this site digidesign.com/compatibility.
This site is an extremely important one
| | 00:20 | to visit to check out that your
computer specs, operating system, hard drive,
| | 00:24 | audio interfaces, MIDI interfaces,
plug-ins and third party devices are all
| | 00:29 | compatible with Pro Tools 8.
| | 00:30 | I also highly recommend checking this
site before purchasing any additional
| | 00:34 | hardware or software you
plan on using with Pro Tools.
| | 00:38 | If we scroll down here, we can see
Pro Tools compatibility grids with every
| | 00:44 | kind of system, even great links like
this. Is my PC compatible with Pro Tools?
| | 00:50 | If you scroll down even further, you
can see compatibility alerts for Apple
| | 00:55 | products as well as how Pro
Tools plays with XP and Vista.
| | 01:02 | Pro Tools 8 can run on Macs running
compatible versions of OS X, as well as
| | 01:06 | Windows computers running either Vista
or XP. While you are on this site,
| | 01:11 | check to make sure that you are running a
compatible version of your computer's operating system.
| | 01:16 | Minor operating system version
differences can be the difference between
| | 01:19 | whether Pro Tools can run
on your computer or not.
| | 01:23 | Before installing Pro Tools there are
few things that you can optimize on your
| | 01:27 | computer to make sure that it
runs really smoothly with Pro Tools.
| | 01:31 | On a Mac you should turn off the
Software Update, turn off the Energy Saver,
| | 01:36 | set the processor performance,
disable spotlight and dashboard shortcuts,
| | 01:41 | disable spotlight indexing and enable
journaling for audio drives. The specific
| | 01:47 | steps on how to do these actions are
listed in the Getting Started PDF file in
| | 01:51 | the documentation folder
that comes with Pro Tools.
| | 01:55 | To optimize a Windows system for Pro
Tools, you should enable the DMA, disable
| | 02:00 | system standby and power management,
disable ClearType font smoothing in XP and
| | 02:06 | disable user account control in Vista systems.
| | 02:10 | Again the specific steps on how to do
these actions are listed in the Getting
| | 02:14 | Started PDF file in the
documentation folder that comes with Pro Tools.
| | 02:18 | Here are a couple more recommended
optimizations that are applicable to both
| | 02:23 | Macs and Windows systems. Turn off
any program that runs in the background,
| | 02:28 | quit any program that's unneeded while
running Pro Tools, turn off any unused
| | 02:33 | FireWire devices, and there may
be a few more that are listed on
| | 02:37 | digidesign.com. Check
their site for the latest info.
| | 02:41 | There are a few additional
optimizations that you can use in a Windows system
| | 02:45 | if it applies to your computer. You can
disable network cards, adjust processor
| | 02:50 | scheduling and disable
system startup items in XP.
| | 02:54 | It's strongly advised not to record
audio to the internal system hard-drive on
| | 02:58 | your computer. That will reduce the
performance of your Pro Tools system and
| | 03:03 | can also interfere with the performance of
your computer in general, not just with Pro Tools.
| | 03:07 | Digidesign recommends using at least
one external hard-drive or a second
| | 03:12 | internal drive to store your audio
files and that drive should either be an
| | 03:16 | external 7200 RPM FireWire drive
or a compatible ATA or IDE drive.
| | 03:23 | Again, check the compatibility page on
Digidesign's site for their recommendations.
| | 03:28 | Having a large fast hard-drive is
imperative for working with Pro Tools and
| | 03:33 | achieving the best
performance from your Pro Tools system.
| | 03:36 | So, make sure to optimize your
computer for running Pro Tools and check the
| | 03:41 | compatibility pages on Digidesign.com s
o that you don't run into any
| | 03:45 | incompatibility surprises with your
computer or associated Pro Tools gear.
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| Troubleshooting| 00:00 | If at any time you come across a
problem with Pro Tools, I highly recommend
| | 00:04 | visiting the Digidesign website. Check
out www.digidesign.com. On any page on
| | 00:10 | the website you can do a search into
their Answerbase. Let's say you run across
| | 00:15 | a DAE code, an error code, that you
don't know what it means. Type it in here,
| | 00:22 | hit Enter and you'll see some matching
pages for that error code. Hopefully one
| | 00:30 | of these will be the solution that you need.
| | 00:32 | You can also visit the Support and
Downloads page and then choose your system
| | 00:38 | from this page. Let's say you
are running Pro Tools LE on a Mac.
| | 00:46 | On this page we can see what is
compatible, we can find out if there are any
| | 00:51 | new downloads such as an update,
we can search the Answerbase, or we can find
| | 01:00 | some technical documents that
might relate to your system.
| | 01:03 | And speaking of some technical
documents there is a great tool to help out with
| | 01:07 | Troubleshooting called the Tech
Support folder. Let's find that here.
| | 01:11 | Now, the Tech Support folder
includes a Tech Support Utility,
| | 01:25 | some Troubleshooting Sessions and an
Answerbase frequently asked questions document.
| | 01:30 | I highly recommend downloading this
folder from the Digidesign site and you can
| | 01:35 | do that down here. Let's take a look at
what's inside of this Tech Support folder.
| | 01:43 | Inside the folder we'll see this
Tech Support Utility and Troubleshooting
| | 01:47 | Sessions for any kind of Pro Tools LE system.
| | 01:53 | More specifically we can look at
error messages, strange behavior and
| | 01:58 | performance problems, launch problems
and a whole bunch of other stuff, as well
| | 02:02 | as opening up any of these sessions that
will test the inputs and outputs of our system.
| | 02:09 | Another great option is the Digidesign
User Conference. You can go on here and
| | 02:15 | search for any kind of problems that
you might have. Tons of resources here for
| | 02:20 | any kind of system that you have.
| | 02:23 | TDM Systems on Mac OS or Windows, LE
System, M-Powered Systems. You can ask
| | 02:33 | questions about Virtual Instruments
and MIDI, anything you can think of is
| | 02:37 | probably here on the DUC.
| | 02:39 | If all else fails and you can't
find it on the DUC or on the Digidesign
| | 02:44 | website, you are going to have to
contact Digidesign Tech Support and you can
| | 02:50 | do that right here.
| | 02:51 | So, hopefully you won't need tech
support, but if you do I have shown you a
| | 02:57 | bunch of different options for
troubleshooting here in this video.
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| Using the exercise files| 00:00 | If you are a premium member of
lynda.com Online Training Library or if you are
| | 00:04 | watching this tutorial on a DVD-ROM,
you have access to the exercise files used
| | 00:10 | throughout this title. Each chapter has
a folder. Inside each chapter you will
| | 00:15 | see sessions or folders for each video
that has exercise files associated with it.
| | 00:20 | The Pro Tools session files for
each exercise are located inside of each of
| | 00:26 | those exercise folders.
| | 00:31 | When you open an exercise file,
you might see a few dialog boxes or warning
| | 00:35 | windows like this. This first one,
The original disk allocation for this
| | 00:41 | session cannot be used. Check the disk
allocation window to see what's changed.
| | 00:46 | That simply means that the hard drive
that this session was originally created on
| | 00:49 | is not connected to your
system now. So that's okay.
| | 00:53 | The second part says Your IO Setup has
changed since the last time this session
| | 00:57 | was saved. Check the IO Setups window
to see what's changed. That means that
| | 01:02 | your Digidesign or M-Audio interface is
different than the one that was used to
| | 01:06 | create this session. Would you like
to save a detailed report? Usually not
| | 01:11 | necessary. Click No. When the session
opens up, you might see this Missing
| | 01:16 | Files dialog. Keep the Automatically
find and Relink button highlighted and
| | 01:21 | I highly recommend checking off the
Regenerate Missing Fades Without Searching.
| | 01:26 | This means that Pro Tools will
automatically search your hard drives and find
| | 01:30 | and relink the audio files to this
session and this means that Pro Tools will
| | 01:36 | recreate any fades that are in your
session without having to search for those
| | 01:40 | files on your hard drive. This speeds
up the process of getting your session up
| | 01:44 | and running really quickly. Press OK
and you will see the audio files become
| | 01:49 | relinked to the session really quickly.
| | 01:52 | If you are a monthly subscriber or
annual subscriber to lynda.com you don't
| | 01:57 | have access to these exercise files.
However, the videos in this course will be
| | 02:02 | more than adequate to demonstrate the
concepts and techniques needed to use Pro
| | 02:06 | Tools 8 effectively. You can also
create your own sessions to mimic what I do
| | 02:11 | in these videos to further enhance
your understanding. Let's get started.
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|
|
1. Getting StartedConnecting your Pro Tools system| 00:00 | In this video I'm going to show you how
to connect the pieces of your Pro Tools
| | 00:04 | studio system. First, if you have an
already installed Pro Tools according to
| | 00:10 | the directions that came with your
software. For Pro Tools M-Powered and
| | 00:13 | HD users, this process also involves
authorizing your iLock key. If you have an
| | 00:20 | external FireWire hard drive, plug that
in first. Plug in the power and turn it on.
| | 00:26 | Then connect it via
FireWire to your computer.
| | 00:32 | Note that USB hard drives are not
compatible for using with Pro Tools. They are
| | 00:36 | not fast enough to keep up with all
the audio data transferring. Instead,
| | 00:41 | I recommend using USB drives for
archiving your projects. Using an external
| | 00:47 | FireWire drive or a second IDE, ATA or
SATA drive for recording audio is highly
| | 00:52 | recommended. You should avoid
recording audio to the internal system drive on
| | 00:57 | your computer. Not only will you get
better performance from an external drive,
| | 01:01 | you will also keep your audio files
and your system software separated.
| | 01:06 | If necessary, format your hard drive
according to the instructions for your
| | 01:10 | computer type. If working with a Mac,
use HFS Plus format. If working with a PC
| | 01:18 | use NTFS format. Should you partition
the drive? I personally don't think so.
| | 01:24 | Partitioning is not really necessary
these days as the gains really aren't
| | 01:28 | worth the cost. I don't recommend
doing it. Check Digidesign's compatibility
| | 01:33 | page online for specific hard
drive compatibility information.
| | 01:38 | Also, be sure to back up your data
regularly. I have had many drives crash,
| | 01:43 | some I have not backed up and it's
painful to lose your musical ideas and your
| | 01:48 | clients' projects. Next in the set of
procedure is connecting your Digidesign or
| | 01:53 | M-Audio interface. If your interface
requires power like the 003, plug in the
| | 01:59 | power first before connecting it to
your computer, then turn it on. Only a few
| | 02:04 | interfaces require power. Even though
many of the interfaces come with power cables
| | 02:08 | most interfaces get enough power from
the USB or the FireWire port on your computer.
| | 02:15 | Now, connect your interface to your
computer. Use the USB or FireWire cable
| | 02:19 | that came with your interface. If you
only have one FireWire port and you have
| | 02:26 | connected your hard drive to that port,
connect your interface to your hard drive
| | 02:30 | instead of directly to your
computer. Most FireWire drives have two
| | 02:34 | FireWire ports. If your interface
has a FireWire 400 connection and your
| | 02:43 | computer or hard drive only has a
FireWire 800 connector, you will need to
| | 02:47 | purchase a cable that has a FireWire
400 connection on one end and a FireWire
| | 02:52 | 800 connection on the other end.
| | 02:55 | With the interface connected, now you
can launch Pro Tools. Pro Tools will not
| | 02:59 | launch without having an interface
connected to your computer. Pro Tools LE
| | 03:04 | users will need to enter an
authorization code to use Pro Tools for the first time.
| | 03:08 | Instead of a code, Pro Tools M-
Powered and HD users also will need to
| | 03:14 | plug-in their iLock keys to an
available USB port to authorize the computer to
| | 03:19 | use Pro Tools. Let's talk about
connecting instruments and mics to your interface.
| | 03:28 | If you want to record a mic, plug
it into one of the mic preamps on the
| | 03:31 | interface. Choose Mic as the input
type. If it's a condenser mic be sure to
| | 03:43 | turn on the phantom power button.
That's usually labeled as the 48V button.
| | 03:51 | This powers the microphone's diaphragm.
Without this added power the mic will
| | 03:55 | not function. If you want to record
an instrument directly like an electric
| | 04:01 | guitar or bass, choose DI as the input
type and plug directly into the DI Input
| | 04:06 | on your interface. To record a line
level instrument like a synthesizer,
| | 04:14 | plug it into the Line input.
| | 04:18 | If you have got a Midi Controller, you
can plug it into the Midi ports on your
| | 04:22 | interface or if it has got a USB
connection you can plug it into your computer
| | 04:27 | instead. Plug your headphones into the
Headphone input on your interface and
| | 04:39 | connect your studio monitors to the
monitor outputs. If you have got a USB
| | 04:44 | powered interface like the Mbox 2,
use the mix knob on the front of the
| | 04:48 | interface to mix the output signal
from Pro Tools with the input signal from
| | 04:53 | whatever you have got
plugged into the interface.
| | 04:56 | If you have further questions about
how to connect any device in your studio setup,
| | 05:01 | consult the Quick Setup or Setup Guide
that Digidesign provided with your interface.
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| Powering up and powering down| 00:00 | In this video, I want to show you the
proper way to power up and power down
| | 00:03 | your Pro Tools system. Here's the order
for powering on your Pro Tools system.
| | 00:08 | First, turn on your control surface,
if you have one. Next, turn on your
| | 00:12 | external hard drives. Third, turn on
your Digidesign or M-audio interface,
| | 00:17 | unless it draws power from your
computer via USB or FireWire. Then turn on your
| | 00:22 | computer, flip on your speakers, and
then it's safe to launch Pro Tools.
| | 00:27 | Here's the proper order for powering
down your Pro Tools system. First, quit
| | 00:32 | Pro Tools. Then power down your speakers.
Then you can turn off your computer,
| | 00:37 | your MIDI gear and your audio interface.
| | 00:40 | Finally, power down your control
surfaces and then your hard drives last.
| | 00:45 | I highly recommend observing these
steps to avoid damaging your hard drives,
| | 00:50 | creating large pop sounds from your
speakers and unnecessarily losing data or
| | 00:55 | communication with your interface.
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| Optimizing Pro Tools performance| 00:00 | After you've set up your Pro Tools
gear and connected all of your components,
| | 00:04 | it's time to optimize Pro Tools
performance with your computer. In this video,
| | 00:09 | I'm going to explain some of the
key settings that affect how Pro Tools
| | 00:12 | interacts with your computer and why you
should adjust them for improved performance.
| | 00:17 | After you've turned every thing on,
all of your Pro Tools gear and your
| | 00:21 | computer, let's start up Pro Tools.
You'll find the Pro Tools application
| | 00:25 | inside of the Digidesign folder and
then inside of the Pro Tools folder.
| | 00:31 | It takes a little bit for Pro Tools to
launch here, and when it does launch,
| | 00:35 | you often see the Quick Start dialog,
especially if this checkbox is checked,
| | 00:41 | Show Quick Start dialog when Pro Tools starts.
| | 00:43 | Let's not worry about this right now,
so we'll cancel through. Now let's go up
| | 00:47 | to the Setup menu and choose Playback
Engine. Let's talk about some of the
| | 00:52 | settings in the Playback Engine. First,
the CPU Usage Limit. The CPU usage
| | 00:58 | limit is the amount of your computer's
total processing power assigned to Pro Tools.
| | 01:02 | For example, if you assigned 75%
of your computer's power to Pro Tools,
| | 01:09 | 25% is left for other applications,
including your operating system.
| | 01:14 | On this system, we're actually allowed
to choose up to 99% and that's because
| | 01:20 | this is an 8-core multiprocessor. Your
computer might only be able to go up to
| | 01:25 | about 90% if you don't have a multi-
core processor. And the only reason not to
| | 01:30 | boost this all the way to the limit
is if you're going to be running other
| | 01:34 | intensive programs on your computer
at the same time as using Pro Tools.
| | 01:39 | Let's talk about the Hardware Buffer
Size. The Hardware Buffer Size is related
| | 01:44 | to latency. All computer recording
systems have latency. Well, what is latency?
| | 01:50 | Latency is the time it takes for your
computer to receive an input signal,
| | 01:54 | process it and send it back
out to an output so you hear it.
| | 01:58 | Yes, that's right. Digital recording
is not actually instantaneous. We can
| | 02:03 | adjust the latency in Pro Tools using
the Hardware Buffer Size. The Hardware
| | 02:07 | Buffer Size is the amount of audio
data, measured in samples, that the CPU
| | 02:11 | grabs and processes at one time before it
spits it back out for monitoring or recording.
| | 02:17 | Larger buffer sizes give your computer
more time to process audio data,
| | 02:21 | but it also increases the amount of
latency and causes slower user interface
| | 02:26 | responsiveness. Smaller buffer sizes,
like 32 samples here, decrease latency
| | 02:32 | but don't allow the use of as
many plug-ins or virtual instruments.
| | 02:37 | So, smaller hardware buffer sizes are
more useful for recording sessions where
| | 02:42 | you'll have less latency and you may
not use as many plug-ins, and larger
| | 02:47 | buffer sizes are more useful for
mixing sessions, where there is more latency
| | 02:51 | but you can also put in more plug-ins.
| | 02:54 | So, what I recommend is when you're
recording, put it on 32, 64 or 128,
| | 02:59 | right in there, depending on what system
you have. When you're mixing, boost it up,
| | 03:05 | 1024, maybe even 2048, if
that's available on your system.
| | 03:11 | As a side note, because these buffers
are measured in samples, it stands to
| | 03:14 | reason that faster sampling rates were
yield lower latencies. For example, 128
| | 03:21 | samples at 96 kilohertz sampling rate
is half as long as 128 samples at 48
| | 03:28 | kilohertz sampling rate.
| | 03:29 | Now these calculations might be over
your head at the moment, and if they are,
| | 03:34 | no worries. The take-home message here
is that lower buffer sizes are better
| | 03:38 | for recording and higher buffer sizes
are better for mixing. We'll discuss this
| | 03:42 | topic further in the
recording chapter of this course.
| | 03:46 | Let's move on to the RTAS processors.
RTAS is short for Real Time Audio Suite,
| | 03:53 | and refers to a fax processing that
takes place in real time, and thus,
| | 03:57 | requires a lot of computer processing
resources. The RTAS processor setting
| | 04:03 | determines how many processors in your
computer are allowed for RTAS plug-in
| | 04:08 | processing. On computers with one
processor, this is automatically set to 1.
| | 04:13 | However, on computers like this one,
with multiple processors, or those that
| | 04:18 | feature multi-core processing or hyper-
threading, you can increase this number
| | 04:22 | to take advantage of those extra
processors. I recommend setting this to either
| | 04:27 | the maximum, 8 processors here,
or one less than the maximum, 7.
| | 04:33 | The RTAS Engine, the Ignore Errors
During Playback/Recording, let's keep that
| | 04:38 | on checked, because as it says here
they may cause clicks and pops.
| | 04:43 | Below these settings we have the DAE Playback
Buffer. Now what is DAE? DAE stands for
| | 04:49 | the Digidesign Audio Engine and it
works behind the scenes within Pro Tools to
| | 04:54 | manage all of the audio streams.
| | 04:57 | So, we have the size of the playback
buffer and as you can read here on the screen,
| | 05:01 | lower values for the disk
buffer reduce disk latency, while higher
| | 05:05 | values improve disk performance. Now,
I usually just leave it on the default setting.
| | 05:10 | That should be fine for general use.
| | 05:15 | The same here for the Cache Size,
just keep it on the normal setting. Now,
| | 05:20 | let's get out of the Playback Engine and go
back up to the Setup menu and choose Hardware.
| | 05:26 | On the bottom left side of the
Hardware Setup, we've got the sampling rate.
| | 05:32 | This sets the default sampling rate
for any new session that you create.
| | 05:37 | Now you can change this when you create a
new session in the New Session dialog,
| | 05:42 | but this will be your default
setting unless you change it.
| | 05:46 | One another thing to look at here is
the Clock Source. The Clock Source is the
| | 05:51 | timing reference that all the digital
gear in your Pro Tools system has to sync
| | 05:54 | up with to ensure accurate playback
and recording. The majority of the time,
| | 05:59 | you'll probably leave this as Internal
when using Pro Tools as the sync master.
| | 06:04 | The only time that you want to
change this option is if you're syncing to
| | 06:07 | another device, such as an external
mike preamp or some sort of video device
| | 06:13 | that will provide the timing reference. So
let's just leave that as Internal right now.
| | 06:18 | Now although some of these settings
and terminology explained in this video
| | 06:22 | might not make complete sense to you now,
setting them as we did will help you
| | 06:26 | move forward in using Pro Tools and
optimizing your performance of Pro Tools
| | 06:31 | with your computer.
| | 06:32 | Revisit this video after getting
more familiar with Pro Tools and you'll
| | 06:36 | understand it more deeply. So, for
our purposes here, I would recommend
| | 06:40 | maximizing your CPU usage and
adjusting your Hardware Buffer Size to a lower
| | 06:45 | number for recording or a higher
number for mixing. These settings will
| | 06:50 | increase the power and optimize the
performance of Pro Tools with your computer.
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| Setting essential preferences| 00:00 | Pro Tools has a huge number of
preferences that enable you to customize how you
| | 00:04 | work with Pro Tools. I certainly
won't cover them all here but when you are
| | 00:09 | just getting started out using Pro Tools,
it's a good idea to setup and confirm
| | 00:14 | that several of the
essential preferences are enabled.
| | 00:17 | Choose Setup > Preferences to open up
the Preferences window. At the top of the
| | 00:22 | Preferences page, you will see seven
different tabs. These represent the
| | 00:27 | difference pages of preferences.
We'll start here on the Display page.
| | 00:32 | When you are starting out, it's a good
idea to keep the tool tips shown for the
| | 00:37 | function and the details. Then when
you mouse over any little buttons or
| | 00:42 | anything in the Pro Tools window, the
little tool tips will pop-up and tell you
| | 00:46 | what those things are if you are not
familiar with them. I also like to keep
| | 00:50 | the Meters as they are here. Peak Hold
at 3 Seconds will show you how high your
| | 00:56 | recording levels are or your mixing
levels are on a track and we'll keep it
| | 01:00 | there for 3 seconds. That's a good setting.
| | 01:03 | Clip Indication we'll keep at
Infinite so that we always know if a track clips,
| | 01:08 | we'll see it and it will stay
there. Now you will see the stuff in
| | 01:12 | action when we start
recording and mixing in later movies.
| | 01:16 | I also like to Show Send Meters in
the Send Views and you also see this in
| | 01:20 | later videos. I like to check off
Always Display Marker Colors and Midi Note
| | 01:27 | Color Shows Velocity. We'll see
these in later movies as well.
| | 01:31 | Let's move on to the Operation page.
In the Operation page, we have the most
| | 01:38 | important preference of all, Auto Backup.
Now let's be honest. Computers freeze up
| | 01:44 | and Pro Tools can unexpectedly quit
right in the middle of anything.
| | 01:49 | Now I don't want to say that Pro Tools
isn't stable, but computers can do funky things.
| | 01:54 | So let's enable Session File
Auto Backup. Now keeping the ten most
| | 02:01 | recent backups is good but I actually
like to change the backup to every two
| | 02:05 | minutes because you never know. You
can be doing a lot of editing, you can do
| | 02:09 | some recording, and if Pro Tools quits,
or your computer dies, or if the power
| | 02:14 | goes out, you want to make sure that
you have got your latest stuff saved.
| | 02:19 | Now I also like to Show the Quick Start
dialog when Pro Tools starts, so I'll keep
| | 02:23 | that checked. I let go all the other
defaults on this page. So we move on.
| | 02:27 | Let's go to the Editing page. At the
bottom of the editing page, we have the
| | 02:32 | Levels of Undo. This allows you to go
back in your steps of whatever you have
| | 02:37 | done in Pro Tools up to 32 levels.
That is, 32 steps back. We'll keep that at 32.
| | 02:43 | Why not? However, know that the
number of levels of undo are kept in your RAM
| | 02:49 | and so if you actually want to
save on your processing power in your RAM,
| | 02:55 | you can reduce this number, and then
Pro Tools won't have to remember as many
| | 03:00 | levels of undo and that will open up
more processing power for plug-ins or
| | 03:04 | virtual instruments. And if you think
it about this way, if you setup your Auto
| | 03:09 | Backup to happen every 2 minutes, you
are probably not going to do 32 edits in
| | 03:14 | 2 minutes. So you could
actually reduce this, if you want to.
| | 03:18 | Now all of the other default
preferences in all of these other pages here are
| | 03:23 | totally fine to start out with.
I just wanted to introduce you to the
| | 03:27 | preferences as they are setup now and
to a few key ones that you wanted have
| | 03:32 | going for you when you start using Pro
Tools. We'll revisit specific preferences
| | 03:37 | in other videos in this course when
they are relevant to those topics.
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| Creating a Pro Tools session| 00:00 | Let's create a new Pro Tools session.
When you launch Pro Tools, the Quick
| | 00:04 | Start dialog opens offering you a few
options. If you don't see the Quick Start
| | 00:09 | dialog when you launch Pro Tools,
go up to File and choose New Session >
| | 00:14 | Open Session or Open Recent.
| | 00:17 | Since we have the Quick Start dialog
open here, let's take a look at it. We can
| | 00:22 | choose from creating a session from
a template, creating a blank session,
| | 00:27 | opening a recent session or opening
some other session on your computer.
| | 00:31 | Let's take a look at creating a blank
session. We have got a number of session
| | 00:36 | parameters that we can choose from
down here. Let's start with the Audio File Type.
| | 00:40 | There are several choices. We
have got WAV files, AIFF files, and on a
| | 00:46 | Mac computer, we have got SD II files,
which stands for Sound Designer II files.
| | 00:50 | This is a legacy file system that
was used with earlier versions of Pro Tools.
| | 00:56 | Let's not choose that.
I usually stick with WAV files.
| | 01:01 | Let's move over to the sampling rate.
Photography is a helpful metaphor for
| | 01:05 | discussing sampling rate. Digital
recording is like taking pictures of audio
| | 01:10 | waveforms at a speed determined by the
sample rate. If the Sample Rate in your
| | 01:15 | session is 44.1 KHZ, Pro Tools takes
44,100 pictures of your input audio signal
| | 01:23 | every second. Each picture captures
the amplitude or the level of the audio
| | 01:28 | signal at that moment. The more
pictures you take, the more accurate
| | 01:32 | the representation of the audio waveform.
Thus, the higher the sampling rate in Pro Tools,
| | 01:37 | the more accurately Pro Tools can
recreate the analog waveform with digital samples.
| | 01:43 | Higher sampling rates also require
more hard drive space. For example, audio
| | 01:48 | files recorded at 96 KHZ sampling rate
are twice as big as those recorded at
| | 01:54 | 48 KHZ, all other factors being equal.
Simply because there is as twice as
| | 01:59 | much data being recorded.
| | 02:01 | Each sample is digitally mapped to an
exact amplitude value and converted into
| | 02:07 | binary digits or bits. The number of
bits in the system is referred to as Bit Depth.
| | 02:13 | 16 bit recordings offer roughly
66,000 different amplitude levels while
| | 02:20 | 24 bit recordings offer over 16 million
different levels. Thus, the higher the
| | 02:27 | bit depth, the more accurate the
digital representation of the analog sound can be
| | 02:32 | and note that 24 Bit recordings
take up to one-and-half times as much
| | 02:36 | hard drive space as 16 bit recordings.
| | 02:40 | So as a reference, CDs are recorded
at 16 bit, 44.1 KHZ. However, DVDs are
| | 02:49 | recorded at 96 KHZ and 24 bit. So
choose your bit depth and sampling rate
| | 02:57 | wisely when you are creating
a new session in Pro Tools.
| | 03:00 | Let's move over to the I/O Settings.
I/O Settings refer to the interface that
| | 03:04 | you have connected to Pro Tools like
an Mbox 2 Pro or a 003. You can simply
| | 03:10 | use the Last Used setting or choose
from any settings that you might have made
| | 03:14 | previously or ones that have already
been created here for you as defaults.
| | 03:19 | I'll discuss how to make a custom I/O
setup in another video in this course.
| | 03:25 | So once you have chosen your session
parameters, click OK and save the session.
| | 03:34 | Choose the name and the location.
When you press Save, Pro Tools opens a new
| | 03:42 | blank session file and we'll cover the
interface and elements of a Pro Tools
| | 03:46 | session in other videos in this course.
| | 03:49 | Now you know what all the parameters
of a new Pro Tools session mean and how
| | 03:53 | to set them correctly
when creating a new session.
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| Identifying elements in a session folder| 00:00 | When you work on a session file,
Pro Tools actually creates an entire folder
| | 00:05 | containing many sub-folders that contain
all of the files related to the session.
| | 00:10 | In this window, we can see the
session folder for the Edit_window_overview
| | 00:14 | session. So we can see the .ptf file,
which is the Pro Tools session file. We also
| | 00:20 | have the Audio Files folder. You can see
all the audio associated with this session.
| | 00:26 | Now note that these audio files are
not actually part of the session.
| | 00:30 | They exist separately in this folder and
the session file simply references them to
| | 00:36 | tell the hard drives which pieces it
needs from these audio files. The same
| | 00:43 | principle applies to video files.
If we had video files in this session,
| | 00:48 | they would be down in this folder.
| | 00:50 | The Fade Files folder also contains
files for each fade and cross-fade made in
| | 00:55 | the session. These are saved as WAV
form files and are referenced by the
| | 01:00 | session just like the audio files are.
However, fade files can be erased and
| | 01:05 | Pro Tools can recreate them, which
is not the case for audio files.
| | 01:10 | The WaveCache file stores all the
waveform display data for the session.
| | 01:15 | This allows Pro Tools to open more quickly
If you delete this file, Pro Tools can rebuild it.
| | 01:22 | Up here, we have the Session File
Backups. When you active the Auto Backup
| | 01:26 | preference in the Operations
Preference page, Pro Tools creates backup copies
| | 01:31 | of your sessions automatically.
These backups are stored in this folder.
| | 01:35 | You will see that only a certain number are
stored according to what you set in the
| | 01:39 | preference and these ones are created
every two minutes as we set that in the
| | 01:45 | preference to create the
session backups every two minutes.
| | 01:49 | Finally, we see that there are the Plug-
In Settings and Region Groups and if we
| | 01:55 | have plug-in settings or region
groups for the session, they will be stored
| | 01:58 | separately in these folders.
| | 02:00 | Now there is two things that you
should note by seeing this session folder
| | 02:03 | setup here. First, when you record
audio, create fades, etcetera, these files
| | 02:09 | are created in a non-linear fashion.
They are not all in a row like if you are
| | 02:14 | recording to an analog tape.
For instance, you can record audio files to
| | 02:18 | multiple different hard drives and
Pro Tools can still pull all of those
| | 02:23 | various files together into the
session and play them back all at once or
| | 02:27 | separately or in succession.
| | 02:29 | Second, it's important to understand
that editing an audio file in Pro Tools is
| | 02:33 | non-destructive. Because the audio
files are stored separately from this
| | 02:38 | Pro Tools session, almost anything you do
to them in the session file itself will
| | 02:43 | not harm the original audio file.
| | 02:46 | So now you know that a Pro Tools
session actually pulls data from multiple
| | 02:50 | sources all contained in separate files
and folders within the overall session
| | 02:55 | folder. I recommend keeping these all
together within the session folder so
| | 03:00 | that Pro Tools can find them easily.
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|
|
2. Learning the InterfaceExploring the Edit window| 00:00 | This is the Pro Tools Edit window.
It's probably the window you'll use most
| | 00:04 | when working when with Pro Tools. I've
opened a session here that already has
| | 00:07 | some tracks in it, but I want to talk
about the individual parts of this Edit window.
| | 00:13 | Let's start in the top upper left corner.
Here we have the Edit modes, next to
| | 00:19 | that we have the zoom controls and
the Edit tools. Now, I'll have separate
| | 00:23 | videos for all of these later in the course.
| | 00:26 | We have the Counters, some MIDI
controls here and the Grid and Nudge values.
| | 00:33 | This is all part of the Edit toolbar,
which we can add or subtract things to,
| | 00:39 | using the Edit toolbar menu. So if I
want to add the Transport controls, I can
| | 00:44 | choose that and they show up
right here. We can also MIDI controls.
| | 00:50 | If I want to move sections of this
toolbar around, I can press Command on a Mac
| | 00:56 | or Ctrl on a PC, and click-and-drag the
sections to move them around. If I want
| | 01:02 | to minimize what we see up
here, I can choose the Minimal.
| | 01:08 | Below the Edit toolbar we have the
Universe view, which we can show or hide
| | 01:13 | using this button. The Universe view
shows everything that is in the session.
| | 01:20 | So all these tracks down here are shown
very minutely up here, even the markers
| | 01:26 | and the colors are shown here at the top.
| | 01:30 | On the left side, we have the Tracks
list. Every track that's in the session is
| | 01:35 | listed here and the Track List menu.
We'll cover these later. Below that we
| | 01:41 | have the Groups list. Any groups that
you've made in your session show up here
| | 01:45 | and the Groups List menu.
| | 01:49 | This area contains the rulers. Right
now we have all of them showing: Bars and
| | 01:55 | Beats, Minutes and Seconds, and Samples.
So those are the Timebase rulers.
| | 02:00 | Then we have Markers and Tempo, Meter,
Key and Chords. We'll cover all of these
| | 02:06 | later as well. You can show or hide any
of these by checking or unchecking them.
| | 02:12 | Below that we have the Edit Window
View selector, where we can show certain
| | 02:17 | parts of each track. Right now, we
have the Inserts, IO and Track Color
| | 02:23 | showing. Now, if we showed everything,
that looks like that. The Comments
| | 02:28 | section, we can type anything that we
want in here. The Instrument area, if we
| | 02:33 | add an instrument, it will show up here.
| | 02:36 | Here's the Insert section. We have 10
inserts. There are 10 Sends as well.
| | 02:42 | The I/O section, where we choose the
inputs and outputs. Real-Time Properties,
| | 02:48 | which we'll cover in a later
movie. Let's hide all those.
| | 02:51 | Now on each part of the track, we
have the name of the track, we have the
| | 02:58 | playlist selector, the Record button,
Solo and Mute. We have the Track View,
| | 03:07 | which we can change. We have the patch list,
automation and the timebase Samples or Ticks.
| | 03:22 | We can also choose from the Track
Options menu. If we choose to make the track
| | 03:28 | smaller, we'll actually see more
choices in this Track Options menu. We can
| | 03:34 | also look at the Automation Lanes menu and
choose to show or hide certain automation lanes.
| | 03:45 | On the right side of the Edit window,
we have the Regions list. This shows all
| | 03:50 | of the audio and MIDI regions in the
session. We have the Regions list popup
| | 03:55 | menu, lots of options here.
| | 03:58 | We've got zoom controls. This is the
Audio Zoom In and Zoom Out control.
| | 04:05 | Then we have MIDI Zoom In and MIDI Zoom Out.
Down below, we have more zoom controls
| | 04:11 | and scrollbars. Then all the way
down here, we can access the MIDI Editor
| | 04:17 | window, which has its own set of controls and
buttons which we'll cover in a separate movie.
| | 04:24 | Finally, we have the Show and Hide
buttons for the Track and Groups list.
| | 04:30 | Click those to show or hide those menus.
Same for the Regions list. We can click this
| | 04:36 | button and it will hide it.
| | 04:37 | So as you can tell from this video, you
have controls for about everything that
| | 04:42 | you need to do right here in the Edit
window. I'll get into the specifics of
| | 04:46 | these features in many of the
other videos in this course.
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| Exploring the Mix window| 00:00 | The Mix window mimics a mixing console,
displaying each track as a vertical channel.
| | 00:05 | Although, you can actually
access almost every Mix window feature from
| | 00:09 | the Edit window, I find working with
the Mix window while mixing or even while
| | 00:13 | recording can be more intuitive.
Plus it's nice to see the taller faders.
| | 00:19 | So let's take a look at the Mix window.
Just like in the Edit window, we have
| | 00:23 | the Tracks list, where all the tracks
in the session are shown here, and
| | 00:28 | the Track menu, where we can show or hide
various tracks. Down below that, we have
| | 00:34 | the Groups list and the Groups list popup.
| | 00:40 | Each vertical channel in the Mix
window can show a whole bunch of different stuff.
| | 00:43 | We can see that by checking
out this little list here. If we want to
| | 00:49 | show everything, which won't even
show up on the screen. We'll show all and
| | 00:55 | we'll have to scroll down,
but we'll start at the top.
| | 00:58 | We have the Instrument view, 10 Inserts,
10 more Sends. We're only showing one,
| | 01:04 | right here, in the Sends A-E, but there
is actually 5 more right here below it.
| | 01:09 | The I/O section, the Automation section,
the Groups, the panning, the Record
| | 01:17 | button, Solo and Mute. We've got the
fader and the meter, got the patch list
| | 01:29 | and the Track Type icon, the name of
the track and the Comments section.
| | 01:35 | There's a couple of viewing options
that we have for the Mix window.
| | 01:38 | If we choose View > Narrow Mix, we can
see narrow channels. Let's uncheck that.
| | 01:50 | There's also a kind of a sneaky little
option here. If we want to see fatter
| | 01:55 | meters, we can press Ctrl+Option+
Command on a Mac or Alt+Start+Ctrl on a PC and
| | 02:03 | click the meter to make
them fatter. Pretty cool!
| | 02:07 | The vertical channel layout of the Mix
window makes it fairly intuitive to use,
| | 02:12 | once you know what all the buttons,
knobs and menus do. I'll get into the
| | 02:15 | specifics of all the features in this window,
in many of the other videos in this course.
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| Exploring the Transport and Big Counter windows| 00:00 | The Transport window on Pro Tools acts
like the controls on a tape machine.
| | 00:04 | You can open it up by choosing Window >
Transport. Here we are looking at the
| | 00:10 | smallest version of the Transport
window and you can see the most essential
| | 00:14 | controls. We have Return to 0, Rewind,
Fast Forward, and Go to End, the Stop
| | 00:21 | button, Play, and Record. You also
have the Input Monitor Enabled and the
| | 00:26 | Record Enable Status LED. This will
light up, if any track is record enabled.
| | 00:31 | One thing to note to if you right-
click the Record button, you can access all
| | 00:37 | of the various record modes. We'll talk
about that later. The same thing here.
| | 00:43 | If you right-click the Play button,
there are several options for playback
| | 00:47 | which we'll cover later as well.
| | 00:50 | Click the Transport menu button and
we can start adding things into the
| | 00:54 | Transport window such as the Counters.
Here we have the Main Counter and we can
| | 01:00 | select what our time frame is. Samples,
Mins:Secs, or Bars|Beats. You can add
| | 01:08 | MIDI controls. These buttons help you
do all kinds of stuff in MIDI. Wait for
| | 01:14 | Note, this is a type of recording
that you can do in MIDI. You can add the
| | 01:18 | click track, MIDI Merge,
and the Conductor track.
| | 01:22 | You can add Synchronization. This
Online button helps you sync with other
| | 01:31 | devices and you can also Generate
MIDI time code. If we add the Expanded
| | 01:37 | Transport, we get a whole bunch of
other features such as Pre-roll or
| | 01:41 | Post-roll, our Play Selection Length
area, our secondary counter and we can add
| | 01:48 | a Count Off, we can see what the
Meter is and the Tempo of the session is.
| | 01:53 | An easy way to open up this window
is actually to press Command+1 on the
| | 01:58 | numeric keypad for Mac or Ctrl+1
on the numeric keypad for Windows.
| | 02:03 | You can show all of these Transport
functions in the Edit window toolbar.
| | 02:09 | If we choose Transport, we'll see the basic
controls and then the Expanded Transport
| | 02:16 | shows everything else that we need.
| | 02:18 | Let's open up the Big Counter. Choose
Big Counter from the Windows menu.
| | 02:23 | That is exactly what you'd expect. In fact,
we can make it even bigger if we drag it
| | 02:29 | our like this. To open this up
quickly with the key command, you can press
| | 02:34 | Command+3 on the numeric keypad with a Mac or
Ctrl+3 on a numeric keypad in a Windows machine.
| | 02:42 | Like the Transport window, the Big
Counter is a floating window and it's handy
| | 02:46 | for watching the time from a distance
if you are far away from your computer
| | 02:50 | and/or also for helping you find a sync
point or just to make you more aware of the time.
| | 02:55 | People also use it in postproduction
for watching time code, although that's
| | 02:59 | only an option for Pro Tools HD
systems and LE systems that have the DV
| | 03:03 | toolkit. If we click this little
button here, we can choose the time scale.
| | 03:08 | Whether you are looking at the Big
Counter, the Transport window. Or the
| | 03:14 | Counter section up here in the Edit
toolbar, if you press the asterisk in the
| | 03:20 | numeric keypad, you can highlight the
time starting with the unit farthest to
| | 03:25 | the left. If you press the period, you
can go through the time fields to the right.
| | 03:29 | Hit the Enter key to enter the time.
| | 03:32 | If we close the Big Counter window
and then do the same thing, pressing the
| | 03:37 | asterisk, you'll see it hop into
the Transport window. If we close the
| | 03:43 | Transport window and do the same, you will
see it hop up here into the Edit toolbar.
| | 03:50 | Although the Big Counter in Transport
windows have their uses, I usually just
| | 03:54 | keep the Transport controls up here in the
top of the Edit window toolbar for easy access.
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| Using the Color palette and window arrangements| 00:00 | In Pro Tools you have a lot of control
over the way the interface looks and how
| | 00:04 | the windows are arranged. In this video,
I'll discuss the color palette and the
| | 00:09 | window arrangement features.
| | 00:10 | If you choose Window > Color Palette,
the Color Palette will open up. You can
| | 00:17 | apply different colors to Tracks,
Regions, Groups, and Markers. I like it,
| | 00:25 | because you can apply color to the
channel strips in the Mix and Edit windows.
| | 00:30 | This was a secret feature or an Easter
egg in Pro Tools 7, but now we can do it
| | 00:35 | freely in Pro Tools 8.
| | 00:37 | You can adjust the color saturation
and brightness right here. Drag the
| | 00:41 | Brightness and the Saturation. I can
actually turn-off the saturation on the
| | 00:56 | channel strips, if you click this
button and then you can only adjust the
| | 01:00 | brightness. We'll turn it back on.
| | 01:05 | You can set the default colors or in
this case, these two tracks that are
| | 01:10 | highlighted, we can choose None and
turn off those colors. I like the colors,
| | 01:15 | so I'm going to actually undo that.
So there is obviously a lot of color
| | 01:20 | choices here. Feel free to paint
away on your canvas here in Pro Tools.
| | 01:25 | You can further customize the way Pro
Tools handles colors. By opening up the
| | 01:31 | Display, Preferences page and
looking in the Color Coding section here.
| | 01:36 | I personally like to keep the colors on
the Track Type and keep the tracks and
| | 01:41 | MIDI Channels for the Default Region Color
Coding. But you can change it up, if you like.
| | 01:50 | Let's check out the window arrangements.
There are a lot of possibilities for
| | 01:55 | arranging the Pro Tools windows. I'm
going to choose Tile, so I have just two
| | 02:01 | windows open in Pro Tools at the moment.
I have the Mix and the Edit and we see
| | 02:06 | them tiled in the interface here.
| | 02:08 | We can also arrange them to be tiled
Vertically or to Cascade. So if the Edit
| | 02:18 | window is hidden behind the Mix window,
but you can still access them very easily.
| | 02:24 | The color controls in the Color Palette
are certainly a nice feature for a few
| | 02:28 | reasons. First, the colors help to
organize your session. Also, making Pro
| | 02:33 | Tools less bright is beneficial, if
you have to stare at it for a bunch of
| | 02:37 | hours in a row as many of us do.
| | 02:40 | The window arrangement options
enable you to see more information on your
| | 02:43 | screen at once or simplify your
workflow by only showing what you need at any
| | 02:48 | one time. Use the Color Palette and
window arrangements to personalize how you
| | 02:53 | interact with the Pro Tools.
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| Investigating Pro Tools menus| 00:00 | The menus in Pro Tools are very
logically organized. In this video, I want to
| | 00:05 | give you a brief overview of what's in
each menu and touch on a few key menu items.
| | 00:10 | Let's start with the Pro Tools menu.
| | 00:12 | We can access the Preferences here.
We can also hide and quit Pro Tools here.
| | 00:19 | Notice that there is no key command for
hiding Pro Tools, so you'll have to get
| | 00:24 | it here in this menu.
| | 00:28 | In the File menu, we have some of the
usual suspects, New Open, Close, saving.
| | 00:36 | We also have the Bounce to Disk command,
which you'll see is pretty important
| | 00:40 | later on. The Import and Export
functions and also some Scoring functions.
| | 00:48 | In the Edit menu, it's pretty logically
organize as well where we have editing
| | 00:52 | functions, cutting, copying, clearing,
selecting, duplicating, separating
| | 00:59 | regions, even creating fades.
| | 01:03 | In the View menu, we can customize the
way that we look at Pro Tools and what
| | 01:07 | we see in each of the windows. We can
check out what we see in the Mix window,
| | 01:12 | in the Edit window, we can choose which
rulers to view, we can even turn-on or
| | 01:18 | turn-off whether we see the Universe
view, Track List, Regions List or MIDI
| | 01:22 | Editor. We can show what we want to
see in each of the regions, we can even
| | 01:28 | change the look of our waveforms. We
can choose whether we want to show the
| | 01:32 | assignments for the sends or
individual sends. We can show the Track Numbers,
| | 01:37 | what we want to see in the Transport
window, the Main Counter or if we want to
| | 01:42 | see the Plug-in Map controls.
| | 01:45 | In the Track menu, we can create
new tracks, duplicate them, make them
| | 01:50 | inactive, delete them. We can choose our
monitoring mode as well as creating a click track.
| | 01:57 | The Region menu lets us do anything
that you want to do to a region. We can
| | 02:01 | lock it, we can rate it, we can group it,
we can loop it, rename it, even apply
| | 02:08 | Elastic Properties which
we'll cover in later videos.
| | 02:13 | The Event menu lets us do anything
time or event related. So we have Time
| | 02:19 | Operations where we can insert time or
change the meter. Tempo Operations where
| | 02:25 | we can alter the tempo, Event
Operations where we can quantize or transpose
| | 02:30 | MIDI performances, we can
even use Beat Detective here.
| | 02:37 | The AudioSuite menu shows us a list of
the AudioSuite plug-ins. We can apply
| | 02:42 | any of these to any audio region and
in non-real time, you can affect those
| | 02:48 | regions. We'll cover more about
this in the plug-in videos later.
| | 02:53 | The Options menu gives us all
kinds of options for recording, adding
| | 02:57 | Pre/Post-roll, Loop Playback,
linking our timeline and edit selection or
| | 03:02 | linking the track and edit selections,
activating our Click track, MIDI Thru,
| | 03:08 | Pre-Fader Metering or even turning on
Low Latency Monitoring. Many of these
| | 03:14 | topics we'll cover in later movies.
| | 03:18 | The Setup menu shows us how to set up
our hardware, our playback engine, assign
| | 03:23 | our disc allocation, show our I/O
settings, our Session settings, our MIDI
| | 03:29 | setups, even our Click and Countoff
settings and finally our Preferences.
| | 03:36 | The Window menu shows us our
configurations, how to arrange them and individual
| | 03:42 | windows that we want to open.
| | 03:46 | Finally, the Help menu. Access your
keyboard shortcuts here or your frequently
| | 03:52 | asked questions about Pro Tools,
open up your manuals and even check for
| | 03:58 | updates to Pro Tools.
| | 04:00 | If you are looking for a menu item but
can't remember the name of it just think
| | 04:04 | about what it is that you are working
on and go to that menu. For example, if
| | 04:08 | you want to delete a track, go
to the Track menu and find Delete.
| | 04:13 | Like any mature software program, there
are a lot of menu items to choose from,
| | 04:18 | many of the items are duplicated as
buttons in one or more of the windows here
| | 04:23 | and most also have keyboard shortcuts.
So there is many ways to get things done
| | 04:28 | in Pro Tools, but knowing the right
menu to select from for the command you are
| | 04:32 | looking for, will certainly make you
more efficient when using Pro Tools.
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| Creating new tracks| 00:00 | Creating new tracks is obliviously an
essential part of using Pro Tools.
| | 00:05 | In this video, I'm going to show you the
different types of tracks and how to
| | 00:09 | create them. Go to the Track menu and
choose New. This opens the New Tracks dialog.
| | 00:16 | You can also use the key commands,
Command+Shift+N on a Mac or Ctrl+Shift+N on
| | 00:25 | a Windows machine. In this window, we
can create 1 new Mono Audio track. We can
| | 00:32 | also change the numbers here whatever
we want. I'll stick with one. We can
| | 00:39 | choose between Mono and Stereo
and we can choose the track type.
| | 00:45 | Let's talk about the track types here.
Audio tracks are used to record and
| | 00:50 | arrange recorded or imported audio
files and regions. It's important to
| | 00:54 | remember that a Pro Tools session
document doesn't actually contain audio files.
| | 00:58 | It references them from a hard
drive. Audio tracks can be either mono,
| | 01:04 | stereo or multichannel on HD Systems only.
| | 01:08 | Aux Input tracks are used for effect
returns, sub-mixing and for a variety of
| | 01:14 | other signal routing tasks. Aux
Input tracks can be mono, stereo or
| | 01:19 | multichannel on HD systems only.
| | 01:21 | Master Fader tracks control the
overall level of all audio signals routed
| | 01:26 | through the main output paths. For
instance, if you have 12 audio tracks all
| | 01:30 | routed to analog outputs 1 and 2, a
Master Fader track with its output assigned
| | 01:36 | to analog out 1 and 2, will control
the combined output level of all 12 of
| | 01:41 | those audio tracks. Master Fader tracks
can be mono, stereo or multichannel on
| | 01:47 | HD systems only. And I recommend
putting a Stereo Master Fader track into every
| | 01:53 | Pro Tools music session that you create
to monitor the overall stereo output level.
| | 01:59 | MIDI tracks are used to record MIDI
performance data, such as notes, velocity
| | 02:04 | and pitchbend. Because no audio
passes through them, there is no option for
| | 02:09 | mono, stereo or multichannel around.
| | 02:12 | Instrument tracks are essentially a
combination of a MIDI track and an Aux Input.
| | 02:16 | They allow MIDI recording as
well as audio monitoring of an inserted
| | 02:21 | software or hardware instrument on
that track. A track type not shown here
| | 02:27 | because it's a Pro Tools' HD feature
only. VCA Master tracks emulate voltage
| | 02:32 | controlled amplifier channels on analog
recording and mixing consoles, and are
| | 02:37 | used to control tracks in a mix group
that are assigned to VCA Master. They do
| | 02:42 | not pass audio so they don't have an
input and output inserts or sends.
| | 02:48 | Yet they can be mono, stereo or multichannel.
| | 02:51 | Also video tracks not shown in the
track list here are available on HD systems
| | 02:57 | and LE Systems with the DV Toolkit
option. However you can import a video into
| | 03:01 | Pro Tools, any version of Pro Tools
and a video track will automatically be
| | 03:06 | created. We'll cover more about
video tracks later in this course.
| | 03:09 | Now let's create one of each of these
tracks, click the Plus button here to add
| | 03:16 | more tracks. Create a Stereo Aux track,
Stereo Master Fader track, create a
| | 03:27 | MIDI track which doesn't have Mono or Stereo
options and we'll create a stereo instrument track.
| | 03:37 | Now you'll notice that the time base
for the audio track, the aux input and the
| | 03:42 | Master Fader tracks are all in Samples
and the MIDI track and instrument track
| | 03:46 | are in Ticks and we'll talk about
these time bases in another movie.
| | 03:51 | Press Create and there you go, your five tracks.
| | 03:55 | So now you know how to create tracks
and what the differences are between each
| | 04:00 | type of track. Check out the video on
Samples and Ticks to learn about these
| | 04:04 | two time bases and why to choose Samples
and Ticks on each of these types of tracks.
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| Understanding samples and ticks| 00:00 | Every track in Pro Tools has an
underlying timebase that defines where audio
| | 00:05 | and MIDI data are placed within a
session's timeline. There are two different
| | 00:09 | time bases, Sample and Tick. We can see
those options clearly when we create a
| | 00:15 | new track. We can choose from Samples or Ticks.
| | 00:19 | A Sample is a slice of audio that
has an absolute time base built on the
| | 00:23 | sampling rate where each sample is
placed at an exact and absolute location in
| | 00:28 | the session and only moves if
you move the region in the session.
| | 00:32 | Now I discuss sampling rate in the
creating a Pro Tools session video. So check
| | 00:38 | that out if you haven't already. In
contrast of Samples, a Tick is a slice of time.
| | 00:43 | Its length is relative based on
the tempo. When using Ticks as a timebase
| | 00:51 | each quarter note in the Pro Tools tempo grid
is divided into 960 subdivisions called Ticks.
| | 01:06 | Thus the duration of a tick varies
according to the tempo of the session.
| | 01:10 | A faster tempo will yield shorter tick
lengths. 960 ticks per beat may seem like
| | 01:18 | a lot of subdivisions but that
doesn't even come close to the number of
| | 01:21 | subdivisions in sample based tracks.
| | 01:24 | The tempo of a song would have to be
over 2700 BPM for ticks to be able to
| | 01:29 | rival samples in detail at a 44.1 kHz
sampling rate. And if I double-click on
| | 01:36 | the song start marker to change the
tempo, put in 2700, nope, I can't do it.
| | 01:45 | I can only go up to 500. So it's not even an option.
| | 01:49 | However tick based tracks have some
serious advantages too. MIDI performances
| | 01:55 | data has tick base by default, because
MIDI events are locked to the tempo of a
| | 01:59 | session. Thus if the Tempo of the
session is changed MIDI notes will follow the
| | 02:05 | tempo changes and not lose
their bar and beat location.
| | 02:08 | However, sample-based audio will not
follow the tempo change. Watch these two
| | 02:13 | tracks down here. This is a MIDI track.
This is an audio track. And you'll see
| | 02:18 | the MIDI tracks moves when I change
the tempo, but the audio track will not.
| | 02:27 | All of this data here has changed to
follow the tempo. However this data has not.
| | 02:32 | For example, in this audio track
the sample that happens exactly at this
| | 02:38 | moment, which we can find out
what number that it is, this particular
| | 02:42 | sample will not move if we change the tempo.
| | 02:46 | However, you can also make audio tracks
tick-based and the power of tick-based data
| | 02:52 | is that the audio can then lock
to the bars and beats of the session.
| | 02:56 | Even when the tempo of the session changes.
And we'll cover this in the videos about
| | 03:01 | Elastic Audio later in this course.
| | 03:03 | Sample and tick based tracks can
coexist in a Pro Tools session. However, each
| | 03:09 | track must be either one or other,
not both at the same time, and you can
| | 03:13 | change the track's timebase at any
point while working in this session by
| | 03:16 | toggling the Timebase
Selector right here on each track.
| | 03:21 | Now you understand the difference
between what a sample is and what a tick is
| | 03:26 | and I recommend keeping the default
timebase for each track when you create new
| | 03:31 | tracks, but then you can change
them later if you really need to.
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| Viewing and manipulating tracks| 00:00 | Once you've created some tracks in Pro
Tools, there are a lot of ways to view
| | 00:04 | and manipulate those tracks before,
during and after you record material on to them.
| | 00:09 | We can click in the Tracks list,
and if you click on a track, it will
| | 00:13 | highlight the track's name
down here in the Edit window.
| | 00:18 | We can also hide tracks by clicking
on this gray dot. Go to the Tracks list
| | 00:26 | menu and you can choose to show all
tracks, hide all tracks, hide certain
| | 00:33 | tracks. Let's say we want to just hide
all the auxiliary tracks. I'll go and
| | 00:37 | Show All Tracks again.
| | 00:39 | If we want to reorganize the tracks in
our session here, we can actually grab a
| | 00:45 | track, and I'm going to click-and-drag
it, move it all the way to the bottom.
| | 00:49 | And you will notice that it moves here as well.
| | 00:51 | If you go to the Mix window, you will
also see that track has moved here too.
| | 00:59 | If I click on this and drag it, I can
move it anywhere I want as well in the
| | 01:04 | Mix window. The same goes for the Edit
window. Every time that I create a new
| | 01:14 | track the first thing that I do is go and name
the track, especially if it's an audio track.
| | 01:22 | If you double-click on the name of the
track, this window pops up and you can
| | 01:26 | rename the track. You can also add
Comments. It's really good idea to throw
| | 01:32 | some comments in here too because it
can give you some details about what it is
| | 01:36 | that you recording. For instance, say
you are recording an electric guitar and
| | 01:41 | you are going through a guitar amp,
you are using a Shure SM57 mic and it's
| | 01:46 | about an inch from the speaker. So
maybe you want to type that in here.
| | 01:52 | Shure SM57 1 inch from the left speaker.
| | 01:59 | Now to see those Comments, we'll go
here to view the Comments, and this button
| | 02:06 | right here is called the Edit Window
View Selector. We can also view some other
| | 02:10 | things here, Insert > Sends, the I/O.
There are a bunch of commands that we can
| | 02:16 | choose from the Track menu that
apply to viewing and manipulating tracks.
| | 02:20 | Let's say we want to duplicate this
guitar track. So we'll choose Track >
| | 02:24 | Duplicate. The Duplicate Tracks
window pops up and we can decide whether we
| | 02:29 | want all of these things to go with
the Duplicate or none of them, we'll keep
| | 02:34 | them all. And you will notice an exact
copy of the track is right here with the
| | 02:40 | name guitar.dup1. Let's rename that.
Just as easily we can go up here and
| | 02:50 | delete that track. So we'll
choose Track > Delete and it's gone.
| | 02:55 | This track here, our Auxiliary track
is a stereo track and we have the option
| | 03:02 | of here to split a Stereo track into
Mono. Why would you want to do that? Well,
| | 03:08 | in case that you wanted to affect the
left side of the stereo track differently
| | 03:12 | than the right side. For instance, you
might need to EQ the right side of the
| | 03:16 | track differently than the left.
| | 03:18 | One of the coolest features in Pro
Tools is the ability to make a track
| | 03:23 | inactive. Choose Track > Make Inactive
and that will gray out the entire track.
| | 03:30 | You can still see it but you won't hear
anything on it and it will not take up
| | 03:35 | any computer resources. However, the
settings for the track in any audio or
| | 03:40 | MIDI data that's on the track will be
saved with the session. To reactivate
| | 03:44 | this track, simply go to Track > Make Active.
| | 03:48 | You can also access this by going to
the Track icon near the bottom of the Mix
| | 03:56 | window, clicking on it, choosing Make
Inactive. Now all these things that I
| | 04:06 | just mentioned, we can actually access
from the right-click menu. So if I go to
| | 04:11 | the name of the track and right-click,
you can see I can Hide it, Hide and Make
| | 04:15 | Inactive, Make Inactive. We can also
make new tracks, Rename, Duplicate and
| | 04:21 | Delete all from the right-click menu.
| | 04:23 | Now maybe you want to see these tracks
a little bit larger in size in your Edit
| | 04:28 | window, well there is a lot of ways to
adjust that. Scroll the mouse down to
| | 04:32 | the bottom of the track, click-and-
drag and you can expand it out. Or you can
| | 04:39 | go over to the Track Ruler here,
click and choose a different size.
| | 04:50 | The final option is to go to the Track
Options menu, click on that and choose
| | 04:56 | the size. When the track size gets to
be small or smaller than small down to
| | 05:02 | the mini or micro then you'll see a lot
more options in the Track Options menu,
| | 05:07 | where we can change the timebase in
Ticks. We can choose our Elastic Audio
| | 05:12 | preferences, and the Track View whether
we want to see the waveform, volume or
| | 05:18 | any other automation.
| | 05:21 | And speaking of automation if we click
this little arrow right here we can open
| | 05:26 | up the automation lanes. So not only
can we see the track material, we can also
| | 05:31 | see the automation and we can add
other forms of automation panning, mute,
| | 05:37 | volume and show all those at one time
and adjust all of them at the same time.
| | 05:47 | Knowing all the ways to view and
manipulate your tracks will enable you to be
| | 05:51 | more efficient when using Pro Tools.
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| Adjusting the I/O setup| 00:00 | It's important to understand how
signals flow in Pro Tools, so you always know
| | 00:03 | where your signals are traveling
within Pro Tools as well as if you send them
| | 00:07 | out and back into Pro Tools. In this
video, I'm going to talk about the inputs
| | 00:12 | and outputs on tracks as
well as the I/O Setup window.
| | 00:16 | Let's look at this session here. On
each track, we have an I/O section.
| | 00:21 | Over here on the audio tracks, if we click
the Input Selector, we see that we can
| | 00:26 | choose from any of the interface
connections or any of the buses within Pro Tools.
| | 00:32 | On the Output Selector, we can
do the same. Choose any of the output
| | 00:38 | selections for the
interface or any internal Buses.
| | 00:45 | On the MIDI track, the Input Selector
refers to the MIDI controller that will
| | 00:50 | be controlling or inputting MIDI on to
this track. In this case, we probably
| | 00:56 | just want to keep it on All, so
that any MIDI controller that you have
| | 00:59 | connected to your system will provide
the input to this track. For the output,
| | 01:04 | we probably want to change that
because that is where you direct your MIDI
| | 01:08 | signal to an instrument or a sound module.
| | 01:12 | In this case, we have some virtual
instruments in this session and we can
| | 01:15 | choose in this case, Boom 1-channel-1.
So any MIDI information on this track
| | 01:22 | will be routed to the instrument,
which is inserted over on this track right here.
| | 01:27 | And this is an instrument track.
This is an interesting situation here
| | 01:31 | where we have both an input and
output for the MIDI part of the instrument
| | 01:36 | track, which is up here.
| | 01:38 | Notice that we have the All input
right here and this is the same as the All
| | 01:43 | input down here on the MIDI track. So
this is the MIDI Input Selector for the
| | 01:48 | instrument track and the Output Selector,
which automatically goes to Boom when
| | 01:54 | you insert Boom as an
insert on the instrument track.
| | 01:58 | Below that, we now have the audio
Input Path and the Output Path because
| | 02:03 | instrument tracks have both a MIDI
component and an audio component because the
| | 02:09 | audio in this track is being created
by this virtual instrument on the track,
| | 02:14 | we don't actually have to choose an
input because the input is already in the track.
| | 02:19 | There is no external input coming into
this track. So we can leave this as No Input.
| | 02:25 | However, we do want to make sure that
the output goes to our main outputs,
| | 02:30 | which are chosen here as Analog 1 and
2. Now all outputs that are routed to
| | 02:35 | Analog 1 and 2 will go to your main
speakers or whatever you have connected to
| | 02:42 | your Analog 1 and 2. This could also
be headphones and if you insert Stereo
| | 02:47 | Master Fader, that is routed through
Analog 1 and 2. All of these tracks with
| | 02:53 | Analog 1 and 2 as their outputs first
go through this Stereo Master Fader track
| | 03:00 | and this Fader controls the volume
of all of the tracks in the session.
| | 03:06 | Now if you find that the input and
output names don't match up with the
| | 03:12 | interface that you have connected with
your system, then you can go into the
| | 03:16 | I/O Setup window, Setup > I/O. The
session that I created that we are looking
| | 03:24 | at here was actually made on an Mbox
2 but we are now using a 003. So these
| | 03:30 | inputs and outputs don't line up
with this interface that we have here.
| | 03:35 | So, let's go down to the Default
button and click that, and you will see that
| | 03:41 | now we have the output labels for
every output options that we have for the
| | 03:46 | 003. If we go to the input, well these
are incorrect, so we need to go to the
| | 03:51 | Default and relabel those as well. We
can go through all of these, the Insert,
| | 03:58 | the Buses as well, and click Default,
and now we have all the inputs labeled
| | 04:04 | properly, all the outputs labeled
properly the Inserts and the Buses.
| | 04:09 | Realistically, you'll only want to use
this I/O Setup for two reasons. One is
| | 04:14 | to reset the default I/O Setups in
case you make a session with one studio
| | 04:20 | setup like I did with the session here
with the Mbox 2, and then open it with
| | 04:25 | another interface that has a different I
/O Setup. And the second reason to open
| | 04:30 | the I/O Setup is to customize
it for your own studio setup.
| | 04:34 | So we can go over here actually and
rename any of these Inputs, Outputs,
| | 04:40 | Inserts, or Buses by simply double-
clicking on the name. Let's say we want to
| | 04:46 | call Analog 1-2 output, Speakers, so
we know exactly where we are routing our
| | 04:52 | signals. And maybe we want to go to
the Input window and if we click this
| | 04:57 | little arrow, we can name each mono
part of the stereo input. Let's call this
| | 05:03 | Vocal Mic and maybe we connect
our Guitar always to Input 2.
| | 05:09 | So now we can create our own
customized I/O Setup and once we have done this,
| | 05:16 | we can actually export those settings
and it automatically will save them to
| | 05:21 | this I/O Settings folder that is
within your Digidesign folder and we'll call
| | 05:27 | this vocal guitar. I'll save that and
I'm going to press OK. For now, I'll come
| | 05:35 | back to this in a second and let me show
you where this pops up in your Digidesign.
| | 05:42 | Within your Pro Tools folder, we have
I/O settings and now we can see this
| | 05:47 | vocal guitar.pio file, which is our I/
O Setup. Let's go back to Pro Tools and
| | 05:54 | now I can see in the I/O that these
have automatically changed. The first
| | 06:00 | choice on the interface is the Vocal Mic.
We can also choose Guitar and notice
| | 06:07 | that the Outputs are now called
Speakers instead of Analog 1 and 2.
| | 06:12 | Let's say we actually want to open up a
different I/O Setting document. We can
| | 06:18 | come in here to the I/O Setups and
choose Import Settings and it will bring us
| | 06:23 | right back to the I/O Settings folder.
Let's choose Last Used. Open that up.
| | 06:29 | It will ask you, if you want to delete
existing unused paths. I usually choose Yes.
| | 06:35 | Now it just so happens that the
Last Use was the same one that we just
| | 06:39 | created. So the names are the same. But
if you have a different I/O Setup that
| | 06:45 | would pop up here and all the names would be
different or whatever that would be for that setup.
| | 06:52 | So now you know how to change your I/O
Setup and create your own I/O Settings file.
| | 06:56 | As you can see, Pro Tools
offers a lot of flexibility in its signal
| | 07:00 | routing using the I/O Setup window. Use it to
your advantage to customize your I/O Settings.
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| Understanding signal paths and gain stages| 00:00 | Understanding the signal flow of audio
in MIDI data and the gain stages along
| | 00:04 | the signal path is crucial knowledge
for any recording engineer and producer
| | 00:08 | using Pro Tools. That knowledge will
help you use your studio gear the way it
| | 00:13 | was intended to work. Enabling you to
achieve optimal recording levels and help
| | 00:18 | you avoid clipping or unwanted
distortion. You will also be able to
| | 00:22 | troubleshoot just about anything in
your Pro Tools studio signal flow.
| | 00:25 | Let's follow the signal path to from
a vocalist to a set of monitors,
| | 00:30 | the entire input to output audio signal
path. As the vocalist sings into the mic,
| | 00:35 | the mic picks up that energy and
converts the acoustic energy into an
| | 00:39 | electrical current. The signal then
travels to the microphone preamplifier
| | 00:43 | where the signal is boosted in level.
That preamp might be one that's built
| | 00:47 | into your Digidesign or M-Audio interface.
| | 00:50 | Next, the signal is converted from
analog to digital, from electrical current
| | 00:55 | into 0s and 1s. It goes into Pro Tools
and is routed to your hard-drive where
| | 01:00 | it's recorded. Pro Tools then routes
the signal back out to a digital to analog
| | 01:05 | converter in your interface where it's
amplified and sent out to the monitors or headphones.
| | 01:11 | Let's take a minute to discuss gain
stages. A gain stage is any device along
| | 01:16 | the signal path that either boosts or
attenuates the level of a signal. Here are
| | 01:20 | the potential gain stage is involved in
recording an instrument or a voice with
| | 01:24 | the microphone into Pro Tools, both on
the input and output sides of the signal flow.
| | 01:29 | First, we have the dynamics of
the performance, how loudly the singer sings
| | 01:34 | or the player plays his instrument.
| | 01:36 | Then we have the Instrument Volume
level and the Amp Volume. If there is any
| | 01:40 | effects in the signal path, those all
have gain stages too. Then we have the
| | 01:45 | Mic Preamp Level or the Line or
Instrument Input level. Finally, if you have a
| | 01:50 | compressor in the signal path or any
other post mic preamp effects, those will
| | 01:54 | affect the input level.
| | 01:56 | Once the track has been recorded into
Pro Tools, there are a number of gain
| | 02:00 | stages on the output signal path. Any
plug-ins or inserts that you have on a
| | 02:05 | track have their own gain stages. If
you've set up any effects loops, you might
| | 02:10 | have send levels or auxiliary track
levels that also affect the output levels.
| | 02:15 | Each track has an individual Volume
Fader that will obviously affect the output level.
| | 02:19 | The Master Fader Track Level
determines the final output level of the
| | 02:23 | mix and then finally, you have the
headphone or monitor levels that determine
| | 02:28 | how loud you actually hear
the output from Pro Tools.
| | 02:32 | Now let's switch gears and talk about
the MIDI signal path. MIDI performance
| | 02:37 | data is played on a MIDI
controller. The data goes into the MIDI
| | 02:40 | interface, which may or may not be
built into the controller itself, where it is
| | 02:45 | converted into binary for Pro
Tools to recognize and record.
| | 02:49 | At this point, the MIDI performance
status still has no sound. Then that data
| | 02:53 | is routed to a sound source. It could
be a virtual instrument inside of the
| | 02:57 | computer or an external sound module.
If it's a virtual instrument, the MIDI
| | 03:02 | performance data stays within the computer
where it is transformed into an audio signal.
| | 03:07 | If using an external sound module, the
MIDI Performance data routed out of Pro Tools,
| | 03:11 | converted back into MIDI data,
then transformed into an audio signal.
| | 03:17 | That audio signal must be then routed
back into Pro Tools via an audio input.
| | 03:23 | Once it's in Pro Tools, you can monitor
it and record it as an audio signal and
| | 03:27 | all this happens in a fraction of a second.
| | 03:30 | So for both audio and MIDI data, the
signal flow is pretty complicated when you
| | 03:34 | really look at all the components.
Understanding the signal flow and the gain
| | 03:39 | stages along the way can help you
capture higher quality recordings as well as
| | 03:43 | troubleshoot almost any signal flow and gain
staging problem during the recording and mixing process.
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| Utilizing keyboard shortcuts and keyboard focus| 00:00 | Pro Tools has a ton of keyboard
shortcuts and I'll be showing you a good number
| | 00:04 | of them throughout this course.
Practice them if you want to become more
| | 00:07 | efficient at using Pro Tools. We can
access the entire list of the shortcuts,
| | 00:12 | if we go to the Help menu
and choose Keyboard Shortcuts.
| | 00:15 | It will open up a PDF document of what
looks like 46 pages worth of keyboard
| | 00:22 | shortcuts. As we look down this list,
we can see that there are shortcuts for
| | 00:26 | just about anything that you want to do
in Pro Tools. Let me just kind of skip
| | 00:30 | down through a few of these. What I
really want to show you one of them down
| | 00:36 | here called Keyboard Focus.
| | 00:39 | Keyboard Focus allows you to use your
alphanumeric keyboard to do some specific
| | 00:44 | commands or make selections from
certain parts of the Pro Tools interface. So,
| | 00:49 | let's go back to Pro Tools and I'll
show you the Keyboard Focus for the Regions list.
| | 00:55 | It's right here. It's active.
It's got the yellow box around it and the
| | 00:59 | letters A to Z there in yellow as well.
| | 01:02 | So, when you're in the Keyboard Focus
mode for Regions list, you can type the
| | 01:06 | first letter or first few letters of a
region and that will select that region.
| | 01:12 | So, if I type B, it selects this bass
track here. If I go down and press X,
| | 01:19 | it will select this Xpand Strings track.
There's a Keyboard Focus mode for the
| | 01:25 | Groups list as well.
| | 01:26 | So, if we go down here to the bottom-
left corner, activate the Keyboard Focus
| | 01:31 | for the Groups list, then I can use
the letters that name the groups and type
| | 01:37 | those letters on the keyboard and that
will activate or deactivate the groups.
| | 01:42 | So, I'm going to press A and you'll see
that I can deactivate the String group.
| | 01:47 | B does the bass & synth group
and C does the No synth group.
| | 01:54 | I can also press Shift+1, which will
activate or deactivate the <ALL> group.
| | 02:01 | But probably, the most useful
Keyboard Focus mode is the Commands Keyboard
| | 02:06 | Focus mode, which you can find right
up here and that gives you access to
| | 02:11 | one-key shortcuts, to a lot of
different shortcuts within the Edit window up here.
| | 02:15 | For example, if I go down here
and select this area, I can press X and
| | 02:22 | that will cut that area. If I
press V, it will paste it back.
| | 02:28 | So, that's making it easier, so you
don't have to actually press the Modifier key,
| | 02:32 | which would be Command on Mac or
Ctrl on a PC. So, it just simplifies it
| | 02:37 | down to one single letter keyboard
commands. Another one that I like in the
| | 02:42 | Commands Keyboard Focus mode is using
the R and the T keys to zoom in and zoom out.
| | 02:48 | So, I keep pressing R and
zooming out, T and zooming in.
| | 02:55 | If we go back to the Keyboard Shortcuts,
you'll see that there's a whole list
| | 03:00 | of one letter or symbol commands that
you can use with the Commands Keyboard Focus.
| | 03:06 | If you look up right here,
there's even a way to switch between the
| | 03:10 | Focus modes using keyboard
shortcuts and this is the Mac version,
| | 03:15 | Command+Option+1, Option+2, Option+3 and if you
have a Windows machine, then it would be Ctrl+Alt.
| | 03:23 | We'll try that out in Pro Tools, so
Command+Option+1, Commands Focus, 2,
| | 03:30 | the Regions list and 3, the Groups list. So,
choosing the Keyboard Focus determines
| | 03:37 | how the alpha keys on your keyboard
can be used, whether it's to select
| | 03:41 | regions, enable or disable groups or perform a
number of playback and editing commands with just one key.
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|
|
3. ImportingUsing DigiBase and the Workspace browser| 00:00 | Importing files into an existing Pro
Tools session is a feature that many use
| | 00:05 | on a regular basis. Whether it's to
import a drum loop or find that perfect
| | 00:09 | sound effect for a scene, Pro Tools
enables you to import a wide variety of
| | 00:13 | files using the Digibase and Workspace browsers.
| | 00:18 | Digibase is Pro Tools' built-in file
management and database program.
| | 00:22 | In Pro Tools LE and M-Powered systems,
it consists of two main browser windows,
| | 00:27 | the Workspace browser and the Project
browser. You can access those from the Window menu.
| | 00:33 | The Project browser looks into
the Current Sessions folder, regardless of
| | 00:41 | where the sessions associated files are located.
| | 00:44 | Right now, we only see this session
because there's no other files associated
| | 00:48 | with it in the Session folder. Going
to the Workspace browser, we'll see that
| | 00:55 | all of the hard-drives connected to our
system are shown here. So, I'm going to
| | 01:00 | navigate through one of these hard-
drives here to find a loop from the Pro
| | 01:04 | Tools Audio Loops and Sounds DVD
that come free with Pro Tools 8.
| | 01:10 | Pro Tools Loops, I'll do Drums and
Techno, how about that? So, in this window,
| | 01:23 | you can see a number of different loops,
what kind of file they are, what's the
| | 01:27 | size when they were created and we can audition
them. Let's press the Speaker button to hear it.
| | 01:34 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:43 | Very cool! I can tell that here it's
four bars long. That's good to know. Now,
| | 01:48 | let's look at some of the controls up
here because we can actually change how
| | 01:51 | we're playing back here. This is the
Preview button and if I right-click on it,
| | 01:56 | we'll get some options. We can loop it.
We can Auto-preview and we can use the
| | 02:02 | Spacebar to toggle File Preview. Let's
turn on all of these, right-click Loop
| | 02:09 | Preview as well, so we have little
icons in this button that indicate all the
| | 02:13 | things that are going on.
| | 02:15 | So, I can click on one of these and
with Auto-Preview, it will play right away.
| | 02:18 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:24 | I can also use the Spacebar.
| | 02:26 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:29 | To preview or to turn it back off. And
we've got Loops too, so if I press Play here
| | 02:36 | or if I just activate it, so it starts
playing. It will loop around automatically.
| | 02:40 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:50 | So, you see that it looped right around
there. Now, once you've found something
| | 02:55 | that you like, you can simply drag and
drop the file into your session and it
| | 03:00 | will stay at its original tempo
regardless of the session tempo. So, let me do
| | 03:05 | that, I'm going to click and drag this
beat into our session here. You'll see
| | 03:12 | it just pops right in there. If we
press Play, it will be at the tempo 134.
| | 03:18 | It will not align with our 120 here.
| | 03:21 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:25 | Actually, I was playing it back from here,
if we go into the session.
| | 03:28 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:32 | Now, we're hearing it from the session.
However, if you want to hear what the loop
| | 03:41 | will sound like at the current
session's tempo, we can press this button
| | 03:45 | which is the Audio Files Conformed
to Session Tempo button, check this out.
| | 03:51 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:00 | So, that's playing back at 120 beats
per minutes, which is the session tempo,
| | 04:06 | even though this file was originally
created at a BPM of 134. If we want to
| | 04:14 | drag and drop this now, it will be
conformed to the session tempo, check this out.
| | 04:21 | Note that it is exactly
four bars long and we press Play.
| | 04:28 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:33 | That's at 120 BPM, whereas the
original one that we brought in that was not
| | 04:38 | tempo conformed will be faster.
| | 04:40 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:46 | The tempo conformed region here
utilizes elastic audio and we'll cover that in
| | 04:51 | another video in this course. So, the
Workspace browser is a handy way to find files,
| | 04:58 | audition them and import
them into your session. I'm sure you'll
| | 05:03 | incorporate it into your workflow in Pro Tools.
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| Importing audio | 00:00 | There are many reasons why you might
want to import individual audio files into
| | 00:04 | a Pro Tools session. Maybe a client
sent you a reference vocal track that you
| | 00:09 | need to incorporate into a mix, or
maybe you want to import a sound effect or
| | 00:14 | add a drum loop to a
session that you're working on.
| | 00:17 | Regardless of the reason, I'm going
to show you some of the ways to import
| | 00:20 | audio into a session. The first way is
to go to the File menu, choose Import > Audio.
| | 00:27 | You'll see the Import dialog
box open up. Within this dialog box,
| | 00:32 | navigate to the file that you want to import.
| | 00:37 | The file that I've chosen here is a
WAV file with a bit depth of 24 and
| | 00:42 | a sampling rate of 96 Kilohertz. You'll
notice that over here it says it must be
| | 00:47 | converted to be used in this session
because it has a different bit depth than
| | 00:52 | the current session. It also has a
different sampling rate. So, in order to use
| | 00:57 | this file in the current
session, I'll have to convert it.
| | 01:00 | Now, this is part of a stereo file.
It's the left-half of a stereo file. So,
| | 01:05 | I'm actually going to go up here and
add the right side. So, I'm going to press
| | 01:08 | Shift and click on it, now I have both
of them. I'm going to say Convert All.
| | 01:14 | You'll see down below the checkbox says Apply
SRC. That stands for Sample Rate Conversion.
| | 01:22 | So, the source sample rate is 96
Kilohertz, we saw that earlier and the
| | 01:27 | destination sample rate is 44.1
Kilohertz. We can choose the Quality of our
| | 01:31 | sample rate conversion, right here. Now,
I personally always choose Tweak Head
| | 01:37 | and it says the slowest, but it really
doesn't take that long. So, you might as
| | 01:40 | well use the best quality of SRC that you can.
| | 01:45 | So, if I want to actually add some
additional files here to import, I can click
| | 01:49 | on any of the ones that we want and
an additional feature as we're going
| | 01:55 | through these, we can listen to what
they are using this additional Play button.
| | 02:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:06 | So, I think I'll add the beat as well.
So I'm going to add the right and the
| | 02:09 | left hand side. So, I'm going to Shift-
click and convert all of those as well.
| | 02:15 | So, I'm going to bring these four mono
tracks in, same sample rate conversion,
| | 02:21 | and click Done. Pro Tools asks you,
where you want to put these files when
| | 02:28 | they're converted and it will
always say into the Audio Files for that
| | 02:33 | particular session. That's the default.
| | 02:36 | I always choose to go into that. It
makes a lot of sense to keep it organized.
| | 02:40 | So, I'll say Choose. It might take a
second here to process the audio, but it's
| | 02:46 | sample rate converting and also
changing the bit depth to the proper bit depth
| | 02:51 | and sample rate for this session. Once
it's done converting, it will ask you
| | 02:55 | where you want to put the files, do
you want them to be on a new track? Or do
| | 03:00 | you want to just put them
into the REGIONS list over here?
| | 03:03 | Well, I want to put them on a new
track and I'd like them to start at the
| | 03:07 | session beginning instead of a
different selection or I don't need to spot
| | 03:12 | them, but if I wanted to put them in
a specific area on the track, I could
| | 03:16 | choose either one of these. I'll click
OK and you'll see the tracks just drop
| | 03:23 | in right at the very beginning of the
session. So, you've a lot of control over
| | 03:27 | importing files that way.
| | 03:28 | So, probably an easier way to import
audio, just to go to Window > Workspace.
| | 03:38 | In the Workspace window, we can search
for the audio that we want to import.
| | 03:42 | Now, I happen to know that the files
that I want are in the All Together
| | 03:47 | folder. So, I'm going to type in All
Together and choose Folder right here and
| | 03:53 | I know that they're on this drive. So,
I'm going to go ahead and hit Search and
| | 03:57 | it brings up the folders right away.
| | 03:59 | I'll double click and so it opens
that particular folder and now I can look
| | 04:05 | right in the audio files for that
folder. Now, if I want to I can actually
| | 04:11 | audition these tracks by just
clicking on the speakers.
| | 04:17 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:21 | I think I want to bring those in to
this session. So, I'm actually going to
| | 04:25 | click and drag and drop it right into
the session. You'll notice that it takes
| | 04:33 | just a little bit of time for the files
to get in there and what's happening is
| | 04:38 | that Pro Tools is automatically
converting it, because if you remember from
| | 04:42 | before, these files are 96 Kilohertz,
24 bit. But the session is 16 bit and 44.1
| | 04:50 | Kilohertz sampling rate.
| | 04:51 | So, it has to convert the files, so
that they work in this session. So,
| | 04:55 | dragging and dropping is really quick you
and Pro Tools does all the conversion for
| | 05:00 | quickly and behind the scenes. So,
as you can see here, there are few ways
| | 05:05 | to import audio into a Pro Tools
session, all of which are relatively
| | 05:09 | straightforward. Choose the
technique that suits you best.
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| Importing MIDI| 00:00 | Importing MIDI files into a Pro Tools
session is pretty straightforward, much
| | 00:04 | like importing audio. In this video
I'm going to show you two ways to import
| | 00:09 | MIDI files. First, you can try File >
Import > MIDI. Now we need to navigate to
| | 00:16 | the files that we want to import.
| | 00:20 | The .mid indicates that it's a MIDI
file that we can import. I'll choose Open
| | 00:27 | and Pro Tools will ask us where do we
want to put it and do we want to bring in
| | 00:31 | any other information with it? Do we
want to put it onto a new track? Or shall
| | 00:35 | we drop it into the Regions List? I'm
going to choose New Track and I'm going
| | 00:39 | to choose so that it starts at
the beginning of the session.
| | 00:42 | But you can also choose a different
Selection or Spot it to a different area in
| | 00:48 | the session. In this case I'm going to
add Import tempo map from the MIDI File
| | 00:54 | as well as Import Key Signature. And if
we had other instrument tracks or MIDI
| | 01:00 | tracks in the session or even MIDI
regions, we could tell Pro Tools to remove them.
| | 01:05 | But since we don't have any on
this new session, those are grayed out.
| | 01:10 | Click OK. Now we can see that MIDI file
was automatically put onto a MIDI track
| | 01:15 | and added to our session.
| | 01:17 | Another way to import MIDI files to our
session is to choose Window > Workspace
| | 01:26 | and find the file that we want in the
Workspace window. I'm going to search for
| | 01:31 | it, so I'm going to choose the
magnifying glass and type in All Together and
| | 01:38 | look for a Folder, because I know that
the MIDI file that I want is within this
| | 01:44 | folder. Click Search, and the file
that I want is inside of this folder, so
| | 01:49 | I'll double-click it.
| | 01:50 | You see all the MIDI files that you
want to import within that folder.
| | 01:59 | I'm going to choose the Vacuum one and
I'm just going to click on it and then drag
| | 02:04 | it into the session. Again, we see the
MIDI Import Options dialog box, and we
| | 02:11 | can choose to put it onto a new track
or drop it into the Regions List, and
| | 02:16 | where we want it to start. We can
import the tempo map or the key signature,
| | 02:21 | but since we did that on the last MIDI track that
we imported. I'm not going to choose those here.
| | 02:26 | And now we have the option to Remove
existing MIDI tracks and MIDI regions, but
| | 02:30 | I'm not going to do that either. Choose
OK. And now we have two MIDI tracks.
| | 02:35 | So when we import using the File >
Import > MIDI technique, the MIDI file goes
| | 02:42 | automatically onto a MIDI track in
our session. And the same, when we
| | 02:46 | drag-and-drop from the Workspace
browser, it goes onto a MIDI track.
| | 02:50 | However, since I created these tracks
with virtual instruments, I would really
| | 02:56 | like to bring them in on instrument tracks.
So how do we do that? Let me show you.
| | 03:01 | I am going to make two new tracks. So 2,
Stereo, Instrument Tracks, Create.
| | 03:10 | So I'm going to click this one track and
then I'm going to use the Command key on
| | 03:17 | a Mac or you can use a Ctrl key on a
Windows machine, to select a second track.
| | 03:24 | Now I have got both of these and I'm going to
click and drag them onto the instrument tracks.
| | 03:37 | And now you see that they are on the
instrument tracks ready to go. All I need
| | 03:42 | to do now is add the instrument to
these tracks and we'll be able to hear them.
| | 03:46 | So as you can see there are few ways to
import MIDI files into a Pro Tools session.
| | 03:52 | Use the technique that suits you best.
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| Importing session data| 00:00 | A terrific feature of Pro Tools is the
ability to import session data from one
| | 00:05 | session file directly into another
session file. To do this, choose File >
| | 00:12 | Import > Session Data. In this window,
we should navigate to find the session
| | 00:17 | that you want to import data from. In
this case, I'm going to pull one from the
| | 00:21 | Pro Tools Loops folder, and this comes
from a DVD that came with Pro Tools 8.
| | 00:27 | You might have this on your computer.
You might not. But if you don't, you can
| | 00:30 | just follow along like what I'm doing
here except just find a different session
| | 00:35 | to import data from.
| | 00:36 | I am going to navigate to the Demo
Session - Dance DJ, and choose that Session file.
| | 00:43 | Click Open, now you might see
this error. It's not really a big deal,
| | 00:49 | just click on through it. Now, this is
the Import Session Data window. Lots of
| | 00:55 | information here, so I'll go through it
kind of slowly. We have got information
| | 00:59 | about the session up here, and what we
really want to take a look at first are
| | 01:04 | the tracks down here. Here is a list of
all the tracks that are in the session,
| | 01:09 | and we can scroll down and see them all here.
| | 01:13 | Now you see next to the track names,
we have these little drop-down lists,
| | 01:18 | click on them and you can choose to
add the track to your session by choosing
| | 01:23 | New Track. I'm going to add
a few different tracks here.
| | 01:42 | Once you have selected all the tracks
that you want, let's look at some of the
| | 01:46 | other information that we should check
on in this box. You can choose to import
| | 01:51 | the Tempo/Meter Map, the Key Signature/
Chord Map, any Markers/Memory Locations,
| | 01:57 | or Window Configurations. In this case,
I'm actually going to bring in the
| | 02:01 | Tempo/Meter Map. But in other
circumstances you might not want to do this.
| | 02:06 | In fact, it's kind of dangerous to do it,
if you already have Tempo and Meter
| | 02:11 | information in your session.
| | 02:13 | Now, let's go up here and check out
what options we have for importing. We can
| | 02:17 | tell Pro Tools to Copy it from the
source media. This will make an exact copy
| | 02:22 | of the audio files on each track and
put it into your new session. Another good
| | 02:27 | option, if it's available, is to Link
to source media, and that won't actually
| | 02:33 | make a copy of the file. It would just
link to where it is and that will save
| | 02:38 | on hard drive space.
| | 02:39 | If we move up over here, we can change
where we want the files to be dropped in on.
| | 02:45 | This will put it right at the
very beginning of the session. We could
| | 02:49 | change this, if we wanted to drop it in at Bar
9, but let's put it right in at the beginning.
| | 02:57 | We can also select the Sample Rate
Conversion. And if the Source Sample Rate
| | 03:02 | was different from our session, we
could choose any of the different sampling rates.
| | 03:06 | And we can choose the
Conversion Quality. But since the audio is
| | 03:12 | actually at the same sampling rate,
we are not going to worry about this.
| | 03:15 | So, now I'm going to go down and
click OK. And we are going to bring these
| | 03:19 | files into the session. This warning
says that the original disk allocation for
| | 03:26 | this session can't be used. Now that's
no problem because wherever these audio
| | 03:30 | files were created is not connected to
this hard drive. However, we are putting
| | 03:35 | them on to our new hard drive, so
we don't really care about this.
| | 03:39 | And definitely we don't need
a detailed report about it.
| | 03:43 | So there we go, all of the audio files
and the other tracks that we brought in
| | 03:48 | are all here. And we even brought in
the Tempo and Meter Map. We can also
| | 03:53 | import Session Data, if we choose
Window > Workspace. I'm going to type in Demo
| | 04:01 | Session, and search for it on the
drive where it lives, Search. Here it is,
| | 04:15 | Demo Session - Dance DJ.
| | 04:16 | Now I can simply click-and-drag this
into our session, click through this.
| | 04:31 | Again, we'll see the Import Session
Data dialog box. We can bring in different
| | 04:36 | tracks this time by just selecting New
Track. If we want to bring in all of the
| | 04:45 | tracks, we can press Option on a Mac
or Alt or a PC, and click New Track, and
| | 04:53 | all of them will be brought in.
| | 04:55 | Now one thing I want to make a note
about on this Import Session Data dialog
| | 04:59 | box is that in Pro Tools HD, and Pro
Tools LE with the complete Production
| | 05:04 | Toolkit or DV Toolkit, you can get
even more specific about what you want to
| | 05:09 | import, like you can choose to import
just a few tracks and only their plug-ins
| | 05:15 | or signal routing without any audio or any MIDI.
| | 05:18 | And this can be pretty handy when you
are setting up a mix and you want to just
| | 05:23 | have a consistent sound, so you just
want to bring in the plug-ins, you don't
| | 05:26 | want to actually bring in the audio.
We don't see that feature here in this
| | 05:29 | dialog box. It's not a feature of LE
or Empowered, but it's still a cool
| | 05:35 | feature. So if you get one of
those systems, check it out.
| | 05:37 | So, I'm going to go ahead and click OK
and bring all of this stuff in. Again,
| | 05:43 | we see out disk allocation notes. Let's
not worry about that. Now you can see,
| | 05:53 | we have all of these tracks that we
just imported with our Tempo and Meter Map
| | 05:59 | intact, and we are good to go.
| | 06:02 | Importing Session Data is a great way
to bring tracks in from other sessions.
| | 06:06 | Personally, I use this feature often to
import tracks that already have effects
| | 06:10 | plug-ins or virtual instruments on
them that I like to use regularly.
| | 06:14 | I recommend trying this out for yourself.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing tracks from a CD| 00:00 | At some point while you are using Pro
Tools, you'll probably need to import a
| | 00:04 | track from a music CD, maybe to
record a sample from it or use a song as a
| | 00:09 | reference track while mixing or mastering.
| | 00:11 | The steps to do this are pretty
similar to importing any other type of file.
| | 00:16 | CDs are recorded at 16 bit, 44.1 KHz
sampling rate. Because of that, I want to
| | 00:22 | check out something first before
we import the file from the CD.
| | 00:26 | We'll go to Setup > Preferences and in
the Processing Page, look down here to
| | 00:36 | the Sample Rate Conversion Quality.
Personally, I like to choose TweakHead.
| | 00:41 | It says it's the Slowest but it's really
not that slow on computers these days.
| | 00:45 | It will provide you the best
Sample Rate Conversion Quality.
| | 00:50 | With the CD in your CD drive on your
computer, go to File > Import > Audio, and
| | 00:58 | you will see the CD on your desktop.
I'm going to choose the first track here,
| | 01:04 | and you'll see that it comes in as 16
bit, 44.1 KHz sampling rate track, and
| | 01:11 | it says that it must be converted to
be used in Pro Tools because it's not an
| | 01:15 | audio file type that Pro Tools can use directly.
| | 01:17 | What that means is it's a stereo
interleaved file. It has the left and the
| | 01:22 | right channels combined and Pro Tools
can only handle mono files. So it will
| | 01:28 | split this stereo file
into a left and a right side.
| | 01:32 | So I'm going to press Convert. You'll
see that we actually have the opportunity
| | 01:36 | to change the Sample Rate Conversion
down here as well. But we already have
| | 01:40 | this set up right. So it's all good.
| | 01:43 | If we want to audition the track from
the CD, we can press this button.
| | 01:48 | Once I press it, it will spin up the CD in
your drive and then it will begin playback.
| | 01:55 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:00 | That's the one I want to import. So
we're all set here, just click Done and Pro
| | 02:07 | Tools will ask you where you
want to import the file to.
| | 02:11 | By default, it will ask you if you
want to bring it into the Audio Files for
| | 02:16 | your open session, and usually that's
what you'll want to do. So I'll choose
| | 02:20 | that, and it will take a second, as Pro
Tools processes the audio and converts
| | 02:26 | it from one sampling rate
and bit depth to another.
| | 02:32 | Here, we can choose where we want the
audio file to go. Do we want it to go
| | 02:36 | onto a new track or just into the
Regions List? I'm going to choose New Track
| | 02:42 | and we can choose where we want it to
go on the track. Do we want it to go
| | 02:47 | right at the beginning or somewhere else?
| | 02:50 | We can use the Spot or Selection to
put it somewhere else. But I'm going to
| | 02:54 | just have it go to the start of the
session. There you go. The track is
| | 02:59 | imported right to the beginning of the
session and it's converted as well from
| | 03:03 | 16 bit, 44.1 to 24 bit 96KHz for this session.
| | 03:09 | Another way to bring in audio files off
of a CD is to go to Window > Workspace,
| | 03:16 | and you'll see the Audio CD right here.
We can click on a track and press the
| | 03:22 | Preview button to hear some.
| | 03:24 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:31 | We'll bring that track in. So now all
I've to do is click and drag it.
| | 03:37 | Pro Tools will automatically convert it
from the original sampling rate, and bit
| | 03:42 | depth to the session sampling rate and
bit depth. Now, this is a big file, and
| | 03:46 | it kind of took a little
bit of time, but not too bad.
| | 03:49 | If you are pulling in a file from a CD
in the Workspace window, be sure not to
| | 03:55 | click the Audio Files Conform to
Session Tempo button, because that will change
| | 04:00 | the sound of this and will try to
convert this file to a different session tempo.
| | 04:05 | So make sure that this button is off.
| | 04:08 | So as you can see here, importing a
track from a CD is pretty straightforward.
| | 04:14 | Use either of these
techniques and you'll be all set.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing video| 00:00 | Importing video into a Pro Tools
session is just as easy as importing any other
| | 00:05 | type of data. You can go up to the File
menu, choose Import > Video. Now we can
| | 00:13 | navigate to the file that we want. I'm
going to choose this one and then click Open.
| | 00:19 | Pro Tools will then ask us,
where we want to place the video.
| | 00:24 | We can choose the Session Start or a
Selection or spot it to a particular time.
| | 00:31 | I'm going to choose the Session Start.
I'm also going to import the audio from
| | 00:38 | the video file. That will go on to a
separate stereo track. Here's where we
| | 00:45 | decide where we want to
put this stereo audio file.
| | 00:49 | It defaults to the Sessions Audio
Files folder, and that's where I'd like to
| | 00:53 | keep it. So, I'll choose that. So now
we have the video file, here on this
| | 01:01 | video track and the stereo audio file,
right here. Now Digidesign recommends
| | 01:07 | that you store audio and video files on
separate dedicated hard drives. Storing
| | 01:13 | them both on the same drive might
cause performance issues, because that's a
| | 01:17 | lot of data coming from one drive.
| | 01:19 | Now what happens if you actually want
to extract the audio from the video file,
| | 01:24 | without actually importing the video?
Here's how you do it. Go to File > Import
| | 01:32 | > Audio, and we're actually going to
choose the video file to import it from.
| | 01:41 | You know that we have to convert this
file, because it's not an audio file type
| | 01:46 | that Pro Tools can use directly.
| | 01:48 | What that means is this is a stereo
interleaved file, and Pro Tools can only
| | 01:53 | handle mono files. So it will split
this into two mono files. Also, the
| | 02:00 | sampling rate is different from the
session sampling rate. So we're going to
| | 02:05 | convert this and we're also going to
apply Sample Rate Conversion so that it
| | 02:10 | goes from 48k to 44.1k. Let's use the
Tweak Head setting so that we get the
| | 02:16 | best possible conversion.
| | 02:20 | Click Done and again, it will default
to our Sessions Audio Files folder, and
| | 02:26 | we'll choose that. We'll bring it in
on a new track, instead of the regions
| | 02:33 | list, and we'll choose the
Session Start as our location.
| | 02:39 | So here's our imported audio from
the video, without importing the video
| | 02:43 | itself. I'll cover more techniques
about working with video files in Pro Tools
| | 02:48 | in other videos in this course. But
now you know how to import video and the
| | 02:53 | audio from video into a Pro Tools session.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Unmounting a hard drive| 00:00 | Aside from importing files, the
Workspace browser has some other unique
| | 00:04 | features regarding working with your
hard drives. Let's check it out. Window >
| | 00:10 | Workspace. We can search for files.
If we click on the magnifying glass icon
| | 00:16 | right here. Type in a search. Press the
Search button. Anything regarding drum
| | 00:23 | loops will show up down here.
| | 00:25 | You can add additional searches or take
them away or reset your search. You can
| | 00:32 | customize how your Workspace looks
by dragging this pane split and also,
| | 00:38 | right-clicking on any of these columns
to show or hide any of this data.
| | 00:45 | Look at how long this list is.
Let's hide some of this stuff.
| | 00:50 | Now we can save view presets of the
workspace. If we go over to the Preset
| | 00:59 | buttons and press Command on a Mac or
Ctrl for a Windows machine and click and
| | 01:06 | you'll see when it turns blue, that
means it's saving. If I go over to number 2,
| | 01:10 | click that and see it's different
than the preset that we saved into 1.
| | 01:17 | Every hard drive that's attached to
your system has a status for audio and video.
| | 01:22 | You'll see these two hard
drives have R, which stands for Record, but
| | 01:27 | there is also a Playback and Transfer.
Record allows you to do everything
| | 01:32 | including recording to the drive.
| | 01:35 | Now this drive right here, DF3, is a
USB stick drive and you can only use it
| | 01:41 | for transferring files. You can't
use it for playback of audio or
| | 01:45 | for recording. If we try to choose those
options, here's what Pro Tools tells us.
| | 01:51 | Cannot be designated as a record drive.
| | 01:55 | USB drives simply aren't fast enough
to handle audio. So when Pro Tools is
| | 02:00 | running on your computer, it actually
will not let you eject a drive unless you
| | 02:06 | do it from this Workspace window.
Let's see what happens if I try to eject this
| | 02:11 | DF3 drive while Pro Tools is running.
| | 02:14 | I'm going to click-and-drag it. I try
to eject it, but this pops up and it says
| | 02:22 | that Pro Tools is taking it. It's got it.
So we have to either quit Pro Tools
| | 02:28 | or we need to unmount it from this
Workspace window. The way to do that is to
| | 02:36 | click on it and we can right-click. So
it's selected and now we have this menu.
| | 02:42 | Here we have the magic command, Unmount.
Choose that and you'll see that the
| | 02:47 | drive is off the system. The Workspace
browser is the place where you have to
| | 02:53 | unmount hard drives while
still running Pro Tools.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Recording AudioRecording audio | 00:00 | In this video, I'm going to show you
the steps involved in recording audio into
| | 00:04 | Pro Tools. I'll start from the very
beginning, as if I'm coming to Pro Tools
| | 00:09 | with a brand-new song idea.
| | 00:11 | We need to create a new session and
I'll choose WAVE files, 24-Bit bit depth
| | 00:18 | and 96 Kilohertz sampling rate. Save
it to the Desktop. Usually, I would save
| | 00:25 | this to an external hard drive, but the
Desktop is fine here. We'll take a look
| | 00:33 | at the Edit window instead of the Mix
window, and of course, the first step is
| | 00:38 | to create a new track.
| | 00:39 | Now since I'm going to be recording an
acoustic guitar, I'm going to choose 1,
| | 00:44 | new, Mono, Audio Track. Once I've
created my track, I'm going to actually plug
| | 00:51 | in my instrument into the back of the
003 into the Line Input. Now if you're
| | 00:56 | recording with a microphone,
obviously go into the Mic Input here.
| | 01:00 | The next step is to choose proper input
on the 003 itself. So I'm going to hit
| | 01:05 | the Mic/DI button. That tells Pro
Tools where the signal is coming in on.
| | 01:10 | So now we go back to Pro Tools and we
check the input and output on the track.
| | 01:16 | You see here that it's set to the
interface > Analog 1. That's where I've plugged
| | 01:21 | in my guitar. So that's what I
need to set here in Pro Tools.
| | 01:26 | The output is set to the main outputs,
Analog 1 and 2. If you don't see this
| | 01:33 | I/O section, go up to the View menu and
choose Edit Window Views > I/O. Next, I
| | 01:41 | want to check our hardware buffer size.
So I'll go to the Setup > Playback
| | 01:46 | Engine window and choose the
Hardware Buffer Size. In this case I want to
| | 01:50 | choose the smallest number of
samples that I can to reduce the latency.
| | 01:58 | Those of you recording into a USB-
powered interface, like an Mbox 2, should
| | 02:03 | turn the Mix knob all the way to the
left, to the input side to achieve 0
| | 02:09 | latency monitoring. On some M-Audio
USB devices, like the MobilePre, this Mix
| | 02:15 | control is software-driven. In this
case, go to Setup > Hardware and click on
| | 02:21 | the Launch Setup App
button to adjust the Mix level.
| | 02:25 | Pro Tools users with FireWire devices,
like the 003, like what I'm using here,
| | 02:32 | can actually choose Low Latency
Monitoring from the Options menu. This will
| | 02:39 | reduce the latency to the least amount
that you can possibly have using one of
| | 02:43 | these types of interfaces. I'll cover
latency in another video in this course.
| | 02:48 | The next step is to choose the
monitoring mode. We choose that from the Track
| | 02:53 | menu and there are two options. There
is Input Only and Auto Input Monitoring.
| | 03:00 | The one that you see here is not
the one that is active. It's a little
| | 03:05 | confusing, but if we choose this one now,
Auto Input Monitoring will be active.
| | 03:12 | But we actually want Input Only Monitoring,
so we'll choose this and it will be active.
| | 03:17 | I'll talk about monitoring modes in
another video in this course. So we're
| | 03:22 | almost there. We're almost ready to
record. The next step is to actually
| | 03:26 | record-enable the track. So we hit the
Record button. Now it's time to adjust
| | 03:31 | the input level. So we need to set our
recording level and that means that you
| | 03:35 | need to start playing or singing into the
microphone and seeing how loud your signal is.
| | 03:41 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:45 | Now that's a pretty good level. We
don't want to peak it out, but we don't want
| | 03:49 | it to be too soft. If you need to,
adjust the Gain knob for the input for that
| | 03:53 | track on your interface. Before you
actually record the track, let's name the track,
| | 04:00 | so that it's not called Audio 1.
We'll call it acoustic guitar.
| | 04:06 | That way, this file will actually be called
Ac Gtr on your hard drive and not Audio 1.
| | 04:13 | It's important to do that so that you
don't have a million Audio 1 files on
| | 04:17 | your hard drive. So the last step now
is to actually record. So let's go over
| | 04:22 | to the Record button
and hit Play and you are in.
| | 04:28 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:50 | Hit the Stop button and there is your
track. Now this may seem like a lot of
| | 04:54 | steps just to start recording. However,
these steps will become second nature
| | 04:59 | to you very quickly, and you'll be able
to record into Pro Tools within just a
| | 05:03 | minute of launching the program.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Playing back audio | 00:00 | Playing back audio seems like a no-
brainer function in Pro Tools. Press the
| | 00:05 | Play button in the Transport
controls and you're good to go.
| | 00:08 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:13 | Well, there are some additional
playback options to consider that can be very
| | 00:17 | helpful, and that's what I'll be
discussing here in this video. Aside from
| | 00:21 | pressing the Play button in the Transport
window, you can also use the Spacebar.
| | 00:26 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:28 | Or, you can press Play on a control
surface like the 003. But wait, there is more.
| | 00:35 | If you go to the Setup >
Preferences and down here in the Operations page,
| | 00:41 | we have the numeric keypad.
We can use the numeric keypad for playback
| | 00:46 | and stopping as well.
| | 00:48 | So if we have the Transport checked off
here that means you can press zero on
| | 00:54 | the numeric keypad and you get playback.
If we have the Use Separate Play and
| | 00:59 | Stop Keys checked off, then you have to
press Enter on the numeric keypad.
| | 01:05 | With Transport selected, you can also press
Stop using the zero on the numeric keypad.
| | 01:14 | There are other ways to stop as well.
Pressing the Spacebar, or pressing Stop
| | 01:20 | on the control surface. Each time I've
been playing so far in this video,
| | 01:25 | we've been starting from the very beginning
of the session. But if we want to go to
| | 01:28 | somewhere else in the session, we can
do it in a number of different ways.
| | 01:32 | Use the Selector tool and click
anywhere and then press Play.
| | 01:36 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:41 | Or, you can grab the Timeline Selection
Start Marker. So now we have the start
| | 01:50 | and the end markers and this creates
a selection of where we can play.
| | 01:55 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:00 | You can also use the Fast Forward and
Rewind buttons in the Transport controls.
| | 02:10 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:17 | Now, I was just clicking-and-holding
on those, but you can also individually
| | 02:22 | click and you'll see here, they're
bouncing from measure to measure.
| | 02:27 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:30 | We can also click into the Counters
and set the time that we want. So if we
| | 02:35 | want to start at measure 9, press 9,
and then Return or Enter and you'll see
| | 02:41 | the cursor move to bar 9.
| | 02:45 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:49 | We can also use the Selector tool to
click-and-drag to create a specific area
| | 02:54 | for playback. So, if I click-and-drag,
I can select this one bar for playback.
| | 03:03 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:05 | We can also use the Time
Grabber tool to select a region.
| | 03:12 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:17 | Now let's talk about Edit Window
Scrolling. If I go to the Options menu and
| | 03:23 | look at Edit Window Scrolling, there
are three options: No Scrolling, After
| | 03:29 | Playback and Page. First, I'll
choose No Scrolling. I'll go back to the
| | 03:36 | Selector tool and if I put the
Selector down here and press Play, it's going
| | 03:43 | to play beyond what we see on the page.
However, Pro Tools is not going to react.
| | 03:48 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:54 | That's No Scrolling. If I change it to
After Playback, something different is
| | 04:01 | going to happen when we stop it.
| | 04:03 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:08 | The cursor is now placed in the middle
of the Edit window and this is where we
| | 04:13 | had originally started playing back. So,
I'll go back to the beginning here and
| | 04:19 | then go back to where we started before,
and let's change the scrolling again
| | 04:24 | to Page view. Press Play
and see what happens.
| | 04:28 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:33 | You'll see that it's scrolled to the
next page, our playback was here and as
| | 04:41 | soon as it hit the edge of the page,
it scrolled to the beginning and placed
| | 04:46 | the cursor at the beginning of the next
page. Now Pro Tools HD and Pro Tools LE
| | 04:51 | with complete production toolkit or
the DV toolkit have some additional
| | 04:55 | scrolling options, but I won't cover those here.
| | 04:58 | Let's move on and talk about the
playback modes. If you go up to the Play
| | 05:02 | button and right-click it, you'll see
that we have four different options.
| | 05:07 | Half-Speed playback is a really cool
option. You can use it to learn how to
| | 05:11 | play really fast passages of music.
For instance, if you load up a really
| | 05:16 | ripping guitar solo that has a lot of
notes and you can't figure out what they are,
| | 05:20 | you can use Half-Speed playback to play
it back slower and learn what the notes are.
| | 05:26 | Now note that audio is actually
played back an octave lower with Half-Speed
| | 05:30 | playback, but MIDI is not.
| | 05:34 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:43 | Notice how the bass is an octave lower,
but the MIDI stuff stays right in the
| | 05:48 | same octave. Now you can also activate
half-speed playback if you Shift-click
| | 05:53 | the Play button or press Shift and hit
the Spacebar. Another option is Prime
| | 06:00 | for Playback. When you've got a large
number of tracks in a session, Pro Tools
| | 06:05 | might take a little longer to start
playback than usual and we can avoid this
| | 06:09 | by using Prime for Playback mode.
| | 06:12 | If we right-click and choose it here,
it will show us that it's primed for
| | 06:17 | playback. It will have the Stop button
lit up and the Play button will flash.
| | 06:22 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:29 | So, if you hit the Play button or press
the Spacebar, like I did, it will start
| | 06:34 | playback right away. Now we don't
really see a difference too much in this
| | 06:37 | session because it's kind of a small
session, but if you had a lot of tracks
| | 06:42 | and it was causing Pro Tools to react a little
slowly, this would be a great option for you.
| | 06:47 | You can also Option-click the Play
button on a Mac or Alt-click the Play button
| | 06:52 | on a Windows machine to enact
Prime for Playback. Let's move onto Loop
| | 06:57 | Playback. If we right-click the Play
button again, we can choose it here.
| | 07:02 | That will show you the Loop Playback icon.
There are a number of other ways that you
| | 07:08 | can activate Loop Playback. If you go
to the Options menu, it's right there.
| | 07:14 | We also have a key command, Command+Shift+L on
a Mac or Ctrl+Shift+L on a Windows machine.
| | 07:24 | You can also Ctrl-click on a Mac or
Start-click on a Windows machine.
| | 07:29 | So let's hear how this works. Solo the
bass track and I'm going to actually
| | 07:35 | double-click with the Selector tool to
highlight this region. Now I'm going to hit Play.
| | 07:40 | (Music playing.)
| | 07:50 | It cycles through that loop. The final
play option that we have in Pro Tools is
| | 07:55 | called the Dynamic Transport. We can
choose that by right-clicking the Play button,
| | 08:00 | turning that on and you'll
notice that the main time scale here, which
| | 08:06 | happens to be Bars and Beats, expands
to double its size. And that means that
| | 08:12 | we can actually grab this Play Start
Marker and move that separately from
| | 08:20 | what's selected as the playback area.
And we don't lose this selection.
| | 08:25 | So what's cool about this is I can
start playing back near the end of this loop
| | 08:30 | and see how it sounds, cycling
back to the front of it, like this.
| | 08:34 | (Music playing.)
| | 08:38 | See, it starts here at the Play Start
Marker and then loops around. So we can
| | 08:43 | see if the loop transition works well.
| | 08:46 | (Music playing.)
| | 08:48 | Which it does, in this case.
| | 08:51 | Now note that enabling the Dynamic
Transport mode automatically activates Loop
| | 08:56 | Playback mode if it wasn't already
active. It deactivates the Link Timeline and
| | 09:02 | Edit Selection and that's this
button right up here. We'll talk more about
| | 09:06 | that in another video. There is one
more button in this area that I want to
| | 09:10 | cover regarding playback and that's
called Insertion Follows Playback.
| | 09:16 | First, I'm going to get rid of the
Dynamic Transport and Loop Playback to show
| | 09:20 | you this. Right-click, right-click
again to get rid of both of those and then
| | 09:30 | we're going to reactivate the Link
Timeline and Edit Selection and then
| | 09:35 | activate the Insertion Follows
Playback. So when I drop my cursor in
| | 09:41 | to playback now, you're going
to see something different.
| | 09:46 | (Music playing.)
| | 09:50 | When I stop it, it stops and keeps the
cursor where I stopped it as opposed to
| | 09:56 | returning it to where I first started
playing. So check it out again.
| | 10:01 | (Music playing.)
| | 10:05 | The cursor ends up here instead of
back here. If I turn this off again--
| | 10:11 | (Music playing.)
| | 10:14 | --the cursor returns to
where I started it originally.
| | 10:16 | So as you've seen in this video, there
are many more options for playback in
| | 10:21 | Pro Tools than it may seem. You'll
probably be utilizing most of these options
| | 10:26 | in your normal workflow, the
more familiar you get with Pro Tools.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a Click track| 00:00 | A Click track in Pro Tools is a steady
beat that is in-sync with the session's
| | 00:05 | tempo and meter. Recording to a Click
track is very common and offers the
| | 00:10 | promise of aligning tracks that may
not have been recorded at the same time.
| | 00:15 | Being a drummer, I usually have to
record to a Click track in every recording
| | 00:18 | session that I do. But I'll recommend
recording to a click or even a drum loop
| | 00:24 | at a steady tempo even when you're
simply laying down a rough song idea.
| | 00:28 | So let's do that. I'm going to create
a new audio track for my guitar.
| | 00:36 | I'll name it. I'm also going to choose
Track > Create Click Track. And that
| | 00:45 | automatically creates a mono
auxiliary track with a Click plug-in on it.
| | 00:52 | Let me show you that. Let me expand
this out and I'll show you the inserts,
| | 00:59 | and you'll see that the Click plug-in
is in here in the Insert section.
| | 01:04 | If I click on this, it opens up the
Click
plug-in window. If I press Play,
| | 01:10 | you'll actually hear
the Click track play back.
| | 01:12 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:15 | That's a great sound, huh? Or what if we
want to change the sound? I'm going to hit
| | 01:22 | factory default button,
maybe we want the Cowbell.
| | 01:28 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:31 | Can't say that really sounds like a
cowbell. I think I'll go back to the
| | 01:35 | factory default. Now if you don't hear
the Click track, when you press Play,
| | 01:41 | it might be because it's not enabled.
And you can enable it in a couple of
| | 01:45 | different ways. Right here with the
Metronome button, if you click it, now it's
| | 01:50 | not active. When it's blue, it is active.
And this control you can find in the
| | 01:55 | MIDI controls of the Edit window toolbar.
You can also go to the Options menu,
| | 02:01 | and make sure that the Click has a
check next to it. If you uncheck this,
| | 02:06 | you'll see that the Metronome
button also is made inactive.
| | 02:11 | You can also bypass the Click, which
will make it silent. There are some Click
| | 02:17 | options if you go to Setup > Click/
Countoff. In this window you'll see some
| | 02:23 | options to have the Click play during
play and record. Only during record, or
| | 02:28 | Only during countoff.
| | 02:30 | We can also change the notes for the
Accented and Unaccented parts of the beat,
| | 02:35 | changing their Velocities and
Durations. We can even choose to go to a
| | 02:40 | different instrument, and not have it
be the Click track. We can route it to
| | 02:44 | another plug-in, a virtual instrument,
or even an external MIDI sound device.
| | 02:50 | We can also affect the
Countoff here. We'll leave this as is.
| | 02:54 | So the Click track will follow the
tempo and the meter of the session.
| | 02:59 | The default settings for any Pro Tools
session are 120 beats per minute, and 44 meter.
| | 03:06 | But what if we want to change that?
Oh it's very simple. Click these
| | 03:10 | little pluses, so Add a Tempo Change.
| | 03:13 | I think the song that I want to record
right now of a BPM of 90. So I'll type
| | 03:18 | that in, and have it start right at
the beginning of this session. And I'll
| | 03:24 | keep the meter at the same, but if you
wanted to change it, you can just click
| | 03:27 | this button and change it here. But
I'll leave at the same. So now we are ready
| | 03:33 | to record with the Click track.
Record enable the track.
| | 03:42 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:04 | Okay, maybe not my best performance,
but you get the idea. Now what if you want
| | 04:08 | to actually have a Click track
automatically into every session that you create?
| | 04:12 | Well, it's easy to do. Let's
go to Setup > Preferences, to the MIDI Page
| | 04:19 | and you'll see this option right
here. Automatically create Click Track in
| | 04:25 | New Sessions. With this active,
anytime that you create a new session a Click
| | 04:30 | track will automatically be
in there on a Mono Ox track.
| | 04:36 | Recording to a Click, ensures that you
play along to a steady tempo, which is
| | 04:40 | often a good idea when you're trying to
flesh out an idea to share with others,
| | 04:44 | or when you know you are going to
record other rhythmic parts to the song.
| | 04:48 | I highly recommend that you record almost
everything with a Click track reference.
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| Overdubbing and using the record modes| 00:00 | Pro Tools has several record modes.
We can access them by right-clicking on the
| | 00:05 | Record button. We have Normal, Loop,
Destructive and QuickPunch. Pro Tools HD
| | 00:12 | also has TrackPunch and
DestructivePunch but we won't cover those here.
| | 00:16 | If we choose one of the different
record modes, the icon in the Record button
| | 00:21 | will actually change. We can also
choose the record mode from the Options menu.
| | 00:25 | I'm going to keep this on non-
destructive mode for what we are about to record
| | 00:31 | and what we are about to record is a
nice baseline to accompany what we have
| | 00:36 | got here. Two Acoustic Guitars and we have
got a Drum Loop as well as a Click track.
| | 00:41 | So I'm going to add a new track, one
Mono Audio track. I'm going to name it and
| | 00:52 | make sure we have the proper input,
which we don't, so I'll change to Analog 1
| | 00:59 | and Record Enable. And you know before
I do that, I'm going to actually add a
| | 01:03 | plug-in to this, a real-time plug-in
effect. I'll choose the AIR Phaser and
| | 01:10 | this is a standard plug-in that comes
with Pro Tools. I'm going to choose the
| | 01:15 | Soft Long Mono phaser setting here.
This is a preset from the Preset menu.
| | 01:23 | Close that up. Let's hear
what this sounds like.
| | 01:26 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:30 | Just a little bit of phasing on there.
That's cool. Okay, so I'm going to hit
| | 01:33 | the Return to Zero button to make
sure that playback starts right at the
| | 01:38 | beginning of the session and then
I'll hit the Record and Play button.
| | 01:43 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:37 | All right, that was a pretty decent
take. Maybe there is some spots that I
| | 02:41 | might want to touch up in there, but
I'm pretty happy with it. So let's say
| | 02:46 | that I actually wanted to touch up the
very beginning of that, base track.
| | 02:50 | So I'm going to put the cursor using the
Selector tool right at the beginning of
| | 02:55 | the track, and I'm going to activate
some Pre-roll when it's lit up like that,
| | 03:00 | that means Pre-roll is active. I'm
going to choose 2 bars, Pre-roll, lock that
| | 03:05 | down by pressing Enter.
| | 03:07 | So that means that playback will start
two bars back from where this cursor is.
| | 03:13 | Record enable the track and you will
note that we are in non-destructive record mode.
| | 03:19 | That is normal, non-destructive
record mode. If I were to go into
| | 03:23 | destructive record mode, I would
actually record over top of this audio that I
| | 03:28 | have here and erase what's under there.
I don't want to do that. I want to keep
| | 03:32 | what's under there but record on top of it
a new piece of audio. So let's try that.
| | 03:38 | Record Enable and Play.
| | 03:41 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:01 | All right, cool. So I like that take
pretty good. I'll keep that. Another way
| | 04:07 | to record is with Loop record. And
that's another mode that we can choose here
| | 04:13 | and I'm going to choose that by right-
clicking the Record mode and changing it to Loop.
| | 04:18 | Now I know that there is a little
riff right in here that I might want to
| | 04:22 | change. So I'm going to loop record
over one bar, this little area. So what
| | 04:29 | that's going to do when I loop record
is it's going to make multiple recordings
| | 04:34 | over top of this area and these are
non-destructive takes. So each of these
| | 04:40 | takes will be recorded and show up in
the regions list and we also have a list
| | 04:45 | that we can choose from and pull them up
here that I'll show you after we record them.
| | 04:48 | So Loop Record is great because it kind
of gives you a comfort level or a flow
| | 04:53 | when you record a bunch of loops in a
row. So let's try this out. And you will
| | 04:57 | note that I have Pre-roll active here
but it will only happen on the first time
| | 05:03 | of the loop and when it loops back
around, it will actually not have Pre-roll.
| | 05:09 | So let's try that out.
| | 05:14 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:37 | Okay, I think I got it on the last take
there, so it kind of got into the flow.
| | 05:41 | It took me a few times to get there but I
got there. So I'm pretty happy with that.
| | 05:46 | So now if I go down to this region on
the track and I right-click it, we see
| | 05:51 | this menu. We go down to Matches and
here are all the different takes that I
| | 05:59 | just recorded. This bass_05 was the
original region that I recorded and these
| | 06:04 | are all of the little loops that I
just recorded. So I'm going to keep this
| | 06:08 | last one that I had up there because I
thought that was probably the best one.
| | 06:13 | I'm afraid to listen to this
but we'll have a quick little listen.
| | 06:17 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:31 | Actually there is nothing that a
little editing couldn't fix on that so just
| | 06:34 | leave that and move on to QuickPunch.
| | 06:37 | I will go up, and right-click this
Record button and switch over to QuickPunch.
| | 06:43 | Punching means to drop a track into
record while it's playing back.
| | 06:48 | In QuickPunch mode, you can record enable
a track, press Play and punch in when
| | 06:53 | you want to fix a part of it. So let's
try that out. I put this under Record
| | 06:59 | mode and we are in QuickPunch mode because
we see the little P in the Record button.
| | 07:04 | So now if I press Play, and then start
clicking the Record button, Pro Tools
| | 07:09 | will punch in, every single time that
I hit the Record button. When I hit the
| | 07:13 | Record button again, it will punch out
and this is instantaneous. The instant
| | 07:18 | you click on the Record button, then
QuickPunch will pop right in and punch in
| | 07:24 | the track without any delay. So let's
try this out. We are going to have a
| | 07:28 | little Pre-roll before
we actually can start recording.
| | 07:31 | (Music playing.)
| | 07:53 | Now I wasn't actually playing along
there. It's kind of hard to quick punch
| | 07:57 | yourself while you are playing an
instrument unless of course, you have a foot
| | 08:01 | pedal connected to your 003 or other
interface which I don't have at the moment
| | 08:08 | but you get the point of being able to
punch in and you can do this up to 100
| | 08:13 | times during playing back of one track.
| | 08:16 | Now one thing you should note about
QuickPunch is that Pro Tools actually
| | 08:20 | begins recording a new audio file as
soon as you start playing the track.
| | 08:24 | It doesn't only record at the punch points.
It records continuously and it only
| | 08:30 | shows you the punched in sections on
the track. But that means that you can
| | 08:33 | actually go back and edit the punch
point if you miss the exact punch location
| | 08:39 | and I'll show you how to do that.
| | 08:40 | If we go to the Trimmer tool, I can
take this punched region and drag it out.
| | 08:48 | So I don't have to worry about missing
a punch point. What I did there was I
| | 08:53 | just clicked-and-dragged with the
Trimmer tool and you will see that there is
| | 08:57 | all this audio that's underneath
the track that we just recorded.
| | 09:01 | One other note about QuickPunch. I
wouldn't keep it on all the time as it
| | 09:05 | records continuously and that can eat
up a lot of hard drive space. So I'll
| | 09:10 | discuss additional punching techniques
in another video in this course.
| | 09:13 | But I recommend that you get to know the
different recording modes. Aside from the
| | 09:17 | Destructive mode, Normal, Loop and
QuickPunch record modes all have their place
| | 09:22 | in the recording session.
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| Recording with playlists and the Loop Record mode| 00:00 | Playlists are one of my favorite
features in Pro Tools. They can act as virtual
| | 00:04 | recording tracks for recording
additional takes of a performance. In this
| | 00:08 | secession here, I have got 2 tracks of
acoustic guitar chords panned left and right.
| | 00:13 | I have also got a lead guitar
track, and I'm working on this harmony track.
| | 00:18 | So I have got one recorded take
here and I'm going to record a couple more.
| | 00:23 | And to do that, I'm going to use
playlists. I'm going to over to my Harm1 track
| | 00:29 | here, and click on the Playlist
Selector button, and choose New. It's going to
| | 00:34 | ask me the name of the new playlist,
and I'll just accept that. That's fine, okay.
| | 00:39 | And you will see my track
disappear here. The region that I recorded is gone,
| | 00:43 | or is it? It's actually right here.
I can get it right back that way.
| | 00:49 | But I'll go to the blank one because
I'm going to record some more stuff here.
| | 00:53 | So I'll Record Enable the track, see
what the level is. That looks pretty good.
| | 00:59 | I'm also going to go up to Record
button here and activate Loop record, which
| | 01:07 | will loop this area. You will see it's
selected here 8 bars. You can see that
| | 01:13 | up here form bar 3 to bar 11.
| | 01:16 | And there is one last thing that I
need to do. I'm going to go to Setup >
| | 01:21 | Preferences, and in the Operations
page, I want to make sure that this is
| | 01:26 | checked off, Automatically Create New
Playlists When Loop Recording. So every
| | 01:32 | time that this section loops around,
a new playlist will be added as I Loop
| | 01:39 | record. So let's give it a shot.
| | 01:41 | All right, I got a couple of takes
there. That last one wasn't too bad, maybe
| | 02:18 | could record it a couple more times.
But I'll save you that. Now with these
| | 02:23 | playlists, I can actually choose which
one that I want to hear when I listen back.
| | 02:31 | And later on I can edit between
these different playlists to create a
| | 02:36 | master take. And I'll show you
how to do that in another movie.
| | 02:41 | And one more thing you can also check
all these playlists at once, if we click
| | 02:46 | a playlists view, then you will see
all three of the tracks that I recorded
| | 02:52 | right below each other.
| | 02:53 | So recording a playlist is a great
feature because it not only makes recording
| | 02:58 | multiple takes very easy, it also
makes editing together the different takes
| | 03:02 | very quick. And I'll show you
how to do that in another video.
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| Punch recording and using the monitoring modes| 00:00 | When recording in Pro Tools the
Monitor Mode determines what you hear on a track,
| | 00:04 | when it's record enabled or in
Playback Mode. There are two options,
| | 00:10 | Auto Input Monitoring or Input Only
Monitoring, and you can switch between the two
| | 00:18 | using Option+K on a Mac or Alt+K on a
Windows machine. This input status is
| | 00:26 | shown here in the Transport controls
in the Edit window toolbar. If we switch
| | 00:33 | it over to Input Only
Monitoring, you will see this light up.
| | 00:37 | Now on Pro Tools HD you can set this
mode on each individual track, but in LE
| | 00:43 | and M-Powered the mode determines the
input status for all tracks. So let's
| | 00:48 | check out Input Only Monitoring. When
I record enable the bass track, Input
| | 00:56 | Only Monitoring allows you to hear
the input signal at all times. So even
| | 01:02 | though I have a recorded track on here,
I can play the bass right now when it's
| | 01:10 | not playing or when I do press Play you
will hear what I'm playing on a bass as
| | 01:16 | oppose to what is recorded
on this track. Check this out.
| | 01:19 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:31 | So you can see that I played is
different then what you see on the waveform.
| | 01:36 | Input Only means you always hear the
input to the track when it's record
| | 01:41 | enabled. When I switch over to Auto
Input Monitoring that changes what happens
| | 01:48 | on this track. When I press Play, you
will hear what's on this track, even if I
| | 01:53 | start playing on my bass as you can see,
when it stopped you can hear my input.
| | 01:59 | But when I press Play, you won't be able.
| | 02:02 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:10 | So you just heard what's actually
recorded on that track, even though this
| | 02:14 | track is record enabled. The only time
that you will hear what's on this track
| | 02:18 | through the input is when your ear
stopped or when you are actually recording
| | 02:25 | and let's do that right now to check it out.
| | 02:29 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:41 | I purposefully played a performance
that doesn't look all that great or doesn't
| | 02:45 | sound all that great here. Just to
show you the difference I'm actually
| | 02:48 | going to undo that recording right
there. Now we are back to the original.
| | 02:54 | So I want to show you how to do an
Automated Punch. Let's check out this
| | 02:59 | example. I have got this preexisting
bass line and I want it to play all the
| | 03:05 | way up to this punch point right here,
I'm going to rerecord for a little while
| | 03:10 | and then I'm going to have a punch back out
automatically and keep playing rest of the bass line.
| | 03:15 | So for this purpose I want to be in
Auto Input Monitoring, not Input Only so
| | 03:21 | that we'll able to hear the preexisting
track up to the punch point and now I'm
| | 03:26 | clicking and dragging to highlight of
the part that I want to rerecord.
| | 03:31 | So we'll hear what's existing here,
then we'll punch in, I'll play new bass
| | 03:37 | material here and then the
preexisting track will pick up right here.
| | 03:43 | Now I want to see Pre-roll and Post-
roll, so I'm going to choose Expanded
| | 03:47 | Transport here. I'm going to add two
measures of Pre-roll and two measures of
| | 03:53 | Post-roll, press 2 and Enter. So
we'll hear two measures before this record
| | 04:01 | area, then I'll record a new bass
line and then we'll hear two measures
| | 04:04 | afterwards and remember I'm in Auto Input
Monitoring right now. So let's try this out.
| | 04:11 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:33 | Okay, so I didn't really like my
performance there, but you get the point
| | 04:36 | because it played up to the punch point
Pro Tools automatically punched me in,
| | 04:42 | I played some more bass and then it
punched me out at the punch point. This is
| | 04:46 | called an Automated Punch, and this
is a really handy punching method,
| | 04:50 | especially if you are recording by
yourself. But I use it all the time when I'm
| | 04:54 | with myself and also when
I'm working with clients.
| | 04:58 | So let's recap. You locate the punch
point, you select the area, you record
| | 05:06 | enable that track, you set the Pre-roll
and Post-roll, hit Record and Play and
| | 05:12 | then Pro Tools will punch in and
punch out for you automatically.
| | 05:17 | So in general, it's often best to choose
Auto Input Monitoring when punching only,
| | 05:22 | but leave the Monitoring Mode as
Input Only for all other applications.
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| Dealing with latency| 00:00 | When you record audio into Pro Tools,
the time it takes your computer to
| | 00:04 | receive the input signal, record it,
process it, and send it back out to an
| | 00:09 | output is called latency. Latency
values can be as low as zero or higher than
| | 00:15 | 50 milliseconds or more, which is
quite noticeable and will likely negatively
| | 00:20 | affect your performance while you
are recording. I'll show you why.
| | 00:24 | If we go to Setup > Playback Engine,
and we set the H/W Buffer Size for the
| | 00:30 | smallest amount which is 32 Samples
with our 003 setup here, click OK,
| | 00:39 | you notice that this bass track is record enabled.
| | 00:42 | Now I'm going to play a few notes and
you will not be able to hear the latency
| | 00:47 | between when I play the note
and when it comes back to me.
| | 00:50 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:56 | However, if I change to 1024 Samples
and I do the same exercise, you are going
| | 01:08 | to hear the difference between when I
play the note and when it comes back to
| | 01:12 | us through the headphones.
| | 01:14 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:19 | There is latency for you. Those of you
recording into a USB-powered interface,
| | 01:24 | like an Mbox 2, can achieve zero
latency monitoring by turning the Mix knob all
| | 01:30 | the way to the left to the input side.
This routes the input signal right back
| | 01:35 | to the interface before it's even converted
from analog to digital. Thus, there is no latency.
| | 01:41 | To hear your input track along with
other tracks that have already been
| | 01:44 | recorded into Pro Tools, you need to
put the Mix knob in the middle. In this
| | 01:49 | case, you will hear the input signal
with zero latency and the playback from
| | 01:53 | Pro Tools, which will have latency,
unfortunately. But if you change to a small
| | 02:00 | H/W Buffer Size, this is certainly manageable.
| | 02:03 | With a large buffer size, the
latency causes too much delay between the
| | 02:07 | prerecorded tracks in Pro Tools and the
track that you are trying to currently
| | 02:11 | record. On some M-Audio USB devices,
like the MobilePre, this Mix control is
| | 02:17 | software driven. In this case, go to
Setup > Hardware and click the Launch
| | 02:23 | Setup App button to find the
controls to adjust the Mix level.
| | 02:28 | FireWire interfaces like the 003 and
Mbox 2 Pro handle digital audio and
| | 02:33 | latency in a slightly different way.
For these devices, the minimum latency is
| | 02:38 | not 0. It's 3 milliseconds, because it
takes 1.5 milliseconds to convert the
| | 02:44 | analog signal to digital and then
another 1.5 milliseconds to convert that
| | 02:49 | signal back into analog. This A-to-D-to-A
conversion takes a total of 3 milliseconds.
| | 02:57 | These same FireWire interfaces can
utilize what's called Low Latency
| | 03:02 | Monitoring, and you turn that on here
in the Options menu. When it's on, that
| | 03:07 | means that there is only 3
milliseconds of latency. However, there are some
| | 03:12 | accompanying limitations. All plug-ins
and sends on record-enabled tracks are
| | 03:18 | automatically bypassed. And when I
activate this, you will see that my Phaser
| | 03:24 | plug-in on my bass track will
be made inactive right there.
| | 03:29 | So when you are using Low Latency
Monitoring, you can't record with any real
| | 03:33 | time effects on the record enabled
tracks. While this is a bummer, it certainly
| | 03:38 | isn't the end of the world. In practice,
I found that working with low buffer
| | 03:42 | sizes is totally fine for recording,
even with the most time sensitive
| | 03:47 | material, and so I don't really use
Low Latency Monitoring very often.
| | 03:52 | Once you're done recording, you can
go back up to the Playback Engine and
| | 03:56 | change it to a higher buffer size,
but when you are recording, I recommend
| | 04:02 | knocking it down to the
smallest H/W Buffer Size.
| | 04:05 | So latency is unfortunately an issue
that we have to deal with when recording
| | 04:09 | digitally. However, using the right
techniques to manage it, latency shouldn't
| | 04:14 | get in the way of recording great tracks.
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| Creating a group| 00:00 | A Group consists of one or more tracks
that are grouped together. Groups are
| | 00:04 | useful for editing or mixing several
tracks in the same way at the same time.
| | 00:09 | Let's create a group. First you need to
select the tracks that you want in the group.
| | 00:13 | So I'll click on the Acoustic
Guitar 1 track, then I'll press Shift and
| | 00:19 | go down to the second track. Now, both
of them are selected. There is another
| | 00:24 | way to select multiple tracks in Pro Tools.
| | 00:27 | If you go up to the Link track and Edit
Selection button, it's highlighted blue
| | 00:33 | right here and we use the Selector tool.
We can go down into the Edit window
| | 00:38 | here and select across these tracks and
whatever tracks that we select across,
| | 00:44 | you will see their names
highlighted here. So I'm going to select by
| | 00:50 | clicking-and-dragging across these two
tracks. Now they are highlighted.
| | 00:56 | We'll go to the Track menu and choose Group
and you can also use the key commands,
| | 01:02 | Command+G for a Mac or Ctrl+G on a Windows
machine, and you get the Create Group dialog.
| | 01:10 | So let's name our group here, we'll
call it Acoustic Guitars and let's pick
| | 01:15 | some other of the parameters here. We
have got the Type where you can set it to
| | 01:20 | be just active in the Edit window,
just active in the Mix window or both.
| | 01:25 | Usually I like it to be in both. Each
group will have an ID. There are 26 times
| | 01:33 | 4 different IDs so that's how many
groups you can have. And then you can choose
| | 01:38 | what is Linked Within the Group. So if
we have Mutes and Solos here, any time I
| | 01:43 | hit a Mute button on one of the tracks
in the group, all of the tracks would be muted.
| | 01:47 | Same goes for Solo here.
| | 01:50 | Now, if we wanted to add other tracks
to the group, we could do that here just
| | 01:55 | by clicking on a name and pressing Add.
I'm not going to do that right now.
| | 01:59 | So I'm happy with this group, I'll hit OK.
Now, you see this group show up in the
| | 02:05 | Groups list down here. Now, check this
out. When I go over here to the Solo,
| | 02:13 | both of the Solos on these two
tracks light up, same for Mute. And if I
| | 02:20 | click-and-drag on the volume
both of the tracks respond in kind.
| | 02:26 | If I change the track view from
waveform to volume both of the tracks will do
| | 02:33 | the same. And if I go to make a new
playlist for one of the tracks in the
| | 02:42 | group, both will get new playlists.
Let's go over to the Mix window. If you
| | 02:51 | look here in the Group section you will
see that the groups are labeled here in
| | 02:56 | the Mix window and even given a color that
matches the color that's down here in the Group List.
| | 03:04 | If you right-click on a group name, you
will get this menu where you can choose
| | 03:09 | from the tracks you can modify or
duplicate or delete the group. You can hide
| | 03:15 | the group or show only the tracks in
the group. That's kind of a cool one.
| | 03:19 | Let's check that out. This is pretty
handy for mixing. I'll right-click again
| | 03:26 | and it will show all tracks. One more
time right-click hit Modify and it opens
| | 03:33 | up the Modify Groups dialog where we
can change things in here if we want to
| | 03:38 | add tracks or remove tracks or change any of
this stuff here. I'll keep it all the same.
| | 03:44 | While we are talking about Groups,
let's check out the Groups List pop-up menu.
| | 03:50 | From here we can create a new group,
we can display all groups or just mix or
| | 03:55 | edit groups. We can suspend all groups,
which means that they become inactive.
| | 04:02 | Right here they are grayed out. We'll
uncheck that to make them active again
| | 04:09 | and you can modify groups here
and also delete active groups.
| | 04:13 | Let's say we want to delete it and
this is not undoable so you got to be sure
| | 04:19 | if you want to do it, and we'll do it.
So, any track can be part of a group or
| | 04:24 | multiple groups at one time in Pro Tools.
Use Groups to make your workflow more
| | 04:30 | efficient while recording, editing or mixing.
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| Adding effects while recording | 00:00 | In this video, I'm going to show you
how to add Effects plug-ins to a track as
| | 00:04 | well as how to setup an Effects Loop
to use while recording. When we want to
| | 00:08 | add an Effects over in the Edit window
we should go over to the
| | 00:13 | Edit Window View Selector button and
choose Inserts A-E. That gives us five
| | 00:20 | potential places for inserts on this
track and a plug-in is an insert. So if we
| | 00:27 | want to add a plug-in effect to this
bass track, I can click on this first
| | 00:32 | insert and choose plug-in and go down
to Harmonic and choose the Fuzz-Wah and
| | 00:41 | that opens up this Plug-in window.
| | 00:43 | Now, we are going to talk about these
plug-ins in other videos in this course,
| | 00:47 | but I just want to show you how to
actually add a plug-in. And if we want to
| | 00:53 | choose one of the presets, just go up
to the Preset button and instead of where
| | 00:59 | it says factory default, choose one of
these presets. And that's all there is to it.
| | 01:06 | This plug-in is called an
RTAS plug-in and that means that it's a
| | 01:11 | real-time plug-in. So as soon as you
press Play, that plug-in is going to
| | 01:16 | affect the sound of this
bass track. Let's hear it.
| | 01:20 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:29 | That's kind of fun. Now, if we want
to keep that on there, but bypass the
| | 01:34 | signal through the plug-in, let's just
hit the Bypass button and you will hear
| | 01:39 | the track without the effect.
| | 01:41 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:47 | I like it better with the plug-in. So,
that's how you put a plug-in onto your track
| | 01:54 | and you can actually record with
that effect on the track. Now, let's go
| | 01:59 | over to the Mix window and I want to
setup an Effects loop. So I have got two
| | 02:05 | Acoustic Guitar tracks here and I want
to send both of these tracks to a Reverb plug-in.
| | 02:13 | So I'm going to setup an Effects loop.
| | 02:16 | So the first thing that I need to do is
in the Sends area of this track I need
| | 02:21 | to create a send on each of these
tracks and if you don't see the Sends area on
| | 02:27 | your Mix window, go down to your Mix
Window View Selector button and choose
| | 02:33 | Sends and there is ten sends, A-E
and F-J. We are just going to keep A-E
| | 02:40 | selected here. So just click on this
first Send here and choose a Stereo Bus.
| | 02:48 | I'm going to say Bus 9-10. That is
basically a stereo pipeline for sending a
| | 02:55 | signal somewhere else.
| | 02:57 | I am going to put that same Bus
selection on the other track. Now, we have got
| | 03:03 | the controls for the Sends right here.
If you don't see these in your session,
| | 03:08 | then you should go to View > Sends and
then choose Send A, which is where
| | 03:17 | we have our first Sends here and that
will show just the control for that.
| | 03:23 | So we can boost up the levels here
and we can pan these. So I'm just
| | 03:28 | clicking-and-dragging to pane.
| | 03:33 | So what the Sends do is make a copy of
the signal that's on this track and on
| | 03:38 | this track and send them on a Bus.
The Bus is like a pipeline and the pipeline
| | 03:47 | needs to be received somewhere. So we
need to create a new track and I'm going
| | 03:55 | to create 1 Stereo Aux Input track and
I want to receive the signal from these
| | 04:03 | Sends on this Aux Input track. So I'm
going to choose the input as the same Bus
| | 04:11 | 9-10 as what these Sends are sending
out on. So now I have a copy of the signal
| | 04:19 | from both of these acoustic guitars
tracks being sent on a Bus to this input
| | 04:27 | and it's being received
at this Aux Input track.
| | 04:30 | The last step we need to do for our
Reverb Effects Loop is to actually add the
| | 04:36 | effect. So we'll click on our Insert
section and Add our D-Verb plug-in.
| | 04:44 | So now we have these two tracks. Their dry
tracks are being routed to the main outputs
| | 04:50 | so those are unaffected because we
don't have any plug-ins on them. But there
| | 04:54 | is a copy of each of the tracks being
sent here to the Aux Input and then those
| | 05:01 | tracks are being affected by this D-
Verb insert and then those effected tracks
| | 05:07 | are coming out the Aux track
here going to Analog 1 and 2.
| | 05:12 | So we have a mix of the dry tracks and
the wet tracks or the effected tracks
| | 05:18 | both going to the main outputs on the
master fader track and let's hear that
| | 05:24 | what that sounds like.
| | 05:25 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:54 | So you can hear the acoustic guitar
tracks with and without the effect as I
| | 06:00 | brought the volume up and down. You
can control how much from each track goes
| | 06:05 | to the Effects Loop with the Send
controls and then you can adjust the overall
| | 06:13 | output of the Effects Loop right here.
| | 06:17 | And you can set these up to run when
you are recording a session as well as
| | 06:21 | when you are mixing and we'll talk more
about this in the mixing section of the course.
| | 06:25 | But now you know how to set
this up if you want to have a Reverb
| | 06:29 | Effects Loop while you are recording.
Now, one last thing to mention here is
| | 06:34 | that if you are using a FireWire
interface with Pro Tools like a 003 and
| | 06:40 | you want to record with Low Latency
Monitoring, Plug-ins and Sends on a Record
| | 06:45 | Enable track are made inactive. So
check this out, watch the Sends and these
| | 06:51 | Inserts on this track,
they will be made inactive.
| | 06:56 | So we'll check this off and then if I
try and record enable this, the Sends
| | 07:03 | become inactive and so this is already
bypassed so we are covered for that.
| | 07:11 | But that's what happens when you have Low
Latency Monitoring and you try to record
| | 07:15 | these tracks. If I unrecord enable these,
you will see the Sends can be active
| | 07:21 | again and we can make this
unbypassed and it will be active.
| | 07:26 | So as you can see here adding
individual effects and effects loops can make
| | 07:31 | your recording sessions more fun
and they might even inspire better
| | 07:34 | performances. I'll cover more about using
effects in the videos about mixing in this course.
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| Creating a headphone (cue) mix| 00:00 | When you are record into Pro Tools,
you will often be wearing headphones.
| | 00:04 | Creating a good headphone mix is
imperative to helping you capture the best
| | 00:07 | performances while recording. For the
most basic headphone setup, plug in your
| | 00:12 | headphones to the headphone jack on
your interface. Some interfaces have two
| | 00:16 | headphone jacks like the 003. Turn
the headphone volume down all the way at first.
| | 00:21 | You don't want it to be too
loud when you put on your headphones.
| | 00:24 | Then press play in Pro Tools and turn the
volume knob up slowly to a level that's
| | 00:29 | comfortable, neither too loud or too soft.
| | 00:32 | The headphone jacks on your interface
receive the main output that is in this
| | 00:36 | session, Analog 1 and 2. All these
tracks are routed through Analog 1 and 2 and
| | 00:42 | then they go through this Master Fader
track, which feeds out the mix to the
| | 00:48 | headphone jacks. And just monitoring
the Analog 1, 2 or the main outputs is
| | 00:53 | usually fine if you are just recording
one person at a time, but getting the
| | 00:57 | levels of each of the tracks
in the mix is really important.
| | 01:01 | When you record the mix in the
headphones can either help or hinder the person
| | 01:06 | recording in a few different ways. For
example, if a vocalist's voice is too
| | 01:11 | prominent in the headphone mix, the
vocalist might sing a little flat and with
| | 01:16 | less energy. However if the vocalist
voice is too low in the mix, they might
| | 01:21 | push the voice and go sharp to rise
above the other instruments in the mix.
| | 01:26 | Try to get a good balance between the
instruments and the mix and most likely you
| | 01:30 | will have to boost the instrument that
you are recording. So it can be heard
| | 01:34 | just above the mix a little.
| | 01:36 | When you are setting up a headphone mix,
you can add effects to any instrument
| | 01:39 | to provide either creative
inspiration or to make the instrumentalist or
| | 01:44 | vocalist feel more comfortable.
Vocalists in particular like to have some
| | 01:48 | reverb or some delay on their voices
while they are recording, maybe even both.
| | 01:53 | I recommend setting up an Effects
Loop for this purpose and you can see the
| | 01:57 | Effects Loop is already started in
this session. I have got Sends routed to a
| | 02:03 | D-Verb plug-in on this Aux track and
if we want to set one up for the vocal
| | 02:09 | track, I can choose the same bus
which is Bus 1 and 2 and that will route a
| | 02:16 | copy of this vocal track to the input
of this auxiliary track where it will
| | 02:22 | then be processed by the D-Verb plug in.
| | 02:25 | Now I talk about setting up an Effects
Loop in another video in this course.
| | 02:29 | So if you want to see the specifics, check
that video out. So what happens if you
| | 02:33 | want to record more than one person
at a time and then each want their own
| | 02:37 | personal headphone mixes? Well you can
make as many separate headphone mixes as
| | 02:41 | you like, the only limitation is the
number of separate outputs you have on
| | 02:45 | your interface. So let's say you are
recording a guitar player and a bass
| | 02:49 | player at the same time and they each
want their own separate headphone mixes.
| | 02:54 | So I have got these two tracks down here,
the Lead Guitar and the Bass and I'm
| | 02:58 | going to set up a mix for each one of
them. Now one of them I can probably use
| | 03:03 | just the main mix for. So I'm just
going to feed the Analog 1-2 output to their
| | 03:10 | headphone mix. But let's say I'm going
to set up a separate mix for the guitar
| | 03:15 | player. So I'll do it like this. First
I'm going to choose to select the Sends
| | 03:22 | F-J and I'm going to create
this headphone mix using Sends.
| | 03:27 | So I'm going to go up to Send J right
here, I'm going to press the Option key
| | 03:34 | on a MAC or the Alt key on a PC and
with that button held down, I'm going to
| | 03:40 | choose the interface. I'm going to go
to Analog 3-4 and that's going to put a
| | 03:47 | Send that's routed to Analog 3-4
outputs on all of these tracks.
| | 03:53 | Now to make this a little more clear,
let's go to View Sends F-J and choose
| | 04:02 | Send J. So now we can see the Send
controls for all of these Sends and we can
| | 04:08 | use these faders to create our own
second mix here. So I'll turn these up a
| | 04:15 | little, each of one these and we'll
probably juice up the Lead Guitar because
| | 04:23 | I'm sure the Lead Guitars, we'll want
to hear that more. We can even use the
| | 04:27 | Sends to send out the effects
to the second headphone mix.
| | 04:32 | Now we are missing one step here, we
need to create a new track and we are
| | 04:39 | going to create 1 Stereo Master Fader
track and that automatically defaults to
| | 04:48 | Analog 3-4 as the output. So this
track will control the overall output level
| | 04:55 | to the second headphone mix. So to recap,
we have got all of these tracks with
| | 05:00 | Sends being routed to Analog 3-4, the
second output and that's for our second
| | 05:07 | separate headphone mix and all of these Send
levels can be different than the main mix levels.
| | 05:13 | So that's how you set up a second
headphone mix. Creating a good headphone mix
| | 05:19 | whether it's simply getting the right
balance between tracks for one person,
| | 05:23 | adding effects or even creating
multiple different mixes for multiple people
| | 05:28 | recording at once is important for
capturing the best recorded tracks that you can.
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| Assigning disk allocation| 00:00 | Every audio track you record in Pro
Tools is stored on either an internal or an
| | 00:04 | external hard drive, and when you
create new secession that's when you
| | 00:08 | initially tell Pro Tools where you
want to save the files. However, after you
| | 00:13 | open the session you can tell Pro
Tools exactly where to record each track by
| | 00:17 | specifying the location in
the Disk Allocation dialog box.
| | 00:22 | Choose Setup > Disk Allocation to open
the Disk Allocation window. To change
| | 00:28 | the location where new audio files
would be recorded for this bass track, click
| | 00:33 | here and select from the list, you can
select particular folders or just switch
| | 00:40 | over to a different hard drive. If you
want to apply this change to all of the
| | 00:46 | tracks, press Option on a MAC, or Alt
on a Windows machine and click the tracks
| | 00:52 | and then you can choose the hard drive.
| | 00:55 | If you choose multiple different drives,
Pro Tools will create a session folder
| | 00:59 | containing an audio files folder on
each drive. Or you can choose the Custom
| | 01:04 | Allocation Options where you can save
audio files to pre-existing folders.
| | 01:11 | Click this Change button and you can
tell Pro Tools where you want to save them
| | 01:15 | exactly. Round robin will
automatically distribute any newly created tracks
| | 01:23 | among the hard drives connected to your
system. Click this box to turn that on.
| | 01:27 | By default, the system drive is not
included in round robin allocation and
| | 01:33 | Digidesign does not recommend recording
to the system drive anyway. That is the
| | 01:38 | drive that contains your computers
operating system. So although there are
| | 01:42 | options for spreading out the audio
files all over different drives on your
| | 01:46 | system, I usually keep my audio files
all in one hard drive for each project.
| | 01:51 | Drives are so fast these days that
spreading them out isn't really necessary to
| | 01:56 | improve your performance unless you are
working on huge secessions. Plus saving
| | 02:01 | all your audio files in one drive
is easier for organization and for
| | 02:05 | transporting the sessions. Still you should be
aware of the options in the Disk Allocation window.
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|
|
5. Editing AudioUnderstanding nondestructive editing and region types| 00:00 | Pro Tools is best known for it's audio
editing capabilities and the reason that
| | 00:04 | digital audio editing is so amazing is
that it's non-destructive. Let's say I
| | 00:09 | start with this perfectly good guitar
part. I'll play a little bit of it for you.
| | 00:13 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:28 | And then I chop it up and move parts
of it all around, so that it ends up
| | 00:33 | looking like this with edits all over
the place. I'll play a little bit of it.
| | 00:40 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:54 | The edits in the second track don't
affect the underlying audio file that you
| | 00:59 | see in the first track. The edits
are non-destructive. Pro Tools does not
| | 01:03 | actually touch the audio files. It just
tells the hard drive when to play back
| | 01:07 | certain parts of each audio file. In
other videos in this course I'll show you
| | 01:12 | how to make edits like this, but here I
want to explain what audio regions are
| | 01:16 | and how audio regions work in Pro Tools.
| | 01:19 | In Pro Tools speak each track or
section of a track is called a region. You see
| | 01:24 | each of these little pieces here are
regions, and each of these regions appear
| | 01:29 | in the Regions list over here. New
regions are created when you record or edit
| | 01:35 | a track by cutting, pasting,
separating, moving or any of variety of other
| | 01:40 | editing tasks. There are several types
of regions that you will see in a Pro
| | 01:44 | Tools session, the first which is
highlighted here is a whole file region and
| | 01:50 | these are displayed in bold. These
are created when you record, import, or
| | 01:55 | consolidate they reference an
entire audio file on your hard drive.
| | 02:00 | The region up above here which has
it's own name because I have renamed it is
| | 02:06 | actually called a user-defined region,
and they are made when you actually edit
| | 02:10 | something yourself and then name it
yourself. Auto created regions are also
| | 02:16 | shown in regular text kind of like the
user-defined regions here except that
| | 02:22 | they have names that were auto created.
They are made automatically when you
| | 02:26 | make an edit like
separating or trimming a region.
| | 02:30 | A region type that's not shown here is
called an off line region and it's shown
| | 02:35 | in italics and there are regions that
cannot be located or are unavailable for
| | 02:40 | opening with the session. We don't
have any of these in the session so you
| | 02:43 | don't see any. Multi-channel regions
reference multiple audio files for stereo
| | 02:49 | or surround sound tracks. They are
shown as one region in the Regions list but
| | 02:53 | there is a little triangle next to
the name that you can click to show the
| | 02:57 | individual regions that
make up a multi-channel region.
| | 03:02 | When you click a region in the regions
list like this, it will highlight that
| | 03:07 | region in the Edit window and vice
versa, if you double-click this, you will
| | 03:13 | see that it's highlighted
here in the Regions list.
| | 03:16 | So now you know about the non-
destructive nature of audio editing in Pro Tools,
| | 03:21 | and about the different types of
regions and how they interact with the Regions list.
| | 03:25 | This knowledge will help you
understand the editing techniques shown in
| | 03:29 | other videos in this course.
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| Using the Selector and Grabber tools| 00:00 | The Selector and Grabber tools will
probably be your most used edit tools for
| | 00:04 | editing, manipulating and playing back
track material in Pro Tools. Click the
| | 00:09 | Selector button or press the F7
button to activate the Selector tool.
| | 00:13 | You can take the Selector tool on to a
track and click anywhere and that will
| | 00:19 | lay down the playback cursor. If I press the
Spacebar, we can play right from that location.
| | 00:23 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:29 | You can also click-and-drag to make a selection,
and playback will just be in the selected area.
| | 00:35 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:39 | If you place the cursor by clicking,
and then move it again and press Shift and click,
| | 00:45 | it will highlight the area
between where you first clicked and where you
| | 00:49 | clicked again. If you double-click on
a region, it will highlight the entire
| | 00:53 | region. If you triple-click in the track, it
will select all of the material on that track.
| | 01:01 | Let's move on to the Grabber tool. The
Grabber tool comes in three flavors, a
| | 01:07 | Time Grabber, Separation Grabber, and
the Object Grabber. You will probably use
| | 01:13 | the Time grabber most. To access the
Grabber tools, you can just click on the
| | 01:18 | Grabber icon or you can press F8, and F8 will
also scroll you through all three different tools.
| | 01:27 | The Time Grabber's primary functions
are to select or move entire regions.
| | 01:32 | So I'm just clicking and dragging this
region. You can also use the Time Grabber
| | 01:40 | to move MIDI events. You will see it
becomes a little pointer, then I'm going
| | 01:48 | to click-and-drag that note and
move it. You can also do the same with
| | 01:53 | conductor track events, click and move.
| | 01:58 | And the last thing you can do with the
Time Grabber is go into the automation
| | 02:03 | lanes, and insert and edit automation
breakpoints. So I can click on the track
| | 02:08 | here and create automation breakpoints
and then I click-and-drag and move them.
| | 02:17 | To use the second of the Grabber tools,
first I'm going to make a selection
| | 02:21 | with the Selector. Note that the
selection I made is not already a pre-existing
| | 02:29 | region. So now I'm going to get the
Separation Grabber, and I'm going to come
| | 02:35 | and click on this selection, and it's
going to automatically separate that
| | 02:39 | region. And now I can click-and-drag and
move that anywhere that I wanted to go.
| | 02:45 | Now let's check out the Object Grabber.
I'm going to put this back to regions
| | 02:51 | here, and then select the Object
Grabber. And you will see that I can select
| | 02:58 | multiple regions on multiple tracks,
if I press the Shift key, and these are
| | 03:06 | non-contiguous regions, and then if I
click-and-drag I can move all of them at once.
| | 03:11 | Pretty slick.
| | 03:17 | The Selector and Grabber tools enable
you to manipulate regions, notes, and
| | 03:21 | automation to your heart's content.
So get to know them well, and you will
| | 03:25 | become very efficient at editing in Pro Tools.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Trimmer and Scrubber tools| 00:00 | In this video I'm going cover what the
Trimmer and Scrubber edit tools can do.
| | 00:04 | I'll start with the Trimmer. This is
the Trimmer tool right here and if you
| | 00:08 | click on it you will see there is the
Standard tool, the TEC tool, and the Loop tool.
| | 00:15 | TCE stands for Time Compression
Expansion, we'll get to that in a second.
| | 00:19 | Let's start with the Standard trimmer.
If I take the Standard trimmer down here to
| | 00:25 | this region, I can click-and-drag and
edit the front half of that region off of there.
| | 00:30 | You can also click-and-drag the
end of this region, if I click-and-drag
| | 00:36 | it and extend it beyond, that's no
problem either. I can press the Option key
| | 00:42 | on the Mac or the Alt key on a Windows machine
to reverse the direction of the Trimmer tool.
| | 00:48 | So that can be handy if I want to make
this region much shorter like that.
| | 00:53 | The Trimmer tool can also be used to
lengthen and shorten MIDI notes. So if I go up
| | 00:58 | to this instrument track here, looking
at in notes view I can take this Midi
| | 01:04 | note and drag it either way. I can also
use the Trimmer to scale automation and
| | 01:12 | controller data up or down.
| | 01:15 | First, I'm going to get the Selector
tool here, I'm going to select a portion
| | 01:20 | of this automation. Then I'll go back
to the Standard trimmer, click-and-drag
| | 01:28 | and it will take all of that same
curve and bring it down by the same amount.
| | 01:33 | And you can see that as it goes up it
has the db, which is the volume level.
| | 01:39 | And then the little triangle, it says +
5db right there. That's the delta value,
| | 01:44 | or the difference between where
it was and where the new value is.
| | 01:50 | Let's move on to the Time trimmer or
the TCE trimmer. Again, TCE stands for
| | 01:57 | Time Compression Expansion. The TCE
trimmer uses the Time Shift AudioSuite
| | 02:03 | plug-in to alter the length of an audio
region and create a new audio file.
| | 02:08 | You can use it to time compress or
expand a region for matching the length of
| | 02:13 | another region or to fit a region
better to a tempo grid or for a special
| | 02:18 | effect. Let's try it out.
| | 02:20 | I am going to take this piano part
and really compress it. Notice the
| | 02:28 | processing window that was just there,
Pro Tools actually has to make a new
| | 02:33 | file for this. It creates a brand new
audio file. Let's take a listen to it.
| | 02:38 | First, I'm going solo it.
| | 02:42 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:48 | Well, we compressed it a lot, so there
is a lot of audio artifacts in there but
| | 02:53 | it certainly does sound interesting.
We can actually adjust the settings for
| | 02:57 | the Time Shift plug-in, if we go up
to Setup > Preferences, and in the
| | 03:05 | Processing page we see our TC/E area
right here. We see the Time Shift is the
| | 03:12 | default TC/E Plug-in, and we
can choose our Default Settings.
| | 03:17 | Now it looks like there is a whole
bunch of different settings here. And for
| | 03:21 | this case we'll probably use a Piano.
Click OK. You can also create your own
| | 03:28 | TCE settings, if you go to the
AudioSuite menu > Pitch Shift > Time Shift.
| | 03:35 | And that will open up the Time Shift plug-
in window. Now I'm not going to get into
| | 03:41 | this here, but that's where it is if
you need to create your own settings.
| | 03:47 | Let's move on to the Loop trimmer.
If you take the Loop trimmer tool and
| | 03:56 | position the trimmer over the top half
of the region, it will be in Loop Trim mode.
| | 04:02 | You see the difference in the
icon there. So I'm going to click-and-drag
| | 04:06 | and you will see that it creates
multiple loops right in a row of this
| | 04:14 | particular region. If you position the
cursor at the bottom half of a region,
| | 04:19 | it will go back to the
standard Trim tool, like that.
| | 04:22 | To quickly access the different Trim
tools, you can either right-click the Trim
| | 04:28 | tool button or you can repeatedly press
F6 and it will scroll through all three
| | 04:34 | options. Let's move over to the Scrubber tool.
| | 04:39 | Scrubbing is a technique used in
analog tape editing, where an engineer rolls
| | 04:43 | the tape back and forth over the
playhead at slow speeds with his or her hands
| | 04:48 | to find a particular location on the
tape, usually the location for a splice.
| | 04:54 | And the purpose of the Scrubber in
Pro Tools is to emulate the scrubbing
| | 04:57 | process on digital audio. By
scrubbing over an edit point you can find the
| | 05:02 | exact edit point which may not be
obvious just by looking at the waveform.
| | 05:11 | Let's look at a different
part of the audio here.
| | 05:13 | So I'm going to click-and-drag and
you will hear the scrubbing action.
| | 05:20 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:28 | Notice now you can go forward and
backwards. If you scrub over the middle of a
| | 05:33 | stereo track,
you can hear both sides.
| | 05:36 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:41 | Press the Command key on a Mac or the
Ctrl key on a Windows machine, if you
| | 05:45 | want to scrub at finer resolution.
| | 05:49 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:56 | That sounds great. You can press the
Option key on a Mac or the Alt key on a PC,
| | 06:00 | and you go faster. And
this is called Scrub Shuttle mode.
| | 06:04 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:14 | Use the Scrub Shuttle mode to scroll
through a long track to find a specific
| | 06:18 | part of that track.
| | 06:20 | Now if you want to access the Scrubber,
well you have got the Selector engaged,
| | 06:26 | just press the Ctrl key on a Mac or
the Start key on a PC to change the
| | 06:31 | Selector to the Scrubber. You can also
access Scrub Shuttle mode if you press
| | 06:36 | Ctrl+Option on a Mac or Start+Alt on the PC.
| | 06:40 | I find the Scrubber to be my least
used editing tool, but its features
| | 06:45 | certainly are cool and helpful from
time to time. On the other hand I use the
| | 06:50 | Trimmer all the time to edit regions.
And I imagine you will too once you get
| | 06:54 | the hang of using all of its features.
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| Using the Zoomer tool and Zoom presets| 00:00 | The Zoomer tool is mostly used like a
magnifying glass, just as its tool icon
| | 00:04 | indicates. You use it to view the fine
detail of a track or in the opposite way
| | 00:11 | to look at the big picture of a track
in a session by zooming out. If you take
| | 00:15 | the Zoomer tool on to a track and click
once, you will zoom in one zoom level.
| | 00:21 | If you press the Option key on a Mac
or the Alt key on a Windows machine you
| | 00:25 | will see inside of the Zoomer tool the
Plus sign will go to a Minus. And if you
| | 00:30 | click once you will zoom out one zoom level.
| | 00:34 | If you click-and-drag, whatever area
you select will fill the Edit window.
| | 00:42 | A cool feature right below the Zoomer
tool is called the Zoom Toggle.
| | 00:48 | This enables you to define and toggle
between the current zoom state and a saved
| | 00:53 | zoom state that includes Track Height,
Track View, Midi, Audio zoom In and Out,
| | 00:58 | Horizontal zoom and Grid Settings. And
you can set different Track Heights for
| | 01:02 | each type of track. That
is, for Midi or audio etc.
| | 01:06 | So, if I click this once, you will see
that this Mini Grand track expands out.
| | 01:12 | It's actually fitting the entire track
into this window. If I click it again,
| | 01:17 | it returns to where we were before.
And you can set this Zoom Toggle setting,
| | 01:23 | if you go to Setup > Preferences in
the Editing page we have the Zoom Toggle
| | 01:31 | section down here. So, I have the
Track Height set to fit to window, but you
| | 01:36 | can choose any of these. You can
change the Track View when you Zoom Toggle,
| | 01:42 | I'm going to keep it at no change. You
can also make some other settings with
| | 01:48 | these checkboxes but I like
the way it is right there.
| | 01:51 | Zoom Toggle has a keyboard shortcut. If
you press Ctrl+E on a Mac or Start+E on
| | 01:57 | a Windows machine you can toggle
between the Zoom Toggle view and the Regular view.
| | 02:02 | Even easier, if you go to the
keyboard Focus button right up here the
| | 02:08 | little AZ button and make that active,
so it's yellow. All you need to do is
| | 02:13 | press the E key and that will access
the Commands keyboard Focus command for
| | 02:21 | Zoom Toggle. Taking this one step
further, if we select an area on a track and
| | 02:29 | we hit the Zoom Toggle it blows
up that area that we just selected.
| | 02:35 | There are two versions of the Zoom tool.
We have the Normal Zoom and the Single Zoom.
| | 02:39 | The Normal Zoom just stays
active and you can do multiple zoom actions
| | 02:45 | all in a row. However if you are using
another tool doing some stuff and then
| | 02:54 | you are on Single Zoom, it will
actually return you to that previous tool if
| | 03:00 | you use Single zoom.
| | 03:04 | So, that's pretty slick. If you just
want to do a quick zoom in or zoom out
| | 03:08 | while you are working with another tool,
you can choose that tool and do the
| | 03:13 | Single zoom and return to that
previous tool. To switch between these two
| | 03:19 | different tools, you can right-click on
the tool or you can cycle through them
| | 03:24 | by pressing F5. To the left of the
Zoom tool, here we have the Zoom controls.
| | 03:30 | You can zoom out by clicking this
button, we can zoom in by clicking this
| | 03:38 | button or if we click and hold and then drag,
we can do a continuous zoom. Pretty cool!
| | 03:49 | You can zoom in on Audio tracks as
well making a waveform shorter or higher.
| | 03:57 | You can also do the same with Midi
tracks. And you will see that if the Midi
| | 04:06 | track is in Notes view. Note that
these zoom controls are accessed right up here.
| | 04:12 | Make sure there is a checkmark
there. If you want to hide them, then you
| | 04:17 | can use these buttons right here and
to access the continuous zoom, you can
| | 04:22 | just go into the track and press Ctrl
on a Mac or Start on a Windows machine
| | 04:27 | and then click-and-drag and
you'll get the cool continuous zoom.
| | 04:35 | Now, my two most favorite zoom
features are these. If you double click the
| | 04:41 | Zoomer button, you bring the entire
session into view. My second favorite one
| | 04:47 | is to use the Commands keyboard Focus
button to my advantage and the press the
| | 04:52 | R and the T buttons to zoom in and
zoom out, very simple short cuts.
| | 05:00 | So as you can see here, there are
tons of zooming options. From using the
| | 05:04 | Zoomer tool to using the zoom resets to
using zoom keyboard shortcuts. Use them
| | 05:10 | all in combination to get
around Pro Tools really quickly.
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| Using the Pencil tool| 00:00 | When editing audio the Pencil tool has
one function: to redraw waveforms.
| | 00:06 | Often this is done to repair waveforms such
as to eliminate a pop or a click on the track.
| | 00:10 | To do this we need to zoom in all the way.
So that the waveform becomes a single line.
| | 00:16 | Let's go to the Zoom tool and we can
just start clicking away or we can use
| | 00:23 | Preset number 5 which will
automatically take you to the sample level of the
| | 00:28 | waveform where the waveform is a single line.
| | 00:33 | Here it is shown as a single line. If
we switch back over to the Pencil tool,
| | 00:38 | we can now click and draw in the
waveform. Now you can undo this drawing but if
| | 00:49 | you do save the changes to the original
waveform, the audio file is permanently
| | 00:54 | changed. So take note of that.
| | 00:57 | So, in this case, I'm actually going to
undo that move. Now the Pencil tool has
| | 01:03 | seven different flavors. If we right-
click on the button, you can see it has
| | 01:08 | Free Hand, Line, Triangle, Square,
Random, Parabolic and S-Curve and these are
| | 01:15 | all used for different purposes and I'll
show you some of those here in a minute.
| | 01:19 | Now, to scroll through these automatically,
you can just use the F10 key if you want.
| | 01:24 | The Pencil tool has a lot of uses,
however, not a lot of them are audio
| | 01:29 | editing related. So, I'm just going to
mention a few of them here quickly and
| | 01:33 | then cover them in other movies. So,
let me zoom out so we can see what we're
| | 01:37 | looking at and go back to the
Pencil tool and choose Free Hand.
| | 01:41 | Now, I'm going to down to this Volume
Automation lane and just click and draw.
| | 01:51 | Pretty cool! Very easy to add
automation. I can also go up to the Tempo area
| | 01:58 | and draw in the Tempo Editor. I can
make an accelerando here, have the tempo go up.
| | 02:05 | On MIDI tracks, we can actually add
notes with the Pencil tool. Let me show
| | 02:11 | you how to do that.
| | 02:12 | First I'm going to zoom in on this
track, so you can see the MIDI notes and
| | 02:18 | then I'm going to go back to the Pencil
tool and I'm just going to click in the
| | 02:24 | track here. Note that
we're in the Notes view.
| | 02:27 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:36 | To make that a longer note I just
clicked-and-dragged. You can also erase MIDI notes
| | 02:41 | with the Pencil tool if you press
the Option key on a Mac or the Alt key
| | 02:46 | on a Windows machine. And the Pencil
tool will flip around and turn into the
| | 02:50 | eraser. You can erase notes,
pretty cool. Finally, you can edit MIDI
| | 03:00 | velocities, let me go down to the
Velocity view here and if you draw with the
| | 03:07 | Pencil tool, I'm just clicking and dragging
and I'm changing these velocities to these notes.
| | 03:14 | So, as you can see here the Pencil tool
has a lot of functions and I use it for
| | 03:20 | editing audio Midi and automation in
almost every session that I work on.
| | 03:24 | And I'm sure you will too.
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| Using the Smart tool| 00:00 | The Smart tool combines the best
parts of the Trimmer, Selector and Grabber
| | 00:04 | tools all into one. To make the Smart
tool active, click the bar above these
| | 00:10 | three tools or you can press F6 and F7
at the same time. With this Smart tool
| | 00:16 | active you will see the Selector
active in the top half of this track and
| | 00:22 | the Grabber is active in the bottom half.
| | 00:25 | If you go towards region boundaries
the Trimmer becomes active on both sides.
| | 00:31 | If you go towards the top corner you
will see the Fade tool, where you can
| | 00:36 | create a Fade in or a Fade out. If you
go to the bottom corner you will see the
| | 00:42 | Cross-Fade tool. And you can click-and-
drag to create a fade or a cross-fade.
| | 00:50 | The fades and cross-fades will follow
your default Fade Settings that you can
| | 00:55 | set here. Setup > Preferences. On the
Editing page we have our Default Fade
| | 01:04 | Settings. If you click this
you will see the Fades dialog.
| | 01:08 | Now we're going to cover all of these
fades and cross-fades in more detail in
| | 01:12 | another video in this course. So you
see here that the Smart tool can do a lot
| | 01:17 | of things all at once. And it's
definitely the tool that I use the most and
| | 01:21 | once you get familiar to using it,
I'm sure it will be the same for you.
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| Understanding the edit modes| 00:00 | The Edit Modes Shuffle, Spot, Slip and
Grid determine how regions behave when
| | 00:07 | edited by the edit tools. Let's check
out Slip first. I'm going to use the
| | 00:11 | Grabber tool. I'm going to
click and drag this region.
| | 00:18 | You will note that I can move it freely
over top of other regions. I can leave
| | 00:23 | space between regions. Also note how
the automation is moving with that region.
| | 00:31 | If I use the Trimmer, I can freely
trim without being constrained by the grid
| | 00:41 | or anything else. Let's check out
Shuffle mode now. Shuffle mode restricts
| | 00:48 | placement of regions, so that
they snap to each other end to end.
| | 00:53 | So if we take the Grabber tool and now
try to move this, it will only allow you
| | 01:00 | to snap it to the end of this region
here, or in between these two regions.
| | 01:04 | If I click and drag, it will put it right in
between these regions and push this one back.
| | 01:15 | If I trim the region and cut the
beginning of this region off, you will see
| | 01:20 | these regions move forward. In fact, all of
these regions on the whole track move forward.
| | 01:28 | Let's check out Spot mode. I'll use
the Grabber tool, and as soon as I try to
| | 01:36 | move this region with the Grabber
tool, the Spot dialog opens up. In this
| | 01:41 | window, we can tell Pro Tools where
we want this region to be moved to.
| | 01:47 | We can tell it using bars and beats,
minutes and seconds or samples. We can
| | 01:54 | also tell it to go back to its
original time-stamp. That is where it was
| | 01:59 | originally recorded when
you first recorded this track.
| | 02:02 | You can just click this arrow and it
will set that right there and click OK.
| | 02:09 | The same goes for the trimmer. If you
try and trim a track here, you can set
| | 02:14 | where you want the ending point or
the start point if you click near the
| | 02:18 | beginning of this region.
| | 02:19 | I am going to cancel out of that.
Let's move onto the Grid mode. When you are
| | 02:26 | in Grid mode, your edits and
selections are constrained to the grid and it's
| | 02:31 | based on the time scale and the grid size.
| | 02:34 | So we are in Bars and Beats right now.
So everything that we select will start
| | 02:40 | on a Grid Line and end on a Grid Line,
and you can see this up in the main
| | 02:45 | counter here. We are on Bar 23, Beat 4
and what I selected was the area between
| | 02:52 | there and 28, 4. So we have 5 Bar selection.
| | 02:57 | Now, this doesn't just apply to
selections. It also applies to edits. So if I
| | 03:01 | take this with the Grabber and move it,
you will see up here that it's moving
| | 03:09 | by beats, and it's constrained to
those Beats, because in the Grid value over
| | 03:17 | here, we have quarter notes.
| | 03:21 | So there is 4 beats in a measure and
it's constrained to moving at each one of
| | 03:26 | those beats. If we change this Grid
Value to 1 Bar, then you will notice this
| | 03:32 | moving 1 Bar at a time.
| | 03:33 | I am going to change this back to
quarter note, and if we use the Trimmer tool,
| | 03:44 | you will see this in action as well.
I'm going to trim this in, and it goes
| | 03:49 | down by quarter note.
| | 03:51 | Now, there are two types of Grid modes.
There is the Absolute Grid and the
| | 03:59 | Relative Grid. Absolute Grid snaps
region start points to the nearest grid line
| | 04:04 | and that's what we just saw down
here when we were doing all these edits.
| | 04:09 | Now, if we select Relative Grid,
that's a little bit different. The regions
| | 04:15 | move in increments of the grid value,
but it doesn't matter where the start
| | 04:19 | point is. It will move in
increments of where the start point is.
| | 04:22 | So if a region's start point isn't
on the grid, it will still move in
| | 04:26 | increments of the grid, but it will
keep its relative position to the beat.
| | 04:30 | So let me show you this in action.
| | 04:32 | I am going to zoom in here first, and
make sure that our start point isn't on
| | 04:40 | the beat. So I'm going to
use Slip mode to do that.
| | 04:44 | Then I'm going to go over to Relative
Grid and move this along and you will see
| | 04:51 | what the Bar Lines here, how this moves.
It's moving in increments of the grid,
| | 04:59 | but keeping its relative position.
| | 05:02 | And speaking of these Bar Lines or
Grid Lines, we can activate those or
| | 05:07 | deactivate them simply by
clicking here on the current time scale.
| | 05:12 | So there are some shortcuts to get
around the Edit Modes. Shuffle is F1, Slip
| | 05:18 | is F2, Spot is F3, and Grid is GF4. You can press
F4 to toggle between Absolute and Relative Grid.
| | 05:29 | Now, if you are in Grid mode and you
want to temporarily suspend Grid mode and
| | 05:33 | switch over to Slip while you are
dragging a region, all you need to do is
| | 05:38 | press the Command key on a Mac or the
Ctrl key on a Windows machine and you
| | 05:42 | won't be constrained to the grid.
| | 05:44 | There is another cool feature called
Snap to Grid that you can activate while
| | 05:50 | you are in any other edit mode. So
let's say we are in Slip mode, but we
| | 05:54 | actually want to snap this to the grid.
| | 05:58 | So we can press Shift and click on
Grid and that activates Snap to Grid.
| | 06:03 | You can also use the keyboard shortcuts,
pressing F4 with F1 to combine shuffle and
| | 06:09 | grid, F2 and F4 to combine these two,
F3 and F4 to combine spot and grid.
| | 06:16 | So let me give you an example of this.
Maybe you want to be working in Slip
| | 06:21 | mode, but you want to highlight
exactly one beat of a measure.
| | 06:27 | So if we Shift-click and get grid and
slip happening together, we can go and
| | 06:33 | select using the Selector, that
exact beat that we want to move.
| | 06:39 | Now, if we separate this part of the
region, I'll choose Edit > Separate
| | 06:46 | Region, and then use the Grabber tool,
we can slide this in Slip mode even
| | 06:55 | though we are also in Snap to
Grid mode. That's pretty slick.
| | 06:59 | There is one other key command that I
like a lot that's called Shuffle Lock.
| | 07:04 | This mode disables all key commands
and control surface switches for Shuffle mode.
| | 07:09 | Thus, it prevents you
from entering Shuffle mode ever.
| | 07:14 | I think that's handy because sometimes
Shuffle mode can really mess with your
| | 07:17 | timing if you end up trimming or moving
regions around in Shuffle mode and you
| | 07:21 | are not aware that you are in Shuffle mode.
| | 07:24 | So to turn on Shuffle Lock, go up to
the Shuffle button and Command-click it on
| | 07:31 | a Mac or Ctrl-click on a Windows
machine and you will see a little lock in the
| | 07:36 | Edit mode button right here.
| | 07:38 | So there you have it, the power of the
Edit Modes. Understanding these modes is
| | 07:42 | extremely important when learning how
to edit in Pro Tools, and I recommend
| | 07:46 | spending some time working with them,
and following the examples in this video
| | 07:51 | several times to really
grasp their different powers.
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| Arranging regions| 00:00 | There is very little that you can't do
while editing audio on Pro Tools.
| | 00:04 | Here we'll talk about some of the most
basic editing tasks, Separating, cutting,
| | 00:09 | copying, pasting, clearing,
duplicating, moving, and nudging audio regions.
| | 00:14 | First, let's talk about separating an
audio region. Separating means to chop a
| | 00:20 | region into two pieces or to create a
separate region within a region. Let me
| | 00:25 | show you how to do it.
| | 00:26 | I have got the Selector tool here,
and I'm going to go onto Grid mode.
| | 00:33 | If I drop the Selector just like click
right there and then I hit Edit > Separate
| | 00:40 | Region > At Selection. You also can
also use the key command, Command+E on a
| | 00:46 | Mac or Ctrl+E on Windows.
| | 00:49 | When I click that, it separates this
one region into two. If I click-and-drag
| | 00:54 | with the Selector to select an area in
the region, I can also do the same, and
| | 01:04 | create a new region that way.
| | 01:06 | You'll probably want to get use to
using the keyboard commands for this action,
| | 01:10 | because you will be separating a lot
of regions in Pro Tools while you are
| | 01:13 | editing. Let's move on to cutting,
copying, pasting, and clearing.
| | 01:16 | Now, these actions are just like in
any other software program except that
| | 01:21 | here, we are working with Audio and
MIDI regions. Let's go to the Edit menu.
| | 01:26 | We can choose Cut, Copy, Paste, and Clear.
In this case, I'll choose Cut. You'll
| | 01:33 | see both this MIDI region and this
Audio region have now disappeared.
| | 01:38 | Go back up here, I can paste them back
in. So you can see it's just like using
| | 01:43 | any other software program. Notice
the keyboard commands here, Command+X,
| | 01:51 | Command+C, Command+V and Command+B
for their respective commands here.
| | 01:57 | On a PC, it's Ctrl+X, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V,
and Ctrl+B, pretty standard stuff. Now, I
| | 02:04 | want to talk about Master Views for
a second here. On an audio track, the
| | 02:10 | Waveform View which we can access here
on the Track View menu, as well as the
| | 02:16 | Blocks View and when I go back to
Waveform, those two views are called Master Views.
| | 02:24 | If you edit a region in one of
those two views, the edits apply to all
| | 02:30 | the data on that track, including automation.
| | 02:33 | For example, I'm going to show you
right here, I'm going to clear this region,
| | 02:37 | and you will see down here in the
volume automation that the volume automation
| | 02:41 | data that's there will also be cleared.
| | 02:44 | Now, you see the straight line here.
All this automation data has been erased.
| | 02:53 | As well as the regions that use to
exist here. I'm going to go ahead and undo
| | 02:59 | that, and you'll see the
automation also reappear here.
| | 03:04 | Now this is different if I just
click-and-drag down here in the volume
| | 03:09 | automation playlist and I go to erase
that by clearing it. I can clear that
| | 03:17 | without clearing the Audio
or the MIDI on these tracks.
| | 03:22 | So the Master Views on an audio track
are Waveform and Blocks. And on a MIDI
| | 03:28 | track, they are Regions, Notes and Blocks.
| | 03:32 | So any edits you do to the Regions,
Notes, or Blocks view on a MIDI track will
| | 03:39 | affect all of this other
automation and controller data.
| | 03:44 | One more word about automation in
addition to the Cut, Copy, Paste and Clear
| | 03:50 | commands we have up here. There is
also Cut Special, Copy Special, Paste
| | 03:55 | Special, and Clear Special.
| | 03:56 | Now these are actually helpful when
editing automation playlists, like volume,
| | 04:01 | mute, and pan, and MIDI controller data.
We'll actually cover those in a later
| | 04:05 | video about editing automation. So
let's get back to editing audio regions now.
| | 04:12 | To move a region in time, the easiest
way is to use the Time Grabber tool.
| | 04:17 | Click on the Grabber and choose Time.
That gives the Time Grabber tool. We also
| | 04:24 | should be aware of the Edit mode that
we want to choose. Right now, I have got
| | 04:28 | it on Grid, so that anything that I
move here will be moved in intervals of the grid.
| | 04:33 | So you can see it hopped
from one grid value to the next.
| | 04:37 | I am going to undo that. If we use Slip,
we can move this without being tied to
| | 04:47 | the Grid, and Shuffle, if we grab a
region and move it, it will place it either
| | 04:57 | before or in between regions, and then
slide the regions around it accordingly.
| | 05:05 | So that just flip-flop
these two regions right here.
| | 05:12 | In Spot mode if I try to move it,
we'll get the Spot dialog and there you can
| | 05:17 | type-in where you want
the region to be moved to.
| | 05:22 | Now, let's try to nudge a region. This
is a great feature if you want to line
| | 05:26 | up a straight base note with a kick
drum note for a solid downbeat, or in this
| | 05:31 | case, I'm going to align the
downbeat of a Sitar track with the Piano.
| | 05:37 | First, I'm going to zoom-in, go to
Slip mode, and you can see right here that
| | 05:47 | this downbeat is a little bit late. I
want to line it up with the grid right here.
| | 05:52 | So I have already created a new region
for this area that I want to nudge.
| | 05:56 | So I'm going to go up to the Nudge menu
right here and choose my Nudge value and
| | 06:04 | you can do it with time or you can use
Bars and Beats, do certain Note values,
| | 06:12 | or even number of samples.
| | 06:14 | Now, I personally like to use 10
milliseconds as my default Nudge value.
| | 06:20 | It's not too much, but it's not too little.
So now I'm going to go and use the
| | 06:25 | Grabber tool to select the area that
I want to nudge, and on the numerical
| | 06:30 | keypad, you hit plus to move the piece
of audio forward or minus to move it back.
| | 06:38 | Now, on a laptop computer, you may
need to use the Function key or another
| | 06:43 | modifier to access the numerical
keypad functions on your laptop keyboard.
| | 06:48 | In fact, some of the new Mac laptops don't
even have the numerical keypad on them.
| | 06:53 | In that case, you'll have to hook up a
separate keyboard to your laptop to use
| | 06:56 | the Nudge function.
| | 06:58 | So in this case, I'm going to hit the
Minus key and bring this whole region
| | 07:03 | back, so that this particular note is
hitting right on the downbeat, bar 27.
| | 07:09 | Now, if you want to get really fancy,
you can nudge while pressing the Start
| | 07:13 | key in Windows, or the Ctrl key in Mac.
You can actually nudge the contents of
| | 07:18 | a region without changing the region's start
and end points. Let me show you how to do this.
| | 07:24 | So I have got the Ctrl button down on
my Mac. I'm going to hit the Plus key and
| | 07:30 | the Minus key to move the region back and
forth without moving the beginning of this region.
| | 07:38 | Now, if we were doing regular nudging,
and I hit the Minus or Plus key, you'd
| | 07:43 | see the region start point moving. But
I actually like using the Ctrl key to do
| | 07:49 | this Nudge where the start of
the region stays where it is.
| | 07:54 | Now, this only works if there is audio
material on the outside of the region
| | 07:59 | over on this side or on the backside.
Now, one thing I want to mention about
| | 08:03 | nudging is that you should be careful
using this technique, because you can
| | 08:07 | kind of go crazy trying to align every
single note, killing way too much time
| | 08:12 | while you are editing and taking away
from the real performance of the part.
| | 08:16 | My suggestion is if the part needs
that much fixing where you are nudging all
| | 08:20 | these notes, you might want
to consider rerecording it.
| | 08:23 | So as you can see here in this video,
editing audio in Pro Tools using these
| | 08:28 | commands is pretty straightforward and
you can apply your knowledge of almost
| | 08:33 | any other software program you know to
the intuitive editing techniques here.
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| Undoing an edit| 00:00 | It's inevitable that you want to undo
something you did in Pro Tools. In fact,
| | 00:05 | the Undo command may be your best
friend, maybe behind the AutoSave feature.
| | 00:10 | When you do almost anything in Pro
Tools, you can undo it and this is
| | 00:14 | particularly handy when you are editing.
| | 00:15 | I am going to do a bunch of edits here
real quick, just so we can take a look
| | 00:19 | at undoing edits. I'm just going to
move some stuff around, use the Trimmer
| | 00:28 | tool, now that's fine. Cut out some stuff,
delete. All right, so just done a bunch of edits.
| | 00:48 | Now you know this probably already,
Command+Z Undo, Ctrl+Z for Windows. And you
| | 00:56 | can repeat this as many times as you
need to go back. Or what's even more handy
| | 01:03 | is you can go to the Undo History
window. So choose Window > Undo History and
| | 01:11 | you will see all of the things that you
have done and that you can undo. If you
| | 01:16 | click on this line here and just drag
you can undo everything. Same goes if you
| | 01:24 | want to actually redo these.
Click and drag down the list.
| | 01:28 | There is a few things that you can
choose from the Undo History menu. You can
| | 01:33 | Show Creation Times for when those
edits happened, you can choose Undo All or
| | 01:42 | you can Redo them all or you can Clear
the Undo Queue, I'm not going to do that.
| | 01:50 | So obviously, the Undo command is one
of the most important commands in Pro Tools.
| | 01:55 | Use the Undo shortcut or the
Undo History window, when you need to
| | 01:59 | rethink some of your last
actions you performed in your session.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Utilizing fades and crossfades| 00:00 | To create smooth edits while editing
audio regions in Pro Tools, you should
| | 00:04 | utilize Fades and Crossfades at
most region beginnings and endings.
| | 00:08 | Fades and Crossfades are used to
prevent pops, clicks, and sudden changes in
| | 00:13 | sound at region boundaries, as well as
to smooth transitions between regions,
| | 00:18 | and create special audio effects.
| | 00:20 | Let's listen to where we need to apply
some Fades and Crossfades. Let me start
| | 00:26 | by playing into this region here and you are
going to hear a click right at the very beginning.
| | 00:31 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:34 | It's a kind of minor,
but listen for it again here.
| | 00:37 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:40 | You'll also here the difference from
when it goes from having sound here on the
| | 00:44 | track to no sound. It's
kind of a stark difference.
| | 00:48 | (Music playing.).
| | 00:50 | We can use a fade-in and a fade-out
here to go from zero volume to full volume
| | 00:56 | on the track, and then back here full
volume down to zero. Let's look at where
| | 01:02 | we would need a crossfade. Between these two
regions, you're going to hear a big click pop.
| | 01:08 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:12 | Let's listen to that again.
| | 01:14 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:17 | Those little clicks or pops or
whatever you want to call them are a no for
| | 01:22 | editing. We want to smooth those out
with Fades and Crossfades. So let's zoom
| | 01:28 | in on this first area right
here, and create a fade-in.
| | 01:34 | Now the reason why, we need to create
a fade-in? You can see it right here.
| | 01:39 | Click pops happen when the waveform is
not at the zero amplitude crossing point
| | 01:44 | at the region boundary. Right here, we
can see that it is definitely not on the
| | 01:49 | zero-crossing. Now the zero-crossing is
this vertical line that runs right down
| | 01:54 | the center of the track. On that line,
there is technically no amplitude to the
| | 02:00 | waveform, so it has no volume, but when it's
not on that line, then it does have volume.
| | 02:06 | So if the waveform at the beginning of
the region is not on this line, then you
| | 02:10 | most likely hear little click pop when
the audio jumps from zero amplitude to a
| | 02:16 | higher amplitude. So let's
create a fade-in to avoid that.
| | 02:22 | With the Selector tool, I'm going to
select this area, and then I go to Edit >
| | 02:27 | Fades > Create Fade. We
get the Fades dialog box.
| | 02:33 | Now you can also use the Command+F for
Mac, or Ctrl+F in Windows to open the
| | 02:39 | Fades dialog box. In the Fades dialog
box, we can see the curve that's going to
| | 02:44 | be applied to the fade-in of the region,
and you'll see how the actual waveform
| | 02:50 | gets affected here.
| | 02:51 | And we can change this shape, if we
go to the S-Curve, or we can set a
| | 02:56 | different curve here. In fact, if we
go to Standard and click-and-drag we can
| | 03:02 | make our own curve. I'm going to go
with this one and hit OK. And you'll see
| | 03:10 | how the actual waveform is affected
by what I just put in here as the fade.
| | 03:16 | Now let's have a listen.
| | 03:23 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:25 | No more pop at the beginning of the
region there. Let's go do the same thing
| | 03:31 | for a fade-out. So I'm going to zoom in,
with the Selector tool, I'm going to
| | 03:37 | grab this area and highlight it, Edit
> Fades > Create, and we'll take this.
| | 03:46 | Hit OK. Let's have a listen.
| | 03:50 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:52 | A little smoother. Zoom back out. Now
let's go make a crossfade. We'll select
| | 04:00 | this area right here for a crossfade.
I'm going to go ahead and just hit
| | 04:04 | Command+F on my Mac, or Ctrl+F on the
PC and open the Fades window right away.
| | 04:11 | So while we are in here, let me take a
little bit more time to explain some of
| | 04:14 | the buttons here. Aside from the shape
which we have now in the In Shape and
| | 04:19 | the Out Shape, so the Fade-out Shape
and the Fade-in Shape, we also have this
| | 04:23 | Link parameter. This enables you to
choose the fade-out or the fade-in curves
| | 04:28 | used in the crossfade and
have them be linked together.
| | 04:32 | Choose Equal Power when creating a
crossfade between two completely different
| | 04:36 | types of musical material. So that
there is no volume drop, as there might be
| | 04:41 | with an Equal Gain crossfade. Choose
Equal Gain, when you have two identical
| | 04:45 | types of musical material, like on a
repeated loop, and this is used to avoid
| | 04:50 | clipping that might occur
from an Equal Power crossfade.
| | 04:54 | Now personally, I've found that
the opposite works well in certain
| | 04:57 | circumstances too. So you need to
experiment. If you choose None, then you can
| | 05:03 | edit the fade-out shape and the fade-
in shape separately. In this case, if I
| | 05:08 | press Alt in Windows, or Option on a
Mac while dragging, I can edit the fade-in
| | 05:14 | section of the crossfade like this. If
I press Ctrl in Windows or Command in
| | 05:20 | Mac while dragging, I can edit the fade
-out shape. So you can create your own
| | 05:26 | custom shapes in this way.
| | 05:29 | Personally, I like the Equal Power
Crossfade the best. So I'm going to choose that.
| | 05:33 | Some of the other buttons here
we have, we can change the Size of the
| | 05:37 | waveform to better magnify it, if we
need to. We can look at what the waveform
| | 05:43 | will look like when it's combined
together, or with the colors combined
| | 05:49 | together like this, or the default
which is this. I kind of like looking at
| | 05:54 | this version. We can even get rid of
the waveforms altogether by clicking this
| | 05:58 | button, and we can look at the
waveform separately using these.
| | 06:04 | Finally, we have the Audition button,
and let's take a listen to what our
| | 06:07 | crossfade is going to sound like.
| | 06:09 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:18 | Now that's no good. There was a lot
of overlap. You could hear two tracks
| | 06:22 | playing at once, during this part of
the crossfade. So what that tells me is
| | 06:27 | that we need to make the crossfade
shorter. So let's cancel this and zoom in on
| | 06:35 | the region boundary.
| | 06:36 | Now I'm going to show you the quickest
way to make a crossfade. Let's select
| | 06:42 | the Smart tool and with that we can
just mouse down to the bottom part of the
| | 06:49 | track at the region boundary and
you'll see the little Crossfade tool.
| | 06:56 | If I click-and-drag I can create a
crossfade just like that, and it will use the
| | 07:01 | default crossfade that you've selected in your
Preferences. We'll talk about that in a second.
| | 07:07 | First, let's have a look at this
crossfade. So I can just double-click on this
| | 07:12 | crossfade now if I want to actually edit that
crossfade, and we can listen to it real quick.
| | 07:18 | (Music playing.)
| | 07:23 | Okay, still a little bit too long. So
we can undo that crossfade, and create an
| | 07:33 | even shorter one. Let's have a listen.
| | 07:35 | (Music playing.)
| | 07:42 | That goes by really quick. So I don't
know that anybody is going to notice that.
| | 07:46 | We'll keep that. Now as I mentioned,
when you create a Fade or Crossfade
| | 07:52 | with the Smart tool, Pro Tools
utilizes your Fade Preferences. You can access
| | 07:57 | that by going to the Setup menu,
Preferences, and going to the Editing page,
| | 08:03 | and in this section right here,
we can set the Default Fade Settings.
| | 08:09 | So in this case, I'm actually going
to change mine to Equal Power.
| | 08:15 | One other thing I should mention while
we are in this Preferences page is this
| | 08:19 | right here, Preserve Fades while Editing.
Let me show you how that works within
| | 08:23 | Pro Tools. If I decide to trim this
region, the fade stays, and that's why we
| | 08:36 | use Preserve Fades when Editing. If we
turn this feature off, then that fade
| | 08:41 | would have disappeared. Now let me zoom
back out, and talk about one more feature.
| | 08:48 | Since crossfades are created by fading
between two overlapping audio regions, a
| | 08:53 | crossfade can't be performed on
regions that do not contain audio material
| | 08:57 | beyond their region boundaries. So
what is that really mean? It means that on
| | 09:05 | this side of this region, if there
is no more audio beyond this region
| | 09:10 | boundary, then you cannot create a
crossfade with this other region.
| | 09:15 | So what happens if we try to create a
crossfade in this case? I'm going to draw
| | 09:22 | it, now we get this warning. Now I'm
going to hit Adjust Bounds and we'll see
| | 09:26 | if it actually can create a crossfade.
And in fact it does, except that it
| | 09:31 | moves it to the left side, so that this
region can't be overlapped with this region.
| | 09:38 | One other thing I should mention is
that crossfades and fades are actually
| | 09:42 | written to your hard drive, and
stored in a folder named Fade Files. That's
| | 09:47 | within your Session folder. When you
playback your track, Pro Tools reads these
| | 09:52 | files, and plays them back from your hard drive.
| | 09:56 | Let's take a look at where they are.
Right here, we've got a Fade Files folder,
| | 10:01 | and you can see all the Fade
Files here. They are all WAV files.
| | 10:10 | Now if you end up losing your fade
files or cross fade files, Pro Tools can
| | 10:14 | actually recreate those fade files, if
they are not present on your hard drive.
| | 10:19 | Fades and Crossfades are essential tools
for digital audio editing here in Pro Tools.
| | 10:24 | Use them well and your
audio edits will be super smooth.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Building a comp track using playlists| 00:00 | Creating a Composite track, otherwise
known as a Comp, where you edit together
| | 00:04 | the best parts of several takes into
one master take is a quick process using
| | 00:09 | playlists in Pro Tools. Let's take a
look at this session. I've got two guitar
| | 00:13 | tracks up here playing chords.
I've got Lead track and I've got a Harmony track,
| | 00:18 | and on this Harmony track, I've
got three recorded playlists. We know
| | 00:24 | that because we're looking at the
Playlist Track View, instead of the regular
| | 00:29 | that hides the playlists.
| | 00:30 | We'll look at the playlist view. So to
get a handle on starting to edit these,
| | 00:36 | I want to actually loop the playback,
so that I can hear each one of them.
| | 00:41 | So I'm going to the Play button and right-
click it and choose Loop. So I've got
| | 00:47 | Loop playback on and I'm going to
double-click with the selector here to
| | 00:51 | highlight this region.
| | 00:53 | Now, when we play this back, first
we're going to hear, the Harmony 1.01 track,
| | 00:59 | because it's in the main playlist for
this track. And then when we want to
| | 01:04 | switch to the other playlist, we hit
the Solo button. You can only have one of
| | 01:08 | those, lit up at a time. Another way to
activate the S button here is to click
| | 01:15 | in the track or make a selection in a
track and press Shift+S. So, if you're
| | 01:21 | working in a track, you can just press
Shift+S and then you can hear it. So,
| | 01:27 | what I'm going to do now is playback
the track on Loop playback, and then cycle
| | 01:33 | through all of the playlist and pick out some
pieces that I like. So that I can build my comp.
| | 01:42 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:25 | Okay, so I've got pieces from each
playlist that I want to edit together into
| | 02:30 | the Master Comp track. So, how do we
do that? First we'll go over here to the
| | 02:36 | Playlist Selector and create a
Duplicate of the current playlist and I'm going
| | 02:41 | to name that Harm COMP. And so what
that does is create a fourth playlist and
| | 02:52 | it moves the one that was current down
one, so now this is the main playlist
| | 02:58 | and it's a direct duplicate of this
first Harm 1.01 playlist. How do we add
| | 03:03 | pieces to this comp, to actually
make it a comp? Well pretty easy!
| | 03:09 | Check this button out. It's the Copy
Selection tool button and since I already
| | 03:14 | know that I like this region, I'm
going to click this button and it
| | 03:18 | automatically moves that up to the main
playlist. I'm going to do the same for
| | 03:25 | this section. And actually, instead of
having to go to this button, I can right
| | 03:31 | click and choose Copy Selection to Main
Playlist and it pops up right up there
| | 03:39 | for me. So that's pretty
easy way to build a Comp.
| | 03:42 | There is one more feature that I'm
going to tell you about that might help you
| | 03:45 | build Comps, especially if you're
working with a lot of playlist and you get
| | 03:50 | kind of confused about which
performances are best. You can use rating of each
| | 03:56 | of these regions to help you remember
which ones are good. So go to View >
| | 04:03 | Region > Rating and you'll see Ratings
for each of the regions in here. So I'm
| | 04:11 | going to double-click this and
actually right-click it, and I can rate that
| | 04:18 | right here. Rate it couple more,
we know that these ones are good.
| | 04:24 | You can do this while you're playing
back and recording as well, if you press
| | 04:30 | all three, the modifiers. So on a Mac
that would be Ctrl+Option+Command and
| | 04:34 | then press a number so we've got just
like this. On a PC, we start Alt+Ctrl and
| | 04:42 | that's how you rate a region, and then
if you really want to get fancy, we can
| | 04:47 | right-click the track name and filter
out any lanes that we don't want, if it's
| | 04:55 | a bad rating. So we can filter out everything
except the 5s. So let's try that out. There you go.
| | 05:04 | Now, we only see regions with 5s on them,
and these are the playlists that have
| | 05:09 | 5s on them. So that can really help you
filter out when you're looking for the
| | 05:13 | best performances. So, this comping
process is really slick. Recording to and
| | 05:18 | editing with playlists are part of my
usual music production technique and
| | 05:23 | I strongly encourage you to add these
features to your production arsenal as well.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Locking and muting regions| 00:00 | After you've recorded or edited a
region and you don't want it unintentionally
| | 00:04 | move that region, you can lock the
region in place. There are two ways to lock
| | 00:09 | a region. The first is called Edit Lock.
| | 00:12 | With the Selector tool here, and I
want to go on SLIP mode, double-click and
| | 00:18 | these two regions will be highlighted.
Choose Region > Edit Lock and you will
| | 00:24 | see a little lock show up in the bottom
left corner of these two regions.
| | 00:29 | This means that they're edit locked and
you can tell they are edit locked by this
| | 00:34 | solid Edit Lock icon.
| | 00:36 | If I try to move or trim these regions,
you'll see that I'm not allowed to.
| | 00:42 | I'm going to click-and-drag and Pro Tools
will throw this warning at you.
| | 00:48 | This command will affect one or more locked
regions. And you can choose to allow it
| | 00:52 | or cancel it, but at least you'll know
that this region is locked and you won't
| | 00:57 | accidentally or unintentionally move
that region. Same goes if you try to trim it.
| | 01:04 | Now in this case, I'm going to choose Allow.
| | 01:08 | You will note that there are key
commands for this as well. Edit Lock, we have
| | 01:13 | Command+L on a Mac or Ctrl+L on a PC.
Let's take a look at Time Lock. Time Lock
| | 01:21 | is a slightly more lenient type of
locking. The region will be locked in time,
| | 01:26 | but you can still edit it as long as
the edits don't move the region in time.
| | 01:30 | And you also note that Time Lock does
not have the same Allow feature as the
| | 01:35 | Edit Lock. So let's time lock a region.
I'm going to select this region.
| | 01:44 | Press Time Lock and you'll notice this
little icon, the unfilled lock right here.
| | 01:51 | That indicates that region is Time Locked.
| | 01:54 | And we also know that Time Locking has
keyboard commands as well. On the Mac,
| | 02:01 | it's Ctrl+Option+L, on a PC its
Start+Alt+L. You can toggle locking or
| | 02:08 | unlocking by using this command as
well. Now if I try and move it, it won't
| | 02:13 | move at all. I'm clicking and
dragging with the grabber and it's not even
| | 02:17 | allowing me to go anywhere. However, if
I take the Trimmer, I can actually trim
| | 02:24 | that region, because it doesn't change the
position of this audio, inside of the region.
| | 02:29 | Now, let's talk about muting a region.
Muting a region simply means to make it
| | 02:34 | silent, but not to delete it. So like
if you want to drop the drum loop out of
| | 02:39 | song for a few bars, you can just mute
it. In this case, I'm going to highlight
| | 02:45 | this Sitar region. You can go to the
Edit menu, choose Mute Regions or use the
| | 02:53 | key command, Command+M on
the Mac or Ctrl+M in Windows.
| | 02:59 | When I hit that, the region is grayed
out and now it is actually silent, but
| | 03:04 | it's not gone from the track. So if I
simply hit Command+M again, I can unmute it.
| | 03:12 | Muting is a great way to help build
the song arrangement in loop based music
| | 03:15 | production as well as a simple tool
for creating space in a mix. I also
| | 03:20 | recommend locking your regions, once
you've done some editing to a session or
| | 03:25 | at least once you start mixing your
song. You don't want to spend time
| | 03:28 | realigning regions that you move by
accident while mixing. I'm sure you'll
| | 03:32 | utilize these commands a
lot while using Pro Tools.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Special buttons in the Editing window| 00:00 | Residing just below the Edit tools in
the Edit window are number of buttons
| | 00:04 | that enable you to do some pretty
special things in Pro Tools. Let's take a look.
| | 00:08 | We'll start from left to right. The
first one here is the Zoom Toggle and we've
| | 00:13 | discussed that in a previous video
about zooming. Next to that is Tab to
| | 00:17 | Transients. Let's talk about that one.
When it's active, it's blue like it is here.
| | 00:23 | Tab to Transients allows you to
use the Tab key to navigate from one
| | 00:28 | transient part of an audio waveform to
the next making it easy to find points
| | 00:33 | on a drum track or other tracks with
obvious transients in their waveform.
| | 00:37 | Let's check it out. I've dropped the
cursor down right here at the beginning of
| | 00:41 | bar 41 and I'm going to hit the Tab
key and you're going to see the cursor
| | 00:52 | bounces from Transient to Transient in
the waveform. Let's take a closer look.
| | 01:04 | If you press Option on a Mac or
Ctrl on a PC and then Tab, we can tab
| | 01:10 | backwards. If you press Shift and
Tab, we can highlight as we Tab to
| | 01:18 | Transients. And if you press Option+
Shift+Tab on a Mac or Ctrl+Shift+Tab on a
| | 01:27 | PC, we can highlight backwards
and keep this whole part selected.
| | 01:33 | Now this is a great way for creating
loops and defining the territory, the part
| | 01:39 | of the region that you want for the loop.
I'm going to zoom back out and we'll
| | 01:43 | move on to the next button. Mirrored
MIDI Editing, and in fact we're going to
| | 01:48 | cover this in a later
video about editing MIDI data.
| | 01:51 | Let's talk about Link Timeline and Edit
Selections. This button enables you to
| | 01:56 | set the play and edit ranges by
selecting in the tracks playlist. Usually, you
| | 02:01 | want to keep this linked or active like
this when it's turned blue so that what
| | 02:06 | you choose in the
Timeline reflects what you edit.
| | 02:08 | So you see when we select here in a
track that's the Edit Selection and it's
| | 02:17 | mirrored up here in the Timeline. So
those two are linked. However, if we
| | 02:22 | unlink this, we can make separate
selections. So now this amount of time,
| | 02:30 | that's how much is selected in the
Timeline, but down here we have a different
| | 02:35 | edit selection. This is great to use
with the dynamic Transport mode too, which
| | 02:40 | we can choose from Options
and choose Dynamic Transport.
| | 02:45 | Now we have decoupled the Playback
start location from the edit selection.
| | 02:51 | This is the Playback start marker and we
can drag that anywhere to start playing
| | 02:56 | back the track from any point where
we drop that in. So if we start at the
| | 03:00 | beginning, it will sound like this.
| | 03:02 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:15 | So Pro Tools is looping through this.
However, we can edit different parts of
| | 03:22 | this while keeping this Timeline
Selection the same. If we drag the Playback
| | 03:28 | start marker while this is playing, it
will actually change where it starts and
| | 03:33 | we can hear the transition from the end of
this loop back to the beginning. Check this out.
| | 03:39 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:52 | So I'm going to play this one more
time and actually cut this section out and
| | 03:57 | you'll hear how that affects what goes on
in real time as we're playing this back.
| | 04:02 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:18 | So now I can hear what this sounds
like when I've cut these two beats out of
| | 04:21 | the drum track, even while this is
looping playing a larger area.
| | 04:26 | Now personally I usually just keep the Link
Selections button highlighted, but when
| | 04:31 | recording or editing loops, it can
be handy to unlink and use the Dynamic
| | 04:36 | Transport in this particular way.
| | 04:39 | Let's go to the next button. Here we
have the Link track and Edit Selection
| | 04:43 | button. When this is highlighted, you
can select Track Material and the track
| | 04:47 | name of each associated
track is highlighted too.
| | 04:52 | So with the selector, if I click-and-
drag across all these tracks, you'll see
| | 04:59 | over here that the track names get
highlighted. Now this allows you to apply
| | 05:05 | track level commands such as making all
the tracks inactive all at once.
| | 05:09 | So if I go up to Track > Make Inactive
all of the tracks that are highlighted get
| | 05:17 | treated the same way.
| | 05:23 | Finally let's move on to Insertion
Follows Playback. This is an interesting
| | 05:27 | button. Let me show you how it works.
First I'm going to turnoff Dynamic
| | 05:34 | Transport and I'm also going to link
the Timeline and Edit Selection again.
| | 05:41 | So now when I press Play,
we're back to normal.
| | 05:43 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:50 | But the thing about this feature is
actually what happens when you press Stop.
| | 05:55 | When I just press Stop there,
it brought the cursor right back to where it
| | 05:58 | started. However, if I use Insertion
Follows Playback and press Play,
| | 06:05 | the cursor will actually stop and stay put
right where I stopped it as opposed to
| | 06:11 | returning to this original
start point. Watch this.
| | 06:15 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:20 | So now the cursor is over here.
This could be pretty handy, if you are
| | 06:25 | recording voiceovers or editing in
certain ways. I personally like to turn this off,
| | 06:31 | but it can be useful
in certain circumstances.
| | 06:36 | In addition to the regular key commands
in Pro Tools, we also have the keyboard
| | 06:40 | focus that enables you to use the Alpha
keys on your keyboard to access a wide
| | 06:45 | range of single key shortcuts and that
button is right here the Keyboard Focus.
| | 06:50 | There are several of them in the Edit
window. One right here, one right here
| | 06:55 | for the Regions List and one
over here in the Groups list.
| | 07:01 | But I want to talk about this one.
This gives us a number of single key
| | 07:07 | shortcuts for editing and playing.
Here are some of my favorites. If you hit
| | 07:12 | the minus key, we have a Track View
Toggle that toggles between waveform and
| | 07:19 | volume. And notice that this track is
highlighted and it only does it for that highlighted track.
| | 07:28 | If I highlight across all these using
the Link track and Edit Selection button
| | 07:35 | then all of them will change. Here
are few my other favorites. Zoom Toggle,
| | 07:40 | press the E key that zooms in and if I
want to just zoom in on one track, just
| | 07:49 | hit the E key with the Command Focus
and you get a really big version of the track.
| | 07:53 | Press R to zoom out, press T to
zoom in, and press B to separate region.
| | 08:04 | The special editing buttons here
demonstrate some of the unique powers that
| | 08:08 | Pro Tools has for editing audio. If you
can master the features of these buttons,
| | 08:12 | you'll really be an efficient Pro Tools user.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating an audio loop| 00:00 | The process of creating an audio loop
ties in many editing concepts, techniques
| | 00:05 | and tools. In this video, we'll start
with the whole file audio region and
| | 00:10 | create a loop from it.
| | 00:12 | First, let's make sure we're in Loop
Playback. Let's go to Options, choose Loop
| | 00:17 | Playback, or you can right-click the
Play button and choose Loop Playback.
| | 00:25 | Also, let's make sure that we have
the All group selected. It will be
| | 00:28 | highlighted or colored, like this.
| | 00:32 | This track that I'm editing here was
recorded to a click track, so I'm going to
| | 00:36 | make sure I'm in Grid mode and then
I'm going to go and select four bars,
| | 00:42 | exactly. Try to make a loop out of
these four bars. I'm going to press Play and
| | 00:48 | we'll listen to what we've got.
| | 00:50 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:05 | That sounds pretty good. If you don't
want to have to listen through to the
| | 01:08 | whole loop, to find out how the loop
cycles around from the end, back to the
| | 01:13 | beginning, go up to Options, choose
Dynamic Transport. Then you can pull the
| | 01:20 | Play Marker, close to the
end of the region. Press Play.
| | 01:24 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:27 | And it will cycle just from the end
back to the beginning. I'm pretty happy
| | 01:33 | with the way that sounds. So I'm going to
keep that highlighted as we have it here.
| | 01:37 | Now, I'm going to separate this region.
Edit > Separate Region > At Selection.
| | 01:44 | So I've got a four-bar phrase right here
and I'm going to zoom in on the very
| | 01:51 | beginning of this to check how the
edit is. Now, it looks like the guitar is
| | 01:55 | just a little bit ahead of the beat
right here. So I'm going to smooth that out.
| | 02:00 | What I ultimately want to do is trim
the beginning of this region, so that the
| | 02:04 | region starts immediately before a
large transient in the Waveform, like right here.
| | 02:09 | So it's kind of picking up right
in the middle of the transient and I'm
| | 02:12 | going to bring the edit point out into
here. So, I'm going onto Slip mode, grab
| | 02:19 | the Trimmer and pull that out.
| | 02:24 | If you want it to actually stay in Grid
mode and temporarily go into Slip, you
| | 02:31 | can press Command on a Mac or Ctrl on a
PC and temporarily enter Slip mode.
| | 02:36 | So now I've trimmed the beginning of this
region. However, it's not on the Grid
| | 02:42 | anymore. So go back to Grid mode and
I'm going to take the Time Grabber, slide
| | 02:50 | this to the beginning of this beat, bar 7.
| | 02:54 | Let me zoom out, and I'm actually
going to go and zoom in on the end of this
| | 03:04 | region. You'll see that it is no
longer at the bar line. So I'm going to trim
| | 03:11 | that off and let's listen to our region.
| | 03:17 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:32 | That sounds more natural to me. The
guitars are lined up with the grid a little
| | 03:36 | bit better and the transition from
the end, back to the beginning is pretty smooth.
| | 03:41 | Now, what if I want to actually
create multiple copies of this loop?
| | 03:47 | Well, we can choose Edit > Duplicate
for one copy or choose Edit > Repeat, and
| | 03:58 | we can choose a Number of Repeats,
say 2, or even better than that.
| | 04:05 | We can go to Region > Loop. This is my
favorite way to do it. We can select the
| | 04:12 | number of loops. We could tell it how
long we want it to loop. We can loop
| | 04:18 | until the end of the session or the
next region, and we can automatically
| | 04:22 | enable crossfades between the loops. We
can change the settings to whatever we
| | 04:27 | want here. I'll check it out. We've
got all these loops, with crossfades in
| | 04:41 | between them. Let's hear how it sounds.
| | 04:45 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:50 | Pretty smooth transition from one to
the next and it's right in time with the
| | 04:54 | beat as you can hear with the click track.
| | 04:57 | So these are the basic steps to making
an audio loop in Pro Tools. We used a
| | 05:01 | lot of different editing concepts,
techniques and tools for this process.
| | 05:06 | As you get more familiar with Pro Tools,
you'll be able to make loops like this in no time.
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| Editing a voiceover| 00:00 | When the editing speech for a voiceover,
a monologue, lead vocals, whatever,
| | 00:05 | it's customary to edit the words so
that there are no stuttering, stammering,
| | 00:09 | hesitation or mistakes in the
reading or performing of the material.
| | 00:13 | Many times, it's also beneficial in
voiceovers to eliminate unnecessary pauses
| | 00:18 | and open spaces between words and
sentences. This will increase the pace of the
| | 00:22 | performance and is often done when
there is a lot of breathing pauses or when
| | 00:27 | you want to intensify the impact of the
delivery, like a fast talking radio DJ.
| | 00:33 | Overall, the idea is to
create a perfect performance.
| | 00:36 | So when you're editing speech or vocals,
it's always a good idea to have the
| | 00:39 | script, the text or the lyrics as a
printed guide for making notes about where
| | 00:43 | you place your edits. In this case,
I've included those here in the Comments
| | 00:48 | section of this track.
| | 00:50 | So first, we're going to listen to the
entire performance and you'll see along
| | 00:54 | the way that I've created markers that indicate
the good spots, I think. You can be the judge.
| | 01:01 | (Male Speaker: Voiceovers can be easy to edit-)
(Coughs.)
| | 01:06 | (Male Speaker: Voiceovers can be easy to edit
as long as the voiceover talent doesn't screw up- um-huh-)
| | 01:12 | (Male Speaker: Yeah. Voiceover--)
| | 01:16 | (Male Speaker: Voiceovers can be easy to edit
as long as the voiceover talent doesn't screw up his lines.)
| | 01:21 | (Male Speaker: As long as the voiceover
talent doesn't screw up his lines.)
| | 01:27 | (Male Speaker: You also need to be aware of breath sounds...)
| | 01:31 | (Male Speaker: You also need to be aware of breath sounds
because making an edit in the middle of a breath...)
| | 01:38 | (Male Speaker: Because making an edit in the middle
of a breath will make your voiceover track sound...)
| | 01:45 | (Male Speaker: Will make your voiceover
track sound, well, edited and imperfect.)
| | 01:51 | Okay, so there is the raw track.
Not the best material to start working with,
| | 01:56 | but that's why we're here to edit that.
So I'm just going to go to town.
| | 02:00 | I'm going to start with the Trimmer tool
in Slip mode and I'm going to trim off
| | 02:07 | certain parts here. So first, before I
start editing anything, I'm going to go
| | 02:12 | over and create a duplicate playlist
and I'm going to call this Voiceover edit.
| | 02:21 | Now I've got the raw file on this
voiceover playlist and this new playlist for
| | 02:28 | my edit. A quick note about markers.
I drop these markers in simply by hitting
| | 02:33 | this Plus button at any point where I
thought that the performance was good.
| | 02:38 | So if you hit that, you get this New
Memory Location dialog and you can select
| | 02:45 | all these information. We actually
cover this in a different video in this
| | 02:49 | course. So check out that video if you have
questions about markers and memory locations.
| | 02:55 | So let's get to editing. I'm going to
trim off this section right up to the
| | 03:02 | beginning of where I thought that the
first sentence was good. Now I'm going to
| | 03:05 | play it and find out how much
of this section was actually good.
| | 03:09 | (Male Speaker: Voiceovers can be easy to edit
as long as the voiceover talent doesn't screw up- um-huh-)
| | 03:15 | Okay, so I'm going to chop it right
here all the way up to the next good point.
| | 03:24 | I'm going to hit the Delete button to
cut that all out. Let's hear this section.
| | 03:29 | (Male Speaker: As long as the voiceover
talent doesn't screw up his lines.)
| | 03:34 | I'm going to go over to the Grabber
tool and put this into Shuffle and slide
| | 03:41 | this over. Let's see if
these two work together.
| | 03:44 | (Male Speaker: Voiceovers can be easy to edit
as long as the voiceover talent doesn't screw up his lines.)
| | 03:50 | That sounds pretty good. Go back to
Slip mode and to the Trimmer. I'm going to
| | 03:55 | trim this all the way off and I'm
going to stop right here because it looks
| | 04:01 | like there is a little breath.
Let's have a listen.
| | 04:03 | (Male Speaker: You also need to be aware of breath sounds
because making an edit in the middle of a breath...)
| | 04:10 | So it sounds like this is pretty
good from here to about this point.
| | 04:14 | I'm going to choose the Selector and go all
the way to the next good point here and
| | 04:22 | it looks like there might be a breath
there that I might want to keep. So I'm
| | 04:25 | going to cut this area
out and have a listen here.
| | 04:29 | (Male Speaker: Because making an edit in the middle
of a breath will make your voiceover track sound...)
| | 04:36 | Let's have a listen to this second half.
I don't know that this is very good.
| | 04:39 | (Male Speaker: Will make
your voiceover track sound....)
| | 04:41 | Yeah, it gets cut off.
So where does this one go?
| | 04:45 | (Male Speaker: Will make your voiceover
track sound, well, edited and imperfect.)
| | 04:51 | Okay, so I'm trying to place this
cursor and drag it over here with about the
| | 04:58 | same distance between the beginning of
this phrase and the beginning of this
| | 05:02 | phrase, because they're both the same
sentence. Now, if I hit Delete in Shuffle mode,
| | 05:09 | it will pop that right in there and
we can hear what that sounds like altogether.
| | 05:15 | (Male Speaker: Because making an edit in the middle of a breath
will make your voiceover track sound, well, edited and imperfect.)
| | 05:25 | Okay, maybe a little bit too much
space between these two regions,
| | 05:28 | but we'll work on that later.
| | 05:30 | So now, I'm going to stay in Shuffle
mode and I'm going to choose the Grabber
| | 05:36 | and bring all of these together.
And let's hear what it sounds like.
| | 05:42 | (Male Speaker: Voiceovers can be easy to edit
as long as the voiceover talent doesn't screw up his lines.)
| | 05:49 | (Male Speaker: You also need to be aware of breath
sounds because making an edit in the middle of a breath...)
| | 05:55 | (Male Speaker: ...will make your voiceover
track sound, well, edited and imperfect.)
| | 06:02 | Okay, we're almost there. We've got
too much space here between these two lines.
| | 06:07 | It sounds like there is a
mistake here in the edit right here because
| | 06:12 | the breath is cut and we've got
some extra space at the end here.
| | 06:17 | Let's fix those up real quick.
| | 06:18 | I go into Slip mode with the Selector
and take this section out. Actually, go
| | 06:30 | to Shuffle and now I'm going to hit
Delete and bring those two together.
| | 06:34 | Let's hear how that sounds.
| | 06:36 | (Male Speaker: ...doesn't screw up his lines.)
| | 06:38 | (Male Speaker: You also need to
be aware of breath sounds...)
| | 06:41 | That sounds pretty good. Let's move on.
Let's listen to this area here.
| | 06:46 | It sounds like the breath is cut.
| | 06:47 | (Male Speaker: ...sounds because making...)
| | 06:50 | We'll zoom in. It looks like there
are two breaths that were cut together.
| | 06:57 | (Male Speaker: ...sounds because making an...)
| | 07:00 | So let's pick one and in this case,
I'm going to go to the Trimmer tool and
| | 07:04 | Slip mode, pull that out, oh!
We don't want that to happen. So, pull this back
| | 07:13 | here and let's hear
how this breath works.
| | 07:18 | (Male Speaker: ...sounds because making an edit...)
| | 07:21 | That sounds much better.
Let's hear it one more time.
| | 07:24 | (Male Speaker: ...breath sounds
because making an edit in the...)
| | 07:28 | It sounds much more natural.
Let's check out this transition.
| | 07:31 | (Male Speaker: ...breath will make your
voiceover track sound, well, edited and imperfect.)
| | 07:37 | All right, we can work with that.
Sometimes when you're editing, you might open
| | 07:41 | up a free space between two regions
where there is no audio whatsoever.
| | 07:47 | In this case, we don't have any of that,
which is a good thing, because often you want
| | 07:52 | to fill those spaces with what's
called Room tone. Room tone is the sound of
| | 07:56 | the room where you're recording a
voiceover. The tone of the room includes any
| | 08:01 | unintended noise from computer fans, AC units,
or other items that affect the noise in the room.
| | 08:07 | I'm going to take a little bit of sound
out of here. We'll hear what the sound
| | 08:11 | difference is. So I'll delete this for
a second and let's hear what it sounds
| | 08:16 | like without the Room tone
between these two regions.
| | 08:19 | (Male Speaker: ...breath will
make your voiceover track...)
| | 08:22 | It might not be that obvious to you
right now, but if you actually increase the
| | 08:26 | volume during that section, or if you
end up compressing or limiting this when
| | 08:31 | you're doing the mix down, that
difference might be very obvious and unintended
| | 08:37 | effect that you don't want.
| | 08:39 | So keep the room tone in between the
regions and you won't have to worry about it.
| | 08:44 | One suggestion for you too is to
record about 30 seconds to a minute of
| | 08:49 | room tone and either have it at the
end or the beginning of your session, so
| | 08:53 | that you always have that to pull from
if you need to pull a piece and drop it
| | 08:57 | in between two regions.
| | 08:59 | One last thing that I would recommend
doing is putting very short crossfades
| | 09:03 | between each of these regions to
smooth out any possible clicks or pops, any
| | 09:09 | differences in sound between any of the regions.
| | 09:13 | So I would go in here, turn on the
Smart tool and add small little crossfades,
| | 09:24 | and I would do that for each one of
these edits. Now one thing I'll mention too
| | 09:29 | is that some clients actually might
want the empty space between each of these
| | 09:34 | regions and it's up to them, but I
personally prefer the room tone to carry on
| | 09:39 | the continuity of the sound of the
overall voiceover here. So now that we've
| | 09:43 | got a full edit here,
let's take a listen to it.
| | 09:49 | (Male Speaker: Voiceovers can be easy to edit
as long as the voiceover talent doesn't screw up his lines.)
| | 09:55 | (Male Speaker: You also need to be aware of breath sounds
because making an edit in the middle of a breath...)
| | 10:01 | (Male Speaker: ...will make your voiceover
track sound, well, edited and imperfect.)
| | 10:07 | Okay, the pace of that is not too bad.
It's a little bit slow. There are some
| | 10:11 | longer pauses between some of the
sentences that we might want and there are
| | 10:15 | actually breaths in there that we may
or may not want. Some people don't like
| | 10:19 | to have the breath sounds on a voiceover track.
| | 10:22 | So we could go in and fine-tune this,
edit the breaths out, create smaller
| | 10:27 | spaces between the regions and create
a faster pace for this voiceover, if we
| | 10:32 | want to. It's totally up
to you or up to the client.
| | 10:36 | So once you're done editing the
voiceover material, listen to the whole track
| | 10:40 | through and make sure it flows and that
the pace of the reading and the breaths
| | 10:44 | in between, all sound natural. Alter it
as needed, adding fades and crossfades
| | 10:49 | to avoid any sonic changes between the regions.
| | 10:52 | With all those techniques put together, you know the
process for editing a voiceover track in Pro Tools.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. Arranging a SessionWorking with region groups| 00:00 | One of the features of Pro Tools that
makes large scale editing and song form
| | 00:04 | arrangement so easy is region groups.
A region group is a combination of
| | 00:09 | several audio and/or MIDI regions
that act like a single region. Creating a
| | 00:14 | region group is really easy. All you
have got to do is highlight a bunch of
| | 00:20 | audio and MIDI material. Choose
Region and Group. Here's your region group.
| | 00:29 | Let's say this region group makes up
one verse of your song, but what if you
| | 00:32 | want to hear what your song sounds
like with a double verse. Here's where
| | 00:36 | region groups are really useful
for song arrangement purposes.
| | 00:39 | First, I'm going to choose Shuffle mode
and then Edit > Duplicate. This inserts
| | 00:46 | a copy of the region group into the
song and shifts everything after it to the right.
| | 00:51 | Pretty slick. I don't think
it'll work for this song though, but it's
| | 00:54 | easy enough to test it out. So
let's go back to the original form.
| | 01:00 | This region group contains both Audio
and MIDI regions and that's indicated by
| | 01:06 | this little icon right down here. If
we make a region group from just MIDI
| | 01:15 | we'll get a little MIDI region group
icon, and if we make one for just Audio,
| | 01:23 | we have a little waveform guy down there.
| | 01:26 | And of course, there are keyboard
commands for region groups. To make a region
| | 01:32 | group on a Mac, press Command+
Option+G. On a PC Ctrl+Alt+G.
| | 01:37 | You can also choose to ungroup a group
that we make Command+Option+U on a Mac,
| | 01:43 | or Ctrl+Alt+U in Windows, and that
just returns us to the status that we had
| | 01:49 | before we made the Group.
| | 01:51 | Now if you need to edit one region
within a region group, you should ungroup
| | 01:55 | the region, like we just did here,
edit the region, and we can hit Regroup.
| | 02:04 | Command+Option+R, or Ctrl+Alt+R on Windows.
And that reestablishes the region group here.
| | 02:12 | Once you make a region group, it
actually shows up in the Regions list and you
| | 02:17 | can see them down here along with
their icons. Once you've created a region
| | 02:22 | group you can do all of the same
things that you can do to other types of
| | 02:25 | regions, including selecting, trimming,
separating, naming, moving, cutting,
| | 02:30 | copying, pasting, muting, locking,
adding fades and crossfades, looping, and
| | 02:35 | even using tab to transience.
| | 02:38 | So let's take a look, let's trim this
one and we can cut sections out of there,
| | 02:47 | we can even create fades. We'll zoom
in. You'll notice that fades and cross
| | 03:00 | fades only apply to the audio regions
within the Group. However, if you ungroup
| | 03:06 | the region group those fades and
crossfades will be removed. Let's ungroup it
| | 03:13 | and see that. See they are gone. If we
regroup them, the fades will be back.
| | 03:20 | Now what happens if you decide to
record on to a region group? We'll put this
| | 03:30 | track into record. Let's get the
Transport controls up here and we've recorded
| | 03:40 | a little bit. And you'll notice that
the new recording is not part of region group.
| | 03:45 | In fact all MIDI editing and
certain audio commands create new regions
| | 03:51 | over the region groups. So, if you
actually want to record into this region group,
| | 03:56 | you need to ungroup the region
first, then record, then Regroup the region.
| | 04:02 | Another interesting tidbit about region
groups is that they have the same time
| | 04:07 | based format, that is, Samples or
Ticks, as the tracks that they contain.
| | 04:12 | Mixed region groups like the one
we're looking at here can have both Sample
| | 04:16 | based and Tick based tracks. And if
you change the Tempo in this session, the
| | 04:22 | region groups in the Tick based tracks
will adjust there length by moving all
| | 04:25 | included regions. But the audio will
not. Let's check that out. I'm going to
| | 04:33 | change the Tempo and you should see
the MIDI tracks get a little bit shorter
| | 04:39 | because I'm increasing the
Tempo, but the audio will not.
| | 04:42 | And that's just what happened here,
the MIDI regions are now shorter than the
| | 04:47 | Audio regions. And as soon as we did
that, our region group became a separated
| | 04:52 | region group and you can see that by
this icon right here. Now, if you need to
| | 04:56 | review the differences between
Samples and Ticks, visit the video about it
| | 05:00 | earlier in this course.
| | 05:02 | One last thing about region groups,
Pro Tools can import and export region
| | 05:06 | group files. The file format is rgrp.
To export them go to the Regions list and
| | 05:14 | we can choose Export Region Groups, if we
have one actually selected. Right there.
| | 05:23 | We can also import region groups. If we
go to File > Import Region Groups.
| | 05:33 | This is a great feature for bringing multi-
track loops into a pre-existing session.
| | 05:39 | Region groups are helpful organizational
tools for arranging the parts of a song.
| | 05:42 | I make use of them all the
time, and I'm sure you will too.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting time, tempo, meter, key, and chord| 00:00 | Near the top of the Edit window are
the Timebase Rulers. The Timebase Ruler
| | 00:04 | provides timing reference for all of
the track material. You can choose to view
| | 00:08 | any or all of the time based rulers in
the Edit window, using the Ruler View
| | 00:12 | Selector button, right here.
| | 00:16 | Notice that all of these have
checkmarks, so we're seeing all of them.
| | 00:20 | The Timebase Ruler that's highlighted,
in this case the Bar and Beat ruler, is the
| | 00:24 | current main time scale. This
determines a time format used in the Transport
| | 00:30 | window down here, also up in the Edit
selection area and even in the Grid and Nudge values.
| | 00:37 | If you're working with musical
materials that align with Bars and Beats, like
| | 00:40 | working with the Click track, I would
definitely choose Bars and Beats as your
| | 00:45 | main timescale. I use Minutes and
Seconds really only as a time reference, and
| | 00:50 | I rarely concern myself with Samples.
But as you can see, when you change
| | 00:55 | these, all of these time
references change with them as well.
| | 01:02 | Below the Timebase rulers are the
conductor rulers. We have Tempo, Meter, Key,
| | 01:07 | Chords, and Markers. The Tempo
controls the speed of the song, the Meter
| | 01:13 | conducts the time signature, the Key
Signature ruler keeps track of any key
| | 01:17 | changes. The Chord ruler shows chords
and the Marker ruler labels specific
| | 01:23 | points in time. Like here we have the Start
marker. We have where the sitar enters and so on.
| | 01:31 | When you open a brand new Pro Tools
session, the default tempo is usually 120.
| | 01:35 | I have changed this tempo in the
session to 100 and it's easy enough to change
| | 01:41 | the tempo many other times in the
session. All you got to do is hit this little
| | 01:45 | plus button to add a Tempo Change. In
this window, you can tell Pro Tools where
| | 01:51 | to change the tempo and to what
BPM, as well as the resolution.
| | 01:56 | You can also do that for the meter,
can change the Meter. You can add key
| | 02:05 | signatures, you can add chords, and
markers. We're going to talk more about
| | 02:18 | markers and memory locations in another
movie in this course. Now what happens
| | 02:23 | if you don't actually know the tempo
that you want for your session? Well you
| | 02:27 | can tap in the tempo. Try this.
| | 02:30 | Go down to the Transport window and
make sure that you see the MIDI controls in
| | 02:36 | your Transport window, unhighlight the
Conductor track, and that puts Pro Tools
| | 02:43 | into Manual Tempo mode. You can see
that indicated right here in the Tempo ruler.
| | 02:48 | Then place the cursor into
the Tempo area right here and click to
| | 02:53 | highlight the Tempo. Then start
pressing T to get your Tempo, or you can press
| | 03:04 | a key on a MIDI keyboard.
| | 03:06 | Once you've pressed the key eight
times or less, Pro Tools will determine the
| | 03:10 | new BPM. If you actually want to
make the Tempo change, here is what I
| | 03:14 | recommend doing. Take Pro Tools out
of Manual Tempo mode by pressing the
| | 03:19 | Conductor track button and remembering
the number that you chose here, you can
| | 03:24 | go and Add Tempo Change. So first let's
listen to what we have at 100 BPM.
| | 03:31 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:43 | Now, if we change the Tempo, starting
at that particular location, Bar 3, Beat 1,
| | 03:49 | we change it to 154, like we
thought we wanted it. Let's check it out.
| | 03:56 | Notice that all the MIDI tracks move
because they're tied to the Bars and Beats,
| | 04:00 | and if we press Play,
we'll see what happens.
| | 04:03 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:10 | Whoa, that's pretty fast. Let's undo
that. If you would like to make some
| | 04:16 | fine-tuning to your tempo, go down to
the Tempo Editor, by clicking this little
| | 04:21 | button right here and expand it out.
In this Editor, we can actually draw in
| | 04:28 | tempo changes. So I'm going to click
the Pencil tool, click-and-drag and there
| | 04:35 | you go. You've got an
accelerando from 100 BPM to 117.
| | 04:43 | If you want to create some more
complicated tempo and meter changes in your
| | 04:46 | session, you can up to the Event menu
and choose from the Time Operations and
| | 04:52 | Tempo Operations. Let's open up the
Tempo Operations window. In this window, we
| | 04:57 | can stretch time, we can scale it, we
can create curves, constant time changes,
| | 05:05 | all kinds of options.
| | 05:07 | Take some time to explore the Tempo
Operations window. But I'm not going to go
| | 05:11 | into a lot of details about it here.
Also visit the Time Operations window,
| | 05:18 | where you can change meter, insert time,
that is, put an extra amount of time
| | 05:24 | somewhere in the session. You can cut
time out of the session and you can even
| | 05:30 | move the song starting position.
| | 05:34 | Pro Tools offers limitless ways to
customize your session. Use the Conductors
| | 05:38 | Rulers to create tempo, meter, and key changes,
as well as to display chords and show markers.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating memory locations| 00:00 | In their simplest form, a Memory
Location can simply be a marker used to denote
| | 00:04 | the beginning or ending of a musical
section. However, Memory Locations can be
| | 00:09 | used for so much more as you'll see
here. There are several ways to create a
| | 00:13 | Memory Location. You can hit the
Enter key in the numeric keypad or in Pro Tools
| | 00:19 | you can click this little
plus sign in the Markers ruler.
| | 00:23 | If Pro Tools is stopped, the Memory
Location is placed at the current cursor
| | 00:27 | position. However, if Pro Tools is
playing or recording, Pro Tools will place
| | 00:32 | a memory location right where
the cursor is located without stopping
| | 00:37 | playback or record. This is called
dropping in a memory location on the fly and
| | 00:42 | let's try it right now.
| | 00:44 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:57 | So there you go, we just dropped in
the bass in Memory Location at bar 3 and
| | 01:03 | we did it on the fly. Let's open up
that marker. I'm going to double-click to
| | 01:08 | open the Edit Memory location window.
| | 01:11 | In this window, we've got a lot of
options. Let's start with the Time
| | 01:15 | Properties. A marker recalls a
particular location in the timeline in your
| | 01:19 | session. The playback cursor
immediately moves to the marker's location when
| | 01:24 | you recall a marker memory location.
Markers are referenced either to bar and
| | 01:28 | beat or absolute time. When you choose
Bar|Beat, it's tick based and in this
| | 01:33 | particular case, we have a Bar|
Beat marker and it is at bar 3 beat 1.
| | 01:39 | If I change the tempo for this Bar|
Beat marker, the marker will follow the
| | 01:45 | tempo change. However, if I chose
Absolute for this marker, the marker will be
| | 01:51 | set in an absolute time and will be
sample based. If I change the tempo, the
| | 01:57 | marker will not move.
| | 01:58 | As we can see over here, markers
appear in the Markers ruler within yellow
| | 02:03 | lines extending all the way down
through the Edit window. This is helpful in
| | 02:07 | editing and aligning track material.
Additionally, they have different
| | 02:11 | appearances depending on whether they
are Absolute or Bar|Beat markers. Here is
| | 02:15 | the Bar|Beat marker, here is an
Absolute marker. This one's a diamond.
| | 02:21 | The other one's a yellow chevron.
| | 02:21 | Let's go back to the Time Properties.
If we chose Selection, that's different
| | 02:26 | than a marker. A selection memory
location stores a highlighted area in your
| | 02:31 | session, like 4 bars in a song's
verse. Like markers, selections can be
| | 02:36 | referenced either as Bar|Beat or as Absolute.
| | 02:40 | A third memory location option, None,
recalls no time properties and is
| | 02:45 | referred to as a general properties
memory location. I'll show you more about
| | 02:49 | this type in a moment.
| | 02:50 | Let's move down to the General
Properties. Zoom settings recall the horizontal
| | 02:55 | and vertical zoom values for both
audio and MIDI tracks. This option is very
| | 02:59 | useful in switching between totally
zoomed in and zoomed out views while
| | 03:03 | editing. Pre and Post Roll Times
recall pre and post roll times in the
| | 03:08 | Transport window but don't indicate
whether they are actually enabled.
| | 03:12 | This option is used for when
recording multiple takes of a solo or a vocal part.
| | 03:16 | Track Show/Hide recalls which
tracks are shown or hidden in the session.
| | 03:22 | Use this property to display specific
tracks for editing and mixing. It's great
| | 03:26 | to use this in mixing so you can
focus on specific groups of tracks like
| | 03:30 | showing all of the drums or just the guitars.
| | 03:34 | Track Heights recalls all the track
heights in the session. This is even more
| | 03:38 | powerful when using it in tandem with
the zoom settings for editing tasks.
| | 03:43 | Group Enables recalls which edit
and mix groups are enabled and Window
| | 03:47 | Configuration recalls any saved window
configuration that you have got in your
| | 03:52 | session. Here I have got two different
ones and those two show different setups
| | 03:57 | on your screen of the Edit window, the Mix
window, and any other windows that are open.
| | 04:02 | Finally, below that we have the Comment
section, where you can type comments up
| | 04:06 | to 255 characters long. A cool detail
about this is that the comment shows up
| | 04:12 | when you mouse over the markers in the
Markers ruler. Let me cancel this for a
| | 04:16 | second. And we'll look at the Memory
Locations window. You can open the Memory
| | 04:21 | Locations window by choosing
the Window > Memory Locations.
| | 04:27 | In this window, we see all of the
memory locations here. We have got a number
| | 04:31 | of markers, a selection and our
general properties memory location. When you
| | 04:37 | are working in a session with a lot of
memory locations, it's useful to keep
| | 04:40 | the Memory Locations window open at
almost all times. Let me click through a
| | 04:44 | few of these memory locations I have got.
| | 04:46 | So here's the Start marker, you can see
that a few things are saved with this.
| | 04:53 | We have Zoom Settings and we have the
Track Show/Hide and Track View, and the
| | 04:59 | Window Configurations. Let's check
out a few of the other ones. Here is the
| | 05:03 | Sitar Enters marker. You see that we
have different Zoom Settings and Track Views.
| | 05:09 | Let's go further down, we'll
zoom back out for the Break marker.
| | 05:16 | Let's check out a selection memory
location. If we click there we can see that
| | 05:21 | although there is no marker, we do have
a selection and that is a selection on
| | 05:26 | the Organ track here. Now let's check
out a general properties memory location,
| | 05:32 | the Mini Grand Zoom and that's zoomed in
very largely on the Mini Grand MIDI track here.
| | 05:39 | So we go back to the Start that zooms
us all the way back out. So it's pretty
| | 05:43 | cool to be able to switch between
these different memory locations for zoom
| | 05:47 | levels and track heights and all that stuff.
Makes it easy for editing and for song organization.
| | 05:54 | Another feature of the Memory
Locations window is the menu right over here
| | 05:59 | where we can filter out what we see in
the Memory Locations window. We can show
| | 06:05 | counters so we can see where the
actual marker takes place. We can see the
| | 06:12 | comments if we want to and we can add
new memory locations, we can edit them,
| | 06:19 | clear them, delete them
and a few other options here.
| | 06:23 | One last thing, I want to mention is
that you can use keyboard shortcuts to go
| | 06:27 | to memory locations. If you go to
Setup > Preferences and if you go into the
| | 06:33 | Operation side here we can go to the
Numeric Keypad. If we set the Numeric
| | 06:38 | Keypad to Classic, then all you need to
do is hit a number and then the period
| | 06:44 | in the numeric keypad and that will
take you to any of the memory locations.
| | 06:49 | If you set the Numeric Keypad to Transport,
then you need to hit the period, the
| | 06:54 | number in the numeric keypad and then
the period again and that will take you
| | 06:57 | to a memory location.
| | 07:01 | So now you know everything there is to
know about memory locations. Use them to
| | 07:05 | quickly organize, navigate and
edit your Pro Tools sessions.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. Recording MIDI DataSetting up MIDI on a Mac | 00:00 | To setup your MIDI devices to work
with Pro Tools, first plug in all of the
| | 00:05 | devices including your MIDI
controllers, MIDI interfaces, sound modules,
| | 00:09 | anything that you might have that's
going to work with your MIDI setup. And
| | 00:13 | make sure you have all
the proper MIDI connections.
| | 00:16 | So connect the MIDI ins and outs and
the USB connections, the way that they
| | 00:20 | need to be and then you should start
up your computer and start up Pro Tools.
| | 00:25 | Once Pro Tools is open, go to the
Setup menu and choose MIDI > MIDI Studio.
| | 00:33 | That will open up the Audio MIDI Setup.
Click on the MIDI Devices tab, so that
| | 00:40 | you can see all the MIDI devices in your setup.
| | 00:43 | The Audio MIDI Setup or the AMS will
automatically scan your computer system
| | 00:48 | for properly connected MIDI interfaces,
and will show the interface with each
| | 00:52 | of its MIDI ports numbered. So we have
the Digi 003 here that has one MIDI in
| | 00:58 | and two MIDI outs. We also have this
E-MU keyboard and I'm going to add a
| | 01:03 | device now, so I click Add Device,
double-click to open the new external device
| | 01:10 | Properties window. I'm going to add a
Korg Triton. So choose the Manufacturer
| | 01:19 | from this list, Korg and the Model.
| | 01:25 | So once I have this information about
the manufacturer and the model, I'm going
| | 01:35 | to click Apply and that applies what
the normal setup for a Korg Triton is to
| | 01:41 | this device. Over here, in the Icon
Browser, I'm going to single-click and open
| | 01:46 | up the Icon Sets, I'll choose Generic
and find something that kind of looks
| | 01:53 | more like a triton. I'll apply
that and I'll close this window.
| | 02:02 | So now to connect the triton to the
Digi 003, I'm going to click on this arrow
| | 02:10 | and drag the cable to the 003, so I
have the MIDI out which is now connected to
| | 02:18 | the 003 MIDI in. I'll do the same, back.
So now we have a MIDI connection to
| | 02:28 | the 003 back and forth to the Korg Triton.
| | 02:32 | If you need to delete one of these
connections, you can click on it and press
| | 02:38 | Delete on the keyboard, here we go. I'm
going to redraw that because I do want
| | 02:44 | it there. Once I have got the setup,
the way that I want it, I'm going to close
| | 02:49 | this and now in Pro Tools, I can
actually see the devices that are connected.
| | 02:57 | So I've got a MIDI track here and I'm
going to choose the output, this is the
| | 03:02 | MIDI output selector for the MIDI track.
And I can see that my Korg Triton is
| | 03:08 | there. Choose channel-1.
| | 03:12 | By selecting Korg Triton channel-1,
that means that the output of this MIDI
| | 03:18 | track would be routed to the Korg
Triton for sounds. And if we want to actually
| | 03:24 | make sure that the sounds are correct,
we can click on the Patch list button
| | 03:29 | right here and there you go. We have
got our Korg Triton sounds preloaded in
| | 03:37 | here because in the Audio MIDI Setup,
we chose that device and it automatically
| | 03:43 | knows to put these patches in here.
| | 03:46 | Now if we wanted to change it to a
different patch name file instead of the
| | 03:51 | Korg Triton, we can hit Change and
that will take us right to the directory
| | 03:56 | where we can choose from any of these
manufacturers and any kind of device, but
| | 04:04 | I want to keep it as a Korg Triton,
so we'll just be done with that.
| | 04:09 | Repeat these steps as many times as
necessary for each MIDI device that's
| | 04:13 | connected to your system. With you
MIDI gear properly connected and routed
| | 04:17 | through the Audio MIDI Setup, Pro
Tools will know where your MIDI data is
| | 04:20 | coming from and recording
MIDI data will be much easier.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up MIDI on a PC| 00:00 | To setup your MIDI devices to work with
Pro Tools, plug-in all of your devices,
| | 00:04 | your MIDI controllers, MIDI interfaces,
and sound modules, and make sure that
| | 00:09 | they all have the proper MIDI
connections. Then start up your computer and
| | 00:14 | Pro Tools. Download any necessary drivers
for your MIDI devices and Windows should
| | 00:19 | let you know if you need them.
| | 00:21 | Once you are in Pro Tools, go to
Setup > MIDI > MIDI Studio Setup. The MIDI
| | 00:27 | Studio Setup application will open up.
Now let's create a new instrument such
| | 00:32 | as Create and come over here and we are
going to actually choose to add a Korg
| | 00:41 | Triton and Windows conveniently names
it for you right here. You can change
| | 00:46 | that if you need to.
| | 00:47 | Then go down to the Input Port and I'm
going to connect this to my Mbox 2.
| | 00:53 | Same with the Output Port. Then you can
choose your Send channels if you want.
| | 00:58 | I'm going to keep all of these on. When
they are blue, they are activated. So now,
| | 01:03 | I have got my Korg Triton setup and
ready to go connected through my Mbox 2.
| | 01:10 | On this MIDI track, we have the Input
and the Outputs right here for the MIDI,
| | 01:15 | and if we choose All, then any MIDI
controller that's connected to our system
| | 01:20 | can be used to input MIDI data. So
usually we'll keep that as the default or
| | 01:25 | you can choose just some channels or
all channels on your Triton or any other
| | 01:29 | device you have connected if you
want to. I'm going to leave it at All.
| | 01:33 | And then for the Output, you actually
need to choose where you want your sounds
| | 01:37 | to come from. So I'm going to choose
Triton Channel-1. Now that we have chosen
| | 01:43 | the device, we can choose the Patch.
| | 01:46 | You can come right over here to the
Patch list button, click on that, and
| | 01:50 | you will see that the Korg Triton patches
automatically come up. And that's why
| | 01:56 | when you setup the MIDI Studio Setup
with your individual instruments,
| | 01:59 | Pro Tools takes care of assigning the
right patch list to the right instruments.
| | 02:04 | Now, if for some reason you actually
want to change this, you want to change this,
| | 02:09 | you want to change the Patch name
file or the midnam file, you can go to
| | 02:12 | Change and that would take you to
the Digidesign folder. You can find a
| | 02:18 | different patch name document if you
want, but obviously since we are working
| | 02:22 | with the Korg Triton, we'll keep the
Korg Triton patches assigned to it.
| | 02:29 | So that's how you setup a MIDI device
in Windows for Pro Tools. Repeat these
| | 02:34 | steps as many times as necessary for
each MIDI device that's connected to your
| | 02:38 | system. With your MIDI gear properly
connected and routed through the MIDI
| | 02:41 | Studio Setup, Pro Tools will know
where your MIDI data is coming from, and
| | 02:46 | recording MIDI data will be much easier.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up MIDI in Pro Tools| 00:00 | Once you have added and configured all
of your MIDI devices in the Audio MIDI
| | 00:04 | Setup on a Mac or the MIDI studio
Setup on a Windows machine, there are a few
| | 00:10 | things to take care of to make sure
that MIDI works as it should in Pro Tools.
| | 00:14 | First, go to the Setup > MIDI > Input
Devices page and you will see the MIDI
| | 00:22 | Input Enable window, where all of your
devices should be checked off. Now these
| | 00:27 | are devices that actually input MIDI
data into Pro Tools. You won't see any
| | 00:32 | devices on here that are just sound
modules and don't actually create MIDI data.
| | 00:37 | Your window will probably look
different than mine here with different devices
| | 00:41 | but just make sure that they are all
checked off. Click OK. Next, go to the
| | 00:47 | Options menu and make sure that MIDI
Thru is checked off. This allows you to
| | 00:53 | monitor MIDI tracks while recording them.
| | 00:56 | When using MIDI Thru, disable Local
Control on your MIDI devices, otherwise,
| | 01:01 | they may receive the same MIDI data
twice, creating stuck notes or a phase like
| | 01:07 | effect where the two notes are
almost playing in sync. Consult your MIDI
| | 01:11 | controller's manual for information on how
to turn-off local control on your device.
| | 01:17 | Next, let's go back to the Setup menu
and choose Preferences. On the MIDI page,
| | 01:26 | let's look at the Default Thru
Instrument. To hear the audio output from the
| | 01:30 | MIDI instrument without having to
create and record-enable a MIDI track, route
| | 01:34 | your MIDI signal to the Default Thru Instrument.
| | 01:38 | In this case, we can choose none, we
can choose from any of the devices we have
| | 01:44 | connected to our system, or what I
like to choose best is the Follows First
| | 01:49 | Selected MIDI Track, so that will work
with both MIDI instruments and virtual
| | 01:55 | instruments if we have
instrument tracks in our session.
| | 02:00 | Click OK, and the last thing I want to
check off here is we'll go to the Setup
| | 02:06 | > MIDI > Input Filter. In this window,
we can filter out any MIDI data that you
| | 02:13 | don't want to be recorded with your
tracks. Usually, leave it again on the
| | 02:17 | default settings where all the MIDI
channel messages and controller data is
| | 02:22 | recorded except for the Aftertouch.
It's totally fine, but if you do want to
| | 02:28 | check off anything, you can
go ahead and check these boxes.
| | 02:32 | When you are finished, click OK. The
four setups I have shown you in this video
| | 02:37 | will ensure that Pro Tools is handling
your MIDI data correctly, and now you
| | 02:41 | should be ready to record and
play back MIDI data in Pro Tools.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Recording MIDI data| 00:00 | In Pro Tools there are two types of
tracks that can record MIDI performance data,
| | 00:04 | Instrument tracks and MIDI tracks.
Instrument tracks are easy to set up
| | 00:10 | and great for creating single tracks
with most virtual or software instruments
| | 00:14 | as well as external or
hardware MIDI sound modules.
| | 00:18 | In this video I'm going to go over how
to use Instrument tracks to record MIDI
| | 00:22 | data, using both virtual
instruments and external sound modules.
| | 00:27 | First, let's create some tracks.
I'm going to create two Stereo instrument tracks,
| | 00:35 | plus a Stereo Master Fader
track so we can monitor the output level.
| | 00:46 | I also want to create a Click track and
I want to expand these out so we can see
| | 00:53 | these tracks a little bigger and also
view some of the things that are going
| | 00:58 | on here. I'm also going to go up to the
View menu and choose Edit Window Views
| | 01:05 | > Instruments and also Inserts.
| | 01:12 | On our first Instrument track here I'm
going to insert an instrument. So I'll
| | 01:18 | choose multi channel plug-in >
Instrument. I'll choose Mini Grand.
| | 01:26 | Now that loads up this cool piano virtual
instrument. In the Instrument section of this track
| | 01:33 | you will see that the Mini Grand
has already been assigned to the MIDI
| | 01:37 | Output and the default All for the
MIDI Input selector is great to keep the
| | 01:43 | same too. This will mean that any
single MIDI controller that's connected to
| | 01:48 | your system can used for the input.
| | 01:52 | So any note that you hit on any of
those keyboards or other MIDI controllers
| | 01:56 | can be used to send sounds through the
Mini Grand plug-in. So we have our MIDI
| | 02:01 | Input and Output set and we have our
Instrument chosen. For the analog input and output,
| | 02:07 | we don't need an input because
the input is already in the track right here.
| | 02:12 | We have a software instrument, so
we don't need to grab any thing from an
| | 02:18 | input from our interface. We can just
go directly through the software.
| | 02:22 | And then that will go to the analog output, which
is ultimately going through our Master Fader.
| | 02:29 | So our Instrument track here is
set up and ready to go. On the second
| | 02:33 | Instrument track, I want to set it up
to utilize an external sound module.
| | 02:38 | So I'm going to go here to the MIDI
Output selector and choose korg triton >
| | 02:44 | channel-1. So now with this chosen as
the All input any key that we press on
| | 02:51 | any controller will control the
sound from the korg triton > channel-1.
| | 02:57 | However, we don't have that sound
coming into Pro Tools yet, so we need to
| | 03:01 | choose the input that the korg triton
is hooked up. So let's say Analog 3-4. So
| | 03:09 | we'd have to connect the output of the
korg triton the Analog audio outputs to
| | 03:15 | the input 3-4 on our Digidesign or M-
Audio interface. And then we can keep the
| | 03:22 | same main outputs here.
| | 03:23 | If you want to choose the patch for
the korg triton you can hit the Patch
| | 03:28 | Select button and choose one. So both
of these Instrument tracks are ready to record.
| | 03:37 | But before record let's make
sure we set the right Tempo. We can Add
| | 03:42 | Tempo Change here right at the
beginning of the session or anywhere we want,
| | 03:46 | if we click this little button. Type in
our Tempo Change here. If we need a Meter
| | 03:52 | Change we can do the same.
| | 03:57 | And one last one that we don't see
here yet. Key. If we want a key change,
| | 04:05 | we can add it in this window. Making sure
that we have the Tempo, Meter, and Key
| | 04:11 | setup properly before we start
recording is important later on when want to
| | 04:15 | edit MIDI data, because if we play to
the right Tempo and the Meter and even
| | 04:21 | the Key, then it's much easier to edit
the MIDI data later. So that's why we
| | 04:26 | have the Click track in here so we can
play along with the Click track as well.
| | 04:30 | So if click the Record Enable button,
and I want to make sure that our Click
| | 04:36 | track is going to happen here. So I'll
hit the MIDI Controls part of Edit toolbar,
| | 04:40 | check that our Metronome
button is on and the Conductor track is active.
| | 04:46 | So it's going to follow what we
have here and I'm going to turn off the
| | 04:51 | Count Off and press Record and Play.
| | 05:01 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:10 | There we have it, recording on an
Instrument track in Pro Tools. Now this will
| | 05:14 | become second nature to you with all of
these setups after you've done it just
| | 05:19 | a couple of times and you'll be
recording MIDI tracks and Instrument tracks in no time.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Recording multiple MIDI tracks with one virtual instrument| 00:00 | In this video, I'm going to show
you how to record multiple MIDI tracks
| | 00:04 | utilizing just one virtual instrument
by making use of MIDI Channels.
| | 00:08 | As you can see here in the Mix window,
I've got four MIDI tracks, one Stereo Aux Track,
| | 00:15 | and a Stereo Master Fader Track.
| | 00:18 | On each of the MIDI tracks here,
I've set the outputs to different MIDI
| | 00:23 | Channels all going to the same Xpand2
plug-in. So on the first track, I have
| | 00:29 | channel-1, the second track channel-2,
the third channel-3, and channel-4 on
| | 00:38 | the forth track. They are all routed to
this auxiliary track that has the Xpand
| | 00:43 | plug-in that's opened right here and
you'll see down this row right here,
| | 00:47 | MIDI Channel-1 is assigned to the Jazz
Samba beat, MIDI Channel-2 to a Double Bass,
| | 00:54 | MIDI Channel-3 to 3 Trumpets Staccato
sound, and MIDI Channel-4 to Upright Piano,
| | 01:01 | and we can change those if we
want, just by clicking and choosing.
| | 01:06 | But I'm going to keep what we've got.
| | 01:08 | So let's look over at the Edit window
and you'll see that I've already recorded
| | 01:16 | on to these four tracks. We'll switch
over to the Mix window and let's have a
| | 01:21 | listen to what this sounds like.
| | 01:24 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:43 | So as you can see, we can actually put
a whole band together with just using
| | 01:47 | one virtual instrument. The key is to
use MIDI Channels to assign different
| | 01:54 | instruments to different channels
within this Xpand plug-in and using just one
| | 01:59 | instance of this Xpand2 plug-in in
this way saves us some serious processing power.
| | 02:04 | Make use of MIDI Channels like
this in any of your multi-channel virtual
| | 02:08 | instruments and you'll find that
you'll be able to run a lot more instruments
| | 02:12 | and plug-ins in your Pro Tools sessions.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Recording options for MIDI| 00:00 | In this video, I'm going to explain
some of the MIDI recording features that
| | 00:03 | can make your MIDI life easier.
The first one is Wait for Note and that's
| | 00:08 | located down here on the Transport
window, this little button right here.
| | 00:13 | Click it. It will turn blue
and that means it's on.
| | 00:16 | When you enable it, Pro Tools won't
begin recording until it receives MIDI data
| | 00:21 | for when you play it on a MIDI
controller. Use this function if you want the
| | 00:25 | very first MIDI event that you play
to be recorded at precisely where the
| | 00:29 | playback cursor is located.
Let me show you how this works.
| | 00:33 | Right here in this session, I've
got these two bars highlighted, so the
| | 00:37 | playback cursor is going to start
right here at bar 3. However, when I press
| | 00:43 | Record here, then Pro Tools is
actually going to start up the Click Track.
| | 00:47 | We're going to hear that in the
background, but it won't start recording until
| | 00:50 | I hit the very first note on my MIDI
controller and it will drop that note in
| | 00:55 | right here at bar 3.
Check it out.
| | 00:59 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:06 | So there you go. That's Wait for Note,
pretty cool feature. We're going to talk
| | 01:10 | more about that a little bit
later in this video. Let's move on.
| | 01:14 | When recording MIDI and Pro Tools, you
can also record just normally like we
| | 01:17 | just did, with the Wait for Note, we
can punch in and we can loop record. We
| | 01:23 | can also use Pre-roll, which I'm going
to show you how to do here. I'm going to
| | 01:27 | turn on the Pre-roll just by
clicking this button here and we've got two
| | 01:32 | measures of Pre-roll. If you need to
change that amount, just click in the
| | 01:35 | field, type the number and hit Enter
and if we're going to use Pre-roll with
| | 01:41 | Wait for Note, this is when it gets pretty cool.
| | 01:44 | So we have got this two bars still
selected, but what happens is when I hit the
| | 01:50 | first note, when I start recording,
Pro Tools is going to activate the first
| | 01:55 | two measures of Pre-roll and then it
will start recording after that. So the
| | 02:00 | Pre-roll will ignite the Wait for Note,
and then we'll start recording two bars
| | 02:06 | after the Pre-roll happens.
| | 02:08 | And before I start this recording,
I'm actually going to delete what we
| | 02:11 | previously recorded over here and
since it's already highlighted, I can just
| | 02:15 | hit the Delete button and it will go
away. And we still got our cursor at the
| | 02:19 | same location. So let's
start the recording process.
| | 02:24 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:35 | Not the clean as recording, but you get
the idea. We activated the Pre-roll by
| | 02:41 | hitting the first key and because it
was on Wait for Note, we waited two bars
| | 02:46 | until it actually started recorded at bar 3.
| | 02:49 | Another great feature of recording MIDI
and Pro Tools is called Input Quantize,
| | 02:55 | and we can choose that up here, if we
go to Event > Event Operations > Input
| | 03:00 | Quantize. Input Quantize automatically
quantizes all incoming MIDI notes while
| | 03:08 | you play them. What quantizing does is
it aligns MIDI notes to a rhythmic grid,
| | 03:14 | helping or forcing them to be more in time
or simulating a particular rhythmic field.
| | 03:19 | Now I'm going to cover quantizing in
more detail in other videos in this
| | 03:23 | course, but let's take a look at
Input Quantize just the basic features of
| | 03:28 | quantizing here now. In this Event
Operations > Input Quantize window, all we
| | 03:34 | really need to do is check that Enable
Input Quantize is checked off here so
| | 03:40 | that it is enabled and we can check
the Quantize Grid and I'm going to just
| | 03:45 | keep that at 16th note. So let me
record one more thing and we're going to see
| | 03:51 | that it aligns with the grid.
I'll turn of Pre-roll.
| | 03:58 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:07 | Let's zoom in on this and we can see
that the notes are aligned with 16th notes
| | 04:14 | and we're going to take a look at the
grid in 16th notes now too and we can see
| | 04:20 | that the notes fall right on the grid
lines. I like to use Input Quantize to
| | 04:26 | immediately make my performances
adhere to the grid, and this is terrific for
| | 04:31 | when you are trying to create beats that are
in time and totally aligned to the Tempo grid.
| | 04:37 | Let's move on to another feature
called MIDI Merge. That's down here in the
| | 04:41 | Transport window. Let me click that
button. What that means is if we start
| | 04:46 | recording over top of this performance
that we just recorded, these notes won't
| | 04:51 | disappear; they will stay there and
then whatever we record on top of it will
| | 04:55 | also be in this region. So let's check
it out. I'll zoom out just a little bit
| | 05:03 | and I'm going to keep Wait for Note on
and we've got MIDI Merge. So check this out.
| | 05:08 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:19 | Let's listen to that.
| | 05:20 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:25 | Maybe not the best performance, but you
see that these extra notes that I just
| | 05:29 | added were added in with what we
already had here and the two parts are
| | 05:34 | combined. They're merged together.
This is a really great feature, if you're
| | 05:39 | trying to build drum loops, which
I'm going to cover in another video,
| | 05:43 | or if you're trying to create multi-note chords,
because you can add one note at a time.
| | 05:48 | Another simple way to add notes onto a
MIDI Track or an Instrument Track is to
| | 05:53 | use the Pencil tool. And first I'm
going to switch over to the notes view on
| | 05:58 | this track and go up to the Pencil tool,
and now we can just drop notes in by
| | 06:07 | clicking anywhere we want.
| | 06:11 | Wait for Note, MIDI Merge, Input
Quantize, and inserting notes with the Pencil tool
| | 06:17 | are all terrific features for
creating MIDI tracks. Practice using them
| | 06:21 | and you'll be able to create MIDI
parts very quickly, which make song writing even more fun.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using step input| 00:00 | Another useful tool for getting MIDI
notes into Pro Tools is Step Input.
| | 00:04 | This feature enables you to enter MIDI notes
individually from a MIDI controller one step at a time.
| | 00:10 | This is particularly useful for
creating parts that are difficult to play, like
| | 00:14 | cool and complex arpeggiated parts.
To use Step Input, choose Event > Event
| | 00:20 | Operations > Step Input. The Step Input
window will open up and make sure that
| | 00:27 | this is checked off, the Enable button.
Also, check which Destination track
| | 00:32 | you are on and I actually want to be on
the Step track. Then move down into the
| | 00:37 | Step Increment section and choose the
Note value that you want. In this case,
| | 00:43 | I actually do want the 16th note and I
don't want it to be Tuplet. So I'll keep
| | 00:48 | that unchecked. I'll also
keep the Note length at 100%.
| | 00:52 | Below that, we'll go into the Options
section and you can choose to use the
| | 00:57 | input velocity. That is, Pro Tools
will use the velocity that you input
| | 01:01 | yourself on your keyboard controller.
Or you can set the velocity to one
| | 01:06 | particular value. In this case, I'm
going to keep it at 66. There is also the
| | 01:11 | option of enabling the Numeric Keypad
Shortcuts, which I'm going to talk about
| | 01:15 | later in this video, but I'm
not going to use right now.
| | 01:18 | So once we have set everything in the
Step Input window, it's time to actually
| | 01:22 | record the part. Now note that we are
not going to Record Enable this track.
| | 01:26 | It's already ready to go. So now I'm
just going to play the notes and you will
| | 01:30 | see and hear what happens.
| | 01:32 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:57 | So there is our part. Let's hear how
it sounds. When I hit the Return key,
| | 02:02 | it bounces back to the very beginning
of the session, and then I'll hit play.
| | 02:05 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:22 | That worked out well. Now in that part
that I just made, it was all 16th notes
| | 02:28 | but you are not limited to only
putting notes of the same length on a track
| | 02:32 | with Step Input. If you want to change
the length of a note while using Step
| | 02:36 | Input, there are ways to do that. Let's
open up the Step Input window again. So
| | 02:44 | let's add some more notes. I'm going to
go out to this measure right here and
| | 02:57 | let's start with quarter notes.
| | 03:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:05 | Now on this third note, I'm actually
holding down the key on the keyboard
| | 03:10 | that's why you haven't seen the note
appear yet. And I'm going to hit this
| | 03:14 | Increment button right here and it's
going to add a quarter note onto the
| | 03:20 | length of the note that's already there.
So it's going to be twice a quarter note,
| | 03:23 | or become a half note. Now if I
let go off the key, we are going to see
| | 03:30 | that it just created a half note.
| | 03:32 | Now it's easy enough just to make a
rest as well. We don't have to put notes in
| | 03:37 | all the time, if we just hit Next Step,
we'll see that it has bounced a half note.
| | 03:43 | In the Step Input window, we can
also use the Undo Step, which removes
| | 03:48 | the last note or last rest that was
entered. So if we want to undo that rest
| | 03:52 | that we just made, we can just do Undo
Step and it will take us back a quarter
| | 03:57 | note. And then again, if we hit the
Next Step, it's going to add more rests
| | 04:02 | like we did previously.
| | 04:04 | The Redo Step will work in reverse of
the Undo Step command, and we'll put a
| | 04:10 | note back in or rest back in if we
actually undid that step. And you can
| | 04:14 | actually trigger the next undo and redo
step commands from the MIDI controller
| | 04:19 | if you want. And if you want to get
really fancy, you can use the numeric
| | 04:23 | keypad on your computer keyboard to
enter note values and control almost all
| | 04:27 | other commands in the Step Input page.
| | 04:30 | Step Input is a handy feature for
inputting MIDI parts that might be hard to play
| | 04:35 | or very repetitive and rhythmic.
Honestly, I don't use it that often but
| | 04:39 | it is very fun to use, and I think you
will enjoy it once you get to use it too.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Making a drum loop with MIDI Merge| 00:00 | In this video, I'm going to show you a
quick way to create a drum loop using MIDI.
| | 00:04 | We'll start with the stereo
instrument track with Xpand2 on it.
| | 00:09 | So here we have got our track, Xpand2,
and I have selected Session Drums for the patch.
| | 00:17 | I have also added a Click track,
which you know you can come down here
| | 00:25 | from Track menu and choose Create Click
Track. I have got the Transport window
| | 00:29 | open, and I want to select Loop layback.
So I right-click the Play button and
| | 00:36 | choose Loop. Note that this is not Loop
Record, and what I'm going to do is use
| | 00:42 | Wait for Note and MIDI Merge as
part of this recording process.
| | 00:48 | I also want to activate Input Quantize,
which you can choose from Event > Event
| | 00:54 | Operations > Input Quantize. And
check off the Enable Input Quantize button
| | 01:01 | right there and we'll use 16th note as
the Quantize Grid. So I'm going to make
| | 01:06 | it two bar drum loop. So I'm going to
highlight two bars and what I'm going to
| | 01:12 | do is record one instrument at a time.
So I'm going to record the kick drum first,
| | 01:17 | then the snare drum, then the
hi-hat, all on top of each other using
| | 01:23 | MIDI Merge and Loop Record. And you
will see how this process works here in a
| | 01:28 | second. So I'm going to Record Enable this
track and I'm going to test out the sounds.
| | 01:32 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:34 | There is our kick.
| | 01:35 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:37 | Snare.
| | 01:38 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:39 | Hi-hat. I'll keep it at the default
120 bpm and 4/4 signature and now let's
| | 01:47 | try and layer these parts. So I'm
going to hit Record and it will be on Wait
| | 01:52 | for Note, so the first kick drum note
that I will hit will start recording this
| | 01:58 | in loop playback mode.
Check it out.
| | 02:01 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:22 | So how easy is that? Recorded one
instrument at a time, all three layered on
| | 02:28 | top of each other because of MIDI
Merge and they are all aligned to the grid
| | 02:33 | using Input Quantize. So with just a
few steps, you can be creating beats that
| | 02:39 | are locked to the tempo grid and sound great.
| | 02:42 | Practice this technique and revisit
this video if you have any questions about
| | 02:45 | the steps involved. But most
importantly, have some fun making some beats!
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Composing with virtual instruments| 00:00 | In this video, I want to show you some
of the possibilities of and techniques
| | 00:04 | for composing using just the virtual
instruments that come with Pro Tools.
| | 00:08 | In this session, you can see that I
have got Structure, Mini Grand, Xpand2,
| | 00:14 | Vacuum, Boom, and the DB-33.
| | 00:18 | All of these come free in Pro Tools 8
and that's all that I have used in this
| | 00:22 | session to make this song. And what
you are seeing in the session here is the
| | 00:26 | MIDI version and then the recorded
audio version of each track. Let's go over
| | 00:32 | to the Mix window, and I'll show you
how I did that. Basically, I recorded the
| | 00:38 | MIDI version onto an instrument track
with the instrument inserted on it. And
| | 00:42 | then I routed the signal onto a Bus,
which then was picked up as the input on
| | 00:49 | this audio track. And then I simply recorded it.
| | 00:52 | So each track you see, I have got Bus 5-
6, which is linked to the input on this
| | 00:57 | track. The output of this track Bus 9-
10 goes to the input of this and so on.
| | 01:03 | And I think it's a really good idea to
record the audio version of any MIDI or
| | 01:08 | instrument track so that you always
have a hard copy of it, and then if you
| | 01:13 | really need to, can go and make any
instrument inactive, therefore you will
| | 01:17 | able to save on a bunch of processing
power if you do that. So if we choose
| | 01:22 | this and right-click it, we can
make it inactive and that will save the
| | 01:27 | processing power of that
virtual instrument on this track.
| | 01:31 | Once you have got it recorded as audio,
you can just playback the audio version
| | 01:35 | and then save this in the session
but make it inactive. So if you need to
| | 01:39 | actually go back to it, make it active
again, you can right-click it and simply
| | 01:44 | do that. It will load a backup into
the session with no problems and you will
| | 01:48 | have all of the settings that you had
previously; they are all saved within the
| | 01:52 | session. So let's go back to the Edit
window and I'm going to play a little bit
| | 01:58 | of this. You can hear the various
tracks as they enter into the song.
| | 02:02 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:19 | Some tracks here have been edited a
little bit or quantized a little bit and we
| | 03:23 | are going to talk more about that in
some other videos in this course. But some
| | 03:26 | of the tracks were just simply recorded as is
and kept that way and then looped a few times.
| | 03:32 | With all of the free virtual
instruments shown here in Pro Tools, plus all the
| | 03:37 | third-party instruments that are
available, you are now completely able to
| | 03:42 | compose in almost any style
of music all within Pro Tools.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
8. Editing MIDIUsing the edit tools for editing MIDI data | 00:00 | When editing MIDI data each Edit tool
assists in different functions. Let's
| | 00:04 | look at what each tool can do.
First, we'll go with the Grabber. The Grabber is
| | 00:09 | used to select notes by clicking on them.
You can Shift-click to select multiple notes.
| | 00:16 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:19 | Or you can click-and-drag
to create a rectangular shape that
| | 00:23 | will select all the notes
inside of the rectangle.
| | 00:26 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:29 | Once they're selected,
| | 00:31 | if you click-and-drag on one of the
notes you can move them forward or back in time.
| | 00:35 | Or you can move them vertically
to change the pitch.
| | 00:44 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:50 | I'll undo that.
| | 00:51 | To transpose a copy of the note,
leaving the original note where it is, press
| | 00:55 | the Option key on a Mac or the Alt key
on Windows, then drag the notes.
| | 01:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:04 | This is an easy way to make one note riffs
into core progressions, or to add harmonies
| | 01:09 | to a melody line. I'm going to undo that.
| | 01:12 | Note that any selection you make
with the Grabber does not include any
| | 01:15 | underlying controller or automation data
that's on that MIDI track. Now what I'm
| | 01:20 | talking about here is you've got some
mod wheel data down here. If I move this,
| | 01:25 | the mod wheel data does not move.
| | 01:27 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:31 | The Grabber's also great for adjusting
the velocity of notes. Now the velocity
| | 01:36 | is actually how hard or how soft a MIDI
note is played. The possible values are
| | 01:41 | 0, softest, to 127, hardest. And those
are indicated here with these velocity stalks.
| | 01:48 | So 0 is down here at the bottom;
127 is all the way at the top.
| | 01:54 | With the Grabber we can go in and click.
| | 01:57 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:04 | While we click-and-drag we can go
| | 02:06 | through various velocity values and we
can hear the differences in sound as we
| | 02:12 | increase or decrease the velocity.
| | 02:15 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:18 | Click and edit these velocity stocks to edit
| | 02:21 | the dynamics of your recorded performance.
| | 02:24 | Let's move on to the Pencil tool.
The Pencil tool is best used for adding notes.
| | 02:29 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:33 | All you got to do is drop the
pencil in where you want the new note
| | 02:38 | and click and you'll have the new note.
And the new note follows what you've got
| | 02:43 | up here in the Grid value. So if I want
to actually create a whole note,
| | 02:49 | I can just change the Grid value
and the new note will be added.
| | 02:54 | And you'll see that new notes are
being added in these other regions too and
| | 02:57 | that's because I've got the Mirrored
MIDI Editing on, so these regions are
| | 03:03 | actually copies of each other. And so
each time that I add a new note in one region
| | 03:09 | it will be added to the other ones.
| | 03:11 | So when you go to add a new note, the
Pencil tool actually looks like a pencil
| | 03:15 | but when you mouse over a note you
can actually trim it because the Pencil
| | 03:19 | turns into the Trimmer tool once you
are over top a note. When you get into the
| | 03:23 | middle of the note, the pencil turns
into a pointer where you can click on the
| | 03:26 | note and grab it and move it somewhere else.
| | 03:29 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:33 | So the Pencil tool is pretty handy,
going from being able to add notes, to being
| | 03:37 | able to trim them, to being able to
move them. And on top of that if you press
| | 03:42 | the Option key on a Mac or the Alt key
on a PC, the Pencil turns into an Eraser
| | 03:48 | and you can erase the note.
| | 03:50 | Now in these examples here you've been
able to hear every note that I've been
| | 03:54 | trimming or adding and the reason for
that is because this button is active
| | 03:59 | right here. This is the
Play MIDI Notes When Editing.
| | 04:02 | If we don't want to actually hear the
notes while we're editing then we can
| | 04:05 | turn this off. Now we can add notes in
silence if we really want to, but I don't
| | 04:13 | see the point in that. So let's turn it back on.
| | 04:16 | The Pencil tool is also good for
drawing and editing velocity values so if I
| | 04:22 | click-and-drag I can create a pencil
line depending on what the pencil shape is.
| | 04:28 | Here I've chosen the Free Hand
Pencil tool so I'll be able to draw in
| | 04:32 | freely in the velocity automation line here.
| | 04:39 | So not only can we use the Pencil tool
to alter the velocities, you can use it
| | 04:43 | to change continuous controller
data like the mod wheel here.
| | 04:48 | If I click-and-drag I can draw
in right on that controller line.
| | 04:51 | Let's move over to the Zoomer tool.
Obviously we can zoom in and out on a track
| | 04:57 | if we click-and-drag. And we can use
the single click to zoom in closer.
| | 05:02 | If we press Option on a Mac or Alt on Windows,
we can change to zooming out. And one
| | 05:09 | of my favorite buttons is actually the
Zoom Toggle which will zoom in just on
| | 05:13 | this track because it's highlighted and
it shows everything that's showing for
| | 05:18 | that track expanded out.
| | 05:20 | And as you may know from another movie
in this course, we've got the Commands
| | 05:23 | Focus on, so if I press the E key,
it will toggle between using the Zoom Toggle
| | 05:30 | or back to the regular view. So E
is the hot key for the Zoom Toggle.
| | 05:35 | One of my other favorites zooming
tools to use when editing MIDI data is the
| | 05:38 | continuous zoom function. With the
Zoomer tool, if you hold the Ctrl key on a
| | 05:43 | Mac or the Start key on Windows and drag,
you can get this accordion effect but
| | 05:50 | it's the continuous zoom.
| | 05:52 | Now you can do this both vertically
and horizontally. But you can't zoom
| | 06:02 | horizontally and vertically at the same
time. And then probably one of the most
| | 06:06 | useful uses of the Zoomer tool is to
double-click it and you'll zoom all the
| | 06:10 | way out, so you can see everything in
the session. So you'll note that here is
| | 06:14 | actually the edge of the session. If I
scroll over there's nothing else over there.
| | 06:20 | Let's go to the Trimmer. When editing
MIDI notes the Trimmer tool is mostly
| | 06:23 | used for changing the start and ending
point of the notes. And I'm going to go
| | 06:27 | over to the Slip Mode so we can
see this in action. So I'm going to
| | 06:30 | click-and-drag. The Trimmer is also
very useful for trimming MIDI regions,
| | 06:37 | region groups, or looped regions.
Let's take a look at that. If I switch over
| | 06:41 | to Regions view then I can use the
Trimmer to click-and-drag and alter the
| | 06:47 | region length. I'm going to undo that.
| | 06:50 | And we also have the Loop trimmer. So
if I take the Loop trimmer and I keep it
| | 06:58 | near the top half of this region, click-
and-drag, it will create copies of this
| | 07:05 | region, looped copies that is. And you
see the little loop symbol down here at
| | 07:10 | the bottom of each region.
| | 07:11 | If we use the Selector, the Selector
will select notes. Let's go over to the
| | 07:18 | Notes view so we can see this. And
you can see here that when you make a
| | 07:24 | selection only the notes where the
beginning of the note is part of the
| | 07:28 | selection will be selected. So I've
started this selection here and these notes
| | 07:35 | are not actually part of the
selection even though I have selected in the
| | 07:39 | middle of them. I don't have
the beginning of them here.
| | 07:42 | Finally, we have the Scrubber, which
actually works on MIDI tracks as well as audio.
| | 07:47 | And let's check that out.
| | 07:48 | (Music playing.)
| | 07:56 | So that can be helpful in finding
notes that might be stray or notes that
| | 08:00 | might be missing. We can scrub over a
section and check out how the part sounds.
| | 08:06 | So now we've gone through all the
Edit tools and you can see that they each
| | 08:09 | have their own ways of helping you
edit MIDI data. What's great is that they
| | 08:13 | function very similarly to how they
function when editing audio. So most
| | 08:18 | editing techniques that you learn from
audio can be applied to MIDI and vice versa.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Editing MIDI data with the MIDI Editor| 00:00 | Pro Tools has a dedicated MIDI and
instrument track editing window called the
| | 00:04 | MIDI Editor Window. It's great for
fine-tuning MIDI performance data.
| | 00:08 | Fortunately, it shows a lot of
common functionality with the regular Edit window.
| | 00:12 | However, the MIDI Editor
also offers up some unique features that
| | 00:16 | you'll probably learn to
love. Let's take a look at it.
| | 00:20 | Down at the bottom-left here of the
Edit window, we can see the docked version
| | 00:24 | of the MIDI Editor. If we click this
little button here, it will open this up,
| | 00:29 | and click this button to close it.
| | 00:32 | We can also view the non-docked
version, which is the one I want to look at
| | 00:35 | here in this video, and there it is.
We are looking at just the bass track
| | 00:41 | here, all the notes, and we can see
any of the automation lanes down below.
| | 00:47 | Just to let you know there is a couple
of other ways to open the MIDI Editor.
| | 00:50 | We choose Setup > Preferences > MIDI
page, double-clicking a MIDI region opens
| | 01:00 | the MIDI Editor. We can choose that if
we'd like, or you can simply right-click
| | 01:07 | on a MIDI region and open this up.
| | 01:10 | Let's take a look at the Toolbar at
the top of the MIDI Editor window. First,
| | 01:15 | let's take a look at the menu over here
on the right. This is where we can show
| | 01:19 | all the different displays for the Toolbar,
and I'm going to check off everything.
| | 01:26 | So head over here to the left side and
go left to right. So this track that we
| | 01:30 | have shown right here, just the bass
track, we can solo it. We can mute it. We
| | 01:35 | can actually show the notation by
clicking that or back to the Piano Roll.
| | 01:41 | Then we have our Edit tools, Standard
Zoomer, Trimmer, Selector, and Grabber,
| | 01:49 | and we can make this the smart tool by
clicking above any of these three, the
| | 01:55 | Scrubber and the Pencil tool.
| | 01:56 | Here we have got the selected track
for this MIDI Editor, and we have got the
| | 02:02 | MIDI Note Duration, Velocity, and whether we
want to play the MIDI notes while we are editing.
| | 02:08 | We have got mirrored MIDI editing and
the Link Timeline and Edit Selection as
| | 02:13 | well as the Edit modes here. Also
our standard Grid and Nudge values, our
| | 02:19 | Cursor Position, and way over here,
we have got our selection area. So if I
| | 02:29 | were to make a selection,
it would show up right here.
| | 02:34 | The Edit tools over here act just like
you'd imagine they would, doing just the
| | 02:38 | same things as they did in the Edit
window for any MIDI operations. If you like
| | 02:43 | to learn more about that, then you
should check out the video about using the
| | 02:47 | Edit tools for MIDI.
| | 02:48 | Let's talk about the Tracks list over
here. As you can see, right now, we have
| | 02:51 | one track in here. However, if we click
these little round buttons here, we can
| | 02:57 | add tracks and you can see that they
get superimposed here in this area.
| | 03:02 | We will add all four tracks right here.
Now, we can see that the piano, the
| | 03:10 | trumpet, the bass, and the drums
are all in this track area right here.
| | 03:15 | What's really great about this is
that you can actually add notes to each
| | 03:19 | individual instrument depending on
where this little Pencil icon is. So right
| | 03:24 | now if I use the Pencil to add notes,
it will add into the bass line.
| | 03:29 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:31 | But if I switch this down to the trumpets,
I can add some trumpet notes.
| | 03:36 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:39 | You will notice that each track is
color coded. Scroll up here and you can see
| | 03:45 | the piano part up here in red. If we
go to this button right here, this is
| | 03:50 | called the Color Coding by Track button,
and if I click that, the tracks in the
| | 03:55 | MIDI Editor are temporarily assigned
1 of 16 fixed colors in the order that
| | 04:00 | they appear in the tracks list.
| | 04:01 | Now, why would we need to do that if
we have already got these colored this way?
| | 04:05 | Well, we don't really have to,
and that's just a matter of how you setup
| | 04:10 | your color coding for Pro Tools in
general. If these are not colored, then
| | 04:14 | using this button would be helpful.
| | 04:16 | Below that, we have the Color by
Velocity, and we can click that and it turns
| | 04:22 | everything into this kind of pink color.
Darker notes have higher velocities
| | 04:27 | whereas lighter notes have lower velocities.
| | 04:31 | Personally, I don't really like this
option because I have already got a
| | 04:35 | preference active that shows me
whether these notes have higher velocities or
| | 04:40 | lower velocities. And that is
right here, I'll show you that.
| | 04:47 | In the Setup > Preferences > Display
Page, we have MIDI Note Color Shows
| | 04:51 | velocity. So if we have already got
that checked off, then we don't really need
| | 04:57 | to use this option. Let me just show
you an example of using the velocity to
| | 05:03 | show the color here.
Let me grab this.
| | 05:06 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:10 | See how it gets lighter, this
particular note? And it will get darker as
| | 05:14 | I increase the velocity.
| | 05:15 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:21 | If we want to add multiple notes on
multiple tracks, we can Shift-click here to
| | 05:27 | add the Pencil to multiple tracks. So
now I'll be able to add notes at the same time
| | 05:32 | to both the trumpets and the
piano if I want. Get the Pencil tool.
| | 05:37 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:40 | So you can hear that there is notes
from both the trumpet and the piano in
| | 05:44 | there when I'm adding these notes. If I
want to add notes from two tracks that
| | 05:50 | are discontiguous here, I have to
press the Command key on a Mac or the Ctrl
| | 05:55 | key on a PC, and I can get those
two different tracks right there.
| | 05:59 | If I want to put notes on all the
tracks all at the same time, I can hit the
| | 06:03 | Option key in Mac or the Alt key in Windows,
and click and add it to all the tracks there.
| | 06:09 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:12 | The MIDI Editor window also allows
you to right-click notes, and has a huge
| | 06:17 | menu offering of things
that you can do. Check it out.
| | 06:20 | We can change the tool. We can insert
Key Signatures, Meters, Chord Symbols,
| | 06:26 | Cut, and Paste. We can mute
particular notes, we can switch over to some of
| | 06:32 | these other options. We can open these
particular tracks. In the Score Editor,
| | 06:36 | we can look at them in the MIDI Event List,
and we can change to show the notation.
| | 06:43 | Now, although we can see the notation
here in the MIDI Editor, really, the best
| | 06:48 | place to look at it is in the Score
Editor. There is a number of videos on the
| | 06:52 | Score Editor in this course. So check out
the features of the scoring in those videos.
| | 06:57 | The MIDI Editor in Notation View like
this or in the Piano Roll View offers up
| | 07:04 | a ton of MIDI editing features.
I personally find that all the right-click
| | 07:08 | options can be incredibly helpful, as
well as the ability to add notes to any
| | 07:13 | MIDI or instrument track all within
this one window. If you write MIDI based music,
| | 07:17 | I'm sure you are going
to enjoy using the MIDI Editor.
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| Working with the MIDI event list| 00:00 | When you really want to fine-tune
your MIDI data, edit using the MIDI Event List.
| | 00:04 | This powerful window allows you
to precisely edit any parameters of a
| | 00:08 | MIDI Event as well as copy, paste, and
delete individual parameters, events or phrases.
| | 00:14 | There is a few ways to open up the
MIDI Event List. You can press Option on a
| | 00:19 | Mac or Alt on a PC and press the
equals key. You can press Ctrl and
| | 00:25 | double-click a track name on a Mac or
press Start and double-click in Windows
| | 00:30 | to open it up, or you can simply go to
the Window menu and choose MIDI Event List,
| | 00:36 | and here we have it.
| | 00:39 | The MIDI Event List will show all
of the MIDI Events that happen on a
| | 00:43 | particular track and we can choose
which track to view right here. Go to Drums
| | 00:47 | and see that we've just got four
MIDI events there, just a bunch of loops
| | 00:53 | repeated. Take a look at the base track.
| | 00:57 | In the MIDI Event List, you'll
actually see the start time. The quarter note
| | 01:01 | indicates that that's note data. We
have the pitch, we have the note's attack
| | 01:06 | velocity and release velocity, and
we have the length of the note.
| | 01:11 | Any of these pieces of data can be
edited by simply double-clicking.
| | 01:15 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:17 | As you heard in that example, when you do
click once, you'll hear the note.
| | 01:22 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:26 | But if you double-click, you can
enter into the field and then change it.
| | 01:29 | In the upper right corner of the MIDI
Event List, we have this menu and we can
| | 01:34 | choose here to show the sub-counter,
which is kind of handy. In this case,
| | 01:39 | it's minutes and seconds. So that will
tell you exactly where these events are
| | 01:42 | happening, if you don't want
to look at the Bars and Beats.
| | 01:47 | We can go to particular events.
We can scroll to an edit selection, we can
| | 01:56 | check out the note end times if we want
to show that, we can insert a new note.
| | 02:02 | Tell it where it goes, tell it what
it is, and drop it right in there.
| | 02:11 | We have some other insert options down
here. Finally, we have the View Filter,
| | 02:17 | which is where we can tell Pro Tools
what we want to see in the Event List.
| | 02:22 | So we can change that, and we can say oh,
we only want to see notes. So now we are
| | 02:30 | only seeing notes in here.
| | 02:31 | Although, I personally don't use the
MIDI Events List very often, I know some
| | 02:35 | people prefer to edit using this type
of list. So the option is here if you want to use it.
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| Editing MIDI data with event operations| 00:00 | Where the Edit tools and MIDI Event
List enable you to do edit specific notes
| | 00:04 | or groups of notes, the editing
possibilities found in the Event Operations window
| | 00:08 | can have even more of an
impact on your MIDI and instrument tracks.
| | 00:12 | Go to Event > Event Operations >
Event Operations Window. Now we've got the
| | 00:19 | Event Operations window open.
The operations here enable you to enter and alter
| | 00:24 | the pitch, dynamics, timing and
phrasing of any MIDI performance.
| | 00:29 | Now we've already covered Input
Quantize and Step Input, so I'll give
| | 00:34 | explanations of the others in this
video, and then I'll dedicate a separate
| | 00:38 | video to the most enigmatic of these
operations, the Quantization function.
| | 00:43 | So let's start here at the top with
Change Velocity. The Change Velocity
| | 00:47 | function adjusts the attack and
release velocities for selected notes. It's
| | 00:52 | useful for creating dynamic changes that
weren't recorded with the original MIDI data.
| | 00:57 | So let's take a look at this trumpet
track, where we've got the velocity
| | 01:01 | showing, and I'm going to highlight
this area. So I'm going to change the
| | 01:08 | velocity of the Note On, and if we
choose Set all to this value 64 and hit
| | 01:14 | Apply, it moves all of the
velocity to 64. I'm going to undo that.
| | 01:22 | You can also scale it by a percentage
or just simply subtract by a number,
| | 01:28 | let's try subtracting by 31, hit
Apply. It keeps everything at the same
| | 01:34 | relative value, but it is dropped down
by 31. I'll undo that. What if we try
| | 01:40 | the Randomize, and this is maxed out at
100, so we hit Apply, you can see that
| | 01:47 | their velocities go all over the place.
I'm not sure when that would be a good
| | 01:51 | thing to do, but hey! Why not?
| | 01:55 | Let's go to the Change Duration. The
Change Duration function is good for
| | 01:59 | making a MIDI or instrument track more
staccato. That is for shorter notes, or
| | 02:05 | legato for smoothing out a phrase. You
can use it to remove overlapping notes
| | 02:09 | and transform sustain pedal data into
duration data, which is actually quite
| | 02:14 | useful for piano players who are too heavy
on the sustain pedal while recording MIDI data.
| | 02:19 | But let's hear what it sounds like on
this trumpet part. You can see that these
| | 02:23 | notes are pretty short here. I'm just
going to play this real quick, so you can
| | 02:26 | hear how short they actually are.
| | 02:30 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:34 | So what if we take these notes and
make them more legato, so that they're
| | 02:41 | actually one beat in length? Let's apply
this and see what happens. Press Play.
| | 02:49 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:55 | It's kind of a cool effect. I'm
going to undo that. So there is a lot of
| | 02:59 | opportunities to change the durations
and the whole feel of the track by using
| | 03:05 | this Change Duration function.
Let's go down to Transpose.
| | 03:11 | The Transpose function moves selected
notes up or down and pitch. This is what
| | 03:15 | you use if you want to change the key
of a part without rerecording the part,
| | 03:20 | or if you want to move a MIDI part up
or down an octave to make it sound in a
| | 03:23 | better range, or you can even change
a triggered sample on a repeated note,
| | 03:28 | like changing the sound of a high-
hat track from one sample to another.
| | 03:33 | What I'm going to do now is play this
track with all the instruments in it,
| | 03:37 | in its original pitch, and then
I'm going to transpose it all up.
| | 03:40 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:00 | So if I highlight all of these
regions and let's bring it up, let's try 6
| | 04:06 | semitones, hit Apply, and that's
moved everything up. Let's listen.
| | 04:11 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:21 | While that's a good test, I actually
like the original key better than this one.
| | 04:25 | And you'll note that I did not apply it
to the drums, because if you transpose
| | 04:30 | the drums, then that's going to really
mess things up. In fact, let's try it
| | 04:34 | just for a second and
we'll hear what happens.
| | 04:38 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:43 | It changes the samples that you're
triggering away from the original sample, so
| | 04:47 | we don't want to do that.
| | 04:49 | Let's move on to the Select/Split
Notes window. This function allows you to
| | 04:54 | select notes based on pitch, velocity,
duration and position, whether you're
| | 04:59 | selecting a single note or a range.
It's particularly useful for altering a
| | 05:04 | single note for the entire
length of a region or a track.
| | 05:07 | For example, if you had a percussion
track that had a whole bunch of percussion
| | 05:11 | instruments in it, and you wanted to
change just the Congo sound to a Bongo,
| | 05:17 | all you need to do is go in with this
function and select the one pitch and
| | 05:22 | then change it up or down to a
different pitch to trigger a different sample.
| | 05:27 | And that's using the Select Notes part.
| | 05:30 | More advanced than the Select Notes
function is the Split Notes function, and
| | 05:34 | that helps you divide notes into ranges.
That's very useful for splitting up
| | 05:39 | parts that were played on a
single track into multiple tracks.
| | 05:42 | For example, you could split up a chord
into individual notes for a horn chart
| | 05:48 | or you could split up a full drum kit
track into individual tracks. I'm going
| | 05:52 | to actually show you how to do that here.
| | 05:54 | So I'm going to choose the pitch
criteria. It's going to be all the notes, so
| | 05:58 | that each note gets split. I'll keep
the other criteria as is and then I'll
| | 06:04 | choose Split Notes. I'll copy to a new
track per pitch. Since we've got this
| | 06:16 | beat already selected, I'm going to
hit Apply, and you'll see that it created
| | 06:23 | three new tracks. I'll expand these out.
We've got notes on each track. This is
| | 06:41 | the kick track, these are the snares
and this is the high-hat. Let's move over
| | 06:46 | to Restore Performance.
| | 06:50 | The Restore Performance function
enables you to undo any timing, pitch,
| | 06:54 | duration or velocity edits that you
made, using the MIDI editing functions in
| | 06:58 | the Event Operations window, even after
the session has been saved. It can even
| | 07:02 | be used to remove quantization that was
applied using the Input Quantize function.
| | 07:08 | However, when you manually move a MIDI
note, the Restore Performance function
| | 07:12 | does not undo that move. This includes
cutting, copying, pasting and trimming.
| | 07:18 | Also note that the Restore Performance
command cannot be undone. And as you can
| | 07:22 | see here in this window, we can choose
which things that we want to restore.
| | 07:29 | Finally, we have the Flatten Performance.
Once you've finalized some or all the
| | 07:34 | edits on your MIDI or instrument track,
you can choose the Flatten Performance
| | 07:38 | option, and save the edits permanently.
Now before you do this, I recommend
| | 07:43 | making a duplicate play list of the
edited track before flattening it. If you
| | 07:47 | remember how to do that, you can go over here
to the Play List menu, and choose Duplicate.
| | 07:53 | Now I personally don't really see
the need for this operation. So I don't
| | 07:59 | really use it, because I always like to
be able to go back to previous edits if
| | 08:04 | necessary. But some might want to do
this to kind of lock in their edits.
| | 08:09 | So here you've seen many powerful
editing features that are part of the Event
| | 08:12 | Operations window, and we haven't
even yet touched the quantization. Get to
| | 08:17 | know these features. They can make
potentially cumbersome data manipulation
| | 08:22 | into quick and easy edits.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Quantizing MIDI tracks| 00:00 | Quantizing is the process of aligning
MIDI nodes to a rhythmic grid to get the
| | 00:04 | more in time or to change the rhythmic
feel of a performance. Some notes may be
| | 00:10 | moved forward in time while others
may be moved back and some notes will be
| | 00:14 | more drastically affected than others.
| | 00:16 | A Quantize Grid determines the beat
boundaries to which notes are aligned and
| | 00:20 | we can use a grid with note values from
whole notes to 64 notes with any tuplet
| | 00:26 | divisions in between. In this
secession here we have got a drum beat and the
| | 00:30 | base that are soloed and those are the two
tracks that I'm going to be working on this video.
| | 00:34 | Let's listen to what we have got so far.
| | 00:37 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:47 | Now that's not bad. The drumbeat was
programmed in using the Pencil tool to
| | 00:53 | drop these notes in. Meanwhile this
base track was actually played in on a MIDI
| | 00:59 | keyboard. So this drum track is very much already
aligned to the grid while the base track is not.
| | 01:07 | Now it's simple enough to quantize a
MIDI performance so that each of the notes
| | 01:11 | lines up perfectly with the beat like
this drum track, but we don't really want
| | 01:16 | to do that most times because that will
sound mechanical. Now maybe some music
| | 01:21 | will call for that but in this case I
don't want that. I want some feel. I want
| | 01:25 | some human elements to this. I need some
inconsistencies and some imperfections.
| | 01:31 | So let's zoom in on this base track and
we can see that it doesn't really align
| | 01:37 | to the grid all that well. The
second note right here is pretty early in
| | 01:42 | comparison to where the kick drum is
that should align with that. But before we
| | 01:47 | start quantizing anything we need to
figure out and describe the rhythmic feel
| | 01:52 | that we want to create. Often feels
are expressed as being ahead of the beat
| | 01:57 | for a pushed or excited or driving song
or behind the beat for a laid back or a
| | 02:02 | relaxed or even a dragging kind of feel,
or it could be right on the beat for a
| | 02:07 | steady song that's in the pocket.
| | 02:09 | In this particular case, I want the
base to drive the song a little bit, but I
| | 02:13 | don't want it to be too far ahead of
the drums. So let's look at the quantize
| | 02:19 | parameters that we can alter. So we'll
open the Event Operations window, the
| | 02:24 | Quantize part of it and we start with
this very top part here because we need
| | 02:29 | to choose what to Quantize. We can
choose to Quantize the Note On or the attack
| | 02:36 | of the note, we can choose the Note
Off or the release of the note or we can
| | 02:42 | Quantize the note duration which if we
choose to Quantize the Note On and the
| | 02:47 | Note Off that will set the note so
that it goes from one grid value to the
| | 02:52 | next. And often we don't want to do
that because Quantize in note durations can
| | 02:58 | really suck the life out of a performance.
| | 03:01 | Usually we'll just want to keep the
Note On and the Preserve note duration
| | 03:07 | boxes checked. Below that we need to
choose the Quantize Grid, and in most
| | 03:12 | cases you want to choose the smallest
sub division of the beat that you want to
| | 03:17 | quantize to. And in this case, for
the drums we have 16th notes, we can see
| | 03:22 | that the grid is in 16th right here
and the base is going to align with those
| | 03:28 | too. So we are going to have 16th note
as our grid but you can change that if
| | 03:32 | you need just by clicking here.
| | 03:35 | And we definitely don't want to use
any Tuplets. Let's go down to the Offset
| | 03:39 | grid. Now what does this do? This
parameter enables you to move the overall
| | 03:44 | MIDI performance data ahead or behind
the beat by fractions of the beat or by
| | 03:50 | ticks. For example, if I wanted the
base track to be pushing or driving I can
| | 03:56 | set this to be negative 5 and that
will move all these notes up 5 ticks. In
| | 04:04 | another example, if we wanted to have
the snare kind of a little bit relaxed or
| | 04:09 | a little bit late. So that it sits on
the back half of the beat, we can maybe
| | 04:13 | set 10 and apply that to the snare
to create more of a laid back feel.
| | 04:19 | Let's move down to the Swing. Now
this parameter actually alters the
| | 04:24 | quantization grid to help you create
a triplet like swing or shuffle feel.
| | 04:29 | Right here we can go all the way up
to 300% or down to zero. The higher
| | 04:36 | percentage that you choose the more
swing is added and you can apply different
| | 04:41 | swing percentages to different tracks
within a session, to give the impression
| | 04:45 | that different tracks are played by different
players, and that's kind of a cool thing to do.
| | 04:49 | So let's have a listen to some of the
stuff on the base and drum track. I'm
| | 04:55 | going to zoom out a little bit and we
are going to look at this base track
| | 05:01 | first and I'm going to apply this
Offset, not put any swing on it yet and hit
| | 05:10 | Apply. And you saw that these notes
just moved, just a little bit and let's
| | 05:14 | zoom in on that second note that we
were looking at. Now it's much closer to
| | 05:19 | this Grid line. However, it's still
ahead because we added this offset.
| | 05:25 | Let's have a listen to that.
| | 05:27 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:33 | Much tighter than the original
performance. Now what happens if we go up to the
| | 05:39 | drums and I'm going to go to the
Regions view and let's add some Swing to the
| | 05:47 | drums? I'm going to put this all the way to
100 and you are going to hear a big difference.
| | 05:53 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:03 | Lots of swing there. That's too much.
It sounds kind of crazy. So I'm going to
| | 06:07 | undo that and maybe we just want
to add just a touch. How about 36?
| | 06:15 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:20 | That sounds kind of cool. Let's apply
a little bit less to the base and since
| | 06:28 | we have already added the offset,
we'll take that off and Apply.
| | 06:32 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:40 | So that adds a nice little swing to
both of the parts. Let's talk about some of
| | 06:44 | these others parameters that we have
got down here. We have got Include within,
| | 06:48 | Exclude within, Strength and Randomize
and often collectively these are called
| | 06:54 | the Sensitivity Parameters in other
sequencers and they are used to determine
| | 06:59 | which MIDI notes are to be Quantized.
| | 07:02 | If we don't set them then all the
notes will be, but if we do set them then
| | 07:05 | some of the notes may not be quantized.
In most performances the notes between
| | 07:10 | the beats or between the Quantized
Grid really kind of gives the performance
| | 07:14 | its style and sometimes its rhythmic
feel. So you can use these parameters to
| | 07:20 | quantize the notes closest to the grid
and leave the notes in between alone.
| | 07:24 | For example, if we hit the Include
within parameter and we set this to 10%,
| | 07:32 | what this means is if you want to
quantize the notes that are 5% from the Grid
| | 07:38 | on either side, we can choose 10% as
the Include within value. If you want to
| | 07:44 | include all the notes and move them all
to the grid and we set this to be 100%.
| | 07:51 | The Exclude within function works in
the opposite way. When we select this the
| | 07:56 | attacks and releases are not
quantized if they are located with in the
| | 08:00 | specified percentage of the quantized
grid. So if we say 18% here that means 9%
| | 08:07 | on either side of the quantized grid,
those notes aren't touched. So they are
| | 08:12 | considered kind of close enough to
the grid, the other remaining notes are
| | 08:17 | brought closer to the grid. Both of
these are useful depending on what
| | 08:22 | performance you are quantizing and
often you won't use them together.
| | 08:26 | Next, we have the Strength
parameter and like a magnet this parameter
| | 08:31 | determines how close MIDI notes are
pulled to the Quantization Grid. 100%
| | 08:36 | strength means every note will be
pulled all the way to the closest grid value,
| | 08:41 | while 50% means that we pulled
halfway there. Personally I think Strength
| | 08:47 | should be used on almost every part
that was recorded live and that needs to be
| | 08:52 | quantized, but you don't need to pull
it all the way to 100 to give it still a
| | 08:57 | little bit more of a human feel.
| | 08:59 | Also I should note that it's really not
needed at all on parts that were drawn
| | 09:04 | in using the Pencil tool or using
Step Input. Like we wouldn't use this
| | 09:09 | Strength parameter on this drum track,
because it was already 100% on the grid.
| | 09:14 | But when it comes down to it, if you
are working with a live track that you
| | 09:18 | recorded, this parameter might be
one of the most important ones for
| | 09:22 | transforming a halfway decent track
into a pretty tight musical performance.
| | 09:28 | The last parameter that we are going
to talk about here is the Randomize
| | 09:31 | function and it's funny that randomize
is a quantization parameter because it's
| | 09:36 | essentially mucking up the works that
all the previous quantization parameters
| | 09:40 | performed on the MIDI data. A value of 0
% means that there is no randomization.
| | 09:46 | If we go up to 100% that will move
some notes up to 50% away from the
| | 09:52 | Quantization Grid on either side and
usually this will just sound awful. The
| | 09:57 | rhythms will be way off.
| | 09:59 | However, this can be a very useful
parameter. Although, musicians don't really
| | 10:05 | play randomly a small randomization
percentage can be useful for adding a human
| | 10:10 | element to an otherwise mechanical
sounding track. Now if I use this at all, I
| | 10:15 | might add 5% or up to a maximum of 10
%. So use this parameter with care.
| | 10:21 | Now I find that quantizing a MIDI part
whether it's drums or base or trumpets
| | 10:27 | or piano, requires some experimentation.
Because each recorded MIDI performance
| | 10:32 | is different, you will usually have
to play with the parameters when you
| | 10:35 | quantize and each performance may require
a different application of quantization.
| | 10:41 | If you start with the track that's
right on the Grid, like this Drum track here
| | 10:45 | where I entered the notes with the
Pencil tool, I would add a touch of Swing
| | 10:50 | and I'll get rid of this stuff and a
touch of Randomization so that it would
| | 10:55 | make this sound more human. I might
also add a Groove template, which we'll
| | 11:00 | discuss in the next movie.
| | 11:03 | Now if we are working with a track
that was played live, I would go into more
| | 11:09 | of these options using the Include
within or Exclude within and the Strength
| | 11:14 | Parameters. So there are a lot of
options here for Quantizing. It's a very
| | 11:19 | powerful feature of Pro Tools and
you are going to just have to get in there
| | 11:23 | and try these parameters out but
ultimately you are going to be able to make
| | 11:27 | tracks that sound terrific using Quantization.
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| Creating and using groove templates| 00:00 | If you prefer the sound of pre-made
quantization maps derived from real musical
| | 00:04 | performances or you're not confident in your
quantization skills, use Groove Quantization.
| | 00:11 | You can choose from a variety of pre-
made groove quantization maps or groove
| | 00:15 | templates. Let's choose Event > Event
Operations > Quantize and let's go down
| | 00:21 | here into the Quantize Grid and instead
of choosing a note value, let's look at
| | 00:27 | some of the groove templates.
| | 00:28 | We've got Cubase Style Grooves, Feel
Injector Templates, Logic Style Grooves,
| | 00:34 | and MPC Style Grooves. See, we just chose
this MPC 57%, 16th note, Swing groove template.
| | 00:43 | By adjusting the Timing, Duration and
Velocity, you can alter how the groove
| | 00:48 | template affects your MIDI performance data.
| | 00:51 | At a setting of 100%, the MIDI data
will follow the groove template's exact
| | 00:56 | field. If you bring that down to 0,
the MIDI notes will not be altered from
| | 01:01 | their original position. Thus, the
groove template will have no effect.
| | 01:06 | If you bring it up to 200%, the MIDI
notes will be altered twice as much as the
| | 01:10 | groove template would usually alter them.
Let's bring it back down to 100 or 101.
| | 01:18 | You can also choose to pre-quantize
the MIDI notes, which hard quantizes the
| | 01:23 | notes to 16th note grid
before applying groove quantize.
| | 01:26 | This is a great thing to use if the
rhythm of the MIDI performance that you're
| | 01:31 | trying to quantize is a
little dodgy to begin with.
| | 01:34 | So let's apply a Groove template to
some MIDI notes. I'm going to take the
| | 01:38 | Pre-Quantize off, and we've got the
Timing here. We've got the MPC 57% 16th
| | 01:45 | note Swing, as the Groove template and
I'm actually going to go to the Grabber
| | 01:51 | tool and apply this to the Drum track.
So let's play the Drum track before we
| | 01:56 | apply it and then after.
| | 01:58 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:08 | Okay, now let's apply it and hear the
difference and you saw the MIDI notes move,
| | 02:12 | let's hear how that sounds.
| | 02:14 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:24 | You can definitely hear more swing
in this beat and it sounds pretty good
| | 02:28 | actually. So if you like it, then you
can keep it, if not, just go up here and
| | 02:33 | try out some different ones.
| | 02:36 | A great feature too is that you can
actually create your own Groove templates
| | 02:40 | using Beat Detective. Let me show you how to
do that. Let's go to Event > Beat Detective.
| | 02:48 | Now, Beat Detective can analyze
Audio and MIDI data to define dynamic and
| | 02:54 | rhythmic relationships in a performance and
create a Groove template based on that information.
| | 03:00 | Beat Detective generates triggers for
Bars, Beats and Sub-Beats that map to the
| | 03:05 | rhythmic relationship of a groove and the
amplitude of audio tracks to MIDI velocity.
| | 03:12 | The Beat Detective window has options
for working with MIDI and Audio. In this
| | 03:17 | case, we're going to choose MIDI. So
let's create a Groove template based on
| | 03:22 | this drum track that we have here.
| | 03:25 | Now, I know that we just applied a
Groove template to this, but imagine that we
| | 03:30 | have a track that we want to
actually extract groove from.
| | 03:34 | So we choose MIDI > Groove Template
Extraction. Over in this area, we need to
| | 03:40 | select the track area that we want to
analyze. For example, the Bars and Beats.
| | 03:45 | So we can set the Start Bar and Beat,
the End Bar and Beat, and the Time
| | 03:49 | Signature. In this particular case, we
can just hit Capture Selection, because
| | 03:54 | we have 16 bars down here already selected,
and we can see that is reflected here.
| | 04:01 | Now, we need to choose what we want to
analyze. In this case, we'll select the
| | 04:06 | Lowest Note, but there are other things
that we could choose from if we wanted
| | 04:10 | to. We'll hit Analyze.
| | 04:14 | Now, we'll pull up the Sensitivity,
and you'll see these lines forming down
| | 04:20 | here. These are the beat triggers that appear
on the Beats and Sub-Beats of your selection.
| | 04:26 | If we zoom in, we can see that the Bar
triggers are thick lines and the beat
| | 04:32 | triggers are medium lines, the sub-
beat triggers are thin lines. I'm going to
| | 04:37 | pull this up even further, and
you'll see these lines in here.
| | 04:44 | So now if we go to click Extract, we
can extract this 16 bar groove template
| | 04:51 | and we'll make a little Comment, df
groove template, and we can save it either
| | 04:58 | to the Groove Clipboard or to Disk
and in this particular case, it takes us
| | 05:03 | right to the Grooves folder and I'm
going to actually make my own groove folder.
| | 05:09 | So df grooves, df groove 1. I'll save
it. So when you make your own groove
| | 05:17 | templates, if you organize them, like I
just did in this sub folder within the
| | 05:22 | Grooves folder, they will actually be
displayed in the Quantize window. Let's
| | 05:26 | have a look at that. There it
is, my little groove template.
| | 05:36 | Ultimately, the Groove template files
are found here. I actually use groove
| | 05:41 | templates a lot. I prefer the MPC
Style ones mostly. Sometimes, I'll make my
| | 05:46 | own from audio files or drum loops
that I'll bring in. They are a terrific way
| | 05:52 | to get your MIDI tracks quantize
really quickly and using proven quantization fields.
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| Utilizing real-time properties| 00:00 | Many of the MIDI editing features found
in the MIDI Operations window can also
| | 00:04 | be edited in real-time while the
session is playing using the MIDI Real-Time
| | 00:09 | Properties. Let's open them up. If you
go to the Edit Window View Selector,
| | 00:13 | you can choose Real-Time Properties.
You can also show these if you go to View >
| | 00:19 | Edit Window Views > Real-Time Properties.
There are five Real-Time properties,
| | 00:27 | Quantize, Duration, Delay, Velocity,
and Transpose, and you can enable each of
| | 00:34 | these separately if you want. I'm
going to turn them all on right now.
| | 00:41 | The Quantize, Duration, Velocity, and
Transpose functions are essentially light
| | 00:45 | versions of the Quantize, change
Duration, change Velocity and Transpose
| | 00:51 | functions in the MIDI Operations window.
| | 00:53 | Delay enables you to push the MIDI data
on the track forward or back in time by
| | 00:57 | a specified number of ticks, in
the same way that offset does in the
| | 01:01 | Quantization window.
| | 01:03 | Now, if you need more information
about these parameters, check out the video
| | 01:06 | about Event Operations. So let's say we
want to actually add some Quantization
| | 01:11 | to this drumbeat. In fact, we want to
add swing. So I'm going to click in here,
| | 01:17 | add 100% but the great thing about
this is that we don't have to while the
| | 01:21 | track is stopped, we can change
it while the track is playing.
| | 01:24 | So I'm going to solo this and we're going
to listen to this with changing swing values.
| | 01:30 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:46 | So, we just heard this track go from
100% to 50% to 0% swing, all in real-time
| | 01:53 | and that's a great way to transfigure out how
much swing you actually want for this drum track.
| | 01:58 | Now if we go down to this Bass track,
we can figure out if we want to actually
| | 02:03 | transpose this track while
we play it back in real-time.
| | 02:07 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:22 | Again, Real-time transposition, very
cool. So play around with these properties
| | 02:28 | and see what you like, all in real-time.
| | 02:31 | Now we can apply these properties to
entire tracks or only to specific regions.
| | 02:36 | If we go to Event > MIDI Real-Time
Properties, we open the Real-Time Properties
| | 02:43 | window. So in this window, we could
choose Apply to and in this case, we have,
| | 02:49 | to the track and if we actually go and
with the Grabber tool, select this Bass
| | 02:56 | region, we can apply it just to that region.
| | 03:00 | So if we want to transpose this just
to that region and say Write To Region,
| | 03:07 | and that has now been written to this
region. You'll see that these notes are
| | 03:12 | actually transposed up.
| | 03:15 | Now we can clear the region properties
so that we can do things to it again. If
| | 03:18 | you want to transpose it up again you
can hit Write To Region and that will
| | 03:23 | bring it up even higher.
| | 03:23 | Now, you see these little Ts here.
That's when you have Real-Time Properties
| | 03:29 | being applied to the entire track,
and that's what's going on right here.
| | 03:34 | If you want to apply something just to
one region, like we have here, you can
| | 03:41 | see that once I click this on, there's
a little R here and that means that the
| | 03:45 | Real-Time Properties are applied only
to that region and there's nothing on the
| | 03:49 | track as a whole, as you can see over here.
| | 03:52 | If you'd like to see how the Real-
Time Properties are altering your data on
| | 03:56 | your MIDI and Instrument Tracks,
let's go up to the Preferences and we can
| | 04:03 | check that off; Display Events as
Modified by Real-Time Properties.
| | 04:11 | So there you go. Instead of working
with the Event Operations window in
| | 04:15 | non-real time, you can use Real-Time
Properties to alter your MIDI performances.
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|
|
9. ScoringExploring the Score Editor| 00:00 | In this video, I'm going to go over
how to use the Score Editor window to
| | 00:03 | create and edit MIDI notes. First,
let's open up the Score Editor window.
| | 00:08 | There are few ways to do that. We can go to
the Window menu and choose Score Editor,
| | 00:15 | or we can go to into the Preferences
on the MIDI page and set this up so that
| | 00:20 | we have double-clicking a MIDI region
opens the Score Editor, or we can simply
| | 00:28 | right-click on a MIDI region and
scroll down to the bottom of the right-click
| | 00:34 | menu and choose Open in Score Editor.
| | 00:36 | Boom! There we go, the Score Editor
window, and there is our music notation.
| | 00:41 | First, I want to go over to the Toolbar
menu in the Score Editor and make sure
| | 00:46 | that everything is selected, so that
we are seeing everything that we can in
| | 00:50 | the Toolbar. We are going to take a
look at these Edit tools over here.
| | 00:54 | Let's check out the Zoomer first. If
we go into the Score and click once with
| | 00:59 | the Zoomer tool, it will zoom in. If
you press the Option key on a Mac or the
| | 01:03 | Alt key on a PC, it will zoom back out
if you click and you will see the little
| | 01:08 | icon switch from the plus to a minus
in the Zoomer tool, and finally, you can
| | 01:13 | click and drag and create a marquee and
then that will zoom in on just the area
| | 01:19 | that you created that marquee box for.
I'm going to zoom out a little bit
| | 01:23 | again, and let's go to the Trimmer tool.
| | 01:26 | The Trimmer allows you to lengthen or
shorten notes. So if I take it here to
| | 01:31 | this note and I click and drag, I can
shorten that note and you will see that
| | 01:36 | the rests go in and alter accordingly
as I drag forward and back. Next, I'm
| | 01:43 | going to use the Note Selector tool
and if I click and drag with that, I'll
| | 01:49 | select all the notes that I'm clicking and
dragging over, and those notes turn blue.
| | 01:54 | Now Selected notes can be deleted,
moved, transposed and processed with the
| | 01:59 | Vent Operations like Quantize. So
what if I go ahead and cut those? They go
| | 02:07 | away, and we get empty measures. I'm
going to undo that. Now I should make a
| | 02:13 | note about the Note Selector because
it only includes MIDI note and velocity
| | 02:18 | data. It doesn't include any other
MIDI or continuous controller data that
| | 02:22 | might be underlying these
notes. Why does that matter?
| | 02:25 | Well, if you make an edit on the Score,
like moving some notes or erasing some
| | 02:30 | notes like we just did, some
information might not move with that edit. So if
| | 02:34 | we have this piano track and maybe
there is some pedal sustain underneath these
| | 02:38 | notes, that data will actually stay
there while we erase these notes, and you
| | 02:44 | probably don't want that. So, I
recommend performing large MIDI edits like that
| | 02:49 | in the Edit window or the MIDI Editor
window where that data will actually
| | 02:54 | travel with your edits.
| | 02:56 | Now let's take a look at the Grabber
tool. With the Grabber tool, we can click
| | 03:00 | on a note and move it.
| | 03:03 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:10 | I am going to undo that. I can also
create a marquee with the Grabber by
| | 03:15 | clicking and dragging and selecting
all these notes within the marquee. With
| | 03:20 | the Pencil tool, we can insert, select,
or move notes as well as delete them.
| | 03:26 | So if I just click in here--
| | 03:29 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:30 | I can create a note. Once you have a
note in the score, you can use the Pencil
| | 03:35 | tool to grab it and move it around.
Here is a little pointer icon that if you
| | 03:40 | click on a note, you can click and grab
it and move it anywhere you want like this.
| | 03:43 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:50 | Once you get away from the note, the
pencil comes back and you can add more
| | 03:54 | notes. Now we have all these shapes
for the Pencil tool as well. In freehand,
| | 04:00 | we can pretty much add notes
wherever we want like this.
| | 04:04 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:12 | However, If we switch over to one of
these other four, what that's going to do
| | 04:17 | is add notes, but it's all going to be
on one pitch and for the Line tool, all
| | 04:22 | of the velocities would be the same.
If we choose the Triangle tool, the
| | 04:27 | velocities will go into a triangle
shape. Choose the Square tool and the
| | 04:31 | velocities will follow the square
shape and finally, with the Random, the
| | 04:37 | velocities will be randomized.
| | 04:38 | We will just keep it on freehand for
now. If you take the Pencil tool and you
| | 04:45 | get close to the note like this and
press Option on the Mac or Alt on a PC, the
| | 04:50 | pencil flips around and becomes an
eraser, and you can delete notes that way.
| | 04:55 | Now, any notes that you add or delete
in the Score Editor window will also be
| | 04:59 | reflected in the Edit window and the
MIDI Editor. Also note that the Score
| | 05:03 | Editor automatically adds rests as
needed as you can see here. You can also
| | 05:09 | move or manually insert rests if you
want. So the Score Editor will probably
| | 05:13 | become an integral part of your MIDI
editing workflow in Pro Tools. I'll cover
| | 05:18 | more about the features of the Score
Editor in other videos in this course.
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| Using the Score Editor| 00:00 | The Score Editor shares a lot of
common functionality with the regular Edit window
| | 00:04 | and the new MIDI Editor window.
This means you'll learn how to use the
| | 00:08 | Score Editor very quickly.
| | 00:10 | The Score Editor also offers up some
unique features, some of which we'll cover
| | 00:14 | in this video. And let's pick off where
we left off in the previous movie about
| | 00:17 | the Score Editor by looking at some of
the other buttons and features at the
| | 00:21 | top of the Score Editor window.
| | 00:22 | I am going to mouse over few of these,
and we'll see what there are with the
| | 00:26 | tool tips. Here is the MIDI Note
Durations. So when we add a note, it's going
| | 00:31 | to choose this particular duration.
This is a quarter note and we can choose
| | 00:36 | any of these from this menu.
| | 00:40 | Next we have the MIDI Note Velocity.
So when we add a new note, that's with the
| | 00:44 | velocity would be. The next one we have
Play MIDI Notes While Editing. So when
| | 00:49 | we add a note, we can actually hear it.
| | 00:53 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:58 | If we don't want that feature on,
we can click it and turn it off.
| | 01:03 | Next we have the Mirrored MIDI Editing.
What this means is if we've multiple
| | 01:07 | MIDI loops in a session, if you edit
one note in one of the loops, then all of
| | 01:12 | the loops will receive the same edit.
To the right we have the Link Timeline
| | 01:17 | and Edit Selection. Now you should
be familiar with that from some of the
| | 01:20 | videos about the Edit window, and
the Edit window special buttons.
| | 01:25 | Finally, we have the Double Barline
button, and this places a double barline at
| | 01:29 | the end of the score. Use this only
when you are ready to print the score.
| | 01:33 | Let's take a look at what it actually
does. Let's scroll over to the end of the
| | 01:40 | page, and hit the Double Barline, and
you'll see that it actually drops in the
| | 01:45 | double barline down here.
| | 01:53 | When the Double Barline button is
disabled, there is actually a few empty bars
| | 01:57 | at the end of the score, and we can
setup how many we want by going to Setup >
| | 02:03 | Preferences, and on the MIDI page we
have the Additional Empty Bars in the
| | 02:08 | Score Editor, and right now that's set to 1.
| | 02:12 | Let's continue across the toolbar at
the top of the Score Editor. Here we have
| | 02:17 | the Cursor location and that literally
means where the mouse is with the cursor
| | 02:22 | on the screen. It also gives the pitch. Now we
have the Grid Value, and the Grid Value menu.
| | 02:29 | To the right we have the Edit Selection,
and this is the start of it. You can
| | 02:33 | see that right here we are at bar 3
and that's indicated right here. We can
| | 02:38 | change this by clicking and typing in.
| | 02:43 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:47 | Here we have the MIDI Note Pitch, and
we can actually click this to change the
| | 02:52 | pitch of the note that we are working
on right here. So right here we have C4,
| | 02:57 | if I just change this to C3, it will
drop it down an octave. And this is the
| | 03:05 | MIDI Note Velocity; we can change this
particular note's velocity by clicking
| | 03:11 | and typing in a new number and hitting Return.
| | 03:14 | Like the Edit window toolbar, we can
move the parts of this toolbar around by
| | 03:19 | pressing the Command key on a Mac or
the Ctrl key for PC and selecting parts
| | 03:26 | and dragging them. Click-and-drag.
| | 03:32 | On the left side of the Score Editor
window, we have the tracks list. As you
| | 03:36 | can see right now, there is only one
track that's been shown in the Score
| | 03:40 | Editor, but if we click these little
circles, we can add more tracks to the score.
| | 03:49 | When I click on a particular track,
the cursor moves into that track, as you
| | 03:53 | can see down here. We can use the
Track menu to Show All Tracks or Only
| | 03:58 | Selected Tracks, Hide Tracks, and then
some other options that we are going to
| | 04:02 | discuss in the next video.
| | 04:06 | At the bottom part of the page, we
have the page Back and Forward buttons. We
| | 04:12 | also have scrollbars and zoom controls.
We also have this button that you can
| | 04:22 | click on and choose a different size
percentage wise or to fit the page, if we want.
| | 04:28 | Finally, as you should expect from any
good piece of notation software, you can
| | 04:33 | record MIDI data and it's transcribed
right into the Score Editor in real time.
| | 04:38 | Let's check it out.
| | 04:39 | I am going to scroll all the way to the
end of the score here. So I'm going to
| | 04:45 | click on the Selector tool and drop
the cursor in on the Mini Grand track and
| | 04:51 | I'm going to go over to the Edit window,
Record Enable the Mini Grand track,
| | 05:01 | and also activate the Transport window,
switch back over to the Score Editor,
| | 05:07 | and now I'm going to start recording,
and you are going to see the live
| | 05:12 | transcription right here
in the Score Editor Window.
| | 05:19 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:26 | There you go, live transcription right
into the Score Editor window in Pro Tools.
| | 05:30 | Now one more thing I want to talk you
about; it's this button right here the
| | 05:34 | Target button. Now unlike the MIDI
Editor window, you can only have one Score
| | 05:39 | Editor window open at once. Thus, the
Target button here in the Score Editor
| | 05:43 | has a different purpose than
it does on the MIDI Editor.
| | 05:47 | When the Target is enabled, like it is
right now, navigation in the Edit window
| | 05:51 | will be mimicked in the Score Editor,
like we have this dropped in right at
| | 05:55 | measure 146. If we go over to the
Edit window, the cursor is there as well.
| | 06:05 | However, if we turn off the Target,
that will unlink the Score Editor and the
| | 06:10 | Edit window, so the
navigations will be separate.
| | 06:14 | I really like how DigiDesign has
adopted their Editing tools into this Sibelius
| | 06:19 | driven Score Editor. After learning
what the Edit tools do in the Edit window,
| | 06:23 | the Edit tools in the Score Editor are
very intuitive, so the learning curve to
| | 06:27 | edit in the Score window isn't very steep.
I hope you enjoy using the Score Editor.
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| Setting up a score| 00:00 | The Score Editor is where you see
your MIDI performances shown as music
| | 00:04 | notation. After you're done recording
and editing your performances, you can
| | 00:08 | fine tune how they look as you
set up you Score on Pro Tools.
| | 00:11 | Let's check out some of the options
that we have for setting up your score. If
| | 00:16 | we just right-click in the Score, we
can actually insert a Key Signature, Meter
| | 00:22 | changes or Chord Symbols. Let's put a
Chord Symbol in there so that you can see
| | 00:28 | what it looks like in the page.
| | 00:29 | Just keep a regular C chord there. It
looks pretty sharp. Now we could continue
| | 00:36 | and put chords all over the page here,
but we'll just start with that one for
| | 00:39 | now. Carrying on, let's go to the
Notation Display Track Settings window.
| | 00:45 | We can choose that here from the
Tracks List or again, we can right-click and
| | 00:52 | choose it in this menu. I'm going to
scroll over into the score a little bit
| | 00:59 | more so we can see some
more notes on different tracks.
| | 01:03 | In the Notation Display Track Settings
window, we can look at each track and
| | 01:08 | make some decisions about what we
want the Clef to look like, the Display
| | 01:12 | Transposition and some Attributes for the track.
| | 01:16 | First, we can choose what clef we
want. Now music for some instruments is
| | 01:20 | better suited on different clefs.
We're looking at the Mini Grand track so
| | 01:24 | we'll actually keep the Grand Staff
but as you can see, we can choose from
| | 01:27 | other ones if we want.
| | 01:29 | We also can change the Display
Transposition. For the piano we'll keep it in
| | 01:35 | the key of C, however-- or if you have
trumpet that you want to play this part.
| | 01:39 | Well a trumpet is a B-flat instrument.
So they would play this part a major
| | 01:44 | second below where it's written.
| | 01:46 | So in this case, we want to transpose
this part up a whole step to D, if you
| | 01:53 | want the trumpet to play this part as
it's written on this score. We'll bring
| | 01:58 | that back down to C.
| | 02:00 | Moving down to the Global section, we
can display the Quantization if we want,
| | 02:05 | we can straighten the Swing that is it
will unswing any swung notes. This is
| | 02:12 | good for if you have some swung eighth
notes in the score that appear to be swung.
| | 02:17 | Well, you might want to straighten
those out. Jazz musicians would rather see
| | 02:22 | the unswung version anyway and
they know how to add their own swing.
| | 02:25 | Down below that, we have the Allow
Note Overlap and if we check that box off,
| | 02:30 | watch what happens in the Score. You'll
see some extra notes pop-up. Here's an
| | 02:36 | example right up here. Let me uncheck it,
uncheck it again, and you'll see that
| | 02:44 | these two notes actually
overlap in the performance.
| | 02:49 | But Pro Tools really doesn't want to
show multiple notes at one position. It
| | 02:54 | would prefer to show a single
rhythmic line in the single staff. But if you
| | 02:59 | really want to see it you can see
it by checking Allow Note Overlap.
| | 03:05 | Finally, we can change the Split Point
for the Staff. Right now it's fixed at
| | 03:10 | C3 but if we change it to Automatic,
Pro Tools actually adds all of the notes
| | 03:17 | into the upper part of the Staff here
into the treble clef. Now, check it out.
| | 03:21 | If I go back to Fixed, it's
going to split this out differently.
| | 03:25 | Now personally, I would rather see it
notated like this. It's simpler to read
| | 03:32 | but you have the option. Finally, we
can hit the Attributes button and if you
| | 03:37 | want to set up different attributes for
the selected track then what are in the
| | 03:41 | Global settings you can do that
here by unchecking this button.
| | 03:47 | Let's close up the Notation Display
Tracks Settings window and go to the File
| | 03:51 | menu and choose Score Setup. In this
window, we can add the Title, call it
| | 03:59 | Lynda's Lullaby and the Composer. And
then you can change what the Display
| | 04:09 | looks like. What you want to see in
the actual score, you can change the
| | 04:14 | Spacings and you can alter the Layout.
| | 04:17 | Now I'll leave the rest of these
settings to you but this is where you do the
| | 04:22 | set up in the Score Setup dialog. So there you go.
That's how you set up a Score in Pro Tools.
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| Printing and exporting a score| 00:00 | In addition to editing MIDI notes in
Pro Tools, the Score Editor enables you to
| | 00:04 | export the score to Sibelius, an
advanced notation software program, for
| | 00:08 | further tweaking or to simply print
out the score directly from Pro Tools.
| | 00:14 | Before we export or print, we can
actually add additional things to the score,
| | 00:20 | if we need to. We can change the Key
Signature, the Meter, add some more Chord
| | 00:24 | symbols. I won't do any more of that
right now, but it's just a right-click away.
| | 00:31 | We can also change the name of the
tracks in the score, so I'm going to
| | 00:35 | double-click right here on Mini Grand
and that opens it up and we can rename
| | 00:39 | this Piano if we want. Over here in
the Tracks list, we can decide to show or
| | 00:47 | hide some of these tracks from the
score itself. In fact, we can go right here
| | 00:51 | and say show only the selected
track, which will show just the Piano.
| | 00:56 | So, for printing out just the Piano
part, that's what we want to do or
| | 01:00 | if we want to see the whole score, we'll
show all the tracks. If you'd like to do
| | 01:05 | some fine-tuning or tweaking to the
score or individual parts and you want to
| | 01:09 | use Sibelius notation program to do this,
you can export the file to Sibelius
| | 01:15 | to utilize the more advanced notation
functions in that program. Just choose
| | 01:19 | File > Export > Sibelius. Choose
a place to save it and hit Save.
| | 01:29 | If you want to send this file
directly to Sibelius and you have Sibelius on
| | 01:33 | your computer, you can do that too.
Go to File > Send to Sibelius. Now we don't
| | 01:40 | have Sibelius on this computer, so
it's going to tell us that we can't do it.
| | 01:44 | But if you did, then you'd be able to.
| | 01:47 | Finally, if we want to print out the
score, we can choose File > Print Score.
| | 01:54 | Doing this will print exactly what
appears on the screen in the Score Editor window,
| | 01:58 | nothing more, nothing less.
| | 02:00 | Now, one thing you should know.
If you print out the score to a PDF file,
| | 02:04 | be sure to look at the score in Adobe
Acrobat, instead of other programs like
| | 02:08 | Apple Preview. There is a bug in
Sibelius that is transferred over to Pro Tools,
| | 02:13 | and the score will
actually look better in Acrobat.
| | 02:16 | So, now you know how to notate Midi
performances and set up a score in Pro Tools,
| | 02:21 | and you can even export and
print that score directly from Pro Tools.
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|
|
10. Advanced EditingUtilizing the Time Shift plug-in| 00:00 | Pro Tools enables you to expand or
compress an audio region without affecting
| | 00:04 | its pitch, by utilizing the Time Shift
AudioSuite Plug-in. Let's try this out.
| | 00:10 | I have a got a beat over here, a
reggae beat that's 4 bars long. However, it
| | 00:17 | was originally recorded at 95 BPM, but
I want it to actually be at 92 BPM for
| | 00:24 | our session here. So I can actually use
the TCE Trimmer tool to expand this out
| | 00:32 | to fit into our 4 bars.
| | 00:34 | But let's hear what it sounds like
before I do that and then we'll able to
| | 00:38 | compare what it sounds like after.
| | 00:40 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:52 | All right, now I'm going to expand it
out, and Pro Tools will make a new file
| | 00:58 | with this extension the TISH
and let's check it out.
| | 01:02 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:10 | Well, I'm not impressed. I don't
think I like the algorithm that Pro Tools
| | 01:14 | chose to use on this one. So I can
actually go to the Preferences page, in the
| | 01:21 | Processing section and in the Time
Compression Expansion section, I can choose
| | 01:27 | my Default Settings and no wonder it
doesn't sound very good. It was on the
| | 01:31 | Default Settings for Piano. Let me
take this down and choose Stereo Mix.
| | 01:38 | I'll hit OK and then I'm actually
going to undo this Time Shift.
| | 01:42 | Now I'm going to re-time shift it with this
different preset. Let's have a listen now.
| | 01:50 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:59 | That's much better. Now instead of
using the TC/E tool, we can actually open up
| | 02:06 | Time Shift as in AudioSuite Plug-in
and we can look through the different
| | 02:12 | presets up here and apply them simply
by highlighting the region and hitting
| | 02:21 | Process or we can hit the preview to
actually check it out before we process it.
| | 02:26 | While we are in this window, let's
take a look at some of the parameters. We
| | 02:30 | have got the Mode, Monophonic,
Polyphonic, Rhythmic and Varispeed. Now
| | 02:37 | Monophonic you should use on
monophonic sounds like voices, single voices.
| | 02:42 | Polyphonic is great on complex sounds,
like a piece of music with multiple
| | 02:48 | instruments playing at once. Rhythmic
is great for percussive sounds like a
| | 02:52 | drum loop. However, Polyphonic can
even be used on drum loops possibly even
| | 02:57 | better than the Rhythmic mode and
Varispeed. Now this links time and pitch
| | 03:02 | change and acts like how a tape machine
does when you speed up or slow down the
| | 03:06 | tape. So with Varispeed, the pitch and the
time are linked together unlike these other three.
| | 03:13 | If we go over to the Range, we can tell
Pro Tools to affect just the Low, Mids,
| | 03:21 | Highs or Wide, which is all of the above,
and over here we can reduce the Gain
| | 03:27 | if we need to so that we don't clip
anything. Down below in the Time section we
| | 03:32 | have got the original which is now set
to 92 BPM and that's what this region is
| | 03:38 | now, 92 BPM. And if we want to change
it to a different Tempo we can just click
| | 03:46 | in there type in a new tempo and hit
Return and Pro Tools will automatically
| | 03:52 | figure out what the new speed needs to be and
this is a percentage of what the Original Tempo is.
| | 03:59 | Down here in the Transient section,
this section provides controls for setting
| | 04:03 | the Transient Detection Threshold and
for adjusting the analysis window length
| | 04:07 | for processing audio. Now I wouldn't
really touch this if you don't know what
| | 04:11 | you are doing, so we are just going to
leave this alone for now. Over in this
| | 04:15 | section we have the Pitch control where
we can transpose an audio region up or
| | 04:20 | down two octaves and we'll
come back to that in a second.
| | 04:24 | Now I want to come back to this
Transient section because if we switch from
| | 04:28 | Polyphonic to Monophonic, this
control changes to Formant. Now the Formant
| | 04:34 | section enables you to shift the
Formant shape of the selected audio
| | 04:38 | independently of the fundamental
frequency, which you change over here in the
| | 04:42 | pitch. This is useful for achieving
Formant correct pitch shifting or to use as
| | 04:47 | an interesting effect and what's
really crazy about this thing is you can use
| | 04:52 | this Formant control to change the sound of a
male vocal to sound more like a female vocal.
| | 04:58 | So let's try out this Pitch control.
I'm going to grab this base track and drag
| | 05:03 | it down here, solo the track and I'm
just going to go ahead and hit Preview and
| | 05:09 | then adjust the pitch control in real time.
| | 05:14 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:28 | Well that doesn't sound very good now,
does it? Let's go to Base Polyphonic and
| | 05:37 | now we'll change the pitch in real
time and see if this algorithm works out
| | 05:41 | better for changing the pitch on the base.
| | 05:46 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:06 | Not perfect, but it sounds much, much
better. Let's try another test. I'm going
| | 06:11 | to bring this Stereo Track down, solo
that track and I'm going to switch this
| | 06:25 | over to the Stereo Mix Default which I think
turns out to be the best preset for Time Shift.
| | 06:32 | So I'm going to go ahead and hit the
Preview button and then tweak a bunch of
| | 06:36 | the parameters and we'll
see how well it reacts.
| | 06:39 | (Music playing.)
| | 07:22 | So obviously you can have a lot of fun
with this plug-in but you know that it
| | 07:26 | has its limits. If you try to change
the tempo or the pitch too much it will
| | 07:31 | create a lot of artifacts. However,
for changes that are relatively close to
| | 07:36 | the original tempo and pitch,
Time Shift handles them pretty well.
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| Editing with Elastic Time| 00:00 | Elastic Audio in Pro Tools refers to
both Elastic Time and Elastic Pitch. Both
| | 00:06 | are more fully featured than what's
available in Time Compression and Expansion
| | 00:09 | plug-ins like Time Shift. Although
Elastic Audio has a feature set that's very
| | 00:14 | large, I'll explain many of the
concepts in this video, and then lead you
| | 00:19 | through some exercises to experience
the power of Elastic Audio. Let's take a
| | 00:23 | look at Elastic Time.
| | 00:24 | Elastic Time analyzes audio regions
for transient events like drum hits and
| | 00:28 | guitar chords and enables you to
conform these events to session's tempo, a
| | 00:34 | quantization grid or manually using the
Edit Tools in Warp view. Let's try it out.
| | 00:41 | First, I'm going to change the
Timebase from Samples to Ticks. Then I'm going
| | 00:46 | to enable Elastic Audio and I'm going
to choose Polyphonic as the algorithm. As
| | 00:52 | soon as I choose that, Pro Tools,
behind the scenes, analyzes the audio
| | 00:56 | waveform for its transient events. In the
drumbeat here, it's pretty easy to pick them out.
| | 01:01 | Now, let's have some fun. I'm going to
change the session tempo to a bunch of
| | 01:07 | different tempos, and you're going to
notice how the loop conforms to each
| | 01:10 | tempo. I'm just going to double-click
here, and if I enter 105, you'll see that
| | 01:18 | the entire session moves and this
region remains as a four-bar loop.
| | 01:24 | Now if I go and change the tempo to
something else, try 80. It does the same
| | 01:30 | thing. It expands out, but it remains
a four-bar loop. Let's hear what this
| | 01:34 | sounds like at this lower tempo.
| | 01:37 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:49 | Not too bad. All right, let's undo
what we've just done, couple of tempo
| | 01:55 | events. Now we're back to the original
and let's change this from Polyphonic to
| | 02:04 | Varispeed. Now, Varispeed links the
time and pitch change together, like how a
| | 02:09 | tape machine would react, if you speed
it up or slow down the tape. So, let me
| | 02:14 | change this tempo up to 105, and we'll
hear the pitch change and the tempo change.
| | 02:21 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:28 | Now, compare the pitch, if I undo that,
and we'll listen to the original pitch.
| | 02:32 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:38 | So, use Polyphonic, if you don't want
the pitch to change and use Varispeed if
| | 02:43 | you do. Now, let's look a little
closer on what's going on with Elastic Time.
| | 02:48 | I'm going to switch the Track view
over to Analysis and I'm going to zoom in
| | 02:55 | and you can see that Pro Tools has
placed these Analysis markers near all of
| | 03:01 | the transients. And as the
tooltip tells you right there, you can
| | 03:05 | click-and-drag and you can
reposition the marker if you want to.
| | 03:11 | Now, if we go over to Warp view, we
have those same Analysis markers, but we
| | 03:16 | can change them into Warp markers
if we just double-click on them.
| | 03:20 | Now, I'm going to click out of this
track so that it's not selected any more,
| | 03:28 | and you'll be able to behold the power
of the Warp markers. Check this out. I'm
| | 03:33 | going to click-and-drag, and look at
how easy it is to control the audio. So,
| | 03:42 | if I want to actually move pieces of
the waveform and align them with the tempo
| | 03:46 | grid or with any other
audio event, it's very easy.
| | 03:52 | I've used Warp markers like this to
align all kinds of parts, Bass parts, Drum
| | 03:57 | parts, Vocal parts, you name it. Align
it up to the grid, align it up to other
| | 04:01 | events, extremely powerful!
| | 04:04 | Now, let's try out adding a Groove
template to this loop using Elastic Time.
| | 04:09 | So, I'm going to zoom out and I'm going
to go back to Waveform view. I'm going
| | 04:16 | to select the region and then I'm
going to go to Event > Event Operations >
| | 04:22 | Quantize, and notice we have
Elastic Audio Events right here.
| | 04:26 | I'm going to choose a groove. Let's go
down to the MPC Style Grooves and I'll
| | 04:34 | try out MPC 70% 16th Swing. I'm going
to move this over to the side here, so
| | 04:42 | when I hit the Apply button, you can
see what happens with the waveforms;
| | 04:48 | they moved. So, let's press Play and
we'll hear what this sounds like.
| | 04:52 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:04 | Some funky stuff going on in there.
Now, I have those Warp makers still in
| | 05:07 | here. So, there was some shifting going
on in there. But you can tell that this
| | 05:12 | has a little bit more swing than
what the original drum loop had.
| | 05:15 | So, I'm going to undo this real
quick and switch it back over to the Warp
| | 05:21 | Analysis and reapply it. Now watch
what happens with the Warp markers. They
| | 05:27 | move just slightly and again you could go
in here and adjust any of them however you want.
| | 05:43 | Let's hear.
| | 05:45 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:50 | You can make some crazy effects with
this stuff and you'll notice that part of
| | 05:54 | the reason that we're getting this
pitchiness in here is because we're using
| | 05:57 | the Varispeed Elastic Audio. If
we're using the Polyphonic Algorithm, we
| | 06:03 | wouldn't get those pitch variations.
Let's take a quick listen and you'll hear.
| | 06:08 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:14 | No pitch variations. One thing we
should also notice in this menu is that we're
| | 06:20 | on Real-Time Processing right now. This
can be very demanding on your computer,
| | 06:25 | especially if you have a lot of tracks
that are Elastic-Audio-enabled. So, if
| | 06:31 | we go to Rendered Processing, Pro
Tools will actually render and create a
| | 06:36 | temporary file, so it's not Real-
Time anymore. This will save a lot of
| | 06:41 | processing power for your computer and you can
always go back to Real-Time when you need to.
| | 06:48 | Now, let's go and check out the
Elastic Properties window. So, I'm going to
| | 06:55 | select this region and then I'm
going to right-click and choose Elastic
| | 06:59 | Properties. So, there is a lot of
options for things that we can do in here. We
| | 07:05 | could actually make this region half
the size that it is by clicking this and
| | 07:10 | let's actually hear what that sounds like.
| | 07:12 | (Music playing.)
| | 07:18 | Interesting! I'm going to undo that.
While we're in this window, we can change
| | 07:24 | all kinds of different things, the tempo,
the meter, the event sensitivity, the
| | 07:29 | input gain and the pitch shift, or
we can reset everything back to the
| | 07:33 | original. So, this is a
pretty powerful little window.
| | 07:37 | One last thing I want to talk to you
about with Elastic Properties are in the
| | 07:41 | Preferences. So, we go Setup >
Preferences > Processing and the Elastic Audio
| | 07:48 | section here. We can set the default
Elastic Audio plug-in. We can choose any
| | 07:54 | of the four; Polyphonic is usually a
good one to start with. We can choose to
| | 07:58 | enable Elastic Audio on all
new tracks if we check this off.
| | 08:02 | Now, usually I recommend keeping that
off because Elastic Audio does take up a
| | 08:07 | lot of processing power, so we
don't need it on if you're not using it.
| | 08:12 | Elastic Time is great for conforming
performances to a different tempo or
| | 08:17 | groove from what they're originally
recorded at. Use this for time-aligning any
| | 08:22 | type of performances. It is really
amazing the power that you have over
| | 08:26 | rhythmic events in Pro Tools with Elastic Time.
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| Editing with Elastic Pitch| 00:00 | Elastic Pitch enables you to transpose
or alter the pitch of an audio region.
| | 00:06 | It's not designed to be a pitch
correction tool on entire tracks like Auto-Tune
| | 00:10 | or other pitch correction plug-ins but it
can be used for fixing small pitch issues.
| | 00:16 | Let's transpose the pitch of a region
using Elastic Pitch. First, you have to
| | 00:21 | select a region. I'm going to use
the Grabber tool and just click on the
| | 00:24 | region. Then you need to enable
Elastic Audio on the track and you do that
| | 00:30 | right over here, I'm going to choose
Polyphonic and you should you know that
| | 00:36 | Elastic Pitch does not work on
monophonic elastic audio tracks.
| | 00:41 | Next to enable the Elastic Properties,
you can right-click and choose Elastic
| | 00:47 | Properties or choose Region > Elastic
Properties. The Elastic Properties window
| | 00:55 | will open up and down here at the
bottom, you can see the Pitch shifting.
| | 00:59 | I'm going to type in -2 so that's
going to move this down a whole step and
| | 01:05 | then I hit Return on the Mac or Enter
on the PC and you'll see this little
| | 01:10 | Elastic Audio icon in the upper-right
corner of this region. That means that
| | 01:14 | the region has been processed by Elastic Audio.
| | 01:17 | So I'm going to go ahead to play
and we'll hear what this sounds like.
| | 01:21 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:34 | So not too bad and like I said in the
intro, Elastic Pitch isn't really good
| | 01:38 | for using on an entire track, but for
little spots. But I want to show you how
| | 01:44 | this works. So here's
another way of how it works.
| | 01:48 | I am going to close up the Elastic
Properties window and highlight this bass track.
| | 01:52 | We go up to Event > Event Operations
> Transpose. In this window, we can
| | 02:00 | also transpose or change the pitch of
an audio region. So I'm going to drag
| | 02:04 | this down -3 semitones and hit Apply and now
I can hear this bass track down three semitones.
| | 02:13 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:24 | Sounds a little bit better on the Bass.
Now, you can simply undo that if you
| | 02:28 | want or you can go to Region >
Remove Pitch Shift and that'll get rid of all
| | 02:34 | the pitch shifting that's
been done on that region.
| | 02:36 | So now you know how to use Elastic
Pitch to transpose audio regions just as
| | 02:41 | easily as Transposing MIDI notes.
Although it has its limits, Elastic Pitch is
| | 02:46 | a very powerful editing tool.
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|
|
11. Building with Virtual InstrumentsWorking with Boom| 00:00 | Boom is a drum machine style
pattern sequencer. You can create your own
| | 00:04 | patterns, use the impressive
collection of preset patterns, or edit those
| | 00:09 | presets and easily trigger and switch
between the patterns with the mouse,
| | 00:14 | using a MIDI controller
or programming MIDI data.
| | 00:17 | First let's load up one of my
favorite preset patterns here, McBombs. The
| | 00:25 | number after the name of the beat
refers to the tempo that the beat was
| | 00:28 | originally created at. In this case
it's 136. I'm about to play it back at 120
| | 00:35 | BPM in the session and it will just sink
right up to that session tempo. Let's listen.
| | 00:40 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:50 | Boom has ten drum kits and they are
listed right here, the Eight-O8, Nine-O9
| | 00:57 | are based of the classic 808 and 909
analog drum machines and the Fat versions
| | 01:03 | are processed harder hitting
versions of the 808 and 909 sounds.
| | 01:07 | Let's talk about the interface and how
to use it. In this section right here,
| | 01:13 | this is called the Matrix, the matrix
display gives us a visual display of what
| | 01:17 | samples are being sequenced to play in
the pattern. So we can see the Kick, all
| | 01:22 | the notes in the Kick pattern are here,
Snare, Hi-hat etcetera. If you click on
| | 01:28 | a note in the Matrix, you can add or
delete them. So if we click this Kick
| | 01:32 | note, it's actually going to get
lighter in color which means that the velocity
| | 01:37 | is going down and if I click
it one more time, it goes away.
| | 01:40 | So I'm going to add the note back and
it's going to be at full velocity. That's
| | 01:45 | what it means when the light is bright
like this and there are three velocity
| | 01:49 | levels that are possible. So this is
the full value, hard. That's kind of
| | 01:54 | medium and this is soft and
then when the note is totally off.
| | 01:59 | Below the Matrix we have the Swing,
Volume, and Dynamics controls and these are
| | 02:05 | global controls that affect all the
notes in the pattern. Swing adds swing
| | 02:10 | quantization, Volume adjusts the
overall output level of Boom and the Dynamics
| | 02:17 | knob scales the difference between
the three different velocity levels. In
| | 02:21 | other words, turning it all the way to
the left makes all the Dynamics equal.
| | 02:25 | So if you do that, there is no Dynamics
in the beat at all. However, if we turn
| | 02:30 | it all the way to the right, the
differences between the hard, medium, and soft
| | 02:34 | velocity levels are very dramatic. So
I'm going to play this beat back. Let's
| | 02:38 | listen all three of these and I'll change
the values and you can hear the differences.
| | 02:46 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:20 | So you can tell here with the Dynamics
knob, if we turn it all the way to the
| | 03:24 | right, essentially the Ride pattern
almost goes away. You can't even hear it at
| | 03:29 | all. However, if we turn it all the way to
the left, it's just as loud as the kick drum.
| | 03:34 | To the right of the Matrix we have the
Instrument section and this enables you
| | 03:38 | to alter the panning, level, tuning,
Decay as well as Mute and Solo individual
| | 03:45 | tracks. So I'm going to solo this Kick
and we'll take a listen to it, and then
| | 03:49 | I'm going to adjust some of the parameters
and we'll hear how they sound.
| | 03:56 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:24 | You can also select the sample. So if I
wanted to change this sample and use a
| | 04:29 | Kick from a different beat, I can go on
here and click and choose a different sample.
| | 04:34 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:45 | It's pretty cool that you can do
that on real-time. There is also this
| | 04:48 | mysterious adjuster button right here
and you can use this button to calibrate
| | 04:53 | the sound of the instrument in some
varying ways. I'm going to click on this
| | 04:57 | and play it back and we'll
hear what we can do with it.
| | 05:01 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:18 | Basically, it allows you to change the
intensity or the impact of the sound and
| | 05:23 | when I'm adjusting it, you can see it
down here in the Info Display and Setup
| | 05:27 | button. So let's go back to listening
to the full beat and I'm going to try out
| | 05:32 | these different speeds and use the
Triplet button here. So we've got regular
| | 05:37 | speed X1, X2 is double-time,
and X 1/2 is half-time.
| | 05:45 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:09 | You will notice that when I hit the
Triplet button, it creates a triplet feel
| | 06:14 | and it only makes use of the first 12
steps of the beat as opposed to 16. The
| | 06:19 | last four steps are actually grayed out.
And when I talk about the steps of the
| | 06:24 | beat, I'm talking about these right here.
This is the Event bar and it consists
| | 06:29 | of 16 event switches or each event switch
corresponds to a 16th note in the drum pattern.
| | 06:36 | To add or delete notes in the drum
pattern using the Event bar, just select an
| | 06:40 | instrument and then you will see each
of these notes as highlighted where a
| | 06:46 | note is in the pattern. I'll Solo
this Kick and watch it as it plays through.
| | 06:53 | (Music playing.)
| | 07:02 | So to add a new note, I can just click
on a button here and add the note. And
| | 07:07 | you will notice when I click on it
for the first time, it's bright and that
| | 07:12 | means that it's at full velocity. I can
click it again and again and reduce the
| | 07:17 | velocity back down to no note at all.
And every note that we add here is
| | 07:23 | reflected up here in the Matrix.
| | 07:25 | So check it out. There is it right
there and I can click that and it will
| | 07:31 | change it down here too. Let's talk
about the Edit mode. The Edit mode switch
| | 07:38 | is used to toggle between editing a
pattern, Pattern Edit right there, or
| | 07:43 | switching between patterns in a current
preset, and that's the Pattern Select.
| | 07:48 | For instance I'm going to load up a
difference patch here. Let's load the
| | 07:53 | preset Electrobump in the trunk. And
now I'm going to set the Edit mode to
| | 07:58 | Pattern Select and we are going to
listen to a bunch of the varieties of this
| | 08:02 | beat. There's actually 16 varieties
that are all programmed to these 16 buttons here.
| | 08:07 | So let's play.
| | 08:08 | (Music playing.)
| | 08:28 | So it's easy enough to just switch
between the patterns by clicking these
| | 08:31 | buttons or you can use a MIDI
controller to do the same thing. If I want to
| | 08:35 | edit this particular pattern, I can
just switch down to Pattern Edit and then
| | 08:40 | add particular notes, if I want to add
a different Snare drum or a different
| | 08:44 | Snare sound or if I want to add more
Snare notes in there, I can just click and
| | 08:51 | add notes to the pattern.
| | 08:52 | Now there are 128 preset patterns and
they are all up listed here, and each of
| | 08:59 | them has 16 variations. So that's a
total of 2048 present beats for you to
| | 09:05 | choose from and to edit if
you need a place to start.
| | 09:08 | You can also change patterns together
to create a rough song arrangement. So if
| | 09:12 | I press Play and we use the Pattern
Select button, I can press Command on a Mac
| | 09:19 | or Ctrl on Windows and click the
various event switches down here to have Boom
| | 09:26 | switch between the different beats all
in a row and it will play one measure of
| | 09:30 | each and switch between the beats. You
can also do this from a MIDI controller
| | 09:34 | by just holding down the various notes
between C2 and C3. So let's try this out.
| | 09:41 | (Music playing.)
| | 10:04 | So you see it switching between these
four different patterns. And of course
| | 10:08 | the last thing that you can do in Boom
is create your own patterns with MIDI
| | 10:12 | notes. And for this I'm going to choose
the Lazy Eastern pattern and bring this
| | 10:21 | down and you will see that I've
already got a beat that's created in here.
| | 10:27 | So what I'm going to do is highlight
this one bar and unlink the Timeline and
| | 10:34 | Edit Selection so that I can play
this and then add notes or subtract notes
| | 10:40 | with the Pencil tool to my heart's content
while it is cycling through. Let's talk a listen.
| | 10:46 | (Music playing.)
| | 11:03 | So obviously the possibilities are
endless with creating beats with Boom. Now I
| | 11:09 | really like this drum machine. I think
you will too once you get to know it.
| | 11:13 | It's pretty powerful as a beat
creation station and when you dig a little
| | 11:17 | deeper beyond the presets, you
can really create some great beats.
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| Working with Xpand2| 00:00 | Xpand 2 is a virtual workstation
synthesizer that has almost everything you
| | 00:04 | need to make about any kind of music.
It's got multi-sampled instruments.
| | 00:09 | It also employs various types of synthesis.
Xpand 2 is multi-timbral, has up to
| | 00:15 | four parts per patch or four
individual MIDI channels, all with separate mix,
| | 00:20 | arpeggiator, modulation and effects
controls. In other words, this thing is
| | 00:25 | powerful. Let's look at the interface.
| | 00:28 | First off, we can check out all the
patches. This thing has over 2300 patches
| | 00:37 | broken down into 29 separate categories.
At the top of the window we have the
| | 00:44 | Smart Knobs. Smart Knobs are
preassigned to the important parameters of a patch
| | 00:49 | and they map to your MIDI controller so
you can control these parameters easily.
| | 00:54 | On the left side, we have A-D and the
Easy button. The Easy button applies
| | 01:00 | these same parameters to all of the
parts that are listed down here and we have
| | 01:05 | four different patches or parts listed
down here. However, if we want to work
| | 01:10 | on the controls for specific part A-D,
then click A-D up here in the Smart
| | 01:16 | Knobs and you'll get controls that line
up better with their parameters. As you
| | 01:21 | can see as I scroll through here, the
parameters change depending on what the
| | 01:26 | patch is down here.
| | 01:29 | To the right of the Smart Knobs is
the Smart Display. This display shows
| | 01:34 | information about the selected patch or
part. To the right of the Smart Display
| | 01:39 | is the Master Level control, which
controls the overall output of Xpand. Let's
| | 01:45 | dig into the Part controls.
| | 01:47 | First we have the On/Off switch for
this part and you can see that it's shown
| | 01:51 | down here when we click on a button. So,
I'm going to turn this back on and I'm
| | 01:56 | going to select that part, and you'll
see that it switches up here in the Smart
| | 02:01 | Knobs as well and the info about this
particular patch is there too. Here we
| | 02:07 | have the MIDI channel, we can click on
this and change it from 1-4. We'll keep
| | 02:12 | it on 1. We have the category of
the part and the actual part name.
| | 02:18 | To the right of that we have the
Level, which we can control by just
| | 02:22 | clicking-and-dragging. We have the
Panning and we have FX levels. Turn these up
| | 02:29 | and this sound will be routed down here
to this effect, which is a Hall Reverb.
| | 02:38 | All parts share the same parameters
here. We can control each one separately.
| | 02:44 | On the right side, we have Patch Edit
parameter switches. We've got the Play or
| | 02:50 | the main parameters. We've got the
Arpeggiator parameters and the Modulation
| | 02:55 | parameters. Let's check out the play parameters.
| | 02:59 | First we have the TR/Fine. That's
transpose or fine-tuning and that will change
| | 03:05 | the pitch transposing it or finally
tuning it just a little bit, in sense, as
| | 03:12 | you can see down here. The HI/LO Key
sets the instrument range. Now, it's set
| | 03:17 | to the entire keyboard, but we could
use this to split the keyboard and assign
| | 03:21 | certain ranges for each part. So, I
could set this instrument to play in the
| | 03:25 | bottom half of the keyboard and then this
one to play at the top half if I wanted to.
| | 03:30 | In the Voice Mode, we can choose
between Mono and Polyphonic, and if we choose
| | 03:36 | Polyphonic, we can choose the number
of nodes that we can play at one time.
| | 03:40 | Finally, we've got the Pitch-Bend
Range and this is how many semi-tones the
| | 03:46 | pitch can be bent up or down. So we can
actually go to 12 if we want, and let's
| | 03:51 | have a listen to that.
| | 03:52 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:03 | Let's check out the Modulation
parameters. First, we've got the shape of the
| | 04:08 | modulation. In this case, we can choose
a Saw waveform, a Square wave, whatever
| | 04:14 | we want, Sines. We also can choose the
destination of the modulation, so we can
| | 04:22 | change the part's pitch, we can
adjust the waveform in various ways, we can
| | 04:27 | adjust the filter cut off, the volume
and the panning. The Rate is the speed of
| | 04:33 | the modulation wheels,
modulation, and we can adjust that by
| | 04:36 | clicking-and-dragging. The Depth is
how much of the signal is affected by the
| | 04:41 | modulation. We can also work with
Aftertouch or Pressure in this section, but
| | 04:46 | I'm not going to go into that here.
| | 04:47 | Finally, we have the Arpeggiator
parameters, and this is one of my favorite
| | 04:51 | things. I love Arpeggiators! An
Arpeggiator triggers notes played in rhythmic
| | 04:55 | patterns. Now some parts like Action
Pads or multi-track arpeggiators that we
| | 05:01 | can choose here, like here is the
Action Pads, those will have arpeggiators
| | 05:06 | already on. But if you don't have it
already on, then you just need to click
| | 05:11 | this button and turn on the arpeggiator.
| | 05:14 | The Latch key allows you to play the
arpeggiator after letting go off the key
| | 05:19 | until playback is stopped or another
node is played. Let's actually listen to
| | 05:24 | this part with the arpeggiator on.
| | 05:28 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:37 | If I hit the Latch key, I can just hit
the keys once and it will continue to
| | 05:42 | play on until I stop it.
| | 05:43 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:48 | Note that a sustain pedal can act
as a temporary latch switch that will
| | 05:52 | override what's set here. And that can
be very helpful for a hands-off control.
| | 05:56 | If we go over here to the Mode, we can
choose which Arp pattern that we want,
| | 06:02 | and there is a lot of different ones.
You can see, we can choose the Disco Bass.
| | 06:06 | Let's hear what that sounds like.
| | 06:08 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:14 | The Rate refers to the note value. If
we choose 1, that's a whole note. 16 is
| | 06:20 | 16th notes, and if we choose anything
with a T on it, that's for triplets.
| | 06:25 | Finally, let's talk about the FX. We
have two FX available to us and we turn
| | 06:31 | them on or off using these switches.
If you click on the name of the effect,
| | 06:37 | you can see all the various FX that
have at our disposal. There are tons of
| | 06:41 | them. Use these parameters to
change the sound of the effect.
| | 06:52 | Over here, we have an interesting knob.
This is where we can send a percentage
| | 06:57 | of the FX 2 back into FX 1. We can
use this to create special effects like
| | 07:04 | sending a delayed signal into a
reverb for an even more spacey sound.
| | 07:09 | Xpand 2 is an incredibly powerful
instrument. I've created entire pieces of
| | 07:14 | music for all sorts of clients
simply using this one instrument. I'm sure
| | 07:18 | you're going to love using Xpand 2.
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| Working with DB-33| 00:00 | DB33 is a virtual B3 like tonewheel
organ instrument that even has a rotary
| | 00:06 | leslie like cabinet. The instrument's
interface has a page for the organ and a
| | 00:11 | page for the cabinet. Let's look at
the organ page first. On the left side we
| | 00:15 | have got the rotary tonewheels.
| | 00:17 | Tonewheel organs are based on a
system of spinning saw-like metal wheels,
| | 00:21 | magnetic pickups translate their motion
into sound and their condition actually
| | 00:25 | affects the overall tone of the organ,
hence some of the choices that we have
| | 00:29 | here. We have got Dirty, Used, New and
then over here we have Sym1 and Sym2,
| | 00:35 | which refer to a synthesized triangle
wave and a synthesized square wave. Let's
| | 00:40 | take a listen to all of these
using just the factory default sound.
| | 00:47 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:59 | To the right of the Tonehweels we have
the Scanner Vibrato section. This has
| | 01:03 | three Chorus and three Vibrato settings
and the On/Off switch which turns it on
| | 01:08 | and off. So, let's turn it on and
have a listen to some of these.
| | 01:12 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:25 | Next, we have the Draw bars. The Draw
bars on the organ are used to control the
| | 01:29 | combination of various harmonics
generated by the Tonewheel mechanism. The low
| | 01:34 | harmonics are to the left and the
higher harmonics are to the right. I'm going
| | 01:38 | to play a chord and pull some
of these Draw bars in and out.
| | 01:42 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:55 | So you can use these to really sculpt
your sound. Next, we have the Key Click.
| | 02:01 | The Key Click gives you control over
the clicking sound made by striking a key,
| | 02:05 | let's check this out.
| | 02:06 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:15 | I am going to switch this over to the
sound. To the right we have Percussion
| | 02:22 | section and this enables you to add a
burst of additional harmonics, when each
| | 02:27 | note is played. I'm going to
turn it on and try this out.
| | 02:32 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:41 | To the right of the Percussion section
we have the Master Level. This sets the
| | 02:45 | overall output level. Let's move down
to this really cool control, the Rotary
| | 02:49 | Speed switch. This controls the speed
of the rotation of the Rotary speaker. We
| | 02:54 | can go from Slow to Fast and there is
Brake in the middle and that will stop it
| | 03:00 | if you leave it there or just
momentarily slow the Rotary speaker before moving
| | 03:06 | it to the Fast or Slow setting. Super cool!
Let's check it out in real time.
| | 03:10 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:24 | Now let's switch over the Cabinet page.
The Cabinet page provides controls for
| | 03:28 | the rotating speaker cabinet and the
organ's Tube Pre-Amp, both ultimately
| | 03:32 | affect the overall tone in a big way.
| | 03:35 | The Organ Level sets the volume of the
Organ before it enters the Pre-Amp. Turn
| | 03:39 | this down if you are hearing too
much distortion. You can also use an
| | 03:43 | Expression Pedal on this control
to emulate a volume paddle.
| | 03:47 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:54 | An awesome feature of this instrument
is that you can actually use the Cabinet
| | 03:58 | part as an effect, just as a plug-in
effect as opposed to an instrument. You
| | 04:03 | can actually route a guitar or a vocal
track or whatever through this Rotary
| | 04:07 | Cabinet effect, without even using
the organ. Use the External Level, right
| | 04:12 | here to set the volume for the incoming signal.
| | 04:16 | The Tube Pre-Amp has three knobs that
we can use to control the sound. First we
| | 04:20 | have the Character. If we turn it to
the Left, the lows are cut and the mids
| | 04:24 | and highs are emphasized. If we turn it
to the Right, the lows are boosted and
| | 04:29 | the highs are cut to give it a warm sound.
| | 04:32 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:38 | The Drive knob controls the gain and the Pre-Amp
and you can go from a clean to a distorted sound.
| | 04:43 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:49 | The High Cut is a treble cut and you
can use this together with the Character
| | 04:53 | and the Drive control to
create some unique sounds.
| | 04:56 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:01 | A real Rotary Cabinet has two speakers
in it. One called the Drum and the other
| | 05:05 | the Horn. They are mic'd separately.
So here in DB33 we have control over the
| | 05:11 | mix between the two mics
in the Drum and Horn knob.
| | 05:15 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:21 | As you can hear the Horn is a little
more trebly and the Drum is a little more
| | 05:25 | bassy. The Spread knob sets the
stereo spread between the two mics from 90
| | 05:30 | degrees to 180 degrees apart.
| | 05:34 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:42 | The Speed Control section affects
the Rotating Speaker Cabinet's speed of
| | 05:45 | rotation and the time it takes to
change between speed modes. Here we have the
| | 05:50 | rotation Speed Control again, so that
when we test these out, we can hear what
| | 05:55 | it actually sounds like using the controller.
| | 05:58 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:15 | We switch this over to the Brake the
Acceleration and Deceleration knob changes
| | 06:19 | up the time between the Speed Modes.
So it depends on how fast we get to the
| | 06:24 | Slow or the Fast Rate when we hit the Brake.
| | 06:28 | Finally, the Master controls the Output
Level. One last thing I want to mention
| | 06:33 | are the Presets. There is a ton of
presets up here and what's really cool about
| | 06:38 | them is that they indicate the
Draw bar positions for each sound.
| | 06:43 | So now you know what all the Buttons,
Knobs, Switches and Draw bars do on the
| | 06:48 | DB33. Use this knowledge to create
any organ sound you want and enjoy the
| | 06:53 | amazing amount of control that
you have over the DB33's parameters.
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| Working with Vacuum| 00:00 | Vacuum is a Monophonic Analog-style
Synth with a sonic control. Modeled after
| | 00:06 | classic synths, it has one control per
parameter and no menus. Let's take a look at it.
| | 00:12 | On the left side it has two Vacuum
Tube Oscillators or VTOs. All sounds
| | 00:18 | originate here. The Range sets the
octave for the VTO, while the Fine parameter
| | 00:25 | varies the pitch up or down 7 semitones.
| | 00:28 | Let's take a listen using
the 12 Dirty Reso Lead preset.
| | 00:36 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:50 | Shape continuously morphs the VTO
between several wave shapes and Env 1 To
| | 00:55 | Shape controls the modulation of the
current VTO wave shape by Envelope 1.
| | 01:00 | Next, we have the Mixer section and
I'm going to load up a different preset
| | 01:04 | here. We'll go to 23 Marky Mark. The
two oscillator signals the VTO 1 and VTO 2
| | 01:12 | are mixed in the mixer section. The
Drive adds distortion and the RingMod
| | 01:18 | creates a ring modulation effect by
multiplying the VTO 1 and VTO signals
| | 01:23 | together. I love this effect.
Let's take a listen.
| | 01:30 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:55 | That node sure does have a lot of sustain.
| | 01:57 | Next in Vacuum we have the High Pass
Filter and the Low Pass Filter section.
| | 02:02 | These guys do exactly what their names
say. They either let high frequencies
| | 02:06 | pass through or low frequencies pass
through. The VTOs volume levels drive
| | 02:11 | these filters. Use the mixer volume at
a low level for cleaner tones or boost
| | 02:17 | the mixer volume for more distorted tones.
| | 02:19 | Let's check out some of these Filters
parameters. First we have the Cutoff and
| | 02:24 | this is the frequency where the High
Pass filter or the Low Pass filter begins
| | 02:28 | to cut off the frequencies. The
Slope sets the curve of the filter slope.
| | 02:33 | Higher values mean higher slopes and
more frequencies are cutoff. Reso refers
| | 02:38 | to resonance, which is the amount of
signal that's fed back into the filter circuit.
| | 02:42 | Let's check out some of these things.
| | 02:45 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:20 | Env 1 controls the amount that the
filter cutoff frequency is modulated by
| | 03:24 | Envelope 1. When it's centered, no
modulation occurs, move it right for
| | 03:29 | positive modulation or
left for negative modulation.
| | 03:32 | Key Track controls how the pitch
affects the filters cutoff frequency, there is
| | 03:36 | no effect at 0% but at 100% the
frequency is directly related to the keys
| | 03:41 | played. The Saturation control adds
saturation to the resonant feed back loop.
| | 03:47 | Below the Filter section is the
Envelope section. Envelope 1 modulates each
| | 03:52 | filter's cutoff frequency over time
while Envelope 2 modulates each filter's
| | 03:58 | amplitude over time, or you can assign
them to modulate other parameters using
| | 04:03 | the Modulation Routing section over
here on the right. Use the Attack, Decay,
| | 04:09 | Sustain and Release controls to
adjust the modulation envelope shape.
| | 04:13 | The Modulation Routing section
enables you to change up the signal routing
| | 04:17 | within the synth if you want to dig
deeper into designing sounds. Choose the
| | 04:21 | source and the destination, then
choose the depth to set the amount of the
| | 04:27 | source that modulates the destination.
| | 04:29 | Let's move up to the Age section and
I'm going to reload Marky Mark here. Use
| | 04:36 | the Age controls to add pitch drift and
dirt to the sound. At low levels, drift
| | 04:41 | can actually thicken the sound,
while higher levels can detune the sound
| | 04:45 | heavily. Dust adds noise to the sound
mimicking how real dust might affect an
| | 04:50 | older Synth. Let's check out the Drift parameter.
| | 04:53 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:04 | Pretty nasty. The VTA or Vacuum Tube
Amplifier section sets the master output
| | 05:09 | volume with this control right here.
Let's move down to the Arp or the
| | 05:13 | Arpeggiator section, but first let me
change this sound to Story Teller and
| | 05:20 | here is the Story Teller sound
without the Arpeggiator on yet.
| | 05:23 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:29 | If we turned it on you will see the
rhythmic pausing and then I can add notes
| | 05:34 | and you will hear a chord, but it
will pass through each note of the chord
| | 05:39 | depending on the rate and the
mode that we have set here.
| | 05:43 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:03 | Lots of fun right there with the Arpeggiator.
| | 06:05 | Next, we have the Pitchbend and the
Modulation Wheels. Let's check out the
| | 06:09 | Pitchbend. You know what that does.
| | 06:11 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:17 | It changes the pitch. I'm going to
turn off the Arpeggiator. The Modulation
| | 06:21 | Wheel can affect a number of things.
We can turn on Vibrato, Wah, or Tremolo
| | 06:29 | and we can adjust the rate of those
right here with the Rate knob. So let's
| | 06:33 | hear what the difference is.
| | 06:35 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:58 | Click the Setup button over here to
access the Glide, Pitch Bend range and
| | 07:03 | Envelope Retrigger settings. Let's try
this. We'll change the Pitch Bend Range
| | 07:08 | to 24. That's going to mean that we
have two octaves of Pitch Bend Range. Now
| | 07:15 | let's see what happens.
| | 07:16 | (Music playing.)
| | 07:23 | You knew that was coming. Finally,
spend some time looking through and
| | 07:28 | listening to the roughly 200 preset
patches that we have up here. We have got a
| | 07:34 | bunch of leads, base sounds,
arpeggios, percussive sounds and effects.
| | 07:41 | Vacuum is obviously a pretty deep
instrument. Spend some time testing out and
| | 07:46 | reading about its parameters. The time
will be well spent as you explore the
| | 07:50 | sonic possibilities that
this instrument has to offer.
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| Working with Structure Free| 00:00 | Structure Free is a sample library
playback instrument with a 64-voice
| | 00:05 | multitimbral sound engine and a 640 MB
sound library. It's compatible with both
| | 00:11 | Structure LE and the full-blown
version of Structure. Let's take a look.
| | 00:15 | I am going to insert Structure Free on
this track here and you will see that
| | 00:22 | when you load up Structure Free. It
loads with the Sine Wave patch. Actually,
| | 00:28 | it is pretty useful as a safe test
patch to see if Structure is working
| | 00:32 | properly and let's find out if it is.
| | 00:34 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:38 | It is indeed. To change the patch,
otherwise known as the sound, we can click
| | 00:44 | this little up and down arrow
button and access all of the 60 free
| | 00:50 | pre-installed patches that
come with Structure Free.
| | 00:54 | If you prefer to use the browser to
locate a patch, we can click the Browser
| | 00:59 | button and navigate to the Structure
Free folder on your hard drive. I have
| | 01:03 | already done that here and here is the
path for a Mac. If you are using a PC,
| | 01:09 | the path is a little different.
| | 01:10 | So now I'm going to go into this list
and actually drag and drop this patch
| | 01:16 | over top of this and it will replace
the Sine Wave with this Steel String
| | 01:22 | Acoustic. Now that we have this loaded
up, let's listen to something a little
| | 01:26 | more musical than the Sine Wave to
give you a sense of the quality of the
| | 01:29 | samples in Structure.
| | 01:31 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:35 | It sounds pretty good. So if you right-
click right next to the patch name here,
| | 01:51 | we can get this menu up where we can
load a new patch, add new patches, and we
| | 01:56 | can select from the list again here,
duplicate the patch, remove them,
| | 02:00 | cut/copy/paste, whole bunch of options.
Use this menu to help you navigate
| | 02:06 | through and organize your
patches in Structure Free.
| | 02:09 | Now I'm actually going to make this
inactive and then move down to this
| | 02:17 | Structure Free instance that I have
setup with three different MIDI tracks that
| | 02:23 | are aligned to the MIDI channels on three
different MIDI channels here in Structure Free.
| | 02:28 | Now you notice in each instrument, they
all have their own solo, mute, volume,
| | 02:36 | panning, and MIDI channel controls. And
the cool thing about Structure Free is
| | 02:41 | that Digidesign has totally covered
all the tooltips for this instrument. If
| | 02:45 | you mouse over anything, it's got a tooltip.
| | 02:48 | So now that we have a few patches
loaded up, let's go over to the main page and
| | 02:52 | we'll checkout the Edit 1 page and
as you see, this shows the basic play
| | 02:57 | parameters for the patch. So you are
transposing it octaves, semitones and we
| | 03:03 | can fine-tune the pitch as well in sense.
The really cool feature of Structure
| | 03:08 | is that we can actually adjust the Up
pitch bend and the Down pitch bend separately.
| | 03:13 | Down below, we have the polyphony,
which sets the maximum number of voices that
| | 03:17 | the patch can play, and right now it's
at zero. That's because I'm not playing
| | 03:22 | anything. If I start playing
some notes, this number will go up.
| | 03:26 | We can set the key range, and we have
the minimum and maximum here. These set
| | 03:31 | the highest and lowest keys played
by the patch, and we can use these
| | 03:35 | parameters here to split the keyboard
like if you want bass on the bottom two
| | 03:39 | octaves, and a lead instrument on the octaves
above. You can set the key range to make it so.
| | 03:46 | Finally, in the Mono mode over here,
you can set whether the patch is mono or
| | 03:52 | polyphonic, and you can also select
its glide. Let's go over to the Edit 2
| | 03:59 | page. To show off of some of the
features on this page, I'm actually going to
| | 04:02 | Record Enable this MIDI track, which
is assigned to the Techno Stadium patch.
| | 04:09 | So let's take a look at some of the
parameters for this patch. First we have
| | 04:12 | the Filter type; the Filter cutoff,
the Filter resonance, and the Envelope
| | 04:22 | which is the envelope level, and this
adjust how strongly the Filter Envelope
| | 04:26 | modulates the Filter Cutoff.
Fortunately, we have these great tooltips that
| | 04:30 | help us see all that stuff.
Let's take a listen.
| | 04:33 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:51 | These parameters are obviously great
for helping you sculpt the sound that you
| | 04:54 | are trying to create. You can also use
the Filter Envelope parameters. I'm not
| | 04:58 | going to go through all of these here.
Down below at the Amplifier section,
| | 05:03 | this knob down here changes up the
Envelope Velocity Sensitivity and that's the
| | 05:07 | range in decibels between the lowest
and the highest velocity, and you can also
| | 05:13 | adjust the envelope for that over here.
| | 05:16 | Down below, we have the Info display
and when you actually twist a knob, you
| | 05:22 | can see the info changing in the Info
display. Below that, we have the Smart
| | 05:30 | knobs and these are preassigned to
useful parameters for each patch.
| | 05:34 | Now I'm going to switch over to the
Electronic Kit here and I want to show you
| | 05:40 | how the Smart knobs work in cahoots
with these Key Switches. Key Switches are
| | 05:45 | special notes that switch control
values instead of triggering notes. For
| | 05:50 | example, here when I press them, they
are going to switch the drum-set sounds
| | 05:54 | from Dirty to Compressed.
| | 05:56 | Now first, I need to Record Enable
this MIDI 2 track, which is lined up with
| | 06:02 | the Electronic Kit on MIDI channel 2.
So now I'm going to go down to the Key
| | 06:07 | Switches and press them and you are
going to see the Smart Knobs change in
| | 06:12 | relation to the key that I press.
| | 06:19 | Now let's actually hear what that
sounds like when I'm playing the kick drum.
| | 06:23 | You can hear how the different sounds
with these different smart knobs setting
| | 06:28 | will affect the kick drum sound.
| | 06:31 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:40 | So you can use these Smart Knobs and
these Key Switches to get some really
| | 06:45 | creative sounds happening here in
Structure. Now I actually own the full
| | 06:50 | version of Structure and I use it frequently.
| | 06:54 | To be honest with you, Structure Free
leaves me wanting more and I suppose
| | 06:58 | that's what Digidesign's point was
by only giving away 60 patches here.
| | 07:02 | However, what they did include in
Structure Free is all every usable and I can
| | 07:07 | certainly hear many applications
for all of the included samples.
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| Working with Mini Grand| 00:00 | Mini Grand is a simple but elegant
virtual piano instrument. It's got seven
| | 00:04 | different piano sounds and six models
of room ambiance. It's easy to work with
| | 00:09 | and it sounds great.
| | 00:11 | There are 30 tweakable Presets to
choose from. Let's take a look at some of them.
| | 00:18 | Here is the Real Piano.
| | 00:20 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:32 | Here is my favorite of the Presets,
the Deep Blue Sea.
| | 00:36 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:47 | And the Empty Stadium Ambiance.
| | 00:50 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:58 | You can also dial in your own sounds,
start with the model to get the overall sound.
| | 01:03 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:09 | Then we can tweak the Dynamic Response
to adjust the feel and responsiveness of
| | 01:13 | the piano. Higher settings yield more
dynamic sensitivity while lower settings
| | 01:19 | create more even dynamic response.
Let's take a listen.
| | 01:23 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:36 | Next, find the appropriate reverb or
environment for the piano with the Room
| | 01:40 | knob, which ranges from natural sounds
to special effects.
| | 01:44 |
(Music playing.)
| | 01:55 | Use the Mix knob to adjust the amount
of room effect into the overall sound.
| | 02:02 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:14 | Be careful not to add too much or else
you might distort your sound. The Tuning
| | 02:18 | Scale allows you to toggle between
Equal tuning where the piano's relative
| | 02:24 | pitch is normal, and Stretched
where the piano's higher notes are tuned
| | 02:28 | slightly higher, so they are more in
tune with the overtones of the low notes.
| | 02:32 | Let's take a listen. I'm going to play
a high note and you can hear the pitch
| | 02:37 | differences when I switch
between these two settings.
| | 02:40 |
(Music playing.)
| | 02:49 | Let me go up an octave,
we can hear even more difference.
| | 02:54 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:02 | It's subtle but it might make all the
difference when you are trying to play a
| | 03:06 | part that's really high up in the
register on this piano. The Level knob
| | 03:10 | controls the output volume so adjust
that to get the right output level.
| | 03:17 | Down here we have the info display and
setup button. If we click that, we can
| | 03:21 | see these two options. Max Polyphony
means the numbers of notes that can sound
| | 03:26 | at one time, and we can adjust that if
we need to. If we turn Eco Mode on, this
| | 03:33 | reduces the CPU load of Mini Grand.
It deactivates some of the string
| | 03:38 | resonances, so you won't get as rich of
a tone using this setting, but you will
| | 03:42 | get more horsepower back in your computer.
| | 03:46 | The Mini Grand might not be the most
exciting of the Pro Tools instruments but
| | 03:50 | it sounds great and it's easy to use.
And it can even make a piano hack like me sound good.
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| Using Midi Learn| 00:00 | MIDI Learn is a function that enables
you to map the knobs and sliders on your
| | 00:04 | MIDI controller to the parameter knobs
and sliders in a virtual instrument.
| | 00:08 | All of the instruments included with Pro
Tools have this feature, as do all other
| | 00:12 | Digidesign virtual instrument in some third
party products. Let me show you how it works.
| | 00:17 | We've got a virtual instrument window
here, Vacuum, and we've chosen a sound.
| | 00:22 | Let me just play a little
bit of that sound for you.
| | 00:25 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:27 | Great sound! Now I'm going to go and
right-click on the Range here, and we are
| | 00:33 | going to see this little menu pop up.
So we're going to choose Learn MIDI CC.
| | 00:38 | Now I'm going to grab one of these
knobs on my MIDI controller and twist it.
| | 00:44 | Now that knob is associated with this
Range knob in Vacuum, so if I play a note
| | 00:52 | and twist the knob, I have
control over this parameter.
| | 00:56 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:02 | And as a side note, CC stands for
Continuous Controller. That's the assigned
| | 01:07 | knob or slider. If we right-click this
again, we could actually tell Pro Tools
| | 01:12 | to forget this or to unlearn this
assignment, but we're going to keep that for now.
| | 01:19 | Let's go over to the cut off, I'm
going to have Pro Tools learn another knob here.
| | 01:24 | Here we go. So now I have a
second knob that controls this frequency
| | 01:31 | cut-off. Let's hear what that does.
| | 01:35 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:40 | Now I'm going to fine tune this by
choosing a Set Min and Set Max value and
| | 01:46 | what this does is it allows you to
scale the incoming MIDI controller data, so
| | 01:50 | that the controller doesn't go above or
below a certain value. So in this case
| | 01:55 | I don't want the frequency cut-off
control to go above a certain frequency. So
| | 01:59 | I'm going to set the Min and Max, so
that I have just a small window for this
| | 02:05 | cut-off frequency to work with.
| | 02:06 | So I set the minimum there and I'm
going to twist this a little bit. Set the
| | 02:13 | Max right there. So now when I twist
the knob, it only goes between those two values.
| | 02:19 | Let's hear what that sounds like.
| | 02:21 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:27 | There's one other options in this
menu. It's called Invert Range and this
| | 02:32 | enables you to invert the MIDI
controller data so that the chosen control
| | 02:36 | reacts in the opposite way
to the assigned controller.
| | 02:40 | A great example for this feature is if
you want to assign the drawbars on the
| | 02:44 | DB-33 organ to a set of MIDI fader
controls so that the faders work in reverse
| | 02:50 | like the drawbars on a real organ.
| | 02:52 | Pro Tools will remember everything
it MIDI learned until you change the
| | 02:56 | instrument's patch, take the virtual
instrument off the track or close the
| | 03:01 | session without saving.
| | 03:02 | If you save this session, Pro Tools
will remember the controller parameter map
| | 03:07 | for the next time you open the session.
However, if you change the instrument's
| | 03:11 | patch you'll lose the map. So what
would recommend doing is actually doing a
| | 03:17 | Save Settings or Save Settings As
for your patch so that you can save the
| | 03:22 | controller parameter map assignment.
| | 03:26 | MIDI Learn is a super useful
feature that can make working with virtual
| | 03:29 | instruments in Pro Tools
easier and more interactive.
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|
|
12. AutomationWriting and editing automation| 00:00 | In Pro Tools you can automate just
about any parameter you want. You can
| | 00:04 | program Pro Tools to remember volume,
pane, mute, send level, send pane, send
| | 00:09 | mute, plug-in parameter data, as well
as MIDI volume pane, mute, pitch bend,
| | 00:14 | and continuous control of data such as
modulation and sustain. In this video,
| | 00:19 | I'm going to show you how to create
and edit automation data in real time,
| | 00:23 | while the session is playing back.
| | 00:24 | Automation data is stored in
automation playlists on each track. You can view
| | 00:29 | the automation playlist by selecting
the automation type from the Track View
| | 00:32 | Selector, or you can show automation
lanes on the track by clicking this little
| | 00:44 | arrow here, the Show/Hide Automation
Lanes arrow. To add additional automation
| | 00:48 | lanes, click the plus button.
| | 00:51 | There are five automation modes in Pro
Tools LE and M-Powered shown here. Auto
| | 00:57 | off turns off a track's automation.
The automation lane names get grayed out
| | 01:02 | and become italicized like this.
Auto read tells Pro Tools to read the
| | 01:10 | automation data that's on that track.
That's the default automation mode. There
| | 01:14 | are also several modes that you can use to
create automation data; touch, latch, and write.
| | 01:20 | Pro Tools|HD also has touch/latch and
trim modes which we won't cover here.
| | 01:28 | Auto write is used for the first time
you create automation data on a track or
| | 01:32 | when you want to completely write
over a track's existing automation. Auto
| | 01:36 | touch writes automation data only while
a fader or switch is touched or clicked
| | 01:41 | with the mouse. Faders and switch is
returned to any previously automated
| | 01:45 | position after they have been released.
| | 01:49 | Auto latch writes automation data only
if you touch or move a fader or switch.
| | 01:54 | However, you don't need to keep
touching the controls after you have moved them
| | 01:57 | like with Auto touch. The Automation
controls stay in the position where you
| | 02:01 | have released them rather than
reverting to previously saved data and I'm going
| | 02:05 | to show you all of these here in a second.
| | 02:08 | First, to create automation data, go
to Window > Automation, and we'll check
| | 02:15 | the Automation Enable window. If all of
these are lit up in red like this, that
| | 02:20 | means that all of these parameters can
be automated. If we click one, and it
| | 02:26 | turns gray, then that means it's
not armed for recording automation.
| | 02:32 | Now choose the automation mode on the
track that you want to write automation.
| | 02:36 | In this case, I'm going to choose
write. Now you press Play, not Record and
| | 02:42 | move the automation controls via
your mouse or control surface to write
| | 02:46 | automation data. Here I'm going to
automate the bass track's volume.
| | 02:51 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:04 | Press Stop when you are finished. You
will notice that Pro Tools automatically
| | 03:09 | switched over to latch mode after
writing that automation, and that's because
| | 03:14 | of a preference that's setup right
here in the Mixing page. In the Automation
| | 03:19 | section, we have After Write Pass,
Switch To: Latch. We can also choose Touch
| | 03:26 | or keep it in Auto write. Why do
we care about this? Let me show you.
| | 03:32 | If I were to press Play right now
with Auto write mode, it would write over
| | 03:38 | everything that we just recorded,
however, if it switches over to Latch or
| | 03:43 | Touch, then we actually have to move
the fader or grab the mouse to change this
| | 03:49 | data, thus we won't overwrite this data
by accident, but now I'm actually going
| | 03:53 | to overwrite it in Latch mode
and show you what that looks like.
| | 03:57 | Now watch, if I let go off the mouse
or control surface fader, the automation
| | 04:02 | will stay at one value
until I move it again.
| | 04:05 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:20 | Now I'll try Auto touch. Watch as
the automation data reverts back to the
| | 04:24 | prewritten automation data when I let go
off the mouse or the control surface fader.
| | 04:29 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:45 | When you create automation, you
create a series of breakpoints on the
| | 04:48 | automation playlist. Although the
automation data may look like a line, it's
| | 04:53 | actually made up of individual
points that are finite values for that
| | 04:57 | automation parameter. Let's zoom-in
and take a look. See the individual
| | 05:04 | breakpoints on the automation line here.
One of the limits of Pro Tools is that
| | 05:08 | all added playlists on a single audio
track share the same automation data. So
| | 05:14 | if we had multiple playlists of this
bass track, which in fact we do, each
| | 05:20 | performance shares the same automation data.
| | 05:24 | If you want to try out different
automation on a track, make a duplicate track
| | 05:31 | using the Track Duplicate command. Now,
we have a second bass track down here
| | 05:40 | and if we want to record new
automation on this track, that's different than
| | 05:44 | this, we can do that, and hear the difference.
| | 05:47 | Creating automation data during real
time playback is a lot of fun. It can add
| | 05:52 | a lot of energy to your mix and
actually turn the mix process into more of a
| | 05:56 | performance. Definitely get to know
your automation modes and how to use them.
| | 06:00 | Your mixes will sound
better when you use them well.
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| Drawing automation with the Pencil tool| 00:00 | Having work tediously with many other
types of automation systems on analog
| | 00:04 | mixing boards, I think the graphical
editing of automation data is one of the
| | 00:09 | best features of Pro Tools. Here I'll
show you how to use the Pencil tool to
| | 00:14 | edit or draw a new automation data. The
Pencil tool you can use any of the top
| | 00:18 | five pencil shapes to draw automation.
| | 00:21 | I will start with the Free Hand tool. I
like to use the Free Hand tool to draw
| | 00:27 | volume automation. It's great for
creating long customize fade-outs at the end
| | 00:32 | of a song. Let's try it on the bass
track here. Just click and drag and you
| | 00:40 | can create your fade-out.
Let's have a listen.
| | 00:44 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:51 | Sounds good. Let's try out the Line
shape to create a gradual pitch band.
| | 00:59 | Let's have some fun and try it on the drums.
Let's have a listen to this.
| | 01:09 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:21 | Interesting effect there. Now let's use
the Square automation in Grid mode for
| | 01:26 | muting the Acoustic Guitar track. So
I'll make sure we are in Grid mode. We'll
| | 01:32 | go to the Square, Pencil shape and
we'll check our Grid value 16th notes. We'll
| | 01:40 | keep it at that. So I'll switch
from waveform to mute and then when we
| | 01:49 | click-and-drag since these tracks are
grouped together as you can see down
| | 01:53 | here. Pro Tools will automatically make
the Square shaped curves for the muting data,
| | 02:00 | zoom in and take a look,
so let's have a listen to that.
| | 02:12 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:34 | That's a pretty cool effect. Now let's
use the Triangle shape. Let's try it out
| | 02:40 | on this Organ track. Let me open up
the DB-33 plug-in here and the modulation
| | 02:49 | wheel automation is actually going to
affect the rotation of the rotary speaker
| | 02:56 | on this organ. So what I'm going to do
first is actually change the Grid value
| | 03:01 | to 1 bar, and then click and draw in the
triangular shape. Let's have a listen to what that does.
| | 03:17 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:38 | So you can see the rotation changing
and following the triangular shape of the
| | 03:43 | modulation wheel automation.
| | 03:50 | Now let's try using the Random shape
for creating some panning effects that
| | 03:56 | will put this synthesizer track all
over the stereo field. So I'm going to go
| | 04:00 | up to Random and we have got the
panning on the left side. I'm going to
| | 04:07 | click-and-drag, and now I'll go over
to the right side and in this case, I'm
| | 04:16 | going to actually change the Grid
value to 16th notes to create a more wild
| | 04:24 | panning. Let's have a listen to that.
| | 04:28 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:43 | So it's kind of bouncing all over the
stereo field. Drawing automation with all
| | 04:48 | the shapes of the Pencil tool can be a
very creative process. Have fun with it,
| | 04:53 | and add some more motion and life to your mixes.
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| Editing automation with the Trimmer and Grabber tools| 00:00 | The Trimmer and Grabber tools are both
very handy for editing automation data.
| | 00:04 | The Grabber is great for creating and
moving individual breakpoints. If you
| | 00:09 | click on the automation line, you can
add breakpoints. If you click and drag,
| | 00:15 | you can move those breakpoints.
This is really great for fine-tuning your
| | 00:20 | automation data. With the Trimmer you can
actually move entire sections of the automation data.
| | 00:27 | So if I click and drag on this, you
will see that the original volume level is
| | 00:31 | -2.6 db and it hasn't changed yet, but
now when I drag it down, you can see
| | 00:38 | the new level is at 8.8 db and the
difference or the delta is -6.2 db. If we use
| | 00:47 | the Selector, we can select a section
of this data and then use the Trimmer to
| | 00:54 | trim it down, but keep all of this
data relative. So we can keep this entire curve,
| | 00:59 | but just scale it down.
| | 01:01 | So now we have brought this down -6.2
db. Notice how the ends of this selected
| | 01:09 | area are placed on automation
breakpoints, right here. Pro Tools puts those in
| | 01:14 | automatically. If you don't select a
region with end points like we did here,
| | 01:19 | there is no region and we just
selected this area, then Pro Tools will create
| | 01:23 | new end points before and after the
selected area. If you want to suppress the
| | 01:27 | creation of these breakpoints, press
the Alt key in windows or the Option key
| | 01:32 | on a Mac while using the
Trimmer. I'll show you an example.
| | 01:35 | I am going to highlight this area and
I'm not going to allow Pro Tools to put
| | 01:44 | new breakpoints at these spots. So
now I'll go to the Trimmer. I'm going to
| | 01:49 | press Option on my Mac or if you have a
PC, press Alt, click and drag. See the difference?
| | 01:56 | Look on the left side there.
The Trimmer and Grabber tools
| | 02:00 | obviously have a lot uses in the realm
of automation. Practice these techniques
| | 02:05 | and you will be able to
edit automation very quickly.
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| Cutting, copying, pasting, and clearing automation| 00:00 | There are many ways to cut, copy, paste
and clear or delete automation data in
| | 00:04 | Pro Tools. For instance, let's first
look at some ways to clear automation
| | 00:09 | data. You can remove a single
breakpoint by Option-clicking on a Mac or
| | 00:13 | Alt-clicking in Windows on the breakpoint with
the Grabber or Pencil. Let's try the Grabber.
| | 00:18 | If I press the Option key on a Mac or
the Alt key in Windows, you will see a
| | 00:24 | little minus sign, show up by the
Grabber's pointer icon and that means that
| | 00:28 | it's ready to delete that piece of
automation data. So if I click on it, it
| | 00:33 | goes away. If you go to the Pencil
tool, you will see that when you press
| | 00:41 | Option or Alt, the Pencil turns around to an
eraser and you can erase data points that way.
| | 00:48 | You can remove several breakpoints
at once or all of them on a track by
| | 00:52 | selecting a range of breakpoints with
the selector and pressing the Backspace
| | 00:56 | or Delete key. So, let's go to the
Selector, and let's say I want to get rid of
| | 01:02 | those data points. So, now I'm going to hit
the Delete or Backspace key and they are gone.
| | 01:07 | You can also remove all automation for
all automation playlists on the track by
| | 01:12 | selecting a range of breakpoints with
the Selector and pressing Ctrl+Backspace
| | 01:17 | in Windows or Ctrl+Delete on a Mac. So
I'm going to highlight all of this on
| | 01:22 | this track and when I press Ctrl+
Delete or Ctrl+Backspace, it's going to get
| | 01:28 | rid of all the automation on all of the
automation playlists on this track. Let's undo that.
| | 01:35 | In contrast to deleting automation
data, removing data with the Cut command
| | 01:40 | creates anchor breakpoints at the
boundaries of the remaining data. Let's look
| | 01:44 | at the difference. If I select this
area and choose Cut, you will see the Pro
| | 01:51 | Tools adds in breakpoints at
the ends of the selected area.
| | 01:55 | However, if I undo that, and then
decide to just delete it, Pro Tools connects
| | 02:02 | the dots between the two closest
automation data points, but does not create
| | 02:08 | new ones. It's a slight difference,
but one that you should be aware of. Note
| | 02:12 | that when you cut, copy or paste a
selection of a track while you are in the
| | 02:15 | Master view that is on an audio track
when you are viewing waveform or blocks,
| | 02:23 | all the automation data associated with
that track section goes with the track.
| | 02:27 | So, if I highlight this and then I
choose Cut, all the automation data goes
| | 02:36 | away. Now let's paste this back in
actually and you will see the automation
| | 02:43 | travels with it. In addition to the
regular Cut, Copy, Paste and Clear
| | 02:48 | commands, Pro Tools also has the Cut
Special, Copy Special, Paste Special and
| | 02:53 | Clear Special commands and these are
made especially for editing automation
| | 02:58 | playlists. Let's look at an example.
| | 03:03 | Down here, I'm actually going to choose
this panning automation, and I'm going
| | 03:08 | to choose Copy Special, Pan Automation.
Now let's use the Paste Special command
| | 03:15 | in a cool way, I'm going to select
this area, choose Paste Special, Repeat to
| | 03:23 | Fill Selection. Pro Tools actually
copies and pastes this automation data
| | 03:29 | multiple times to fill that selection.
| | 03:31 | Another cool thing you can do with
the special pasting command is paste
| | 03:39 | automation to a different type of
automation track. So in this case, I'm going
| | 03:45 | to paste panning data on to a volume
automation track. So I choose Paste
| | 03:50 | Special to current automation type.
And there we have it. There are many ways
| | 03:55 | to cut, copy, paste and clear
automation in Pro Tools. Use the techniques and
| | 04:00 | features shown here, to
creatively fine-tune your automation data.
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| Turning automation on and off| 00:00 | In this video I'm going to cover how
to turn on and off or suspend certain
| | 00:04 | automation features. As you know, to
playback the automation on a track, you
| | 00:09 | put the track into Auto Read mode.
| | 00:12 | An Auto Off mode turns off automation
for all automating controls on the track.
| | 00:18 | Moving beyond these basic automation
modes, you can also suspend the writing or
| | 00:23 | playback of specific types of automation
data on all tracks or individual tracks.
| | 00:28 | Now why would you want to do that? Well,
in case you don't want to hear certain
| | 00:33 | types of automation while you play it
back or you don't want to accidentally
| | 00:37 | write over existing automation data. So
I'm going to turn this back on to read.
| | 00:42 | And to suspend automation writing on
all tracks, we go to Window > Automation,
| | 00:50 | and we can hit this button right
here Suspend, and that suspends all the
| | 00:55 | automation types on the track.
| | 00:58 | If we unhighlight that, then we can
click on individual parameters that we can
| | 01:04 | suspend. So now the Send Mute, Send
Pan, and Send Level, as well as Plug-in
| | 01:10 | Automation are all suspended for now,
but we can still actually write Mute
| | 01:15 | Automation, Pan Automation, and
Volume Automation on the track.
| | 01:19 | To suspend the playback and writing of
automation on an individual track, first
| | 01:23 | set the Track View Selector or the
Automation Lane in the Edit window to
| | 01:27 | display the automation parameter you
want to suspend. In this case, we have
| | 01:32 | Volume, Mute, and Panning shown on the
bass track, and I'm actually going to
| | 01:38 | open up the volume automation
on these acoustic guitar tracks.
| | 01:42 | Note that these acoustic guitar tracks
are grouped. That's going to come into
| | 01:46 | play here a second. If you Command-
click on a Mac or Ctrl-click in Windows on
| | 01:52 | the parameter name, you can suspend
the writing and playback of only the
| | 01:56 | displayed automation parameter. This
action obeys edit groups as you can see
| | 02:02 | here, except for Pan Automation.
| | 02:05 | If you Command+Shift-click on a Mac
or Ctrl+Shift-click in Windows on any
| | 02:11 | parameter name, you can suspend
writing and playback off all automations on
| | 02:15 | that track. So let's go down here. I'm
going to press Command+Shift on the Mac
| | 02:20 | or Ctrl+Shift in Windows, and now
all of these automation parameters are
| | 02:28 | inactive or suspended.
| | 02:30 | Now this is the same as selecting auto
off on the track, and it also obeys edit
| | 02:35 | group except for Pan Automation. So let
me undo that and I'll undo this and you
| | 02:43 | note that all you need to do to re-
enable any automation parameter that's been
| | 02:47 | suspended is just to perform the
same command that you did to suspend it.
| | 02:51 | One other way to suspend writing
and playback of automation is to use
| | 02:56 | Command+Option-click on a Mac or Ctrl+
Alt-click in Windows on a parameter name,
| | 03:01 | and that will suspend the writing and
playback of only the displayed automation
| | 03:05 | parameter on all tracks.
| | 03:08 | So Command+Option-click on a Mac or
Ctrl-click in Windows on the volume, and
| | 03:13 | you'll see that it affects both the
acoustic guitars as well as the bass and
| | 03:19 | every other track in the session.
Let's re-enable it for all tracks.
| | 03:25 | Now let's go over to the Mix window.
Similar to the suspend automation commands
| | 03:31 | I just mentioned, you can also put
Outputs, Sends, and Plug-ins into Automation
| | 03:36 | Safe mode to protect their automation
data from accidentally being overwritten
| | 03:41 | while automating other parameters on the track.
| | 03:44 | So if we go to the Output Window button,
which is right here, click on that;
| | 03:48 | you can open it up, and you see this
Safe button. If I click this, it means
| | 03:53 | that the output is put into Automation
Safe mode, and automation data on the
| | 03:57 | track's Level, Mute, etcetera, cannot be
changed. Same goes for Sends and Plug-ins.
| | 04:05 | So let's check this out. I'm going to
open this Send, put it into Automation
| | 04:10 | Safe mode, on this Plug-in, you can
do the same right here. Use the Suspend
| | 04:17 | Automation and Automation Safe feature
shown here to assist you in writing and
| | 04:22 | saving automation data in your sessions.
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| Automating plug-ins and virtual instruments| 00:00 | In addition to being able to automate
track parameters, you can also automate
| | 00:03 | any parameter in a plug-in or virtual
instrument. The quickest way to enable
| | 00:07 | automation on all of the plug-ins
parameters is to do it automatically by
| | 00:12 | choosing Setup > Preferences, and on
the Mixing page, choose Plug-in Controls
| | 00:20 | Default to Auto-Enabled.
| | 00:22 | If you don't want to use that
preference, here is how to enable individual
| | 00:26 | automation parameters and plug-in.
First, open the plug-in, we have one open
| | 00:32 | here already, and then click on the
Automation Enable button. This window
| | 00:37 | enables you to select the parameters
you want to automate for each plug-in on
| | 00:41 | the track. So see we have two plug-ins.
We actually have an instrument and this
| | 00:45 | AIR Filter Gate plug-in.
| | 00:47 | To enable automation on a particular
parameter, click it, click the Add button,
| | 00:54 | and it will come over here on the
right side, and all of these are now
| | 00:58 | automation enabled. When you've added
all the parameters you want, click OK.
| | 01:03 | Now if you want to skip this step, and
enable all of the plug-ins parameters
| | 01:06 | for automation, press Command+Option+
Ctrl on a Mac or Ctrl+Alt+Start in Windows
| | 01:14 | and click on the Plug-in Automation
Enable button. So if we come up here, press
| | 01:18 | all the three of the main modifiers,
you'll see all of these buttons light up
| | 01:25 | and that's what happens when the
automation is enabled on the parameters. These
| | 01:29 | little green lights turn on.
| | 01:31 | Everything that I have shown you here,
regarding Plug-in automation, applies to
| | 01:35 | virtual instruments too. Let's take a
look at the Edit window here for a second
| | 01:40 | and check out all this automation that
I've got down here. You'll notice that
| | 01:44 | the first few automation lines are for
the Xpand2 virtual instrument, and then
| | 01:48 | a few down here are for the AIR
Filter Gate plug-in. All of the automation
| | 01:53 | looks the same. What that means is
that we can actually write and edit
| | 01:57 | automation on plug-ins and virtual
instruments in just a same way as you've
| | 02:02 | done it for a volume and mute and any
other track parameter. You can even use
| | 02:06 | the Automation Safe mode by clicking on
that in the plug-in or virtual instrument.
| | 02:12 | Let's take a look at the Xpand plug-in.
I'm just going to grab the top of the
| | 02:16 | plug-in and show you that I have
automated some of these parameters that are
| | 02:20 | listed right here. Note that I've
checked off PART A, not the EASY controls,
| | 02:26 | but the PART A controls for this
particular instrument. You'll see that there
| | 02:30 | is only one part to this instrument,
and I want to show you how, as I play this
| | 02:38 | session, all of these parameters are
going to change. And you can see multiple
| | 02:43 | parameters up here in the AIR Filter Gate
plug-in changing as well with the automation.
| | 02:48 | So I'm going to press Play from the
beginning of this session and you are going
| | 02:52 | to see a bunch of these parameters here and
up here move along with their automation data.
| | 02:59 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:51 | Aside from the drum loop, all you
heard here in this session was two notes
| | 03:55 | being held on the Xpand2 plug-in.
All the automated parameters change the
| | 04:00 | sounds pretty drastically
from the beginning to the end.
| | 04:03 | As you get more familiar with mixing
using automation, you'll see how useful
| | 04:07 | each of these automation features are,=
and how creative you can get with them.
| | 04:12 | The power you have over
your music is truly incredible.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
13. MixingSetting up a session for mixing| 00:00 | A mix is the combination of the
recorded tracks in a session reduced to two
| | 00:04 | tracks for stereo playback or to
six to eight tracks for surround sound
| | 00:08 | playback. The goal of any mix is to
create a total sound that helps support the
| | 00:13 | purpose of the song, putting the
listener into an appealing acoustical space by
| | 00:18 | adjusting the volume levels panning,
EQ and effects of individual sounds in a
| | 00:23 | creative and appealing way, while
giving each element in the mix its own place
| | 00:28 | in the complete soundscape.
| | 00:30 | Before starting a mix, I recommend
listening to some reference mixes. Listen to
| | 00:34 | mixes that you know very well. Most
professional mixers have several CDs of
| | 00:39 | music that they know intimately and
they reference these from time to time when
| | 00:43 | mixing. In fact, I recommend
importing the reference mix tracks into a Pro
| | 00:48 | Tools session or into your mix directly.
Check out the videos about importing
| | 00:53 | audio to learn how to do this.
| | 00:55 | Second, I recommend choosing some
songs that sound similar to your current
| | 00:59 | project or that have a sound
that you're aiming for in your mix.
| | 01:02 | For example, listen to the levels of
certain instruments such as where the
| | 01:06 | vocal sits. Is it deep in the mix or
is it riding on top of the instruments?
| | 01:11 | Also listen to particular stylistic effects
like how much reverb is used on the snare drum.
| | 01:17 | Next, it's time to get your session
ready for mixing. Check all of your edits,
| | 01:22 | use fades and crossfades to make sure
that there are no straight clicks and
| | 01:25 | pops at any point. You can zoom in and
check all of the insert points here, in
| | 01:32 | fact, I see that there is no fade in
here, so I'll probably grab the Smart tool
| | 01:39 | and just do a quick little fading like
that. Do this for all of the tracks so
| | 01:44 | that you don't have any surprise clicks or pops.
| | 01:47 | You may even consider consolidating
multiple regions on a track into one.
| | 01:52 | Here's how you do that. I'm going to
highlight all of these regions in this
| | 01:56 | track and then choose Edit >
Consolidate Region, and that creates an entirely
| | 02:04 | new region that combines all of the
regions into one, and this can save our
| | 02:09 | processing power and it also
looks cleaner in your session.
| | 02:12 | Before consolidating, I usually
recommend creating a duplicate playlist and
| | 02:17 | then consolidating the duplicate playlist
but we'll carry on here using what we've got.
| | 02:22 | Second, you should organize your Pro
Tools session so that your tracks are in a
| | 02:26 | logical order so you can move
quickly in the session. Label all the track
| | 02:31 | names. Fortunately we already have
those named here. Make sure to create a
| | 02:35 | Stereo Master Fader track so that you
can monitor the Stereo output from the
| | 02:39 | session and control it with just one fader.
| | 02:42 | Third, you should make Groups.
Grouping tracks together and putting all like
| | 02:47 | instruments together or next to each other
in the session can help you stay organized.
| | 02:51 | Let's create a Group of these three top
tracks here, got the piano, the organ,
| | 02:56 | and the electric piano. So I have
highlighted these using the Link Track and
| | 03:01 | Edit Selection button here, and now
I'm going to choose Track > Group. I'll
| | 03:07 | call this the keys group and click OK.
| | 03:13 | A really great feature that you can use
when mixing is to show just the tracks
| | 03:18 | in your one group at one time and to do
that, you can Ctrl-click on the Mac on
| | 03:23 | the name of the group to display only
that group in the mix of the Edit window.
| | 03:28 | So if I come over here to the keys
group and I press the Ctrl key, click on it,
| | 03:34 | I'll only see the tracks in that group.
| | 03:37 | Now I'm actually going to go down here
and Ctrl-click on the ALL Group to bring
| | 03:41 | everything back. Let's switch over to
the Mix window, and the next step is to
| | 03:47 | set up any inserts like an external
hardware compressor or set up effects loops
| | 03:52 | that you're sure that you want to use
in the mixing session. This could include
| | 03:55 | Reverbs like this or Delays or coarse
effects or anything that you really want
| | 04:00 | to use in the mix. I'll discuss how to
create an effects loop in a later video.
| | 04:05 | Next, you may also consider adding
EQ and compression plug-ins on to the
| | 04:10 | individual tracks where you think they
are going to be used in the mix. Having
| | 04:13 | EQ and Compression on tracks is kind
of a standard feature of most analog
| | 04:19 | mixing boards, so we can
mimic that here in Pro Tools.
| | 04:22 | If we go to Setup > Preferences, over
in the Mixing page, we can choose the
| | 04:29 | Default EQ, go straight to the EQ 3 7-
Band and Default Dynamics which means a
| | 04:38 | compressor, we'll choose the standard
Compressors/Limiter from Pro Tools, click OK.
| | 04:45 | And now when we go to the Insert, we
can actually see that these are the
| | 04:49 | defaults right there, so it's really
easy; we don't have to go through the
| | 04:53 | menus to choose. We can
simply just insert them right away.
| | 05:02 | If you like to use a compressor, EQ
on your overall mix added on the Stereo
| | 05:07 | Master Fader track before you even
start mixing, so that you know how the mix
| | 05:11 | sounds with it on from the get go. So
we can choose our Compressor right here.
| | 05:18 | If you end up adding in this compressor
after you have been mixing, your entire
| | 05:22 | mix will change and you might have to
redo a bunch of work. So I recommend
| | 05:26 | adding this in at the beginning of
the mix if you want to use one at all.
| | 05:32 | Now let's talk about some mixing terms.
First is Panning. Panning is used to
| | 05:37 | place sound sources on the left side,
the right side or anywhere in between in
| | 05:42 | your stereo field. Use these panning
knobs here to determine where you want to
| | 05:47 | place each instrument in the stereo
field. I recommend trying to spread out
| | 05:52 | your stereo field with the different
instruments, and envision what that would
| | 05:55 | look like, maybe on stage with all
these instruments playing at once.
| | 06:01 | The second mixing term I want to
discuss is EQ and how to position tracks using
| | 06:07 | EQ. EQ positioning means placing a
sound source within one or multiple
| | 06:11 | frequency ranges to separate it from
other sound sources. Some call this
| | 06:16 | carving EQ holes. Now I'm going to talk about
applying EQ in another video in this course.
| | 06:22 | The third mixing term that I want to
talk about is Depth. Depth refers to the
| | 06:27 | feeling that a sound source is closer,
distant from the listener, and is
| | 06:31 | created using Reverbs and Delay and
I'll also be talking about Reverbs and
| | 06:35 | Delay in other videos in this course.
| | 06:37 | But you should use these three
dimensions to envision the physical layout of
| | 06:41 | all the tracks in your Pro Tools
session and balance the sound sources
| | 06:45 | visually. So when you're mixing in Pro
Tools, here's the general procedure of
| | 06:50 | how you want to go about it.
| | 06:52 | Use this list as a loose guide for the
mixing procedure. Note that the steps
| | 06:57 | here don't need to be performed in
this particular order, and that some steps
| | 07:01 | will probably overlap each other.
| | 07:03 | So first you want to create a rough
balance using volume levels in panning,
| | 07:07 | then you want to apply EQ, making
room for each instrument in the frequency
| | 07:11 | spectrum. Next, you want to add
the dynamics processing that is
| | 07:15 | Compression/Limiting, Gates, expansion.
Then you can add your depth and special
| | 07:19 | effects processing including Reverb,
Delay, Chorus, Flange, etcetera.
| | 07:25 | Next, you should set your final
volume levels and use automation where
| | 07:29 | necessary to get the volume levels
correct. Then you can bounce down your mix
| | 07:33 | and check it against reference
mixes and on different playback systems.
| | 07:38 | Finally, you should revisit the mix to
fix any issues, and keep the original
| | 07:42 | mix and use the Save As command if
you're going to create a new mix.
| | 07:46 | I'll cover all the topics listed here
in other videos in this course, and if
| | 07:50 | you can keep your mix process loosely
aligned with the steps outlined here,
| | 07:55 | you'll be on the path to creating
excellent sounding mixes in Pro Tools.
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| Setting up an effects loop| 00:00 | Knowing how to set up an Effects Loop
is a key mixing technique. Often used for
| | 00:04 | adding reverb or delay to a mix, an
Effects Loop enables multiple tracks to
| | 00:09 | access one Effects processor or
plug-in. This saves a lot of computer
| | 00:14 | processing power, gives you a lot of
control over the mix and can also help to
| | 00:19 | unify the overall sound of a mix. Let's talk
about the components used in an Effects Loop.
| | 00:25 | First, we have the Send, and the Sends
are listed right here in the Sends area
| | 00:30 | of the Mix window or the Edit window
but we are going to look at the Mix
| | 00:33 | window. You might ask how did I set up
this window so that I can see just this
| | 00:38 | individual Send on this track.
| | 00:40 | Well, go into View > Mix Window
Views > Sends A-E and then to show the
| | 00:48 | individual send on the track, I went
to view Sends A-E and chose Send A.
| | 00:57 | A Send makes a copy of a track and
route it to an output or a Bus. So whatever
| | 01:02 | is on this track, this is the Acoustic
Guitar 2 track. The Send makes a copy of
| | 01:07 | that Acoustic Guitar 2 track and
route it either to an interface, maybe an
| | 01:13 | analog output or a digital output or
to an internal Bus within Pro Tools.
| | 01:20 | Now Bus carries that signal somewhere
usually to another track and I'd like to
| | 01:26 | think of a Bus that's kind of like a
pipeline. Finally, a return receives that
| | 01:31 | signal from the Bus, affects it and
then routes that signal somewhere usually
| | 01:36 | to the main outputs. And in this case,
our return is going to be this Auxiliary
| | 01:42 | track so it receives the Bus 1-2 signal
here at the input and then puts it out
| | 01:49 | to the Analog 1-2, which is the main output.
| | 01:52 | So let me back up and explain this
whole process here of how to set up an
| | 01:57 | Effects Loop. First, what you do is you
assign a Send on the track. So in this
| | 02:02 | case we assign the Bus 1-2 and that's
going to be our pipeline to send the copy
| | 02:09 | of this track to somewhere else. Then
we go over to the return, which is this
| | 02:14 | Auxiliary track, and for the input of
this track we choose that same Bus, Bus 1
| | 02:20 | and 2, so that this track is receiving
what this is sending. Then we can put
| | 02:27 | our effect on this track so we put an
insert and in this case, I'm using a
| | 02:32 | D-verb Reverb plug-in.
| | 02:37 | So now the copy of this Acoustic Guitar
track is being routed here. It's being
| | 02:43 | affected by this D-verb plug-in and
then it's being routed to the main output
| | 02:48 | of the session. With this setup, the
individual Send Faders, right here control
| | 02:53 | the amount of signal that's sent from
each track to the Reverb plug-in on the
| | 02:58 | Aux track over here.
| | 03:00 | So you will see that both of these
Acoustic Guitar tracks are routed to this
| | 03:05 | Auxiliary track with the D-verb plug-in.
We can control how much of the level
| | 03:10 | from each track is sent to the Reverb
plug-in using the Send control right
| | 03:15 | here. The Aux Fader control, right here,
controls how much of the reverb effect
| | 03:20 | on those tracks is actually added
to or returned to the overall mix.
| | 03:25 | And the whole idea of an Effects Loop
is to have both an affected or a wet
| | 03:30 | signal, and an unaffected or dry copy
of each track going to the main outputs,
| | 03:35 | so that you can control the level
of both the wet and the dry signals
| | 03:39 | separately in the mix. So you'll see on
these two tracks we have the dry tracks
| | 03:45 | being routed out here to the main
outputs. And then we also have the copies of
| | 03:50 | them being sent here where they are
affected by the reverb. And we can control
| | 03:55 | the Reverb amount here on the Auxiliary track.
| | 03:58 | One other thing here I want to mention
is that I have made this Auxiliary track
| | 04:02 | Solo safe. So it will always be
active even if I Solo other tracks in the
| | 04:09 | session, and the way to do that is to
press Command on a Mac or Ctrl on Windows
| | 04:15 | and Click the Solo button and you can
toggle it between being non-solo safe and
| | 04:20 | solo safe. And when it's kind of
ghosted like this that means its solo safe.
| | 04:24 | So let me show you what this means. We
are going to go over and actually Solo
| | 04:29 | these Acoustic Guitar tracks and
because this is solo safe, we can still hear
| | 04:34 | the effect coming through this track.
So I'm going to play this and you can
| | 04:38 | listen to the effect and how these
controls, the Send controls and the
| | 04:43 | Auxiliary controls, affect the
overall mix of the dry and wet signals.
| | 04:52 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:40 | Effects Loop can be either Pre fader or
Post fader. By default any new Send you
| | 05:46 | assign in a session is set to Post
fader. However, you can change that by
| | 05:51 | clicking the Pre or the little P
button here. Allow me to explain. The signal
| | 05:56 | routed through a Send can either be
affected by the volume on the tracks volume
| | 06:00 | fader down here which makes it Post
fader or you can decide to make it Pre
| | 06:06 | fader and then the volume fader will
not affect how much is sent out here.
| | 06:13 | Let me dig a little deeper, Pre fader
sends routed signal on a track through
| | 06:17 | the Send before the signal is effected
by the Volume fader, the Solo, ad the
| | 06:23 | Mute buttons. Whereas signals that are
routed Post fader are affected by the
| | 06:29 | Volume fader, Solo and Mute buttons.
So why would you want to make a Send
| | 06:33 | either Pre fader or Post fader?
| | 06:36 | Post fader sends are the default
because in most instances you want the levels
| | 06:41 | of the unaffected dry and the affected
wet signals to be controlled at the same
| | 06:46 | time. In our example session here, if
I mute the guitar track, the dry guitar
| | 06:52 | track will be muted and the reverb
signal will be muted as well. That way you
| | 06:57 | won't get a ghost in the machine, a
wet track without its dry counterpart and
| | 07:03 | let's have a listen.
| | 07:06 | (Music playing.)
| | 07:17 | Now you did hear the reverb tail but
you didn't hear the reverb effect going on
| | 07:22 | while these tracks were muted. In
contrast Pre fader Sends are perfect for when
| | 07:29 | you actually do one that ghost in the
machine or put it in another way, when
| | 07:33 | you want the original track and the
sent copy to be relatively independent of
| | 07:38 | each other. For example, in our
session here I'm going to create an effect
| | 07:43 | where the drums slowly disappear into a
reverb background. So I'm going to hit
| | 07:51 | the Pre button and then press Play
and check out the effect that we get.
| | 07:56 | (Music playing.)
| | 08:16 | With the Pre fader Send, as you pull
down the fader on the drum track, the
| | 08:20 | reverb drum signals stays the same
level. As the dry track fades away, you're
| | 08:25 | left with only the reverb or the wet
version that you can then start fading out
| | 08:29 | or in this case boosting to
create whatever effect that you want.
| | 08:33 | One thing you should note is that all
inserts that is plug-ins or I/O choices
| | 08:40 | here affect both Pre fader and the Post
fader sent signals. In other words, any
| | 08:47 | effect that you add to a track as an
insert will be on the track when it's
| | 08:52 | routed through a Send as well.
| | 08:54 | I found that using Effects Loops for
Reverb and Delay effects actually sound
| | 08:57 | better than using Reverb and Delay
plug-ins on individual tracks. The setup
| | 09:02 | shown here tends to make the mixes
less muddy and have more impact. I'm sure
| | 09:08 | once you learn to create them and
understand the signal routing involved,
| | 09:12 | Effects Loops will become an
integral part of your own personal mixing technique.
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| Working with plug-ins| 00:00 | Let's have a quick chat about several
plug-in features that are handy to know
| | 00:03 | when mixing or really when
using Pro Tools in general.
| | 00:06 | When you have a plug-in open like
this and you go try to open another plug-in,
| | 00:12 | the first plug-in actually
closes back down. However, if you want to
| | 00:17 | have both plug-ins open at once,
all you need to do is click the Target
| | 00:22 | button right here so that you can
open multiple plug-in windows at once.
| | 00:27 | Now I can open this one and both will
be showing. This also applies to virtual
| | 00:33 | instruments, Sends, and output windows.
If I open this Send, deactivate the target,
| | 00:40 | I can open another one both
in the session and right here in the
| | 00:46 | output window, if we click this
button, same deal. Target, there we go.
| | 00:56 | If you Shift-click a plug-in, virtual
instrument, Send, or output window,
| | 01:01 | it will open with the target already
deactivated so that's a good feature.
| | 01:05 | We'll try that, Shift and click on this,
and you will see that the target is already
| | 01:10 | deactivated. Let me close that down.
| | 01:13 | Now if I go to this output window here,
or the plug-in window, and press Option
| | 01:19 | on a Mac or Alt in Windows, and then
hit the Close button, all of the open
| | 01:23 | plug-ins will close at once.
| | 01:25 | So I'm pressing Option on my Mac, or
Alt on a PC, click, and they all go away.
| | 01:32 | You can click-and-drag plug-ins,
virtual instruments, and Sends from one
| | 01:36 | position on a track to another. So if
I click-and-drag, I can just move it
| | 01:41 | right down there or onto another track.
| | 01:44 | Option+dragging on a Mac or Alt+
dragging in Windows will drag a copy to another
| | 01:50 | position on the same track or to
another track. So I can do that and
| | 01:55 | it creates an exact copy with the same
parameters of that plug-in on this other track.
| | 02:00 | Bypassing a plug-in takes the plug-in
out of the signal path and there is a
| | 02:05 | Bypass button on every plug-in that's
right over here. Use the Bypass button
| | 02:10 | to A-B the effect. That is to hear what
the track sounds like with and without
| | 02:15 | the effect. So if we solo this track,
and have a listen to it, we'll try out
| | 02:21 | this A-B technique.
| | 02:23 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:35 | Note that bypassing a plug-in
doesn't reduce the processing load on your
| | 02:39 | computer. Conversely, making a plug-in
inactive takes the plug-in out of the
| | 02:44 | signal path and does not take up
processing power. The plug-in settings are
| | 02:49 | still saved with the session though.
It's very handy to use it and I'll show
| | 02:53 | you how to do it right here.
| | 02:55 | If I actually just right-click on the
plug-in, I can either choose to bypass it
| | 03:01 | or make it inactive and when it's
inactive, you see that it is italicized.
| | 03:08 | If I right-click again, I can make it active.
The same action can apply to virtual
| | 03:15 | instruments, also to Sends,
and to output choices.
| | 03:24 | If you don't want to right-click, you
can press Command on a Mac or Ctrl on
| | 03:27 | Windows and click a plug-in to bypass it,
like this, see that it turns dark blue.
| | 03:33 | If you hold down the Command and
Control key on a Mac, or Ctrl and Start
| | 03:39 | on Windows, you can click on an
Insert and make the plug-in inactive.
| | 03:43 | So use these buttons pushes and key
commands to become more efficient when
| | 03:48 | using plug-ins, virtual instruments,
and Sends while you are mixing.
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| Dealing with delay compensation| 00:00 | In this video, I want to talk about how
to deal with delays that plug-ins cause
| | 00:04 | when processing audio in Pro Tools.
Host-based RTAS plug-ins and HD only TDM
| | 00:11 | plug-ins are both real-time effects.
Therefore, it takes time for your computer
| | 00:16 | to process the audio signals that
pass through them. This delay is usually
| | 00:21 | measured in number of samples.
| | 00:23 | You can check the amount of delay
that a plug-in adds to a track by
| | 00:27 | Command-clicking on a Mac or Ctrl-
clicking in Windows on the Tracks volume
| | 00:31 | indicator here. Clicking here toggles
the display from volume to headroom or
| | 00:38 | peak level and then to channel delay.
| | 00:41 | The delay values are shown in number
of samples. To show the delay on all the
| | 00:45 | tracks at once, press Option+Command
and click on a Mac or Alt+Ctrl and click
| | 00:51 | in Windows and the toggle to the delay.
| | 00:56 | Some plug-ins like the Stacey-Q plug-
ins in Pro Tools require a very little
| | 01:01 | processing power and very few if any,
samples of delay. We can see here that
| | 01:07 | this EQ plug-in on this track
doesn't cause any delay on this track.
| | 01:12 | However, processor intensive plug-
ins like Vocal processor and Pitch
| | 01:16 | correction, look-ahead mastering
limiters like Digidesign's Maxim Plug-in and
| | 01:21 | Noise reduction plug-ins can have much
larger delays and the delay literally
| | 01:26 | adds up. The total delay of a track is
equal to the sum of all the delays from
| | 01:32 | all the plug-ins on that track.
| | 01:34 | However, this delay often isn't too
much of an issue when mixing except when
| | 01:39 | trying to keep two tracks time
aligned that that same signal source. For
| | 01:44 | example, if you have recorded an
acoustic guitar with several mics in one DI
| | 01:48 | track, you want all of those tracks to
stay time aligned to avoid acoustical
| | 01:53 | phase cancellation. Those tracks can
become unaligned if you add plug-ins to
| | 01:58 | one of the group tracks and not the others.
| | 02:01 | Another scenario on which a plug-in
delay can affect the track is if the
| | 02:04 | plug-in has a massive amount of delay,
such as the 1024 samples of delay that
| | 02:10 | the Digidesign Maxim plug-
in causes. Let me show you.
| | 02:15 | Right there, a track with the delay
this large will end up sounding behind the
| | 02:20 | rest of the tracks in the session in
time. Let's go for an extreme example. I'm
| | 02:24 | going to add five of these Maxim plug-
ins on to this one track. Now, I'm going
| | 02:30 | to play these two tracks and they
should be time aligned except for this delay
| | 02:37 | from all of these Maxim
plug-ins. Let's check it out.
| | 02:41 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:47 | Very much rhythmically out of time
with each other. Now Pro Tools HD is the
| | 02:52 | only version of Pro Tools that has
automatic delay compensation that could
| | 02:56 | handle a problem like this. It actually
automatically pushes all tracks forward
| | 03:01 | in time to match up with the track that
has the most delay. Pro Tools LE and M
| | 03:06 | Powered don't have automatic delay compensation.
| | 03:09 | However, you can manually compensate
for the delay in two ways. One way is to
| | 03:15 | add the Time Adjuster plug-in, look at
that here and if you put this on all of
| | 03:23 | the other tracks and then adjust the
number of samples of the delay, in this
| | 03:27 | case, I have already typed in 5120
samples which matches what we have here.
| | 03:34 | Then this track will be delayed as much
as this other one and they should be in
| | 03:39 | time together.
Let's have a listen.
| | 03:41 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:50 | It worked. Another way to manually
compensate for the delay is to nudge or move
| | 03:55 | any track with the delay back in time,
that is towards the beginning of the
| | 04:00 | session and move it back the same
number of samples as are shown in the track's
| | 04:05 | display view right here. If you do this,
I highly recommend making a duplicate
| | 04:10 | playlist on the track before moving the
region, so that you can easily get back
| | 04:14 | to the original track position if need be.
| | 04:16 | So let me do that. I'm going to
duplicate this and now what I'm going to do is
| | 04:25 | actually go to Spot mode and because I
know that the delay is 5120 samples, I'm
| | 04:32 | going to move this back in time 5120
samples, which turns out to be 70480 and
| | 04:44 | I'll click OK, and then you will see
that it actually moved this region.
| | 04:49 | So now I'm going to go over to this
track and make this plug-in inactive so
| | 04:55 | that there is no delay on this track
anymore. So this is back in its original
| | 04:59 | position and this track has been
moved forward to compensate for this delay
| | 05:04 | right here and if I press Play,
they should be perfectly time aligned again.
| | 05:10 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:19 | It worked. Now what about delay
with virtual instruments, external MIDI
| | 05:23 | devices, and Rewire applications, like
if you are using Propellerhead region
| | 05:28 | software with Pro Tools. Before
starting a mix, in most cases, I recommend
| | 05:33 | recording all audio from your
external MIDI devices, virtual instruments or
| | 05:37 | Rewire applications that
are in use in your session.
| | 05:40 | Then mute all MIDI tracks and
inactivate any virtual instrument plug-ins and
| | 05:44 | Rewire applications before mixing. This
will free-up system resources for more
| | 05:49 | processing power for mixing, and ensure
that no additional delays incurred from
| | 05:54 | virtual instruments and Rewire signal
routing and let me show you how to do this.
| | 05:59 | I am going to scroll down here. We have
got an instrument track with Mini-Grand
| | 06:03 | on it. Assuming that we had
performance data, we would actually record the
| | 06:08 | output from this track on to Bus 7-8
and then we'll pick it up at the input
| | 06:16 | here, 7-8 again on this audio track,
and simply record the output from this
| | 06:22 | virtual instrument track on to this
audio track, and then we can take this
| | 06:27 | entire track and make it inactive.
| | 06:31 | And that reclaims any processing power
that we had going to the Mini-Grand and
| | 06:36 | this entire track. As an added bonus,
having your virtual instruments, MIDI,
| | 06:40 | and Rewire tracks as audio means that
you can easily apply plug-in effects to
| | 06:45 | them within Pro Tools. So now you know how
to compensate for plug-in delay within Pro Tools.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying EQ| 00:00 | Equalizers or EQ's are used to boost
or cut selected frequencies within a
| | 00:05 | signal. In this video, I'm going to
show you how to apply an EQ to an audio
| | 00:09 | track as well as demonstrate some of
the more radical EQ plug-ins in Pro Tools.
| | 00:15 | There are several reasons to apply EQ.
To improve the tone quality or the
| | 00:19 | timbre of an instrument or voice, to
create a special effect like a telephone
| | 00:24 | vocal sound, to help a track stand
out in the mix, to fix mic choice and
| | 00:29 | placement problems like frequency
problem, likeage or noise issues, to make up
| | 00:34 | for inadequacy in the recording
equipment, to create a better blend of
| | 00:38 | instruments, and to improve the overall
sound of the mix if you applying the EQ
| | 00:43 | to the master output.
| | 00:45 | Most home and car stereos have some
form of equalizers. Even the simplest bass
| | 00:50 | and treble controls are equalizers.
There purpose is the same as the EQ
| | 00:54 | plug-ins you use to mix in Pro Tools.
However, our Pro Tools EQ plug-ins are
| | 00:59 | more advanced and give us more control
over the EQ parameters allowing us to
| | 01:04 | alter specific and controllable frequency
ranges. Let me show you how to apply EQ.
| | 01:09 | We will start with a Digidesign stock
7-Band EQ. This EQ is a parametric EQ
| | 01:18 | which enables us to control three
parameters, the central frequency abbreviated
| | 01:23 | here just as FREQ, the boost or cut
which is the Gain, and the width of the
| | 01:28 | affected frequency range or Q. The
central frequency is the frequency that you
| | 01:33 | want to adjust, so if I grab this
knob and move it, you will see that the
| | 01:37 | central frequency is moving here, this
orange dot. For example, say you want to
| | 01:42 | reduce the low-end muddy frequencies on
an acoustic guitar. In that case, I'll
| | 01:47 | dial this over to about 300 Hz because
that's where mud likes to live in a mix.
| | 01:53 | The Gain is the amount of increase or
decrease an amplitude that you want to
| | 01:58 | apply to the central frequency. So,
if I boost this, you will see the curve
| | 02:03 | rise, and if I decrease it, you will
see it go down. If you want a slight
| | 02:09 | reduction in the guitar parts mud, I would cut
it by 1-3 dB. For more drastic change cut 6-9 dB.
| | 02:18 | The third parameter, Q, is the width
of the boost or cut region around the
| | 02:23 | central frequency. So, as you see as
I turn this knob, the width changes.
| | 02:30 | A higher Q value yields narrow
widths for affecting a smaller range of
| | 02:34 | frequencies, while a low Q provides
expanded widths to encompass a larger range
| | 02:40 | of frequencies. And let's hear what
this sounds like. So, we have the guitar
| | 02:46 | part soloed, we want to change the
Gain to 0, and then press Play. And I'll
| | 02:50 | change the Gain and we'll
hear how that affects the sound.
| | 02:53 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:08 | Do you hear how muddy it got when I
actually boosted the Gain? Now, when you
| | 03:12 | are looking for the frequency that you
want to adjust, try this technique, we
| | 03:16 | call it the boost and twist. So, you
insert an EQ on a track, like we have
| | 03:21 | here, and you increase the Gain pretty
significantly. We'll bring it all the
| | 03:25 | way up to 14 dB. And now we'll make
the Q really high so that it is a very
| | 03:32 | narrow band. And now what we do is
play the track, and then sweep with the
| | 03:37 | Frequency control to find a frequency
that you want to boost or cut.
| | 03:41 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:56 | Let's say that I actually want to get
rid of some of the nasally tone that's
| | 03:59 | right around this area at 761 Hz. So,
now that I found that frequency, I can
| | 04:05 | adjust the Gain, bring it down some.
And then if I want to expand the width,
| | 04:11 | I can either increase or decrease the Q.
Let's hear what that sounds like.
| | 04:16 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:30 | It's a subtle change but noticeable and
you will notice that I actually hit the
| | 04:35 | Bypass button here to AB it. That is,
to listen to the track with the EQ and
| | 04:41 | without the EQ. One thing we were
also doing here is we are listing to this
| | 04:45 | track in Solo. Now you don't want to
just EQ while you are in Solo, you also
| | 04:50 | need to listen to the track with
the rest of the tracks in the session.
| | 04:55 | You could make this track sound
amazing by itself but it might not sound good
| | 04:59 | in the mix. So, don't EQ in a vacuum
by keeping the track in Solo. Let's move
| | 05:04 | on to a common mixing practice called
the carving EQ holes. For example, let's
| | 05:09 | say we have this acoustic guitar
track and a vocal track. Often it's a good
| | 05:14 | idea to cut out some of the mids of the
guitar to allow the vocals to have more
| | 05:18 | room in the frequency spectrum where
they sound the best, like between 1-4 kHz.
| | 05:25 | So, let's cut out 3 kHz from the
guitar signal, I'm going to adjust the
| | 05:31 | Frequency to about 3, decrease it a
little, and kind of narrow it out. And I
| | 05:40 | need to un-Bypass this track. And I'm
actually going to take this part of the
| | 05:46 | EQ out by clicking the In button and
making that part inactive. So, now we have
| | 05:52 | this little bit EQ'd out of our guitar
signal. So we are carving a little EQ
| | 05:58 | hole for the vocals to come in and
shine through over the guitars in this area.
| | 06:05 | Now, another thing that we could do
is actually boost some of the guitar
| | 06:08 | Frequencies. Let's go up to around 6
kHz and add a little bit of shine to the
| | 06:16 | guitar sound at that area. And this
frequency range on the guitar is out of the
| | 06:22 | way of the vocals. So it's another
example of carving an EQ hole where we can
| | 06:27 | actually boost the guitar to have it
shine through a little bit more at this
| | 06:31 | frequency. Let's hear
what it sounds like.
| | 06:35 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:51 | It takes out some of the bite from
the mids that would allow the vocals to
| | 06:54 | shine through. Now be aware that any EQ
setting that you change on a particular
| | 06:59 | instrument will affect not only its
sound but how the sound of that instrument
| | 07:03 | interacts with all of the other tracks
in the mix. Now let's look at some of
| | 07:07 | the more radical EQ effects that you can
add to tracks in your Pro Tools session.
| | 07:11 | I am going to close this up and have a
listen to the Bass track instead. First,
| | 07:16 | we check out the Air Kill EQ. So we
have got this track soloed, I'm going to
| | 07:24 | press Play and add in some
interesting effects that this EQ can do.
| | 07:28 | (Music playing.)
| | 07:48 | This plug-in is a 3-Band EQ with Kill
switches on each band, right here. With
| | 07:54 | this plug-in you can cut off the Lows,
Mids, and Highs for some really cool
| | 07:57 | effects, like you just heard. Let's try
another one. Related to the Kill EQ but
| | 08:05 | with some different parameters, this
Vintage Filter is a resonant multi-mode
| | 08:10 | filter that can be manually adjusted
or modulated over time, using a built-in
| | 08:15 | LFO or Low Frequency Oscillator. It
also has an Envelope follower. Now watch
| | 08:21 | what knobs I'm going to tweak with the
mouse, and we'll hear the sonic outcomes.
| | 08:25 | (Music playing.)
| | 09:02 | You have got a lot of opportunity to
get creative with this plug-in. So, now
| | 09:06 | you know how to properly EQ a track
utilizing the boost and twist method.
| | 09:10 | You can also sonically sculpt any track
pretty radically with some of these EQ
| | 09:15 | plug-ins that are available in Pro Tools.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding compression| 00:00 | Compressors reduce the dynamic range
of audio signals that exceed a selected
| | 00:05 | volume level. They turn down the
loudest parts of a track, which helps to
| | 00:09 | manage instruments with wide dynamic
ranges such as vocals and bass. It also
| | 00:14 | helps the quietest bits of the track
to become easier to hear. Let's take a
| | 00:18 | look at Compressor plug-in in Pro Tools.
| | 00:21 | If a signal comes in beneath the
Threshold of a Compressor, nothing is done to
| | 00:26 | that signal. Lower volume signals are
not touched unless there is some gain
| | 00:31 | added to them. Now I have set this
Compressor plug-in right now to have a
| | 00:36 | Threshold of 0 which means that
everything will come in below that, but as I
| | 00:41 | spin this you will see the Threshold
dropping and then this value becomes the
| | 00:47 | new Threshold for when the Compressor
will actually compress the signal. I'm
| | 00:52 | about to playback a bass track here
and I want you to watch as I lower the
| | 00:56 | Threshold the signal will get lower in
volume and that's what shown over here
| | 01:01 | on this side where we have the Input level,
the Output level, and the Gain Reduction.
| | 01:06 | So watch these as I twist the Threshold
and listen to how the signal is affected.
| | 01:15 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:34 | If the signal crosses the Threshold
the Compressor reacts according to the
| | 01:38 | Attack speed parameter measured in
milliseconds and we can see that right here.
| | 01:44 | The Compressor then begins to reduce
the volume of the signal according the
| | 01:48 | Ratio and the Knee parameters, the
Ratio dictates how much the signal is
| | 01:54 | compressed, for example we've got a
Compression ration of 3:1 here and that
| | 01:59 | means if the input signal is 6 dB over
the Threshold, it will come out of the
| | 02:05 | Compressor at 2 dB over the Threshold.
A low Knee number indicates what's call
| | 02:11 | the hard Knee setting and that means
that compression will take effect very
| | 02:15 | quickly applying the maximum amount of
compression, while a soft Knee, if we
| | 02:21 | twist this all the way to the other side will
ease into the maximum amount of compression.
| | 02:27 | Now let's take a look at these as I
bring the Threshold down and you can see
| | 02:32 | this soft curve right here; that's a
soft Knee. If I twist this back down, you
| | 02:37 | will see this is a hard Knee and the
angle is much more dramatic. If I change
| | 02:43 | the Ratio, you will see this line get
lower making the output value from the
| | 02:50 | Compressor to be a lot less than
what it would be with a higher Ratio.
| | 02:55 | Now as long as the signal is above the
Threshold, this line right here, it will
| | 03:01 | be compressed. But once it falls below
this Threshold, it will stay compressed
| | 03:06 | until it's let go by the Release time,
which is down here. It will then be
| | 03:12 | allowed to return to the regular
uncompressed volume. So once a signal below
| | 03:18 | the Threshold, it's got 80 milliseconds
here; it will still be compressed even
| | 03:23 | though it's below the Threshold.
| | 03:25 | The Compressor's Gain over here will
be applied to the output level of the
| | 03:30 | signal regardless of whether the
signal is compressed or not. That means that
| | 03:34 | the uncompressed softer parts of the
track that are below the Threshold are
| | 03:40 | still affected by the gain, and
that means that the louder parts are
| | 03:44 | compressed, the softer parts still
have this gain, and thus you will create a
| | 03:49 | track with a more uniform volume level
or less of a dynamic range. And that's
| | 03:55 | the whole point of using a Compressor.
| | 03:57 | So watch and listen as I tweak some of
these parameters, the Attack and Release
| | 04:01 | won't be that easy to hear, but you
will definitely hear the effects of the
| | 04:05 | Threshold, Ratio, Knee, and the Gain.
| | 04:09 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:02 | So how should you apply compression to
a track? First, you should ask yourself
| | 05:06 | whether you think the track actually
needs compression. And if you think that
| | 05:10 | it does because the dynamic range is
too wide, start by choosing the Threshold.
| | 05:16 | A high Threshold like this will only
lower the peaks. So anything that is above
| | 05:24 | this Threshold will be compressed
while everything down here will not be
| | 05:28 | compressed. However, if you lower this
way down, then almost the entire track
| | 05:35 | will be compressed. So it will be
constantly compressed with a low Threshold.
| | 05:39 | Obviously, you can choose anywhere in
between, but those are two common ways to
| | 05:44 | do it, to compress the entire
track or to compress just the peaks.
| | 05:50 | Next, you want to choose the Ratio.
Choose 2:1 or 3:1 for light compression,
| | 05:55 | 4:1 or 6:1 for more volume leveling
and then as you get up to 10:1 or above,
| | 06:03 | this is considered limiting and it
squashes the track level. After setting the
| | 06:08 | Threshold and the Ratio you can go on
to the Attack and Release times. And the
| | 06:13 | Attack and Release times require some thought.
| | 06:16 | Now let's talk about the Attack time.
The Attack time determines how quickly
| | 06:19 | the Compressor reacts to a signal
that's over the Threshold. So you have to
| | 06:23 | consider the type of instrument and the
part you are compressing and whether or
| | 06:26 | not you want to compress the initial
transient of the transient. For example
| | 06:31 | the initial transient on a drum track
is always very fast. So if you want to
| | 06:35 | compress the initial transient on the
drum, the Compressor's Attack has to be
| | 06:40 | extremely short. So we bring that way
down to just a fraction of a millisecond.
| | 06:46 | However, if you want the drums
transient come through the Compressor before
| | 06:50 | compression is applied, then you need
to set the Attack time to allow enough
| | 06:54 | time for the initial drum transient
to pass through before the signal is
| | 06:59 | actually compressed.
| | 07:01 | The Release parameter on a
Compressor is just as important as the Attack,
| | 07:04 | because it determines how long the
Compressor stays active once the signal
| | 07:09 | falls below the Compressor's Threshold.
Short Release times let the Compressor
| | 07:15 | cut out more quickly on notes that fall
below the Threshold and this makes the
| | 07:20 | Compressor really work, if you set
the Release time to 20 milliseconds or
| | 07:24 | below. For a smoother sound use
values over 100 milliseconds and maybe even
| | 07:33 | longer for bass notes, because
they sound better with long Releases.
| | 07:39 | Finally, we'll move over to the Gain,
and this is often called Make up Gain,
| | 07:43 | because it's the output gain on the
Compressor and it's use to make up the gain
| | 07:48 | that has been compressed out of the
loudest parts of the signal. If a signal
| | 07:53 | comes into the Compressor and is
reduced by 8 dB, you can actually increase the
| | 07:58 | output gain up to 8 dB and not have
the loudest part of the signal clip. Now
| | 08:05 | aside from just controlling the
dynamics of a track, you can actually use
| | 08:08 | compression as a special effect. For
instance, you can use the squash technique
| | 08:13 | to really mess with the sound of a
track. Now I'm going to take a listen to
| | 08:17 | this track and use a preset called
Steamroller and we'll hear the difference.
| | 08:22 | I'm going to bypass it first and then I'm going
to drop it in and you can hear the difference.
| | 08:26 | (Music playing.)
| | 08:43 | So you can use that as a special effect,
if you want. There are a lot of other
| | 08:47 | useful presets up here, in fact the
bass guitar one actually sounds pretty nice.
| | 08:55 | (Music playing.)
| | 09:01 | You will see the parameters, how they
are set here. It's small Ratio, kind of a
| | 09:06 | softer Knee, kind of a longer Attack
and definitely a long Release, a lot of
| | 09:11 | Make up Gain and a fairly low Threshold.
| | 09:17 | Another popular compression technique
is to add a compressed copy of a track
| | 09:22 | back in with the original to increase
the punch of the overall sound. This is
| | 09:27 | called Parallel Compression and it's
common technique used on vocals guitars
| | 09:32 | and drums. So let's take a look at
what I have got set up here. First, I have
| | 09:36 | got this two acoustic guitar tracks and
I have bussed them out to Bus 1 and 2,
| | 09:43 | which is picked up by this Aux track
here and I have got a Compressor on it. So
| | 09:49 | what we are going to hear in the
Mix is the dry unaffected tracks and a
| | 09:55 | compressed copy of those tracks mixed
together in the overall mix. So I'm going
| | 10:00 | to mute the Parallel Compression
first and we'll hear the acoustic guitar
| | 10:04 | tracks by themselves. Let me hit the
bass as well and then I'll add in the
| | 10:09 | Parallel Compressed tracks and
you can hear the difference.
| | 10:12 | (Music playing.)
| | 10:38 | So you can hear that there is obviously
a volume difference, but there is also
| | 10:41 | a Sonic difference too. It gives it a
little bit more power with the Parallel
| | 10:45 | Compression in there and some clarity,
but also has still some dynamics left
| | 10:51 | over the dry tracks. Adding compression
and limiting to your mix correctly take
| | 10:56 | some knowledge of the parameters.
As you are learning, be sure to try out
| | 11:00 | some of the presets, tweak the knobs
and listen to the effects in a variety of
| | 11:04 | instruments. Revisit this video to
review the explanations of the compression
| | 11:08 | parameter, if needed. Use correctly,
compression can make your mixes sound
| | 11:12 | more powerful, more
balanced, and more radio ready.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying limiters| 00:00 | Now, let's talk about Limiters.
Limiters are essentially compressors with
| | 00:04 | ratios of 10:1 or higher. These large
ratios are used to prevent transient
| | 00:10 | signal peaks from exceeding a chosen
level. Because of this limiters,
| | 00:15 | like compressors, allow you to increase
the overall track level while avoiding
| | 00:18 | clipping. You can select a ratio of
up to 100:1 here in this Dynamics 3
| | 00:25 | Compressor/Limiter plug-in. That means
that if the signal is 100 decibels over
| | 00:31 | the threshold, it would come out
of the limiter at 1 decibel over the
| | 00:35 | threshold. Now, that's
some pretty serious squashing.
| | 00:39 | Limiters are useful on many types of
tracks and are used most often on the same
| | 00:43 | types of dynamic tracks as compressors
are, such as vocals and electric bass.
| | 00:48 | Limiters can be used in cooperation
with compressors to take care of the peaks
| | 00:52 | while the compressors perform the main
compression duties on the rest of the
| | 00:56 | non-peak signal. Limiters are also
useful on submixes and almost always in
| | 01:01 | mastering applications to make sure
that the tracks don't peak and cause
| | 01:05 | unwanted distortion.
| | 01:06 | So, check out how adding this Maxim
Limiter to the Master Fader track in this
| | 01:13 | session can boost the output signal by
reducing the dynamic range of the song,
| | 01:18 | but without creating distortion. Now,
don't push it too hard or else you will
| | 01:24 | get distortion. But let's hear how
this sounds as I add and change the
| | 01:30 | threshold and the ceiling values here.
| | 01:32 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:20 | So, you can hear in this example that
you can bring the threshold down and get
| | 02:25 | some limiting and keep the ceiling
high and you get that track to be a lot
| | 02:29 | louder without any distortion. If you
bring the threshold down too low and keep
| | 02:33 | the ceiling high, that's going to add
distortion to the track, because you're
| | 02:37 | trying to push it too hard. Now,
we'll talk more about Limiting, Maxim and
| | 02:41 | Maxim parameters in the
Mastering section of this course.
| | 02:45 | Adding Compression and limiting to your
mix correctly, takes some knowledge of
| | 02:49 | the parameters. As you're learning,
be sure to try out some of the presets,
| | 02:53 | tweak the knobs and listen to the
effects in a variety of instruments.
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| Using Gates and Expanders| 00:00 | In this video, I want to discuss
mixing applications for Gates. I'm going to
| | 00:04 | open up this Expander/Gate plug-in
here on the Bass track. Now, a Gate allows
| | 00:10 | an audio signal to pass through it if
the signal is above a specified volume
| | 00:15 | level. When the signal is below that
level, the Gate is closed and the signal
| | 00:20 | is attenuated either partially or fully.
Gates are used to allow the desired or
| | 00:25 | louder signal to pass through
while denying unwanted softer signals.
| | 00:30 | They're good for eliminating unwanted
noise on tracks like guitar amp hum
| | 00:35 | as well as creating cool effects, like
cutting off reverb tails and making
| | 00:39 | click-triggered pluses. Let's listen
to an example here. The Gate is used to
| | 00:44 | cut off the sustain notes on this bass track.
| | 00:47 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:00 | As you can see, any part of the
signal that was above this threshold line
| | 01:06 | wasn't cut off, but once it fell below
this threshold, it came down into this
| | 01:11 | area and was drastically reduced in volume.
| | 01:15 | Now, what happens really when you
have a Gate on a track? First, the signal
| | 01:20 | comes into the Gate and the Gate
inspects the signal and decides whether it's
| | 01:24 | above the threshold. And that
threshold is this line right here. We set that
| | 01:29 | down here. If the threshold hasn't
been crossed, the Gate remains closed and
| | 01:34 | blocks the signal from going to the
output. However, if the signal crosses the
| | 01:39 | threshold, the Gate opens up according
to the Attack speed, which is right here.
| | 01:45 | The Gate stays open for a specified
amount of time for the whole time and then
| | 01:50 | closes if the signal is falling below
the threshold volume at a speed selected
| | 01:55 | by the Release parameter. The Range
parameter on a Gate determines how much of
| | 02:00 | the volume is reduced on a signal that
moves below the threshold. The lower the
| | 02:05 | Range value, the less volume
the Gate allows to be heard.
| | 02:08 | So, as I twist this, you're going to
see this line move. If I bring it all the
| | 02:15 | way down, then the Gate is not going to
allow any signal to come through, once
| | 02:20 | the Gate is closed. But if I raise this
up, back to where I had it before, then
| | 02:27 | when the Gate closes, you can
actually still hear a portion of the signal.
| | 02:31 | When you allow the Gate to let through
some of this volume here, that actually
| | 02:36 | turns the Gate into what's called an
Expander, and Gates with medium to high
| | 02:41 | range values from -40 to
0 DB are called Expanders.
| | 02:47 | Now, where Gates are useful for
eliminating unwanted noise between musical
| | 02:51 | sections on a track, downward Expanders
like this are good for simply lowering
| | 02:56 | but not entirely eliminating the noise.
Expanders and Gates basically have the
| | 03:01 | same parameters except that Expanders
may also have a Ratio parameter that's
| | 03:06 | down here. On a Gate, the ratio is
extremely high; however on an Expander, you
| | 03:11 | can actually turn that down and you'll see
the line up here, decreasing in its slope.
| | 03:20 | The Ratio in an Expander works in the
opposite way as a Compressor's Ratio.
| | 03:25 | Once a signal falls below the threshold,
this line here, the ratio pushes the
| | 03:30 | signal lower than it would be
without Expansion. This may sound a little
| | 03:35 | strange, but if we think about it,
Expanders actually expand the dynamic range
| | 03:40 | of a track by pushing the signal level
lower, when it's below the threshold.
| | 03:45 | I actually prefer using downward
Expanders instead of Gates in noise-reducing
| | 03:50 | applications, because the level changes aren't
as drastic. They just sound more musical to me.
| | 03:56 | Now, let me give you some notes about
Gates and Expanders. The Attack Time, you
| | 04:02 | should use a fast attack time when
you're gating drums so that the initial
| | 04:06 | transients aren't gated. So, you just
bring this way down. However, you should
| | 04:12 | use slower Attack times on lower
frequency instruments. In this case, for our
| | 04:16 | bass, we want the Attack time to be a
lot higher, and the reason for that is
| | 04:21 | fast Attack times might distort low
frequency tracks by quickly raising the
| | 04:25 | gain in the middle of a wavelength.
| | 04:28 | This can cause unwanted clicks in
the track. Now, short Release times may
| | 04:33 | unintentionally cut off the ends of
notes. So, use longer Release times for
| | 04:37 | more gradual fades.
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| Working with Side Chains| 00:00 | Now, I want to talk to you about Side
Chains. Gates and Expanders as well as
| | 00:05 | Compressors and Limiters can be keyed
by a Side Chain input. Well, what does
| | 00:10 | that mean? Let me show you an example.
| | 00:16 | Let me open up this Expander Gate and
we'll talk about the Side Chain section
| | 00:20 | up here. Routing a signal into the
Side Chain input of a Gate allows the Gate
| | 00:25 | to listen to a different audio source
and use that Side Chain signal to trigger
| | 00:30 | the Gate to open or close. The signal
used to trigger the Gate is called the
| | 00:35 | External Key Input and that's
indicated here with this little key button.
| | 00:39 | Now in this case, I have actually set
up a Click track with this Trillium Lane
| | 00:45 | Labs TL Metro plug-in to be our Click
track. And I have routed the output to
| | 00:53 | Bus 7. So it stays within Pro Tools
and I have this track in the Expander
| | 01:01 | plug-in receive that signal at
the Key Input. So Bus 7 is getting the
| | 01:07 | output of this Click track into the
Key Input. The Key Input feeds the Side Chain
| | 01:14 | of this Gate.
| | 01:16 | Now to activate the Key Input, I click
this little Side-Chain button. First,
| | 01:22 | let's hear the Synth track without any
of the Side Chain action going on yet.
| | 01:26 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:36 | Now I'm going to add in the Click
track that is going to be the Key Input and
| | 01:40 | I'm going to make it active here by
clicking the Side Chain button and then
| | 01:44 | I'm going to click the Key Listen
button, so that we can hear what signal is
| | 01:47 | actually going to be
used to trigger the Gate.
| | 01:51 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:57 | So that's the Click track that's going
to key the Gate here. Now when I undo
| | 02:01 | the Key Listen button, now we are going
to hear the Click track triggering the
| | 02:05 | gate on the Synth track. The Gate is
going to open and close to create a
| | 02:09 | pausing 16th Note Rhythm.
| | 02:12 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:21 | To recap, here is what's happening.
The 16th Note Click track output feeds
| | 02:26 | the Key Input for the Gate via this Bus,
Bus 7. That goes into Bus 7 here as the
| | 02:36 | Key Input. The Gate on the Synth
track takes the click, uses it to open and
| | 02:41 | close the Gate, and then that
ultimately creates the Synth path that pauses to
| | 02:47 | the beat of the 16th Note Click track.
| | 02:49 | So I'm going to play this again and
I'm going to switch through a couple of
| | 02:53 | different things. I'm going to play
the Synth track with the Side Chain then
| | 02:55 | I'm going to solo the Click track and
then I'm going to bypass the Gate, so
| | 03:02 | that we can hear what the normal unaffected
Synth tracks sounds like again. So check it out.
| | 03:07 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:33 | That's a pretty cool effect.
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| Working with De-Essers| 00:00 | Another application of Side Chaining
is the De-Esser and let me open up one here.
| | 00:05 | We have got the De-Esser
on this Acoustic Guitar track.
| | 00:11 | A De-Esser is best known as an effect
that takes the Esses or the hiss out of a
| | 00:16 | vocal performance. It's really a
frequency specific compressor and it's useful
| | 00:21 | for controlling sibilance on a
variety of instruments, including vocals,
| | 00:25 | hi-hats, cymbals, guitars, and other instruments
that have a lot of energy in the 2-8 kHz range.
| | 00:33 | Essentially, a De-Esser is a
compressor that receives an EQ track through its
| | 00:37 | Side-Chain input that has the
offending sibilant frequency boosted very high,
| | 00:43 | so that the compressor will attenuate
it when it gets loud. So let's have a
| | 00:47 | listen to what this track sounds like,
and I'm going to tweak some of the
| | 00:49 | parameters here on the De-Esser.
| | 00:51 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:15 | So you see when I hit this Listen
button, we are only listening to the
| | 01:20 | frequencies right around this area
that we are choosing here on the Freq
| | 01:23 | parameter and when you insert a De-
Esser plug-in on a track, that's what you
| | 01:28 | should do first is click on this Listen
button and then use the Frequency knob
| | 01:33 | to determine what frequency you
want to base your De-Essing around.
| | 01:37 | Then use the Range knob to add some
compression to the offending frequency.
| | 01:41 | Finally, adjust the frequency to
center in on the offending sound.
| | 01:46 | Then turn-off the Listen button and watch
the Gain reduction over here as well as up
| | 01:51 | here in the graphic display. To hear
how the De-Esser is working on the track.
| | 01:57 | Let's have a listen.
| | 01:58 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:45 | Right there at the end, you can really
hear the compression kicking in and out
| | 02:50 | on the higher frequencies. Now De-Essers,
Side-Chains, Expanders, and Gates are
| | 02:55 | all very useful dynamic effects. Use
them on your tracks wisely, and you really
| | 03:01 | will be able to sculpt the sound of your mix.
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| Adding delay| 00:00 | In this video, I wanted to discuss how
Delay effects work and how to apply them
| | 00:04 | well in your Pro Tools session. Delay
effects record a signal, then play it
| | 00:09 | back at a user selected time delay.
A single Delay of less than 35 milliseconds
| | 00:15 | is called a Double because this effect
makes the track sound like there are two
| | 00:19 | of the same part being played and
sung at basically the same time.
| | 00:23 | A slap back Delay is a single repeat
with a Delay time over 35 milliseconds.
| | 00:29 | Slap back Delay times of 35-75
milliseconds are good for thickening vocal or
| | 00:35 | instrumental tracks. While Delays of 125
-350 milliseconds are useful for making
| | 00:41 | a vocal or guitar track sound large.
Longer Delay times will yield echo like
| | 00:47 | effects. I'm going to open up the
extra long Delay plug-in on this Aux track
| | 00:52 | here. Now it's usually a good idea to
set the Delay time in relation to the
| | 00:57 | beat and tempo of the song. That is, an
eighth note, a quarter note and in this
| | 01:03 | case, I have it set as a whole note.
The rhythm you create with the Delay can
| | 01:07 | add a nice groove element to your mix.
| | 01:10 | To do this, make use of the Tempo
Sync function in most Pro Tools Delay
| | 01:14 | plug-ins which will synchronize the
Delays to the Session Tempo, just click the
| | 01:19 | Tempo Sync icon, the little metronome
or the Sync button and set your plug-in
| | 01:25 | parameters as you want. Let's listen to
an example that I have got set up here.
| | 01:28 | In this session, I have an Effects
Loop that I have set up on Bus 5 and 6.
| | 01:34 | These tracks are routed to this
extra long Delay on this Aux track.
| | 01:38 | Notice how I have got a whole note
set as the Delay time, which is going to
| | 01:43 | make for a very long Delay. I'm going
to press Play and listen for the delayed
| | 01:48 | signal that's a whole note past
when the original signal is played.
| | 01:52 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:08 | Let's take a look at some of the
parameters that are here in this Delay
| | 02:11 | plug-in. First, we have got the Gain.
This affects the volume level of what's
| | 02:15 | going to come out of this Delay plug-
in. The mix determines how much of the
| | 02:20 | original signal is being delayed. Often
if we have set up an Effects loop like
| | 02:24 | this, we'll use 100% as the Mix value.
| | 02:28 | LPF stands for low pass filter and this
is used to filter out the high end, so
| | 02:33 | that it doesn't build up if you are
using a lot of feedback. Delay is the Delay
| | 02:38 | Length, in this case, 1700 milliseconds,
pretty long. Depth and Rate refer to
| | 02:45 | the amount of modulation and the rate
of modulation and we'll cover this stuff
| | 02:49 | in the modulation video later in this
course. Feedback refers to the amount of
| | 02:53 | signal that is sent back into the
Delay input creating a Delay of the delayed
| | 02:59 | signal. The higher the feedback
level, the more delays are created.
| | 03:03 | Obviously, we see down here that the
Tempo is locked up with the tempo of the
| | 03:08 | session because we have our little
Tempo Sync button activated. If we
| | 03:13 | inactivate this, we'll see that we
could actually change this by dragging and
| | 03:18 | you see that the Delay length changes as we
change the Tempo, I'm going to re-lock that up.
| | 03:24 | We can change the meter, we can also
change the note value or add triplets or
| | 03:29 | dot the notes and we can change the
Groove percentage. Now I'm going to switch
| | 03:33 | over to a different plug-in, I'm going
to bypass this one and add in this new
| | 03:39 | AIR Dynamic Delay plug-in and you will
note that the Sync button here is active
| | 03:45 | and that means that it's
Tempo Synced with the session.
| | 03:49 | Now we'll use this one to playback and
listen to a bunch of feedback, we have
| | 03:52 | got 100% feedback in here. So that's
going to create a lot of delays that are
| | 03:58 | repeated on themselves. We can use
this feedback actually to smooth out the
| | 04:02 | sound of a track or given an infinite
never-ending field, let's play a track
| | 04:07 | and listen to this.
| | 04:08 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:25 | So as you can hear on that last note,
the feedback continues and continues and
| | 04:30 | so I roll that off to actually stop it.
In this plug-in, there is a lot of
| | 04:34 | different parameters that we can tweak.
Obviously the Delay time, we have got
| | 04:39 | the left and right ratio and the
stereo width, which can be used to change up
| | 04:44 | how this effect is used in the stereo
field. We also have Feedback mode, which
| | 04:49 | is mono, stereo or we can
cross the left and the right.
| | 04:54 | We can change the EQ by cutting some
of the highs and the lows and we can
| | 04:58 | change the Envelope Modulation as well
as the Mix percentage. Now, I'm going to
| | 05:04 | show you another Delay technique. In
this session I have got two separate
| | 05:08 | acoustic guitar tracks record. Two
different performances. One here and one here.
| | 05:14 | I'm going to solo those to
actually first and you can hear the
| | 05:18 | differences between the two performances.
| | 05:21 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:35 | Pretty well played, pretty tight, but
if I want to make this tighter and even
| | 05:39 | more rhythmically aligned, but
also keep the doubled sound. I can
| | 05:44 | electronically double one of the guitar
tracks and not use the second one, here
| | 05:49 | is how. On this acoustic guitar track,
I have set up a Send and busted out Bus
| | 05:57 | 7 to this Aux track, which
is receiving it on Bus 7.
| | 06:00 | So I'm doubling this track, sending
this signal to this Aux track and then I
| | 06:07 | add a short Delay with just 16
milliseconds as the Delay length and then I have
| | 06:13 | kept all of these other parameters at 0,
have the Mix at 100%. Let me solo both
| | 06:24 | of those. Note that I have made this
Send Prefader, so that the Volume fader on
| | 06:29 | the original track doesn't affect the
Send level. I have also panned this track
| | 06:34 | to the left and the Aux track to the right.
So that we can have the stereo spread.
| | 06:39 | Now, I'm going to play just these two
tracks and you can compare that to the
| | 06:43 | double tracks that I played before.
| | 06:45 | (Music playing.)
| | 07:14 | So, you have to be the judge as to
what you like better between the two
| | 07:17 | doubling techniques. But as you can
hear, they both have their advantages.
| | 07:21 | There are numerable Delay effects to
choose from. Experiment with all the
| | 07:25 | parameters, check out all the presents
and create your own. You can definitely
| | 07:29 | have some fun with Delay effects
and get very creative in your mix.
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| Utilizing modulation effects| 00:00 | In this video, I want to discuss
Modulation effects. Modulation is the varying
| | 00:05 | of Delay time, and is essential for
creating Chorus, Phase Shifter and Flanger effects.
| | 00:11 | Adding Modulation to a Delay effect
creates slight pitch variations in the
| | 00:16 | delayed signal. These slight variations
can actually smooth out pitch problems
| | 00:20 | on a vocal or instrumental track. Or
with more modulation they can make the
| | 00:26 | track sound even more pitchy.
Let's listen to a quick example.
| | 00:29 | I have got an acoustic guitar
track here, and I'm going to add this
| | 00:34 | Multi-Chorus effect.
We'll go ahead and press Play.
| | 00:38 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:54 | When audio signals that are delayed and
slightly pitch-shifted or modulated and
| | 00:59 | that are combined with each other and
the other original sound source, there is
| | 01:02 | a constantly changing relationship
between the phases of the various waveforms.
| | 01:07 | This produces a sound similar to
that of several different singers or
| | 01:11 | instrumentalists performing together. And
this effect is appropriately called Chorus.
| | 01:16 | As for the parameters in Chorus we have
Depth and Rate as the main determinants
| | 01:22 | of the modulation here. So, we have
the Depth of Modulation that controls the
| | 01:26 | amount of modulation and the Rate,
which is the speed. I'm going to play this
| | 01:32 | same passage again and control the
Rate and Depth with the mouse and you can
| | 01:37 | hear the differences
as I tweak the knobs.
| | 01:40 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:09 | As you can tell, you can use the Rate
and Depth parameters to really make some
| | 02:12 | far out sounds. Now these parameters
react differently to Delay times. If you
| | 02:18 | set the Delay Time to about 1-3
milliseconds, you can create a Phase Shifter
| | 02:22 | effect and then we can open up a Phase
Shifter plug-in if we go to the Phaser.
| | 02:30 | Phase Shifter effects create
waveforms that are subtly moving in and out of
| | 02:34 | phase with each other. And that's
due to the short delay times of 1-3
| | 02:39 | milliseconds. This effect sounds like
a mid and high frequency EQ sweep and
| | 02:45 | creates the illusion of swooshing
motion. Let's take a listen.
| | 02:49 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:11 | Flanging is similar to Phase Shifting
except that it's more dramatic. The Delay
| | 03:15 | Time for a Flanger effect is around 10-
20 milliseconds and the Rate and Depth
| | 03:20 | can be a variety of
settings according to your taste.
| | 03:25 | Now we have a Flanger plug-in that we
can choose here. And let's take listen to
| | 03:32 | this track with the Flanger on it.
| | 03:34 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:06 | All these modulation effects have a
great variety of presets that you can load
| | 04:11 | up and check out how the values on
the parameters are set and then when you
| | 04:16 | want to create your own effects then
you will know what parameters to use and
| | 04:20 | how to set them to get the sound that you want.
| | 04:23 | All of these modulation effects Choruses,
Phase Shifters and Flangers are useful
| | 04:29 | on just about anything from guitars and
keyboards to drums, base and vocals at
| | 04:34 | times. A highly urge you to play with
the parameters of these effects just to
| | 04:39 | hear the creative and sometimes
wacky sounds that you can make.
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| Adding reverb| 00:00 | Reverb short for reverberation is a
sonic effect that occurs when many random
| | 00:05 | reflections of a sound blend
together and reach the listener more than 10
| | 00:10 | milliseconds after the direct
sound from the sound source.
| | 00:13 | As an effect, Reverb gives character
to a direct dry sound, by placing it in
| | 00:18 | some sort of acoustical environment,
like a church, a gymnasium or a tiled
| | 00:23 | bathroom. Let's hear a few examples
using the D-Verb plug-in on a Percussion track.
| | 00:27 | I'm going to open up this D-
Verb plug-in and while we are listening back,
| | 00:32 | I'm going to adjust the Mix. When
the Mix is set at 100% that means 100%
| | 00:38 | of the track coming into this plug-
in is being affected by the Reverb.
| | 00:42 | If we reduce that down to zero, that
means that there is no Reverb effect at all
| | 00:47 | and the track will be completely
dry. So listen as I adjust the wet/dry
| | 00:52 | mix and change between
some presets on this plug-in.
| | 00:57 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:22 | When a sound is made, we hear the
direct sound waves, early reflections and
| | 01:26 | reverberation, in that order. The
direct sound reaches our ears without
| | 01:31 | bouncing off of any surface. Early
reflections reach our ears between 10
| | 01:36 | milliseconds and 30 milliseconds later
than the direct sound, after they have
| | 01:40 | bounced off of one or more surfaces.
Because these reflections arrive so
| | 01:44 | quickly, they are perceived
as part of the direct sound.
| | 01:48 | Reverberation actually occurs when a
sound reflects off of many surfaces and is
| | 01:53 | mixed with other reflections creating a
denser blend of reflected sound. These
| | 01:59 | reflections begin to fade away or decay
as they are absorbed into the material
| | 02:03 | of the acoustical space.
| | 02:05 | The longer a sound takes to decay,
the larger and more hard surface the
| | 02:10 | acoustic environment is perceived to
be and the farther from the sound source
| | 02:14 | the listener is or seems to be. On
Reverb effects units, we can control the
| | 02:19 | parameters that determine what a
Reverb will sound like, throughout its
| | 02:23 | progression from the
first to the last reflection.
| | 02:26 | Here is a list of common Reverb effect
parameters. As I mentioned previously,
| | 02:30 | the Wet/dry Mix is the mix of the
direct dry signal with the effected wet
| | 02:35 | signal. Pre-delay is the time delay
before Reverb is actually heard. Decay time
| | 02:41 | is the time that it takes for a sound
to disappear and is basically a measure
| | 02:45 | of the total effect time.
| | 02:47 | Diffusion is the space between the
reflections or repeats. Density is the
| | 02:52 | initial buildup of short delay times
or reflections. Room size refers to the
| | 02:57 | size of the actual acoustical space.
| | 02:59 | Width is the amount of spread across
the stereo field. You can make a Reverb
| | 03:03 | sound very narrow or extremely wide.
And you should also note that Reverb
| | 03:08 | plug-ins may have additional parameters or
alternate parameter names than are shown here.
| | 03:14 | Like Delay effects, Reverb is used in
mixing to create a sense of Depth. When
| | 03:19 | applying to tracks, the Wet/dry
parameters sets the overall amount of Depth,
| | 03:24 | how far away a sound is from the listener.
| | 03:27 | In addition to the decay time, the
longer Pre-delay time, the time before
| | 03:31 | Reverb is actually heard, the larger
the perceived size of the acoustical
| | 03:36 | space. Reverb effects can be used on pretty
much any kind of sound source in your mix.
| | 03:42 | However, I would steer you away from
using it on base instruments, because if
| | 03:46 | you use Reverb on a low frequency, it
can tend to really make the mix muddy.
| | 03:51 | Also Reverb often sounds more impressive
if it's used in Stereo as opposed to Mono.
| | 03:57 | If you do find that your Reverb plug-in
is making your mix a little bit muddy,
| | 04:01 | you can use the High Filter Cut or the
Low Pass Filter on almost any kind of
| | 04:06 | Reverb plug-in, to help sculpt the
sound and tighten up your frequency range
| | 04:12 | for the Reverb output.
| | 04:13 | Trends in the music industry tend to
influence the amount of Reverb that gets
| | 04:17 | used on popular music. If you are
trying to make your mixes sound like what's
| | 04:21 | on the radio or in your favorite song,
do some serious listening to the amount
| | 04:26 | and types of Reverb that Mix
engineers used in the recording.
| | 04:30 | Now let's listen to some presets in a
few of the stock Reverb plug-ins in Pro
| | 04:34 | Tools. I'm going to close D-Verb here
and Bypass it and then open up the AIR
| | 04:41 | Reverb plug-in. We are going to
listen to a few presets on the Drum tracks
| | 04:46 | again. I'm going start
with the Drum Room preset.
| | 04:50 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:13 | There are a lot of parameters in this
Reverb plug-in and you can see, as I have
| | 05:18 | changed between those presets, a
lot of the parameters change pretty
| | 05:22 | significantly to create those different sounds.
| | 05:25 | Let's move on to the Non-Linear Reverb.
I'm going to Bypass this and open up
| | 05:30 | the Non-Linear Reverb. This plug-in
can be used to emulate classic 80s era
| | 05:35 | Gated-Reverb effects. Let's
check out some of the presets.
| | 05:39 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:59 | Let's move on to the Spring Reverb.
Of these three AIR Reverb plug-ins,
| | 06:07 | I think the Spring Reverb is my
favorite. It simulates classic Analog Spring
| | 06:12 | Reverbs that you might in vintage guitars
amps and studio gear. Let's take a listen.
| | 06:17 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:39 | If you want to hear what a Reverb
really sounds like you can actually play a
| | 06:43 | little bit and then stop the track to
hear the decay and that will give you a
| | 06:48 | sense of what the Reverb is
really doing to your overall sound.
| | 06:52 | Reverb is an essential mixing
effect in all styles of music and
| | 06:56 | postproduction. Learn how to use the
Reverb parameters and you will be able to
| | 07:00 | create the atmosphere and sonic
character that you want for your mix.
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| Adding harmonic effects| 00:00 | In this video, I'm going to demonstrate
some of the harmonic plug-ins available
| | 00:04 | in Pro Tools. These plug-ins are
mainly used for adding color or texture to
| | 00:08 | instruments and voices in a mix.
| | 00:10 | To access the harmonic plug-ins, choose
multichannel plug-in here, and go down
| | 00:17 | to Harmonic, and we are going to start
with the Distortion plug-in. Now I've
| | 00:21 | got an organ track here, and I want to
try this Distortion plug-in on it. Now
| | 00:27 | distortion actually boosts and clips
a signal to add bite, dirt and crunch.
| | 00:33 | With the B3 organ track playing,
I'll demonstrate some of the sonic
| | 00:36 | possibilities for this plug-in by tweaking the
controls as well as loading some of the presets.
| | 00:44 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:23 | Now let's move on to the Enhancer plug-
in. I'll close this one up and open the
| | 01:30 | Enhancer. The Enhancer plug-in
synthesizes high-end frequencies to enhance dull
| | 01:36 | signals. Check it out.
| | 01:38 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:11 | So a lot of sonic possibilities with
those two plug-ins. Now I'm going to
| | 02:15 | switch over to a different track,
bypass this first, and go down to the
| | 02:21 | electric piano track. I'm going to open
up the Frequency Shifter. This plug-in
| | 02:28 | offers up some classic pitch shifting
effects. Try this plug-in out on guitars
| | 02:33 | and keyboard tracks and I kind of
like it here on this electric piano.
| | 02:38 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:05 | Let's move on to the Fuzz-Wah. The
Fuzz-Wah provides dirty distortion and
| | 03:17 | sweeping wah effects that sound great on
guitar, electric piano, and organ sounds.
| | 03:22 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:00 | Add some plug-in automation to this one,
and you can make it sound just like a
| | 04:03 | guitar wah pedal. Now let's try out
the Talkbox. Go back to the Organ.
| | 04:12 | The Talkbox effect emulates a mouth
controlled wah. I'll test it on the Organ track
| | 04:18 | here, but try running you guitar
through it, instant Peter Frampton.
| | 04:22 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:46 | As you can tell from the presets in
these five plug-ins, there are many sonic
| | 04:49 | possibilities that you've got with
these. Use these effects in your mix to
| | 04:54 | dirty up pristine samples and
electronic music, add color to classic rock or
| | 04:59 | country tracks or even help design soundscapes.
| | 05:03 | There are many creative ways
to use these harmonic effects.
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| Renting and purchasing plug-ins| 00:00 | If you don't have all the plug-ins
that you want to use in a mix, instead of
| | 00:04 | buying the plug-ins, you can rent
them from Digidesign. Just go to the
| | 00:07 | Digidesign store, click on Pro Tools
Plug-in, MP3 & Optional Software and
| | 00:13 | you will see this page. Tons and tons of
third party plug-ins that you can purchase
| | 00:18 | or rent here. Let's check it out.
| | 00:20 | I am going to click on Amp Farm 3.0.
When the plug-in comes up, you can see
| | 00:26 | that we can actually rent it for two days,
14 days, 31 days or actually buy the product.
| | 00:33 | Now 15 bucks for a couple of
days might seem like a lot but in that
| | 00:38 | time period, you can actually get a
really good feel for how the plug-in works
| | 00:43 | and if you like the sound of it.
| | 00:44 | Now, not all plug-ins are rentable
but this is a great option if you need a
| | 00:51 | plug-in for a limited amount of time.
Note that you will need an iLok account
| | 00:56 | and an iLok key for
authorizing and using the plug-ins.
| | 00:59 | If you do end up renting a plug-in,
I highly recommend printing the effect in
| | 01:05 | your Pro Tools session. So let's go
over to Pro-Tools and let's say that this
| | 01:11 | plug-in is the one that you rented
and you have been using it on this track.
| | 01:15 | Be sure to print the effect. That is
record the output of this track on to
| | 01:20 | another audio track so that you
can keep that effect that you like.
| | 01:26 | So I have got this setup right here
with the audio output path set to Bus 9.
| | 01:31 | If you set the audio input path
selector to Bus 9 on this track, you can route
| | 01:37 | the output here to the input here and
just set this into record and you are
| | 01:42 | good to go and that's
called printing an effect.
| | 01:46 | There are tons of cool third party
plug-ins out there to try. The stock
| | 01:50 | plug-ins in Pro Tools are excellent but
don't feel limited to just using those.
| | 01:55 | Try some other ones. A two day rental
is plenty of time for you to test drive a
| | 01:59 | plug-in to see if you like to purchase it.
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| Applying AudioSuite plug-ins| 00:00 | Most plug-ins in Pro Tools have a real-
time AudioSuite or RTAS version and a
| | 00:05 | non real-time version that we
simply call the AudioSuite version.
| | 00:09 | AudioSuite plug-ins process audio
where Pro Tools has stopped whereas their
| | 00:13 | RTAS counterparts work in real time.
The advantage of non real-time processing
| | 00:19 | is that it doesn't take up
processing power while playing back.
| | 00:22 | To apply an AudioSuite plug-in to an
audio region, first highlight the region
| | 00:27 | and then we'll go up to the AudioSuite
menu and choose the plug-in that we want.
| | 00:31 | In this case, I'm going to
choose a Chorus to apply to this bass track.
| | 00:36 | We can hit the Preview button to
hear what the track sounds like with the
| | 00:42 | plug-in before we process it.
| | 00:45 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:52 | With the Preview button active,
we can compare the original track to the
| | 00:57 | processed track. So if we hit Preview,
that will have the effect on it.
| | 01:01 | While it's previewing, we can hit Bypass
and that will go back to the original
| | 01:05 | unprocessed track.
Let's try that out.
| | 01:08 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:20 | So now we can tweak the settings if
we want to change anything up here and
| | 01:25 | once we are happy with the settings
that we have, we can hit the Process button.
| | 01:30 | You will notice that Pro Tools
created a brand new file and how do we know that?
| | 01:38 | Well, we can look over here, in the
Regions list. There is our new file and you
| | 01:45 | will see in the name of it. It has the
name of the track and the region number
| | 01:49 | but it also has this little
abbreviation for the type of effect that we used.
| | 01:54 | We used the Chorus, so it's got this little
chr on there and the as for the AudioSuite.
| | 02:01 | Now note, this is a brand new audio
file. Now usually, before processing a
| | 02:07 | region with an AudioSuite plug-in, I
recommend making a duplicate playlist on
| | 02:12 | the track so that you can always go back to
the original unprocessed region if necessary.
| | 02:19 | So let's undo that. Create a duplicate
playlist, and in this case, we'll call
| | 02:29 | it bass with chorus. Now we can
process it and you will see that we have the
| | 02:41 | bass with chorus and the original track
that we can choose from right over here
| | 02:46 | on different playlists.
| | 02:47 | A good time to use the AudioSuite
version of a plug-in is when you are running
| | 02:51 | out of processing power from using so
many RTAS plug-ins. In that case, save
| | 02:57 | the plug-ins settings that you are
using in the RTAS version, take the plug-in
| | 03:00 | off the track, and then apply
the AudioSuite version like this.
| | 03:05 | Let's go over to the Mix window, and
let's say we really like this effect that
| | 03:11 | we have on this bass track. So I'm
going to open up this plug-in, and I'm going
| | 03:15 | to save this plug-in setting so that we can
open it back up in the AudioSuite version.
| | 03:22 | So I'll go to this menu here, Save
Settings As, bass eq, Save. Then I'm going
| | 03:35 | to take this plug-in off of the track,
so there is no insert. I'm going to go
| | 03:40 | back over to the Edit window and this
is highlighted, the bass track that is,
| | 03:47 | and I'm going to choose our plug-in.
| | 03:51 | I am going to choose the preset that I
just made which is actually going to be
| | 03:56 | in this library enlist, we see it
right down here at the bottom, choose that,
| | 04:01 | there is my little EQ curve
and now I can process that.
| | 04:10 | Now that EQ has been applied to this
track, we no longer need it as an RTAS
| | 04:15 | version on the track to play in real
time because we have processed this on to
| | 04:20 | this bass track and you will see
the new file is right over here.
| | 04:24 | You can also use AudioSuite plug-ins
for creative effects like using the
| | 04:28 | reverse AudioSuite plug-in to process
a track and reverse. Let's try it out.
| | 04:34 | Let's take this acoustic guitar track,
which sounds like this.
| | 04:38 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:44 | And let's reverse it. So I'm going to choose
Reverse and let's hear what it sounds like.
| | 04:56 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:05 | That's kind of cool and there we can
see the waveform totally reserved.
| | 05:12 | So we can use the AudioSuite plug-ins for
creative effects or to help lessen the
| | 05:17 | processing load on your computer.
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| Bouncing down a mix| 00:00 | Bouncing in Pro Tools means to
combine all of the tracks in your Pro Tools
| | 00:04 | session into one file. When you're
ready to bounce and mix up your songs so you
| | 00:09 | can burn it to a CD or make an MP3
to post online, here's what you do.
| | 00:14 | First, in the Edit window, highlight
the length of time that you want your song
| | 00:18 | to be. What I usually like to do is
set up a marker at the very beginning and
| | 00:23 | at the very end of the
time that I want to bounce.
| | 00:27 | So, what I can do is click on this
one marker, press Shift and click on the
| | 00:33 | other marker, and the time between
these two markers is selected. That will be
| | 00:39 | my entire bounce length. Then you go to
the File menu, choose Bounce to > Disk,
| | 00:47 | and you get the Bounce to Disk window.
In this window, there are specific
| | 00:51 | settings you need to choose to make a
file that can be burned onto an audio CD.
| | 00:56 | Let's start from top to bottom.
| | 00:57 | First, we have the Bounce Source.
Choose the main stereo outputs of your Pro
| | 01:01 | Tools system. Often this is just
Analog 1-2, which is usually the default in
| | 01:06 | this window. Next, go down to File Type,
and in this case, we'd actually choose
| | 01:12 | either WAV or AIF to bounce to a file
if we want it to be on a CD. Next, we go
| | 01:18 | down to the Format, and in this case
we want to create a Stereo Interleaved
| | 01:22 | file. Those are the kinds that
are able to be burned on to a CD.
| | 01:27 | We'll choose 16-bit and 44.1
kilohertz as the Sampling Rate. Those fit the
| | 01:37 | specs of a CD. Since this
particular session is actually a 16-bit 44.1
| | 01:42 | kilohertz session, we don't need to
convert it to any other bit depth or
| | 01:46 | sampling rate. So, this will just be
grayed out, the Conversion Quality.
| | 01:50 | However, if we had a session that was
at a different bit rate or sampling rate,
| | 01:54 | we would have to choose a
Conversion Quality here.
| | 01:57 | Finally, down here we have the
Conversion Options, and I think you should
| | 02:01 | choose Convert After Bounce. When you
choose Convert After Bounce, Pro Tools
| | 02:06 | converts the Bounce track to the
desired file type after the Bounce process
| | 02:10 | takes place. If you choose Convert
During Bounce, that can eat up a lot of
| | 02:15 | system resources and could reduce the
number of plug-ins that you can use while
| | 02:19 | you're bouncing. That's why I always
choose the setting, Convert After Bounce.
| | 02:24 | Now, we can go ahead and click the
Bounce button and Pro Tools will ask you
| | 02:29 | where you want to save the file. I'm
going to go ahead and save it to the
| | 02:34 | Desktop and we'll call it bounce1.
As soon as I click Save, the real time
| | 02:41 | bounce will start, and this is a
great opportunity to do a quality check of
| | 02:46 | your mix. Let's have a listen.
| | 02:48 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:42 | So, there you go. There is the process
for bouncing down an audio file so that
| | 03:47 | you can burn it onto a CD. Now, what
if you want to make an MP3? Well, the
| | 03:51 | process is a little bit different.
First you need to make sure that you have
| | 03:54 | got the MP3 option installed.
| | 03:56 | Pro Tools come with the free 30-day
trial of the MP3 Encoder. After that,
| | 04:01 | you're actually going to have to buy
the authorization code from Digidesign. If
| | 04:05 | you have one already, copy the MP3.
bundle file into your Codecs folder to try
| | 04:11 | before you buy. That's actually
located here within your Pro Tools folder in
| | 04:17 | the Codecs folder in the MP3 folder.
| | 04:19 | For Windows users, check out the file
name and path in the overlay here. Now, I
| | 04:26 | highly recommend buying the MP3 option
because it produces very high quality
| | 04:31 | files. With the MP3 option installed,
you can create an MP3 file in the same
| | 04:36 | way as described earlier. We just need
to change the File Type to MP3 in the
| | 04:40 | Bounce to Disk dialog box. So, simply
go up here, choose File Type as MP3. We
| | 04:51 | keep Stereo Interleaved
and everything else the same.
| | 04:54 | This time when we click Bounce, the MP3
Settings dialog opens and you can name
| | 05:00 | your MP3 and give it other metadata,
such as information about the artist and
| | 05:05 | the album etcetera. You can also
choose the Encoding Speed as well as the
| | 05:14 | Constant Bit Rate. The higher the bit
rate the higher the quality of MP3 and
| | 05:23 | the larger the size of the MP3 file.
| | 05:26 | The default setting of 128 kilobits
per second is a good compromise between
| | 05:30 | quality and size where each minute of
a song roughly equates to a megabyte in
| | 05:36 | file size. So, if we click OK and save the
file, it will start the Bounce process again.
| | 05:42 | So, now you know how to bounce down
your session to a stereo audio file that
| | 05:46 | you can burn onto a CD or post as an MP3.
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|
|
14. MasteringSetting up a session for mastering| 00:00 | Mastering is the last stage in the
production process and takes place after
| | 00:04 | you're done mixing all the songs in
a project. Mastering in Pro Tools can
| | 00:08 | transform your final mixes into
professional sounding recordings. Well, why do
| | 00:12 | you want to master your tracks?
| | 00:14 | Well, mastering treats your final
mixes so that the songs sound good on all
| | 00:19 | playback systems, from one speaker
clock radios to hi-fi stereos. Mastering
| | 00:24 | makes the volume level on your
tracks competitive with other mastered
| | 00:28 | recordings. Mastering also involves
adjusting the EQ and volume for each song
| | 00:34 | to create a cohesive final product.
| | 00:37 | In the mastering process, you can also
adjust the balance, phasing and stereo
| | 00:41 | image of your tracks. You can fix
unwanted noises; you can add real or
| | 00:46 | simulated tube and analog gear into
your signal path. You can apply dithering
| | 00:51 | and noise shaping. You can also select
the song order and the spacing between
| | 00:56 | the songs to create the
best flow for your project.
| | 00:59 | Finally, you can bounce down and burn
the final masters with the correct track
| | 01:03 | order, timing and fades to a CD, a DVD
or any other playback or storage medium.
| | 01:10 | So, let's set up a
mastering session in Pro Tools.
| | 01:13 | I'm going to create a new session
and we're going to pick the session
| | 01:18 | parameters. In this window, we want
to choose the File Type, wherever you
| | 01:22 | bounce your final mixes down to, choose
that as the file type. Also, choose the
| | 01:28 | highest bit depth that you used in your
sessions. Most likely, you probably use 24;
| | 01:33 | however I'm going to use 16 here.
| | 01:35 | Also, keep the sample rate high, if you
actually recorded at a higher sampling rate.
| | 01:40 | So, if you recorded your tracks
and your mixes at 96 kilohertz, keep that
| | 01:45 | for the mastering session as well.
| | 01:54 | With our new session open, we now need
to import files into the session. Now,
| | 01:58 | you can either drag-and-drop the files
from the Workspace browser or even from
| | 02:02 | the Desktop or use File > Import >
Audio. Now, I'm going to scroll to where
| | 02:09 | I have my final bounced mixes, right here.
I'm going to click and hit the Command key,
| | 02:16 | Ctrl-click on a PC to select the
files that I want to bring in. You'll see
| | 02:24 | that all of these show up in the
regions to add to the current file. But we
| | 02:29 | need to hit the Add key or the
Add All to bring them all in.
| | 02:33 | Now, note that I have left and right
side files for each of these songs and
| | 02:38 | that's because I created Multiple Mono
formatted files when I bounced them down
| | 02:43 | as the final mixes. Now, Stereo
Interleaved files must be converted to Multiple
| | 02:48 | Mono files to be used in Pro Tools. So,
I'm going to go ahead and add all of
| | 02:53 | these and click Done.
| | 02:57 | In this window, I'm actually going to
choose Regions list so that I can just
| | 03:02 | pull and drag them in wherever I want
to on a track. Now, I'm going to create
| | 03:07 | two new audio tracks, two stereo audio
tracks. Go over to Slip mode here and
| | 03:17 | start pulling these tracks in,
just clicking-and-dragging.
| | 03:29 | I like to use only two stereo tracks
with the songs juxtaposed, if the mixes
| | 03:33 | are relatively consistent from song to
song, and I think that these ones are.
| | 03:38 | However, if each song needs individual
mastering attention, because the mixes
| | 03:42 | are very inconsistent, I might
place each song on its own track.
| | 03:47 | So, you notice how I placed the songs
here. I've got little space in between
| | 03:51 | each track and what I'm trying to do
is to give a sense of the cohesiveness of
| | 03:57 | this and how it would actually sound in
real playback on a burnt CD. Once you
| | 04:02 | have your songs in the session, listen
to them and compare them song by song.
| | 04:06 | You'll probably find that some songs
are louder or have different overall EQ
| | 04:10 | curves or stereo images than
other ones. So, you should take notes.
| | 04:15 | Listen for unwanted sounds as well
like clicks from bad edits and consider
| | 04:19 | importing some of your favorite master
tracks into the session as references
| | 04:23 | for straight-up comparison. So, I'm
going to take a quick listen to some of
| | 04:27 | these and make a few notes.
| | 04:29 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:57 | After playing these back, I can
tell that this track right here,
| | 05:01 | Road_to_Ventura, is a little bit louder
than these other two tracks and you can
| | 05:05 | actually see that in the waveform.
Also, the EQ curves are a little bit
| | 05:09 | different between the tracks. So,
I'll have to do some EQ work on the
| | 05:13 | individual tracks themselves to make
them all into one cohesive finished product.
| | 05:18 | So, now I'm going to show you how I
actually set up a mastering session. Since
| | 05:23 | I've already created a template for
this, I'm going to go ahead and import
| | 05:28 | session data from that template. I'm
going to go ahead and add all of these
| | 05:38 | tracks except for the first two and
I don't need to import anything else from
| | 05:49 | this session. I'm going to click OK.
Now I've got all of these tracks in here.
| | 05:54 | Let me move my audio back up here and
let's take a look at the Mix window.
| | 06:00 | So, it's kind of an elaborate setup,
but let me show you what I'm doing here.
| | 06:05 | The most important part of this is the
routing and what I'm going to set up
| | 06:09 | here is to have both of these audio
tracks go out of Bus 1-2 and then be
| | 06:17 | picked up at this first Aux track.
So, I'll set the Bus 1-2 as the input for
| | 06:24 | this track, so these tracks are routed
here. Then I'm going to route this out
| | 06:29 | to Bus 3-4, which will be
picked up by this track.
| | 06:35 | So, I'm just cycling through these
tracks and I'm going to do the same thing
| | 06:40 | here, Bus 5-6. Now an interesting
twist here is that I'm going to actually
| | 06:48 | route the output of this Aux track to
both of these audio tracks and you'll
| | 06:55 | notice that I've written down here that
these are called 1st Pass and 2nd Pass,
| | 06:59 | so I can record one mastering pass onto
this track and one onto this one,
| | 07:05 | so I can compare between the two.
| | 07:07 | So, basically the idea is this. You
have your initial final mixes on these
| | 07:13 | tracks. You route them through this
Aux track, which in this case will add
| | 07:19 | Compression and EQ. Then we route the
output of this track to this next Aux
| | 07:24 | track where we'll will add stereo
imaging, maybe some tube emulation, some
| | 07:29 | other effects here. Then we route the
output of that to an audio track where
| | 07:35 | we'll actually record enable that
track and then record the mastered version
| | 07:41 | right into the session.
| | 07:43 | I've got a 2nd Pass over here, a second
audio track that's routed the same way.
| | 07:48 | So, if we end up changing some effects
that we have in any of these signal path here,
| | 07:53 | we can do a 2nd Pass and
compare the 1st Pass versus the 2nd Pass.
| | 07:59 | Now, because these tracks are routed
through Analog 1-2, they will ultimately
| | 08:03 | go through this Master Fader track and
this is where we can add Metering Tools
| | 08:08 | that won't affect the output sound.
Finally, on the right side we have an audio
| | 08:14 | track where we can put reference
masters into, that we can listen to, and
| | 08:19 | they're routed through the same Analog
1-2 out. So, you can compare how they
| | 08:24 | sound with your mastered
tracks that are on these two tracks.
| | 08:28 | One last thing I should mention.
Because I'm recording right onto an audio
| | 08:32 | track inside the session, you've got
to make sure that Pro Tools is in Input
| | 08:36 | Only Monitoring, so that you can
always hear the Record-Enabled track during
| | 08:40 | playback. So, just go up to
Track > Input Only Monitoring.
| | 08:45 | Now, you know my personal technique
for setting up a mastering session.
| | 08:48 | Check out the other videos in the
mastering chapter for the steps to take after
| | 08:53 | setting up this mastering session.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using plug-ins for mastering| 00:00 | Once you've got your mastering
session set up correctly, it's time to really
| | 00:04 | listen critically to your mixes and
decide what you need to do improve them.
| | 00:08 | The first thing you might consider
using is time compression and expansion.
| | 00:12 | At the Mastering stage you may decide
that a certain song could benefit by being
| | 00:16 | sped up just a little bit or the pitch
could be adjusted slightly to change the
| | 00:20 | overall sound. There are a number of
plug-ins out there that can do this, but
| | 00:23 | the one that comes free with Pro Tools
is Time Shift and we can access that by
| | 00:28 | going to the AudioSuite
menu and choosing Time Shift.
| | 00:32 | In this plug-in we can adjust the time
compression or expansion or the Pitch
| | 00:37 | control. Let's take a quick listen to
this track that I have highlighted right
| | 00:40 | here. In Preview mode I'll change
up the speed and see it it's something
| | 00:46 | that we would actually
want to do for this master.
| | 00:48 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:02 | Now if you felt that extra speed
made the track a little bit more lively,
| | 01:06 | maybe we would actually want to process
this track to create faster version of it.
| | 01:10 | Now for more information about this
Time Shift plug-in, check out the video
| | 01:15 | about it earlier in this course.
Let's move over to the Mix window and check
| | 01:22 | out the mastering signal flow.
| | 01:24 | The way that I have it set up here is
an EQ and a Compressor on the first audio track,
| | 01:29 | then that is routed through
another |
|
|
