Pro Tools All-in-One For Dummies

Jeff Strong

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781119514497
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Médias et arts de la scène
• Subtopic: Théorie et appréciation de la musique

A complete Pro Tools reference - from recording to mixing to mastering

Pro Tools has long been the recording industry's leading solution for capturing, mixing, and outputting audio. While it was once a tool known and used exclusively by engineers in pro studios, it is now readily available to anyone wishing to create their own recording.

This updated edition of Pro Tools All-in-One For Dummies covers the features you'll encounter in both Pro Tools | First as well as the versions designed for next-level recording. It guides you through the very basics of recording, capturing both live and digital instruments, how to sweeten your sound in mixing, and how to tweak and output your final master. Now get ready to make some beautiful sounds!

• Get up to speed with recording basics
• Pick the Pro Tools version that works for you
• Record acoustic audio
• Get to know MIDI
• Discover how to set compression and EQ
• Sweeten your final product with mastering
• Create a final file you can stream online

Assuming no past experience with audio recording, this book shares the basics of recording and how to capture both live and digital instruments using Pro Tools.

Book 1

Getting Started with Pro Tools

Contents at a Glance

1. Chapter 1: Discovering What You Need
   1. Eyeing the Big Picture
   2. Piping the Music into Pro Tools
   3. Meeting the Mixer
   4. Managing the MIDI Controller
   5. Recognizing the Recorder
   6. Signing On to Signal Processors
   7. Making Sense of Monitors
   8. Mastering Media
2. Chapter 2: Configuring Your Computer
   1. Using Pro Tools on a Mac
   2. Using Pro Tools on a PC
   3. Keeping Bugs at Bay: Good Habits to Get Into
3. Chapter 3: Choosing and Setting Up Your Hardware
   1. Examining Audio Interface Specifications
   2. Exploring Some Popular Audio Interfaces
   3. Exploring Avid’s Eleven Rack
   4. Connecting Your Audio Interface
4. Chapter 4: Examining Software Basics
   1. Keeping Software Straight
   2. Getting Set Up
   3. Dealing with Sessions
   4. Getting to Know Audio and MIDI Files

Chapter 1

Discovering What You Need

IN THIS CHAPTER

Understanding the components of a home studio

Discovering how each component contributes to the final sound

Whether you use a PC- or Mac-based system for your Pro Tools studio, your home recording system of choice employs much of the same basic technology. In fact, your simple Pro Tools studio consists of the same basic components as a typical, million-dollar, professional studio complex.

In this chapter, you discover the purpose of each component of a home recording studio, and you also discover how each of these components relates to the quality of sound you ultimately get from your studio. This knowledge will help you to spend the right amount of money on the right stuff. (See Book 1, Chapter 2 and Book 2, Chapter 1 for more on purchasing gear.)

Eyeing the Big Picture

In spite of what you may surmise from this chapter — with its long list of equipment — you need only a few things to do multitrack recording with Pro Tools. This simple list comprises instruments and microphones (called input devices), a computer, a compatible audio interface, Pro Tools software, and monitors (speakers, to you home stereo enthusiasts). No matter how complicated your system becomes and how many pieces of gear you end up accumulating, your studio will still consist of these basic parts.

This chapter breaks down recording systems into the components they have to have, but you may not need to purchase every component separately to get a great-sounding system. Many of these components come bundled together. For example, your audio interface will likely include preamps — or you may find speakers that come with a power amp inside them.

Piping the Music into Pro Tools

As you begin to build your home studio, you’ll notice a long list of components — okay, go ahead and call them “extras” — lurking within the Top Five basics of your studio: input devices, computer, interface, software, and monitors. In this section, I focus on these details of input devices so you can understand just what roles they play in your system.

As you get more and more involved in recording, you’ll find you can add almost any of these components to your existing system to expand and enhance what you can do.

Interpreting input devices

All your expensive recording gear is useless if you have nothing to plug in to it. This is where the input device comes into play. An input device is, simply, any instrument, microphone, or sound module that produces or delivers a sound to the recorder.

Instruments

An electric guitar, a bass, a synthesizer, and drum machines are typical instruments that plug in to the interface and represent most of the input devices that you use in your studio. A synthesizer and drum machine can plug directly into the Line In inputs of your interface, whereas an electric guitar or a bass needs a direct box (or its equivalent) to plug in to first. (In the case of a Avid interface, you need to use one of the inputs that has a preamp.)

A direct box is an intermediary device that allows you to plug your guitar directly into a mixer without going through your amp first. (For more on direct boxes, see the upcoming section, “Deciphering direct boxes.”) Check out Figure 1-1 for an example of an instrument-input device.

FIGURE 1-1: An instrument-input device, which you can plug right into the mixer.

Microphone

You use a microphone (mic) to record the sound of a voice or a purely acoustic instrument — sound sources that, last time I checked, can’t be plugged directly into the interface. A microphone converts sound waves into electrical energy that can be understood by the interface. I detail the several types of microphones in Book 3, Chapter 2. Check out Figure 1-2 for a look at a microphone.

FIGURE 1-2: Use a microphone when your instrument can’t plug in to the mixer directly.

Sound modules

Sound modules are special kinds of synthesizers and/or drum machines. What makes a sound module different from a regular synthesizer or drum machine is that these contain no triggers or keys that you can play. Instead, sound modules are controlled externally by another synthesizer’s keyboard or by a Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) controller (a specialized box designed to control MIDI instruments). Sound modules have MIDI ports (MIDI jacks) to enable you to connect them to other equipment.

Often sound modules are rack-mountable, meaning they have screw holes and mounting ears so you can put them into an audio component rack. Some controllers, however, are not rack-mountable; Figure 1-3, for example, shows a drum module that rests on a stand or tabletop.

FIGURE 1-3: The sound module can be plugged right into the mixer but has to be played by another source.

Deciphering direct boxes

A direct box (or DI box, short for Direct Induction) is used to connect a guitar or bass directly into the mixer without having to run it through an amp first. A direct box’s purpose is twofold:

• To change the guitar’s impedance level so that the mixer can create the best sound possible
• To change the nature of the connection from unbalanced (quarter-inch) to balanced (XLR) so that you can use a long cord without creating electrical noise between instrument and mixer
  

  For more on cord types as well as balanced versus unbalanced signals, see Book 2, Chapter 1.

For most home recordists, the main purpose of a direct box is to act as an impedance transformer. You’re unlikely to need a long run of cords from your guitar to your mixer. Without a direct box changing your impedance levels, your guitar signal may sound thin or have excess noise.

Perusing the preamp

Microphones produce a lower signal level than line-level devices (synthesizers, for example); thus they need to have their signal level increased. For this purpose,...