Pro Tools 11

Music Production, Recording, Editing, and Mixing

Mike Collins

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781135074678
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Media & Performing Arts
• Categoría: Music Theory & Appreciation

Hone your Pro Tools music production skills and create better tracks with Pro Tools 11: Music Production, Recording, Editing, and Mixing.

With Pro Tools 11, you'll get more than descriptions of Pro Tools features and menus—this book grounds its Pro Tools instruction thoroughly in real-world music production. Learn to leverage this powerful DAW and bend it to your will, whether you're recording and mixing a band or producing a dance track. Get tips that will save you time, even if you're an old hand at Pro Tools. Extensive full-color screenshots visually guide you through the book, and an informal writing style keeps you engaged.

Includes coverage of additional features incorporated into version 10.3.6, which can be co-installed alongside Pro Tools 11 to allow use of TDM and RTAS plug-in formats.

Author Mike Collins, an independent music producer and music technology consultant who has worked with Pro Tools since 1991, gives you a frank view of the software without the hype. This book is carefully designed for users with basic music production experience or knowledge, but can serve as a quick learning guide for ambitious beginners or as a reference for the advanced or professional user.

Pro Tools 11 includes coverage of the application's new features, including:

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• Avid Audio Engine

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• Dynamic Host-based Plug-in Processing

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• Low-latency Input Buffer

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• Offline Bounce

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• Unified Workspace Browser

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• Advanced Metering for Pro Tools HD 11

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• Co-Install with Pro Tools 10.3.6

Level: Intermediate

In this chapter

Introduction

Learning Pro Tools

Pro Tools 10

The Companion Website

Pro Tools 10 | Pro Tools 11 Co-installation

Pro Tools 11 versus Pro Tools HD 11

Complete Production Toolkit

PT 11 Hardware Support

Summary

CHAPTER 1

Pro Tools – The world’s leading digital audio workstation

Figure 1.1
Pro Tools 11 Splash Screen.

Introduction

Pro Tools digital audio workstation systems are used all over the world in professional recording situations: for ‘live’ recording at gigs and concerts, for film scoring, for audio-for-video and for audio post production – the list goes on and on…

This book will be particularly useful for people who are upgrading from previous versions of Pro Tools or ‘cross-grading’ from other digital audio workstations. It will also serve as a useful handbook to use alongside any Pro Tools system to clarify how things work and to provide useful operational tips and notes.

Although this book is not intended to be an entry-level text, I have explained things as simply as I can wherever possible. Mindful of the fact that some readers may not have English as their first language, I have tried to avoid colloquialisms and slang as much as possible and have done my best to write as clearly as possible. I hope that more experienced audio professionals will regard the sometimes-lengthy explanations of what they may consider to be basic points as useful reminders about how things work, which they can skip past easily enough if they wish.

There are several excellent books available that may be more suitable for beginners, which take a more step-by-step approach. And the Pro Tools Reference Guide and other Help documents are always available from the Pro Tools Help menu.

This book is about music production using Pro Tools. This is not to suggest for a moment that Pro Tools is not the leading system used for putting sound and music to picture or for mixing in surround. It is just a reflection of the fact that Pro Tools has truly come of age as a music production system – and the greater part of my experience is with music production, so I am naturally inclined to write about the things that I know most about. So the main focus of the book is firmly on using Pro Tools for music production and mixing in stereo – although surround formats have been with us for many years now. When did you ever hear of a Top 40 ‘hit’ being released primarily as a 5.1 surround mix and making it because of this? I never heard of this happening – not one time! So this book will not digress into the fascinating world of surround sound – as interesting as this is to me and to many people I know.

Having read all the Pro Tools manuals and documentation in depth, along with most of the other books written about Pro Tools, I have noticed that some areas are not covered as thoroughly or as accurately as they could be, so I have made a point of addressing as many of these areas as possible. One example would be levels and metering, which are covered in plenty of detail in the chapter on Mixing.

You will not find every feature of Pro Tools covered in this book: it makes no attempt to be ‘all things to all people’. What you will find is clear explanations of most of the things you definitely need to know about to record, edit, and mix audio and MIDI in Pro Tools in stereo. There is a substantial chapter on MIDI that covers all the technical stuff about Pro Tools that you need to get professional results, whether using hardware or software MIDI instruments.

Wherever possible, I have tried to explain topics that are covered in the Reference guide in a clearer or alternative way. Throughout the book you will find highlighted Tips and Notes. The tips are often taken from my personal experience, and the notes are often technical points taken from the Pro Tools Reference guide or other documentation that may otherwise be overlooked, so watch out for these.

Learning Pro Tools

The only way to learn Pro Tools is to use Pro Tools as often as possible in as many contexts as possible. Even if you own a Pro Tools HD system, I strongly recommend that you get yourself a laptop with Pro Tools software, so that you can take it wherever you go. This way, you can practice recording, editing, sequencing, and mixing Pro Tools sessions, or making music with virtual instruments and loops or whatever, while you are away from your main studio setup. Or you could get a compact desktop such as an iMac at home and practice using this with Pro Tools and an Mbox or other compact hardware.

If you are really determined to be the fastest Pro Tools operator around, you will have to ‘eat, sleep and breathe’ Pro Tools until you have learned as many of the keyboard commands as you can remember and get as much varied experience of recording as possible.

On the contrary, you may prefer to take a more relaxed approach – exploring the menus at a more leisurely pace rather than constantly typing commands on the keyboard. And Pro Tools has the advantage that it is simpler to get familiar with than most of its competitors – especially as it has just two main screens, the Mix and Edit windows.

Pro Tools 10

If you are upgrading from Pro Tools 9, you will be interested to learn about the changes that took place when Pro Tools 10 was introduced in 2011. For example, when Clip Gain was introduced, what was formerly the ‘Region’ menu underwent a name change and became the ‘Clip’ menu. For more details, read ‘Appendix 13 – New for Pro Tools 10’ on the companion website.

The Companion Website

The publisher hosts a companion website at:

www.taylorandfrancis.com/cw/collins

In addition to information about the book, here you will also find a set of useful Appendices:

Appendix 1 – About Summing Mixers

Appendix 2 – The Trouble with Dongles

Appendix 3 – Avid Eucon Support

Appendix 4 – Pro Tools LE Hardware

Appendix 5 – Pro Tools HD Hardware

Appendix 6 – The Eleven Rack & The Mbox Family

Appendix 7 – Pro Tools HD New Hardware 2010

Appendix 8 – Pro Tools 8 New Features

Appendix 9 – Pro Tools 9 Laptop System

Appendix 10 – Universal Audio Powered Plug-ins

Appendix 11 – New for Pro Tools 9

Appendix 12 – McDSP Plug-ins Roundup

Appendix 13 – New for Pro Tools 10

Pro Tools 10 | Pro Tools 11 Co-installation

Although Pro Tools 11 has been available since the summer of 2013, a number of users may still need to work with Pro Tools 10 for some projects so that they can continue to use any 32-bit TDM and RTAS plug-ins that are not available in the 64-bit AAX format that Pro Tools 11 requires.

Having both versions of the software installed on the same computer was not possible with older versions of Pro Tools. However, because version 11 uses the Avid Audio Engine while Pro Tools 10 uses the Digidesign Audio Engine (DAE) to interface the software with audio hardware, it is possible to install both versions of the software onto the same hard disk partition without any conflict.

For this to work successfully, you do need to be using version 10.3.5 (or higher) of the older Pro Tools software. With both software versions installed, it is only possible to run one of these at any given time – but it only takes a short time to quit one of these and then launch the other.

And why might you wish to do this? The main reason would be so that you can access older TDM and RTAS plug-ins that are not available in AAX format. Also, PT 11 does not use the Sound Designer II file format, so you would need to use PT 10 (or older) software to open and convert these files to WAV format for use with PT 11. And PT 11 will not open Pro Tools 4.x sessions or lower, so, if you need to access these older formats, this is another reason for keeping the Pro Tools 10 software installed.

You may also have computers with older operating systems that you still wish to use, such as a laptop or an iMac or an older Mac Pro that have Mac OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) or Mac OS X Lion installed, or a PC with Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional. Pro Tools 10 will run on these older operating systems, but Pro Tools 11 will only run on Mac OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) or Windows 7 or 8 Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate (64-bit).

TIP

Pro Tools 11 and Pro Tools 10 have the same application icon and will look the same in the Dock, so you need to adopt some sort of strategy to deal with this situation. I simply rename one application as ‘Pro Tools 11’ and the other as ‘Pro Tools 10’ – or maybe just rename one of these so that it is clear which is which. Then, when you roll the mouse cursor over these icons in the Dock, the file name of the Application will appear as you hover over each icon – see Figure 1.2 screenshot. Another option is to place the icons in a different position in the Dock and simply remember which you placed in which position – such as the Pro Tools 11 icon to the right of the Pro Tools 10 icon.

Figure 1.2
Part of the Dock, showing the mouse cursor rolling over the Pro Tools 11 icon.

NOTE

Pro Tools 11 sessions that use more than 4 gigabytes of RAM will cause Pro Tools 10 or lower to quit unexpectedly. The fix for this is to reduce the amount of session RAM usage to less than 4 gigabytes while working in Pro Tools 11 by removing virtual instruments that take up system memory and then saving this version to disk, safe in the knowledge that it will open successfully in Pro Tools 10.

Pro Tools 11 versus Pro Tools HD 11

Pro Tools 11 gives you 96/48/24 voices of simultaneous audio playback at 48/96/192 kHz, whereas Pro Tools HD 11 gives you 256/128/64 voices of simultaneous audio playback at 48/96/192 kHz per audio card.

PT 11 can record up to 32 tracks at once, whereas PT HD 11 can record up to 256 tracks at once (per card with HDX systems) – depending on the capabilities of your hardware.

Pro Tools 11 now supports up to 128 Instrument tracks, whereas Pro Tools HD 11 supports up to 256 Instrument tracks. Bear in mind that these are theoretical maximum numbers: any real-world system will be constrained by the demands placed on the computer you are using and by the particular virtual instruments that you are using.

Both can use up to 512 MIDI tracks and both can use up to 256 busses, but PT 11 only offers up to 160 Aux tracks, whereas PT HD 11 can use up to 512 Aux tracks.

The video features in PT 11 are quite good, with one HD video track available to play and edit, but the video features in PT HD 11 are much better, with up to 64 tracks of video available. Perhaps the best new feature is that you can add, play, and edit Avid DNxHD format files and other popular industry-standard HD video formats directly in the timeline – ...