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This tutorial from Berklee college of music will get you started with Digidesign's ProTools digital audio editing program. Published under a Creative Commons licence with permission from Berklee College of Music. 
FREE music lessons from Producing in the Home Studio with Pro Tools, Second Edition Chapter 3 Deeper into Recording with Pro Tools Check out Berkleeshares.com for more lessons just like this one. 
 In this chapter:
Chapter 2 set you up with enough practical knowledge of recording in Pro Tools to be dangerous. The projects showed off the first step in the preproduction process for songwriting — song idea generation and recording. In this chapter I’ll delve deeper into the recording process and explain some of the technology, theory, and advanced features of Pro Tools. I’ll also take the projects further down the path of preproduction by expanding on the song ideas from the last chapter.  
Always keep an eye on input levels! I often find that once the Record button is pushed, players play harder and singers sing louder than when you were first checking their levels. In Pro Tools LE, you can view large individual track meters by clicking the fader button
■ Fig. 3.1. Here we see an analog waveform and a digital representation of it. Faster sampling rates and larger bit depths provide more accurate digital representations of analog sounds. SECTION 1 | GETTING STARTED SETTING RECORDING LEVELS When recording to analog tape, most people try to push the recording level to the highest point they can without distortion. This is done to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio — in this case, the ratio of audio signal recorded to the amount of inherent noise on the analog tape medium. Recording at high levels on analog tape increases the clarity of the recording and keeps the inherent noise as low as possible. And in fact, many people even like the sound of slight analog distortion. This occurs when the tape is overloaded with audio signal (sometimes called “tape saturation”), and can create a pleasingly “warm” sound. The ability to do this is one reason that some people are still partial to analog recordings over digital ones. However, recordings you make in your Pro Tools home studio can rival high-end analog recordings made in professional studios! In contrast to analog tape, there’s very little noise associated with digital recording, so the signal-to-noise ratio is higher, providing very accurate representations of your music. As with analog, most people push digital recording levels, but in this case to allow for the use of greater bit depth. As you will see in the next section, using the entire bit depth provides the most accurate “picture” of an analog waveform. Unlike analog distortion, however, overloading a digital track causes digital clipping — the audio signal is literally cut off at 0dB, often creating a decidedly nasty sound. “Digital distortion” isn’t pleasing like analog distortion can be, so digital levels should always remain below 0dB (the clipping point). Yet, even if you see the red peak indicator on one or several of your tracks, that doesn’t necessarily mean your signal has been digitally clipped. Pro Tools has a certain amount of headroom between when the red peak light is activated and when the actual audio is clipped. Watch the meters, but also use your ears to experiment with recording levels and find what works well for your system. In general, if a signal peaks very occasionally that’s usually fine. However, if the signal peaks often, then decrease the input level. SAMPLE RATE AND BIT DEPTH Now that you’ve had some experience recording digitally into Pro Tools, let’s talk about two primary determinants in the accuracy of a digital recording: sample rate and bit depth. These two parameters provide a grid onto which the analog audio signal is plotted and determine how well the digital recording represents the original sound.    
���� ������� In discussing sample rate, consider photography as an example. If you set up a camera to take a picture of the sky once every hour, you could follow weather patterns in a very rough way. With this low “sample rate” you would probably miss many significant events. However, if you took pictures every second you would see much more detail (like the moment rain began to fall or when sun broke through the clouds). Digital recording is like taking pictures of music at a speed determined by the sample rate. If the sample rate in your session is 44.1kHz, Pro Tools takes 44,100 pictures of your input audio every second. Each picture captures the amplitude (level) of the audio signal at that moment. Each sample is digitally “mapped” to an exact digital value and converted into binary digits (or bits). The number of bits in the system is referred to as bit depth. The higher the bit depth, the more accurate the digital representation of the analog sound. The precision of the amplitude value depends on the bit depth — small bit depths yield less precise representations of the audio signal. Back to our photography example: In color photography, a photo taken with a bit depth of 4 bits (24) would only allow 16 different colors (24 = 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 = 16). If the color of a photographed object is not precisely one of the 16 colors allowed, the closest color would be assigned to it. Obviously, 16 colors can’t possibly describe all of the shades and hues found in our colorful world. The same logic applies when describing the myriad nuances of sound with an audio signal — usually, the more bits the better. That’s why depths of 16 bits and 24 bits are offered in Pro Tools: 16-bit resolution offers 65,536 (or 216) levels of audio amplitude and 24-bit resolution offers 16,777,216 (or 224). With bit depths this high, it’s like having thousands (or millions) of colors to choose from instead of only 16. For each new session you open in Pro Tools you’re asked to choose between 16-bit or 24-bit recording, as in figure 3.2. Be aware that you can’t mix bit depths and sampling rates within sessions; you’ll need to convert any audio being imported if the file was recorded at a different bit depth or sampling rate than the session. CDs are recorded with 16-bit resolution and a sample rate of 44.1kHz. However, faster sample rates and higher bit depths yield more detailed audio representations and improve the accuracy of your recordings. The most accurate digital representation of music that Pro Tools LE software currently offers is 24-bit resolution with a sample rate of 48kHz, with the exception that Digi 002 can record 88.2kHz and 96kHz tracks. Pro Tools Free (Win) supports up to 48kHz as well, while the Mac version only supports up to 44.1kHz. ■ Fig. 3.2. The New Session dialogue lets you choose the audio file type, bit depth, sample rate, and I/O settings, as well as Mac/PC compatibility.  
Beware: Recording at 24-bit resolution requires 50% more hard disk space than 16-bit recording. For example, a mono audio track recorded Regardless of the 16-bit/44.1kHz CD standard, many people record at the highest resolution possible simply to have a hi-res archive to remaster from, if or when the standard moves to 24-bit/44.1kHz (or the 24-bit/96kHz and 24-bit/192kHz capabilities of Pro Tools HD systems). at 16-bit resolution and 44.1kHz sample rate requires 5MB per minute of hard disk space; the same track recorded with 24-bit resolution requires 7.5MB per minute. Using a sample rate of 48kHz or higher also increases the memory needed to store files. If you do a lot of high-resolution recording, you may need an extra hard drive or two. (The “Support” section of Digi’s Web site lists approved drives.) Despite the bit depth and sample rate you use when recording, you must convert the files to 16-bit/44.1kHz to burn them to a CD. I often record at the highest sampling rate and bit depth available to ensure the highest recording quality, then apply dither during mixing and mastering to convert tracks to 16-bit. More on file conversion and dithering is found in chapter 13. ■ Fig. 3.3. Memory requirements for different sampling rates and bit depths. If you plan to do a lot of hi-res recording, you may need to stock up on hard drives. 
24 tracks, 5 600 MB 662 MB 900 MB 991 MB 1.2 GB 1.3 GB 1.8 GB 1.9 GB minutes ■ Fig. 3.4. The Disk Allocation window 24 enables you to choose the tracks, 7 GB 7.8 GB 10.5 GB 11.6 GB 14 GB 15.6 GB 21 GB 23.2 GB exact location where each 60 minutes track you record will be stored. Every audio track you record is stored on either an internal or external hard drive. Tell Pro Tools where to record each track by specifying the location in the Disk Allocation window. Choose Disk Allocation from the Setups menu to open a window like figure 3.4. Audio files folder are kept in each session’s Audio Files folder. However, spreading these files over several drives can improve your entire system’s performance because one hard drive won’t be doing all the work. But don’t worry about losing track of your files. DigiBase, the file management utility in Pro Tools, can help you keep track of all of these files. Chapter 9 has more information on DigiBase. 
WINDOWS AND MACINTOSH SESSION COMPATIBILITY Pro Tools now lets you save your sessions and audio so they can be opened Sound Designer II files were the standard file format for previous versions Note that some ASCII characters can’t be used for naming regions, tracks, I recommend making all of your Pro Tools sessions Mac/PC compatible so BUFFER SETTINGS AND LATENCY TIMES Through the process of digital recording, analog audio signals are converted into digital data, the data is recorded, and then the data is converted back into an analog signal for playback. Although very fast, this conversion process is not instantaneous. The time it takes your computer to receive an input signal, process it, and send it to an output is called latency. Latency values can be as low as 3.0 milliseconds (essentially unnoticeable) or as high as 50 milliseconds on up (quite noticeable). These times vary depending on the hardware buffer size (H/W Buffer Size) that you choose from the Hardware window in the Setups menu. Anytime you convert an analog signal to digital or vice versa, the analog-to-digital (A/D) or digital-to-analog (D/A) converter delays the signal by about 1.5 milliseconds. Thus, when a signal is converted on the way in to your computer (A/D) and then converted as it’s played back out of the computer (D/A), the conversion delay adds up to 3.0 milliseconds. Your computer also takes some time to process the audio (depending on the buffer size set in Pro Tools) as it comes and goes, which means the total latency of your system equals the conversion delay (3.0 milliseconds) plus double the latency amount given in the following chart (figure 3.5). For example, recording with a sample rate of 44.1kHz and a buffer size of 128 samples, the total latency is 2.9ms × 2 plus 3.0ms, equaling 8.8ms.
While recording you’ll often want to operate with the lowest possible level of latency. Unless you’re using an Mbox, Pro Tools LE offers Low Latency Monitoring (under the Operations menu) as an excellent option. It provides a latency time of only 3.0 milliseconds (the converter delay), because the audio you hear never actually goes into the computer for processing — there’s a mixer in your 002/001/AM III card that returns the audio immediately. The following restrictions apply when using Low Latency Monitoring:
These restrictions are easy to work around. I use Low Latency Monitoring during many of my sessions and it works great. In fact, the only time I don’t use it is when I absolutely have to hear the output of a plug-in while recording. The Mbox handles latency in a different way. It allows you to monitor the input signal before the signal leaves the Mbox, thus creating no latency. This zero-latency feature is controlled with the Mix knob on the front panel, which allows you to blend and adjust the monitor ratio between the Mbox inputs and Pro Tools playback. OK. Enough heady stuff. Let’s get into some more Pro Tools recording and production techniques. In chapter 2 I covered the basics of recording with Pro Tools providing enough knowledge to get your initial song ideas onto your hard drive. Here I’ll cover some topics that you can use to expand upon your initial song ideas and start to create “demos” of your songs —the conductor track, importing audio, session templates, send and return effects loops, and headphone mixes. THE CONDUCTOR TRACK In chapter 2, you learned about the conductor rulers and how to create a simple click track. Well, what if your song is not so simple? What if it has tempo and meter changes . . . and maybe even tricky rubato sections where time is flexible? No problem. In Pro Tools speak, a conductor track is basically a click track with changes in its tempo and/or meter. And you can program in any changes you want. In short, the conductor track refers to the combination of the tempo and meter events in the session. For instance, say you want an accelerando (an increase in tempo) at bar 23 and a change in meter at bar 27 in your song. To do this, open the Tempo/Meter dialog (using one of the ways you learned in chapter 2), enter your tempo and meter changes, and click Apply after each one. The new changes will appear in the Tempo and Meter rulers (as in figure 3.6). 
■ Fig. 3.6. The Tempo and Meter rulers show all of the conductor track information. Although it is very easy to make a complicated conductor track in Pro Tools, that doesn’t mean you always should. Some songs are not suited for recording with a click, particularly very rubato songs. Also, clicks can be detrimental to the feel of some songs. As always, let your ears be the judge. IMPORTING AUDIO What if you’ve got some killer samples (e.g., drum loops, bass lines, sound effects, etc.) that you want to add to an existing Pro Tools session? Pro Tools makes it easy to bring in samples and tracks from other sessions. To import an audio file to its own track in your session, choose Import Audio to Track from the File menu. To import an audio file into the Audio Regions list, choose Import Audio from the Audio Regions List menu, as in figure 3.7. Both commands open the same Import Audio dialog, as seen in figure 3.8. ■ Fig. 3.7. Besides importing audio, the Audio Regions list pop-up menu has a lot of powerful features, as you’ll see in later chapters. ■ Fig. 3.8. The Import Audio dialog box enables you to bring samples and other audio files into your current session and will convert them to the session’s sampling rate and bit depth if necessary. 
In the Import Audio dialog, choose the files you want to import, audition them if you want using the Play and Stop buttons, and click “Add” and/or “Convert.” All files that are in the bottom right box will be added to the current session when you click “Done” and will be available in the Audio Regions list immediately after they are converted (if necessary) to the current session’s sampling rate and bit depth. You can choose the quality of sample rate conversion used when converting and importing audio into your session. Choose Preferences from the Setups menu, and click on the Editing tab. From the Conversion Quality pop-up menu, choose the conversion quality (as in the figure on the next page). With the choices come tradeoffs between quality and time. “Good” and “Better “ settings are usually fine and the conversion time is not very long. “Best” and “Tweak Head” can take large amounts of time and should only be used when the highest quality conversion is required. 
SETTING UP A SESSION TEMPLATE When recording new song ideas and demos, don’t let time hinder your creativity. To capture a new idea while in the moment, recording must be quick and easy. You don’t want to spend 15 minutes setting up your studio gear, musical instruments, and a Pro Tools session to capture a fleeting idea or musical brainstorm — the moment will be lost. Make it easy to record your ideas by setting up a Pro Tools session template, and you’ll only be 15 seconds away from capturing your stroke (or riff) of genius. A session template is a customized Pro Tools session that includes track setups, mixer setups, window arrangements, and zoom level memory locations configured to your liking. Specifically, session templates save audio and MIDI track configuration, track names, shown/hidden tracks, track input and output assignments, MIDI channel assignments, track volume and pan, soloed and muted tracks, aux inputs, bus assignments, track width and color, track groups and group lists, click track settings, disk allocation, and keyboard focus. A session template also includes all session setups found in the Setups menu (i.e., Hardware, Preferences, etc.) including I/O Settings (remember those from chapter 1?). To create a Windows session template, right-click the Pro Tools session that you’ve configured and choose Properties. Click the General tab and choose the Read-only check box. That’s it. Close the Properties window. To create a Macintosh session template, select the Pro Tools session by clicking it once, then choose Get Info from the File menu. In the window that appears, click on the Stationery Pad check box. That’s it. Close the Get Info window. 
I’ve included several useful Pro Tools session templates on the CD-ROM. Copy the Session Templates folder from the CD-ROM to your desktop. When starting a new session, simply click on the most appropriate template and begin working from there. The templates are a starting point to get you and Pro Tools set up and recording quickly. If you want, alter the templates or create new ones to fit your needs. ■ Fig. 3.9. After opening a session template, Pro Tools will ask you if you want to create a new session based on the template, or if you want to edit the template. ■ Fig. 3.10. Send/return configurations allow one plug-in to effect several tracks. SECTION 1 | GETTING STARTED You can have several templates for different occasions. For instance, you may create a setup for recording just two mics — one for voice and another for acoustic guitar. You may set up a template for doing a sequence using several pieces of MIDI gear, or you can have one for recording your entire band. I suggest setting up a template for any configuration you work with on a fairly regular basis, though it doesn’t hurt to save templates from weird or complex one-off sessions as a jumping off point for other projects. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
near the volume and pan controls of any track. (The asterisk (*) button next to any track fader in Pro Tools 5.1–5.3 has the same function.)