Recording and mixing with Pro Tools, tutorial 1

In this series of tutorials we’re going to be looking at Pro Tools in its M-Powered guise. M-Powered is the cheap and cheerful version of the legendary Pro Tools software by Digidesign.

The most expensive version (Pro Tools HD) is pretty much the industry standard in studios all over the world. M-Powered has the same architecture and user interface as HD, but is only about £175. You can use M-Powered to learn how to use the higher-end version of Pro Tools, and it’s a superb digital audio interface (DAW) in it’s own right - great for producing professional results in a home recording environment.

One intrinsic feature of Pro Tools is that you need the right hardware to go with it. With M-Powered this means a compatible M-Audio or Digidesign audio interface. The software links with the hardware allowing you to choose inputs and outputs for each track; i.e. if you have 4 outputs and 4 inputs on your hardware you can assign each track of your song inputs and outputs 1-4.

There are two main windows in Pro Tools: mix and edit. The edit window is similar to most DAWs. It’s where you record and arrange your audio. It looks a bit like this:

Pro Tools edit window

And here is the mix window. As you can see, it’s basically a digital version of a mixer:

Pro Tools mixer window

Create a Pro Tools click track
With your interface plugged in and Pro Tools loaded up, you should be about ready to get recording. First off, do you need a click? Pro Tools should have automatically set up a click track for you – this will be an instrument track named ‘click’, with a click instrument in its inserts (on the mix page). If it hasn’t go to Track > new track then select a mono instrument track. Then go to the mix window, you will see a channel for your new track. Right at the top are the positions for effects and instruments. Click on one of the positions then go to plug in > instrument > click. Now you have a click track. The easiest way to turn it on and off is by pressing ‘7′ on your number pad. The tempo will be 120 beats per minute (bpm) by default. If you want to change the tempo do the following:

• Select where you want the tempo to change in the edit window (pressing enter puts the cursor to the beginning)
• Go to Event > Tempo > Operations Window
• Change the tempo to whatever you like

If you’re not 100% sure what tempo you want, you can use the tap tempo feature. For this you’ll need the transport, which looks like this (depending on what exact version of Pro Tools you’re using):

Pro Tools transport window

To tap your tempo, first click on the little conductor fellow in the bottom right of the transport. Then click on the tempo (120.0000 in this case). Then simply tap the T key to the time that you want, Pro Tools will work out the tempo every 4 beats and display it in that box in the bottom right of the transport. Do it a few times and use the average time it’s working out for you.

Making new tracks
Let’s assume for the sake of simplicity that you’re about to record an electric guitar using a DI box. For this you will need one new mono audio track. Press Track > New Track and this box will appear:

Pro Tools new track dialogue

Its default settings are for 1 mono audio track, which is what we need (it doesn’t really matter whether you record in ticks or samples at this point). Your new track will appear on the left hand side of the edit window, and as a new channel in the mix window. So now go to the mix window.

Above your new track’s fader will be buttons for record, solo and mute, a pan control and above that the input and output selection. Here I’d just select the input as 1, and plug the DI box into your interface’s first input. If your interface’s outputs are just going to an amp or some speakers and nothing else, just choose the outputs as 1&2. If you want to send it to one track on a hardware mixer or something, the output is up to you.

Once you’re ready to record, press the little ‘r’ button either above the fader on the mix page, or next to the track name on the edit page. This puts the track into record enable mode. To then actually record, press one of these shortcuts: F12, 3 (on number bad) or Cmd + Space. And you’re off! Keep trying until you have a take you’re happy with, then just keep adding as many tracks as you like.

So that is the very basics behind getting something recorded in Pro Tools. Later on I’ll talk about different types of tracks (instrument and MIDI) and how to mix your music once it’s recorded.

If you have any questions please feel free to add comment below. Pro Tools tutorial 2 is coming soon!

Tagged as: DAW, home recording