Pro Tools Software

Making music can be intimidating to most people, but they still want to do it. Of course someone can learn to do or play something musical, but to record and mix the music is a whole other ball game. A great program to use is Pro Tools. It is very clean software and everything is organized. This is the first place someone should start if recording and mixing by his or her selves.

When recording, the set up of the session is easy. When the program is started it asks the user about the session he or she wants to start. This includes the time code, bit depth, I/O Settings, and the Audio File Type. New tracks were always easy to start and name with the shortcut command-shift-n. The action prompts the user to choose how many tracks, what type of tracks, and how many outputs. Different tracks, such as aux tracks, are used for different reasons. The Aux track is used more for allowing artist to hear his or her self or to allow a different perspective of listening in the studio. The Audio tracks are mostly to record on. These tracks hold the music and play back the music. MIDI tracks are used if a midi keyboard is connected to the computer and can be recorded in live time. Recording is easy with a full sized keyboard. Just hit the number 3 on the numerical pad of the keyboard.

If  mixing on Pro Tools from a Pro Tools recorded session, all of the session settings will be pre set. There are many shortcuts to make mixing easier too such as, copy (Cmd – C), paste (Cmd – V), trim, separate, consolidate, duplicate, mute (Cmd – M), etc. Different tracks are used a little differently in mixing. The Aux track is used more for effects or filters. This would be Time-based effects, such as reverb or delay. Audio tracks are used to playback the recorded material. Dynamic effects can be placed directly on these tracks, such as compressors or equalizers.

            Recording and mixing owns own music can be difficult. If one sits down and takes the time to learn about a program, it makes things a lot easier. Just from the amount of shortcuts and ease of setup, Pro Tools is very suitable software to use.