Hello welcome to this new tutorial dedicated to AVID Pro Tools, one of the
most advanced DAWs to edit sound, make your first compositions and build
entire songs in professional environment! It is available under a
subscription plan for both Windows and MacOS with a 30-day trial version.
As you open Pro Tools the Dashboard panel shows up with several options to
start. With Recent you can open your latest Pro Tools projects (or
sessions) or browse for others with Open at the bottom. Go to Create to
start from a new session from scratch, defining name and audio options at
the bottom, such as file type, sample rate and bit depth.
Make sure to check Create From Template above to start from several
ready-made templates. In this video we just start from a completely blank
session to see how this software works.
The new session opens on a new Pro Tools session composed by a big preview
called Workspace browser, showing your main session content and options;
the Edit Window on top, with playback options and editing tools and the
Tracks window on the left with the complete list of tracks inside your
session. If any of these panels are missing make sure to reopen it from the
Window tab.
Now let's see how to import audio samples. If you have installed the Pro
Tools libraries these can be found on Window, New Workspace, Soundbase
from which you can import any sample by clicking and dragging it into the
session. In the same way you can click and drag any file you have directly
inside the session.
All these imported samples are collected within rows called Audio Tracks,
showing each file as an independent block called clip with proper audio
waveform shown for each stereo channel.
To playback the tracks content click on the grey timeline above to fix the
starting point as a blue arrow and then use either the Spacebar key or the
player above to play and stop, restarting from the same point. Make sure
to enable Insertion Follows Playback to update the starting point every
time you stop the playback.
If you do not hear anything make sure to set the output source on the left,
under I/O. Click on the second slot and go to Output to select your
speakers properly.
Under I/O you can click on the first slot to set any input source, for
example to record from your microphone. In this case set it up and arm its
track by clicking on its Record button, that starts blinking. At this point
click on the main Record button on top to get ready for the recording and
then click on Play to record while getting all the other tracks in play,
using Stop to finish your recording.
Consider that the content from non-armed tracks won't be recorded as well.
The time placement is represented by a vertical marker on the timeline and
shown on the display on top in the most common units, such as bars/beats/
ticks and seconds. Next to these you can change the unit to use. In
particular the Main notification also changes the unit of the session
timeline.
The conversion of the bars and beats into seconds is made by the speed
rate or tempo, measured in beats per minute (or BPM) on the extreme right.
The more this is, the faster the session rhythm becomes, which means that
the timeline in bars and beats gets adjusted in time. If the timeline
uses seconds, this won't change thanks to this absolute reference.
To quickly check the timeline content hold down the ALT (or Option) key and
use your mouse wheel to zoom in and out. Whereas hold down the Shift (or
Option+Shift) key to scroll in time.
Now let's see how to edit clips with the tools and the Edit Modes in the
top left corner!
With the Grabber tool you can click and drag any clip to move it in time
or in another track. The way the clip gets moved depends on the Edit Mode
selected on the extreme left. With Grid you can move the clip by snapping to
the timeline grid that you can turn OFF or ON or adjust in steps above.
Whereas enable Shuffle to move clips by removing any time gap between them,
without overlapping and cutting content. With Spot set the time placement
by typing in directly. In this video we are going to use the Slip mode,
which allows to move any clip freely without any snapping.
Moreover you can right-click on the Grabber tool and enable Object to
work with multiple clips. Click and drag on the timeline to select all the
clips falling within your selected region and then move these together.
To adjust the clips duration in time enable any Trim tool. With Standard
you can click on any point of the waveform or click and drag from the clip
edges to shrink the clip by removing part of its content. Whereas choose
TCE to adjust the clip duration by changing its playback speed, without
affecting the clip pitch. Use Scrub to play while cutting the clip, very
useful to catch the exact point. Choose Loop to stretch the clip by
putting it in loop.
With the Selector tool you can click and drag on any clip waveform to
select and edit part of it. For example you can cut, copy and paste any
clip entirely with CTRL (or CMD) and X, C and V. If you do so after using
the Selector tool only the selected region will be affected.
You can undo any action with CTRL (or CMD) and Z.
You can enable most of these tools together by enabling their external
contour.
On the left side you get several options to manage the content from each
Track. Each Track has its own name and several buttons at the bottom such
as the Record button, the S (or Solo) button to mute all the tracks except
the current one and the M (or Mute) button to mute the current Track.
On Track View selector decide how to preview the track clips. By default
this is set to waveform, showing the audio waveforms of each clip. Switch
to blocks to show clips as simple blocks or to volume to show how the
volume level evolves in time. By default its envelope is constant but you
can reshape it by enabling the Grabber tool and clicking and dragging on
the curve. This way you will change the volume level in time, realizing an
automation that is indicated in yellow color.
You can also enable the Pencil tool to draw the envelope freely for more
complex automations. Make sure to right-click on the Pencil Tool to drop
lines, triangles and much more.
From the Track View Selector you can also select the mute and the panning
curve and also click on the envelope icon to show or hide multiple
automations with the plus and the minus buttons.
Consider to playback in loop in case you are working on specific regions
within the timeline! If you click and drag on the grey stripline you
select a limited region to playback once. You can play it continuously by
right-clicking on the play button and enabling to Loop.
Pro Tools includes a professional mixer to control and adjust the content
from all the tracks of your session. You can open the Mixer from Window,
Mix. Consider that most of its options are present next to each Track on
the main preview. In this case you can use the rectangular icon to show or
hide the sections you need.
Under Inserts you can click on any slot to apply adjustment and effect
plugins to either all the stereo channels of the track with multichannel
or to a single channel independently with multi-mono. These plugins are
applied to all the clips of the current track in the same way.
Use the dedicated interface to adjust the plugin properties, selecting
any Preset to pick any ready template.
Under Sends click on any slot to send the track output to a specific bus
channel such as a physical speaker (as output) or a dedicated audio bus
for advanced post-processing.
Below the input/output sources you can adjust the audio volume (measured
in dB) and the stereo panning. This is important when you have to correct
any distortion, represented as red levels on the meter.
With Pro Tools you can also work with MIDI compositions. MIDI clips are
made of notes representing melodies, percussions and much more, each with
proper tone and length. Each note gets a proper kind of audio depending
on the instrument or the virtual synthesizer (or synth) connected to the
corresponding Track.
To start composing create a new track by right-clicking on the Tracks
panel on the left and going to New... At this point choose either a MIDI
Track - if you compose and send to an external sampler connected - or
select Instrument Track to work within Pro Tools with the help of a virtual
synth. In this video we see how to compose with synthesizers only.
Once the track is in place click on any Insert slot and go to plugin,
Instrument to select the synthesizer and transform your future notes into
melodies or percussion. Tune the basic melody generated by the synth with
its dedicated interface and enable the Pencil Tool to drop notes within
the Instrument track. This becomes a piano roll, so that you can drop the
right notes within the correct octave. Make sure to extend the track by
dragging its edges if necessary.
On the left make sure that the output source is defined to hear any output
sound.
You can edit and adjust notes with the edit tools and modes from the left
and the track options, just like audio clips. You have different
Track view options here.
The notes view shows the Instrument Track as a Piano Roll to add and edit
notes. Switch to blocks or clips to manage the MIDI clips entirely with
all their notes inside and select velocity to set the intensity of each
note. You can also adjust the MIDI volume, set how to mute and unmute it
or even adjust any synth property in time.
Pay attention when adjusting the Tempo: by default the Instrument Tracks
use Ticks as Timebase selector, so that the notes are played faster or
slower depending on the Tempo BPM. Switch to Samples timebase to fix
the notes in the absolute reference of seconds.
To save and export your session use CTRL (or CMD) and S or go to File, Save
As. Whereas to export your session into an audio file go to File, Bounce
Mix... and set its file type and format, bit rate and sample rate. Finally
click on Bounce to start rendering!
Pro Tools exports the whole session until the last clip finishes. To export
only part of the session enable the Selector tool and click and drag over
all the tracks and clips you want to export in time, before going to
Bounce Mix. This also works when you want to export a single Track.
Thank you very much for watching this video! Visit our YouTube channel and
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