Hey guys, in this video we’re going to cover how to setup audio tracks and record audio
from an audio interface in Pro Tools First.
If you haven’t seen the previous video in this series, I recommend doing that before
continuing with this tutorial.
The first thing we need to do at the beginning of any new project is add our new tracks.
At a minimum we need an audio track.
To create an audio track, go to Tracks at the top and select New.
We’ll create 1 new audio track.
We can set this as a mono track, or a stereo track with the dropdown.
I definitely recommend using a stereo track if you are using a stereo input instead of
two panned mono tracks, since this allows the left and right channels to be processed
together.
We’ll use the drop down and make sure this is set to audio track.
It can also be set to Aux input, master fader, MIDI track, or instrument track, and we’ll
cover most of these in more detail in future videos.
Finally, make sure it’s set in Ticks, instead of samples.
Before beginning, I also recommend adding a master fader, and possibly a click track
as we did in the previous video.
The click track will allow us to follow the project tempo, and the master fader allows
us to apply plugins to the master channel, as well as monitor that output because it
can clip when all the tracks are added together, even if none of the individual tracks are
clipping.
Now with the tracks created, we can work on our setup.
At the top left of the tracks view, there’s a small dropdown that selects what we have
displayed for that track.
The first is the comments.
We can have these displayed alongside the track, or hide them.
Then we can have the instrument, but that’s for our MIDI track.
After that we have inserts for plugins that we can add on that track.
Each track can have up to 10 inserts, and we can hide the last 5, or all of them if
we don’t want to be using them.
Next is the sends, such as if we send the track to an auxiliary reverb track.
After that we have I/O.
The top is the input, then there’s the output.
After that there’s the volume and pan for the track.
Finally, we have real-time properties to make adjustments to MIDI recordings.
Remember if you make certain sections visible, it does it to all the tracks.
Just keep that in mind, because it can take up a significant amount of space on your screen.
At the very minimum, I like to have INSERTS A-E visible, as well as the I/O for that track.
On the top left side of each track, we have another dropdown.
This allows us to set the track height, but we can also do this by dragging the edge of
the track to adjust the height, or using the vertical zoom buttons on the edit window.
First I like to rename my track.
To do this, double click the track name.
This will open a window, which allows us to rename the track.
We can also add track comments here, and this is a good place to write notes about how we
recorded the track, in case we need to replicate it in the future.
There’s a few buttons under the track name.
First is the red button to arm the track for recording.
When this button is flashing, that track will record on the selected input.
Next to that is the green input monitoring button, which allows us to hear our input
with the inserts processing, as it’s recording.
This is good to check the sound, but it’s problematic while actually recording since
it can cause high latency.
Instead, I’ll just use my audio interface’s input monitoring and process all the inserts
later on.
Next we just have simple Solo and Mute buttons.
With Solo enabled, that track plays and it excludes all the tracks that are not also
soloed.
The mute button plays all other tracks except those that are muted.
After that, we have a dropdown for the Track View Selector.
We’ll usually keep this in waveform view for an audio track.
There are some other views we can use for MIDI tracks and we’ll cover that in the
next video.
There’s also volume, panning, and muting automation that we’ll cover in another video.
Next we have a small button that looks like a snowflake.
This is used to freeze that track.
Freezing a track prevents any editing on that track, but lowers the CPU usage since it can
be pre-processed.
Some controls, such as the volume, mute, and pan, as well as the sends, can still be controlled.
To the right are the Elastic Audio controls.
This can be used to adjust the timing audio tracks if you want to change the tempo.
There’s 4 different ways this can be set, and we can right click the little indicator
to open a dropdown.
Polyphonic is used for instruments that play multiple notes, such as a guitar.
Rhythmic is used on the drums.
Monophonic is used on vocals and bass, and varispeed changes the speed AND pitch of the
track.
In the bottom row, we have the option to set the track to tick based or sample based.
Tick based is set to the project tempo, and this is what we want to be using for elastic
audio.
Sample based uses minute and second timing instead.
The last option in this section is for the automation, but we’ll cover that in the
automation tutorial.
For now, it’s enough to know that these are the different automation modes for that
track.
To the right, we can click these blank spots to add plugins, and we can cover that during
the mixing video.
Finally, we need to set the I/O for the track.
At the top, we select our input from the dropdown.
The input can also be set to a bus.
In that case we can set another track to output to a bus, and set this track to take is as
an input and bounce that track.
Below the input, we have the output selector.
This will usually be set to our monitor output for our interface, but it can also be sent
to a bus.
The last few tools are the volume and pan controls.
After all of this is setup, including selecting the input, we can arm the track for recording.
Press the arm button on the track to arm it for recording.
Then press the record arm button in the transport.
At this point, the entire project is set to record, and we’ve told Pro Tools which track
we want to record on.
Now just press the play button to record.
After you’re done, it’s best to disarm that track right away.
The last thing I want to cover in this video is how to add a fade to a clip.
First, change your mouse mode to the Smart tool.
Then, hover over the top edge of a track and click and drag it towards the center.
This will create a fade.
Right now, it’s just a linear fade out.
To adjust it, hover over the fade we just created again until the fade icon pops up.
Click and drag it left or right to control the shape of the fade.
You can also right click on a clip that has a fade and switch between Standard and S fades.
Thanks for checking out this video on audio tracks and recording in Pro Tools First.
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You can also check out the rest of the videos in this series to continue learning about
how to use Pro Tools First.