Pro tools first tutorial pro#
Pro tools first tutorial free#

Pro tools first tutorial pro#

From aВ flexibility perspective, the best solution is to have each album track on its own stereo track in Pro Tools, with its own real-time plug-ins running. When you master in Pro Tools, one of the considerations is whether you can keep all the processing in real time, or whether you will need to render or freeze anything.

Pro tools first tutorial free#

Leave three of your stereo tracks free of plug-ins to host this reference material, which will already have been mastered, and use the other three tracks to explore possible plug-in chains that will work for your own masters.

The ear can get accustomed to aВ sound quite quickly, so make sure you take breaks from working on tracks, keep going back to your chosen reference material, and get other opinions as well where possible. Listening and rest are crucial when mastering, as is frequent use of the bypass switch. Either way, import these into the session and label them with appropriately so you know these are reference tracks and should not end up in the album! These may be tracks from the artistвЂ™s previous albums, or tracks from other artists that you would like this album to sound like. Now import the bounced mix files into the mastering session, either by dragging the audio files into the Edit window or using the Import Audio option from the File menu.ДЄs well as your master tracks, it is worth importing some additional material into your session, because it is very important to have aВ range of reference tracks for comparison. Once you have aВ folder containing bounced files for each track in your album, create aВ new Pro Tools session for the mastering stage, and some stereo tracks within it: six is aВ good starting point. If the track will eventually have aВ fade-out, consider creating this at the mastering stage rather than during the bounce you may want to decide the length of the fade in context against the following track. Also, make sure your bounced files have sections of silence at the beginning and end. If your tracking and mixing sessions are 24-bit, do your bounces at 24-bit too, and retain the original sample rate as well - you can set the final sample rate and bit depth as necessary when you come to export the master files. When you undertake these bounces, remove any limiting and other mastering type plug-ins on your master channel, and make sure that the bounced files have at least 6dB of headroom. You can then load all of these files into aВ single Pro Tools session for mastering. Mastering an album is as much about the order, flow and overall sound of the project as it is about the sound of each track, so as aВ starting point, itвЂ™s good to have each individual song bounced out as aВ stereo file.

In the non-linear, non-destructive world of Pro Tools we can benefit from more flexibility, non-destructive processing and perfect recall, allowing us to easily make adjustments following the вЂcold light of dayвЂ™ approval sessions. In the analogue days, mastering would involve setting up aВ chain of processors for each song, recording the processed version to the master format, logging settings, resetting the equipment and moving on. ItвЂ™s also pretty handy for mastering work. Pro Tools isnвЂ™t just for recording and mixing. When youвЂ™ve achieved settings that youвЂ™re happy with for the songs on both tracks, render the first one using Track Commit or AudioSuite plug-ins.

If your computer canвЂ™t handle running aВ separate track with its own real-time plug-in chain for every song on an album, aВ good compromise is to use two tracks with plug-in chains.