Have you ever tried to eject a hard drive from your system that you used in a Pro Tools session while Pro Tools was still up and running? It didn’t work, did it? Here’s the scenario and solution: You’re working in a Pro Tools session and the client gives you a hard drive (or flash … Continue reading “Unmount hard drives from within Pro Tools”

I don’t like wasting time while working on a mix. Being organized in a session is critical. A lot of time can be wasted looking for tracks again and again and again! (Like I used to do in the early days!) Because I use templates (see the post dated Feb. 23, 2015 ‘Creating and using … Continue reading “Organizing sessions in your DAW”

OK today let’s first go over the Editing tab. There’s really only one item I want to make sure you know about. At the bottom of the page is ‘Levels of Undo’. This preference sets the maximum number of actions that can be undone. The maximum is 32 levels of undo! That’s a lot! You … Continue reading “Demystifying Pro Tools Preference Settings part 3/3”

In the last blog post I covered the first tab under pro tools preferences – Display. Today I will cover Operation Preferences. First section is Transport: The very first selection ‘Timeline Insertion/Play Start Marker Follows Playback’ is important and I use it all the time. When selected, the Timeline Insertion and the Play Start Marker … Continue reading “Demystifying Pro Tools Preference Settings part 2/3”

I remember how terrified I felt going to the Preferences (under Setup) tab! I looked at all that and said “Maaann! I am NOT touching anything here! I didn’t understand it and I CERTAINLY wasn’t going to change anything!! Wow! I think the first 3 or 4 years were like that – maybe even longer! … Continue reading “Demystifying Pro Tools Preferences part 1/3”

To help stay organized in Pro Tools, I colorize my tracks, MIDI channels, and sometimes regions. My master fader is always one color, the aux tracks are always a certain color, all the drum tracks are the same color, vocal tracks are all one color, etc. Separate colors can be assigned to audio and MIDI … Continue reading “Stay organized by colorizing the tracks in Pro Tools”

Even though Pro Tools offers QuickStart session templates, you may choose to do what I do, which is create your very own unique template to start a session. I have created quite a few “job-specific” templates like: song-writing, audio+midi, rock band, jazz band, basic midi, etc. Each of these templates have features that are unique … Continue reading “Creating and using templates in Pro Tools 8”

This is the post excerpt.

Hi guys – this is the first entry for my new blog on music song-writing/composing, recording and mixing. I have been involved with music all my life, of course. I have also always been a composer. Even when I was a young kid first listening to the Beatles and Creedence Clearwater Revival, I was already … Continue reading “About me”

I don’t like wasting time while working on a mix. Being organized in a session is critical. A lot of time can be wasted looking for tracks again and again and again! (Like I used to do in the early days!) Because I use templates (see the post dated Feb. 23, 2015 ‘Creating and using … Continue reading “Organizing sessions in your DAW”