As you get better with compressors, you will start playing with other knobs and features. One of these is the knee. The knee refers to when and how the ratio starts to change when the compressor starts to take effect. A ‘hard knee’ means the compression becomes immediately active as soon as the input signal hits the threshold. A ‘soft knee’ means the compression becomes audible more gradually. A ‘soft knee’ also means that gentle compression starts happening further below the

A compressor has a lot of knobs and settings. They can be confusing at first. In this blog I am going to talk about one of those knobs – Threshold. A compressor is an automatic volume control. We try to make the signal somewhat the same, static. Without a compressor, we would have to do it manually, turning the signal down, then up, then down, etc. But with a compressor, it can do that job for us. When a signal gets loud (and crosses the threshold), it turns it down. If there

Using a click track during recording is, of course, imperative. We can’t do our work if we can’t play to the beat! Luckily for us Pro Tools makes it easy to set up a click track! Just simply go to Track on the menu bar, scroll all the way to the bottom and choose Create Click Track. Pro Tools will create an auxiliary track and automatically put a metronome plugin on the track. The metronome will automatically set to the tempo (bpm) of the song. The metronome is customizable.

Here are ten quick tips to think about the next time you record vocals: 1) Warm Up: Every vocalist needs to warm up. You wouldn’t run a marathon without stretching first, would you? Vocalists should warm up for at least 15 mins. before laying down a great performance. 2) Don’t record vocals in the morning: No vocalist is at their best if they’ve just rolled out of bed. If possible, try to schedule the vocalist in the mid-afternoon or evening. Use mornings for setting up

So . . .  you want to record a song and you’re running out of space on the computer or external hard drive? Wondering if you have enough room? Here’s how to figure out if you do have enough space: The sample rate and bit depth of the audio you record are directly related to the size of the resulting files. In fact, you can calculate file sizes using these two parameters: — Sample Rate x Bit Depth = Bits per second Or, stated another way: — Sample Rate x Bit Depth x 60 = Bi

In Pro Tools, material (audio or midi) on a track is associated with a type of Time Scale. All track types can be set to either sample-based (for the Sample Time Scale) or tick-based (for the Bars/Beats Time Scale). Different tracks can be set to different timebases as needed. Audio tracks are sample-based by default. This means that audio clips have absolute locations on the timeline and are tied to specific sample locations. If you change the tempo or meter the audio will

Did you know that it is important to power up your system and equipment in a certain order? In the early days, for me, I didn’t know that! Because systems are typically composed of both hardware and software, preparing your system for use might involve more than simply turning your computer on and launching your DAW of choice. The larger the system, the more important it becomes to follow a specific startup sequence. Starting components out of sequence could cause a componen

If you’re involved with a lot of production work and do a lot of MIDI work like I do, you record a lot of projects using your sound modules. All sound (tone) modules automatically put effects on the sounds by default (so they sound better). Even free plug-in modules that come with recording software like Pro Tools do this. So if you use Xpand, Sampletank, etc. or you use outboard gear like Roland or Motif – you’ll want to know this! When I use my Motif-Rack, I always go to th

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 drive) to grab wav files from. So you take care of that, go to the desktop, and try to eject the hard drive (command E) since you’re done with it. You get some dialog box that says the hard driv

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 both move to the point in the timeline where playback stops. When deselected, the Timeline Insertion and Play Start Marker do not follow pla

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 for each of these session setups.There are two different ways to create a template: 1) Start a new session, set it up how you would like, save an

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 templates in Pro Tools 8), a lot of my tracks are already organized how I like them, before I ever start. Sweet! It is important to set up all your sessions the same way. That way you always know