Recording - September 2010 - 16

The Workspace is the Pro Tools browser for your entire system. In addition to letting you navigate your entire drive hierarchy like the computer’s OS, the Workspace will also show you some other valuable information about audio files on your system. Double-click on the DVD icon and you should see all the audio files for the mission at hand. If you scroll to the right, the browser will show you (among other things) the file types, bit depth and sample rates. Now you know the parameters to build the Pro Tools session—for example, the files may be 24-bit, 48 kHz WAV files, so you’ll know what to fill in when you close the browser, go to the Pro Tools “File” menu, create a new session, and Pro Tools prompts you for this key information. 2. Import and Name all the Audio Tracks Once you go through the prompts for building a new session, you’ll need to import the audio tracks that you’ve been given. Go back to the File menu and scroll down to Import > Audio. After the navigation window appears, go to the DVD that has the audio files, select all of them and click OK. Pro Tools will ask you where you want the audio files copied to (since it’s not going to play them back from the DVD) with a prompt window that has defaulted to the Audio Files folder in the session folder that you have created. Click OK. After it takes a minute or so to import the audio, Pro Tools will ask you whether you want the audio files dropped into newly created tracks (which it will create for you) or if you want the audio put into the regions list. Go ahead and let it make new tracks for you. The new track names will correspond to the names of the audio files. For example, if the first audio file is named “Acoustic”, the track will be called “Acoustic”. If it’s named “Audio 1”, the track will be named “Audio 1”. Hopefully the audio files had been given meaningful names before coming to you, if not you’ll probably want to go through and solo each track and name them accordingly—otherwise when you’ll be working in the mixer window you’ll never know which track is which (and that can be frustrating). Oh yeah—and don’t forget to save as you go! (It’s under the File menu as well.)

Mixing in Pro Tools: A 10-Step Program To Get The Job Done
A Pro Tools primer for getting from tracks to a finished mix
By Mark Hornsby Let’s say you need to mix a song in Pro Tools. Your client, friend, significant other or someone you owe money to has sent you a DVD with a series of consolidated audio files. There’s no label or information for sample rate or bit depth.... just a short note saying they need the mix (and the Pro Tools session) back ASAP and that the message will self-destruct in 10 seconds. Here’s what you need to do. 1. Identify the Source Material and Build a New Session Insert the DVD with the source material into your computer’s CD/DVD drive and launch Pro Tools. If you’re using version 8, Pro Tools (after the boot-up process) will prompt you to build or open a new Session. You can’t build a new Session until you know the sample rate and bit depth of the source material. So, you’ll need to exit out of this window and click on the Windows drop-down menu at the top of the screen. Scroll down and open the Workspace.
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RECORDING SEPTEMBER 2010

Recording - September 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - September 2010