Pro Tools 7 Session Secrets

1. Pro Tools 7 Session Secrets Chapter 4 The Way of the Insert

2. Pro Tools Recording techniques in this chapter include: • Reverb, Compression and EQ. • Sound Replace drums • Tune your Vocals • Subdue Sibilance • Import Channel Strips • Print FX to Track

3. Reverb, Compression and EQ • Reverb is the collection of reflected sound waves that reach your ears after the direct sound impulse. • The overall size, shape and surface of a room dictate the reverb time and color. • Compression can automatically control levels in recording, mixing and mastering. • The amount and kind of compression is user defined. • EQ shapes the tone or color of sound. • EQ can be used to help poorly recorded tracks sound more natural or as an effect.

4. Sound Replacer • Works best on drums and sound fX. • Replace a sound but not a performance. • Replace a sound or mix between the original and the replacement sound. • Allows you to use some of those massive drum libraries that everyone has these days. • Has three user definable threshold levels. • Allows you to change dynamics as you replace sounds.

5. Tune your Vocals • Auto Tune can tune both vocals and instruments. • AT can be set to a particular key and modality or you can tune graphically note by note. • AT scales and allowable notes can be set from a MIDI keyboard. • AT can be used to achieve natural sounding pitch or as an vocoding like effect. • Vibrato effects are user programmable and very flexible. • Your buffer size determines how much of a track you can tune at once.

6. Subdue Sibilance • DeEssers are frequency based compressors • Allows removal of sibilant tones without effecting other frequencies. • Nondestructive processing of vocals. • DeEssers can take some of the life out of a track if overused so use with care and on individual tracks, not on an entire mix.

7. Channel Strip Import • Create a master session to hold your track based plug-in design. • Build FX chains on audio or aux tracks for vocals, guitars or any instrument you often record or mix. Think about making the tracks inactive to reduce system strain until you need to import. • Label your tracks accordingly and save your master session so you can import from it. • Use Import Session Data to bring in the channel strips to any session. In an HD system you can choose what part of a track to import, in an LE system you bring in everything.

8. Print FX to Track • Printing FX entails running an audio track through plug-ins or hardware fx and then recording the altered sound back into a Pro Tools track. • Eliminates the need to configure hardware processors every time you open a session. • Records manual automation from analog effects. • Conserves system resources by making the fx inactive after you print them. • When routing in Pro Tools, Busses are for internal routing only and I/O hardware routing is for external processing.