Music Recording with Pro Tools

During our last session with Pro Tools, we recorded some tracks of music with Kevin using the DigiDesign board plugged into ProTools. Kevin played some guitar tracks, and the Kevin from our program played the maracas, triangle and did some finger snaps. We learned how to adjust the levels for incoming sound on the gain, while we recorded using three different types of mics. One was the pencil mic, Schoeps, another was the Neumann, and the last one was the Blueberry. The Schoeps was good for picking up the triangle and the neck of the guitar. The Neumann sounded a little more bassy and worked well for the finger snaps. On the mouth of the guitar, the Blueberry seemed to work best with just a light bit of the Neumann.

On playback, we adjusted the audio levels on the board for the mix, submixed the guitar and added reverb to the sub track and played with the frequency on the 7-band equalizer plug-in. We learned how to “freestyle” the change in equalizer with the shuttle controller while recording, and how to use the nodes to change the waveform representation of the individual frequency on the track. We also learned that you can cut and past the pattern so that you can repeat a particular style. We also used the pan function to give the music some separation.

Kevin also showed us how to mix down the tracks, which occurs in real time. This is important to note because time will need to build into the final mixdown process (Bounce) after recording. Still, it’s a good feature because you can hear the final mix as it’s mixing down in case you need to go back and change something.