ProTools
Macintosh
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ProTools |
Digidesign ProTools is installed on the G4 in the Knapp Audio Control Room. ProTools is an advanced audio application, with powerful MIDI sequencing, real-time digital mixing, 24 playback tracks of 16- or 24-bit audio, Real-Time AudioSuite (RTAS) and file-based AudioSuite Plug-Ins.
1. Start up the Mac and turn on both tape decks.
2. On the two switchboxes on top of the tape decks, select "Mic" (1) for Audio Send to PowerMac and "Sound Card" (2) for Audio to Tape Decks. (note: Regular Mac sound from normal applications like Quicktime will not play unless "Mac Sound" is chosen instead of "Sound Card" on the Audio to Tape Decks switchbox.)
3. Plug the headphones into the DAT (gray digital tape deck) and press the DAT's Record button. The record light should go on and the pause button should start blinking.
4. Open ProTools LE. Select "Turn it off" to turn AppleTalk off, and click OK. Go to File->New Session, name your new session, and press Save. Select 16-Bit sampling and click OK.
1. Go to File->New Track. If you want to work with stereo sound, create 2 tracks, or otherwise select one. (note: the microphone is not a stereo microphone, so right-left differentiation in stereo must be achieved by editing each track.)
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2. In the Windows menu, Select "Show Edit" if the editing window isn't already open. Select "Show Mix" if the Mixing window isn't open. Your new track(s) should appear on each window, labeled "Audio 1" (and "Audio 2" for stereo). Adjust the window sizes so you can see both windows at once, as well as the floating control bar (the program calls it "transport"). | |
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Mix Window
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3. If you are working with stereo, go to the mix window to adjust the Pan. Pan control for each track is the small horizontal slider above the volume control. Pan Audio 1 to the left, and Audio 2 to the right. Do not adjust the pan for if you are working with mono. 4. To record a sound, first press the "r" button above each track you want to record in the mix window. It should turn red and the mixing slider should also turn red. You should hear your voice in the headphones when you speak into the microphone. Next, click the circular record button on the floating control bar. To "roll tape" and begin recording, click the play button on the control bar. Press stop when you finish recording. You should see a growing red band with the sound's waveform in the editing window as you record. |
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Control Bar |
5. To hear what you just recorded, click the "Play" button and then "Stop" once it is finished. | |
| 1. To edit your sound file, use the tools in the Edit window. The Selection tool (looks like a waveform with part selected) allows you to select part of your recording (hold down shift and click to select over two tracks). the Hand tool can move regions within a track or between tracks. Also use the hand tool to select entire regions. You can delete selections by pressing delete, and copy/cut/paste with the edit menu. The Trim tool (with 2 arrows on it) can shrink a region from either end. |
Edit Window
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| 2. To fade a sound in or out, select the portion to be faded, and go to Edit->Fades->Create Fade. In the Fade window that comes up, you can edit how you want the sound to fade. Click OK. The portion you selected will now be shown with a diagonal line across it, to represent the fade. To delete the fade, select it with the hand tool and go to Edit->Fades->Delete Fade. |  |
Fades |
| 3. When your sound is assembled, you can optimize the quality by using the AudioSuite Plug-Ins (AudioSuite menu). To reduce noise during blank spaces, use the Gate plug-in. Select your sound, go to AudioSuite->Gate, and adjust the noise threshold (this allows you to choose what level of sound you consider "noise". A high threshold will "clip off" some of the sound you want, so be careful. Undo the gate and try again if the changes are undesirable.) Other plug-ins, such as Normalize, allow you to further optimize your sound. |
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Gate |
1. Once the sound is ready to be exported, you must consolidate all the stray regions in every track. To do this, select each region to be exported in the edit window, and go to Edit->Consolidate Regions.
2. If you are working with mono sound, rename the consolidated region to what you want to save the sound as (like "sample") by double-clicking the region with the hand tool. If you are working with stereo, name both tracks the same, but add a .L and .R to the left and right tracks (sample.L and sample.R)
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3. Select the region(s) to be exported.
Then, on the right side of the edit window, click the button that says
"Audio" to bring up the Audio Regions pulldown. Go to "Export Selected
as Files". Select a File format (.wav is good), and select 16-bit audio.
If you are exporting stereo sound, select "Stereo from .L/.R", or select
"Mono (1)" if your sound is mono. Do not select "Use Squeezer" unless
you are exporting in 8-bit audio. Click the "Choose" button to select
the destination directory, and click OK to export.
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4. Save your session and exit ProTools. The sound clip you exported can be played using media players such as QuickTime. Before listening to your sound in Quicktime, make sure you switch to "Mac Sound" on the Audio to Tape Decks swichbox.
