PRO TOOLS 5.1 LE TUTORIAL INTRO

• Introduction and Conventions Used
• Basic Terms & Concepts
• Opening the Demo Session
• Alternate Method for Opening a Pre-existing Session
• Overview of the Demo Session

Introduction

I hope you find this Tutorial useful and easy to follow, or at least simpler than wading through the manual. (If you'd like a broad overview before diving in, or if you're looking for a specific topic, you might want to Go to the Table of Contents first.) Also, if you're already familiar with Pro Tools 5.0, you might want to skip to What's New in Version 5.1.

First, a few conventions used in this tutorial:

Shortcut keystroke combinations are indicated like this:

The Control Key is abbreviated as "Cntr".

The Option Key is abbreviated as "Opt".

The "Command" key appears on the Mac keyboard as an Apple icon alongside an odd symbol that resembles a pretzel or a cloverleaf interchange.

In menu listings and most Mac manuals, the "pretzel" symbol alone is used to designate this Command key.

This key has various nicknames; some call it the "Apple" key, others call it the "Splat" key. That's what I'll call it because it's short, memorable and not apt to get confused with the Contr key.

So: Splat-N would mean that you hold down the Splat key while also pressing "N."

Opt-Shift-Tab would mean that the Option Key plus the Shift key plus the Tab key are pressed in combination. And so on.

For a sequence of choices done via the menu bar, selections will be separated by a vertical line. Thus:

File|New Session would mean that you pull down the File menu and select New Session. (Note that the keyboard shortcut for that procedure is: Splat-N.)

The tutorial assumes that you have a basic knowledge of the Mac OS. If you're unsure about some of the conventions, you might try referring to the Mac's built-in help index, which you access by pulling down the Help Menu.

Lastly, some of the details given in fine print and brackets may not apply to your introductory work; these sections are designed to be skimmed over or skipped as needed.

A Few Basic Terms & Concepts

I don't want to bore you with a lot of definitions, but there are a few terms to get used to.

• "Session" - Pro Tools creates documents called "sessions" for each new project, or for alternate versions of a project. These are basically just a set of instructions as to what sounds or portions of sounds you want to play and how you want to play them. The actual sounds are accessed in a non-linear fashion from hard drives, so this is all a non-destructive editing and mixing process.
• "Session Folder" - Pro Tools creates these folders in which to store session documents, and also creates two Sub-folders as needed -- one for Audiofiles and one for Fade Files.
• "Audiofiles" or "soundfiles" (sometimes referred to as "disk files.") - These are the actual digital sound recordings that reside on the hard drives. Each file should have a unique name so that Pro Tools can't get "confused" about which file it's supposed to play.
• "Fade files" - When Pro Tools makes an editorial "fade in" or "fade out", it creates a small separate audio file of the sound being faded in or out. In other words, creating a three second fade out would make a little three second audio file that Pro Tools would access as needed. These are stored in the "Fade Files" sub-folder inside the Session Folder. [An alternate method of doing fades requires automating mix settings, where you write instructions to raise or lower the volume as needed.]
• "Regions" - A Region is just a portion of an audiofile. (A region can actually consist of the entire soundfile, but in practice this usually isn't the case.) Just to illustrate, here's a guitar riff audiofile called "Ld Gtr"--

 

<----Here's the complete soundfile/region as Pro Tools would display the waveform. Here's the same sound after being edited into two separate Regions (note how Pro Tools has slapped the ID numbers "03" and "04" on them to keep them distinct. ------>

• "Track" - The Pro Tools Session windows are arranged somewhat like a visual representation of a multi-track tape recorder, with virtual "tracks" arranged from top to bottom. The sound regions in the tracks can be displayed as waveforms, color coded for convenience. Like this:

Sound regions can be placed at various points on the timeline, and if they occur at the same time they should play simultaneously.

• "Audio Interface" - This is a device that provides the analog/digital sound inputs and outputs used by the Pro Tools software. There are several different types. The smaller workstations used for intro classes have Audiomedia III cards which are installed in the Mac's PCI slots. (You may hear these stations referred to as the "Toolbox" systems, or as Pro Tools LE.)

[The larger Pro Tools 24 systems have a different, more expensive type of PCI card, as well as a separate audio interface box, both made by Digidesign. These systems have more sound processing capabilities built into their cards, so they can do more "real time" audio tricks. Digidesign calls this number-crunching capability "TDM" -- for "Time Division Multiplexing" -- so you may see these more advanced set-ups referred to as TDM systems.They are also equipped with digital video cards, so if you're working on sound for a film you can view the movie on a separate monitor.]

Opening the Demo Session

Note to LMU Students: At LMU, instructional demos are stored on a dedicated partition, so when working with instructional demos,the recommended practice is to copy the demo folders from the instructional partition to another partition/drive, then do all work with the copy. Otherwise the general procedures that follow are the same.

Before we look at creating your own original sessions, let's try opening up a pre-existing Pro Tools Demo session and experiment with some of the features of the program. There are two methods we could use.

The first method involves launching the Pro Tools program first, then using its File|Open procedures:

Locate the Pro Tools Icon on the Mac Desktop and double click it to launch the program.

The icon looks like this:

Pro Tools goes through its launching and loading process. Meanwhile you have a tasteful launch window to admire. Click here to if you want to see the launch window.

Once Pro Tools is launched you'll notice a Pro Tools menu bar at the top of the screen, and a Pro Tools icon in the program bar at the upper right.

Next, select File|Open from the menu bar.

You'll get a standard Mac window from which you can navigate to the Demo Session folder. First, go to the Desktop level. (You can always get there by clicking that little "Desktop" button. Then select the drive where the demo is located. (In this example, it's the "Audio" drive; on other Macs it'll probably be a Partition designated for Audio.)

Next, open the audio drive and locate the Demo Session folder.

Then select the Demo Session file (designated with an icon resembling a tape reel) and open that. This will open the session and the standard Pro Tools Edit Window will appear. Note: Don't worry if the session file looks like an ordinary document icon; go ahead and open it.

Alternate Method for Opening a Pre-existing Session

You don't have to start Pro Tools separately with this method: from the Mac desktop, locate the drive where the Demo Session resides. Open the drive by double-clicking on it; this will reveals the contents of the drive. Like this:

You'll need to reveal the contents of the Demo Session Folder, either by double-clicking to open it, or by single-clicking on the little pointer to the left of the folder, which will reveal the sub-level as in the example shown. Now just double-click on the Demo Session Icon. (Don't worry if the icon looks slightly different; it should resemble some variation on a tape reel.) Pro Tools will launch automatically, and then the session itself will open.

Overview of the Demo Session

Depending on how the display preferences have been set,the full Mac screen might look a bit like this:

This blurry image has been reduced to help provide an easy overview; we'll examine the details in higher resolution later.

There are actually four windows here.

• The Edit Window occupies the most space; it contains the color-coded waveforms. This is where most of the work is done.
• The Transport Window is at the bottom left corner of the Edit Window. It has icons like a tape deck -- rewind, stop, play, and others. It can be used to play back or record session sounds from various points in the session.
• The Session Set-up Window is below the Edit and Transport Windows. This is where various parameters for our session can be entered -- such as sample rate, etc.
• The Mix Window is seen to the right, partly obscured behind the Edit Window. This means that it is not currently the active window. The Mix Window provides a mixer-like interface, with virtual faders that can be moved up and down to set levels, as well as channel assignments, pans, and so forth.

All these windows can be dragged around, re-positioned, closed until needed, etc.

Click here to begin Working with the Demo Session.

Or: Go to Table of Contents

Copyright © 2000, 2001 by Rodger Pardee