Recording Audio Into A Session
Basic Analog
Loading
The process of digitizing audio into soundfiles
is often referred to as "loading." It's one of those
entry-level job skills that's necessary for anyone interested in
working as an editor. It's not difficult, but it does require
diligence, especially when coming from an analog source.
Pro Tools doesn't provide any convenient way to
fine-tune sound levels going into the record inputs of the computer
(the Pro Tools sliding faders are for adjusting output
levels.) For this reason, a mix panel or some other gain adjusting
device is used to control the levels going into the Pro Tools Audio
Interface. Each Pro Tools station has been set up so that there is a
fairly close correspondence between the external mix panel level
meters and the Pro Tools "virtual meters."
Regardless of the sound source -- whether it's a
cassette tape, a mike input, etc. -- the playback level should be
controlled by the mixer. Reference tones are a tremendous aid in this
process, but intro students will seldom be working with material that
has such tones. You'll have to play your sounds, work the mixer
faders, watch the meters, and use your judgement.Try to adjust your
levels so that the loudest portion of a program is at a strong level
but still slightly below the "max" meter point.
Once you've done that, cue your sound to where you
want it to start. Now you can prepare to put Pro Tools into record
mode. There are a few "set-up items" to check, though, if you haven't
already done so:
1. DISK ALLOCATION. Make sure your Disk
Allocation is going to record your audio to the correct
drive.
2. PROPER SAMPLE RATE. Check your Session
Setup window to see that you're at a 44.1 sample rate, analog input,
and internal sync. (You can use a different window called
Setup|Hardware to check the same thing.)
3. NO FEEDBACK. Check your mixer settings
to make sure that you don't have a potential feedback loop
situation. This is important: Any mixer faders that handle the
audio output of Pro Tools must be fully closed and/or switched to
"off." (If you're unsure about the signal flow of your mixer
set-up, it's a good idea to mute your record channels before you
enable them; you should still be able to hear the input signal going
to Pro Tools, but this should prevent the output from looping back
through the mixer.)
4. RECORD READY. The next step is to
"record enable" one or more tracks by clicking on the "Rec" button of
the desired Track Channel Strip. [If Pro Tools only seems
to want you to enable one track or the other, but not both at the
same time, it simply means that a Preference called "Latch Record
Enable Buttons" has not been turned on. You can still arm both tracks
for recording by holding down the Shift key as you press the second
Record button.]
What tracks should you record onto? When you
create new tracks, the first pair of tracks usually default to inputs
1 and 2, the next pair to inputs 3 and 4, and the next pair back to 1
and 2 and so on.
On the Pro Tools LE systems, inputs 1 and 2 are
for analog sources (abbreviated on the channel strip as
"Analg.") Inputs 3/4 are for digital sources such as DAT
machines. (Rather than use a nice clear abbreviation like "DIGI",
they're marked with "SPDI," which is short for S/PDIF, which is a
type of digital connector.)
[On the TDM systems, inputs 1/2 can be either analog or
digital; the toggle choice is under Setups|Hardware. Also be aware
that at some point you may work with a pre-existing sessionswhere the
ins/outs are labelled differently. Chances are they were sessions
created with an earlier version of the program.]
For Pro Tools LE, it's simplest just to
designate tracks 1 and 2 for all analog recording; you can move the
resulting audiofiles anywhere you like after they're recorded.
However, you can change the input connection for any particular
track by clicking on those indicator buttons (the top button is for
input, the one below is for outputs.) A menu will pop-up and you can
make your selection.
Please note that if you're recording a mono
sound, you would simply record enable a single track and record
onto that track. Do not enable more tracks than you need to.
Otherwise, you could end up with two identical mono files, which
will only take up more drive space.
For stereo sounds, you would either enable two
separate mono tracks or record on a stereo track. (As we'll see in a
bit, recording on a stereo track has some file-naming
advantages.)
5. CHECK LEVELS. Don't actually record
anything yet -- checking our mixer meter levels has just gotten us in
the ballpark. We need to re-play some of our material and re-check
our levels on the virtual Pro Tools meters, which will tell us if
we're in danger of digital clipping. Look at the example
below:
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Here Audio 1 is in the Record Ready mode,
which activates our input meter. But in this case, the level
is too hot -- the red clipping indicator at the top of the
scale is lit. We need to lower the level with our external
mixer, click on the red clipping indicator to clear it, and
try again. Only when we're happy with our levels should we
actually put Pro Tools into record.
(You may have noticed that the Master
Fader level is lower; that's because it's volume is set to
"-4." Besides, the Master is indicating what the potential
output level is, not the record level. What counts
here is what is going into the channel that is in record
ready.)
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This may seem awfully fussy, but digital sound is much less tolerant
of overload than analog recording. A touch of analog tape distortion
can be fairly subtle, even somewhat pleasing on some material, but
digital distortion quickly transforms "good" into "garbage." It's
better to err on the side of caution with digital.
6. RECORD AND NAME YOUR SOUNDFILE. Now
we're ready to put Pro Tools into record, play our material into the
system, and then stop recording. One way is to use the Transport
Window:
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<-- Click on the Rec button on the far
right, then press the Play button. Press Stop to end
recording.
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An alternate method: On the keyboard, press
SPLAT-SPACEBAR. To stop recording, press the spacebar
again.
While recording, Pro Tools displays a reddish
"progress bar" along the track, as well as a waveform. Like
this:
Pro Tools begins recording along the timeline from
wherever the selector bar was positioned, so make sure that you're
not about to destructively record over any other regions placed in
that track. [Unless you are doing an advanced production where
you are recording from a source locked via timecode, this "position
on the timeline" business is pretty arbitrary. Typically, you're
going to end up moving these regions around wherever you want
anyway.]
If all is going well, when you've recorded all of
a particular sound that you want, press either the spacebar or the
Transport Window's Stop button. But note this useful option: Suppose
you've messed up somehow -- by not cueing your tape properly, say.
You can "abort" the recording and automatically delete the useless
soundfile in one step, by pressing Splat-Period. (Otherwise you
have to first stop the recording and then use the Clear|Delete
function of the Audio Regions List Menu to delete the useless
file.)
In any case, once you have a brand-new soundfile,
Pro Tools automatically gives it a bland name based on a "Track &
Take" numbering scheme. Like this:
This new file "Audio1-01-00" will also appear over
in the Audio Regions list. But you'll want to give it a new
name that makes sense to you. (And which will help avoid
confusion with other people's soundfiles.) With the Grabber tool,
double-click on the region; this will bring up the "Name Region and
Disk File" dialog. Enter a new name and both the region in the Edit
Window and the Regions List will sport a new improved identity. (You
can also give the audio track itself a new name -- like "Smith" -- so
that files will at least be named "Smith-01-00," etc.)
About naming stereo files: Pro Tools treats stereo
files as "split" mono files -- in other words, two separate
"left" and "right" files. (There is another Sound Designer file
format called "interleaved" stereo which sometimes causes confusion.)
In any case, there's an important convention to follow -- these split
files should be named identically, except that the left side should
have an ".L" tacked to the end of the file name and the right should
get an ".R" at the end. So if you load some stereo music for the
opening of your film, it might get labelled like this:
Note: When recording on a stereo track, the
resulting files automatically get the ".L" and ".R"
appended.
After you've named your first file you can
continue to record more files. For your next recording you could
position the Selector Bar to the right of this new region, and keep
adding new files in this fashion, but frankly there's not much point
in thinking of this as a "linear" process. You can just select this
new region and clear it out of the Edit Window track by pressing
Splat-C, or Splat-B, or by pressing the keyboard "Delete" key. This
just takes the region out of the track display; you'll still find it
listed over in the regions list, ready to drag into a track wherever
and whenever you need it.
Then you can just press Return to position the
selector at the very head of the session and do your next
recordings.
That's the basic procedure. It's simple enough;
just keep an eye on your levels and be sure to name your
audiofiles in some logical fashion. It can help keep your audiofiles
from being confused with someone else's.
[By the way, record-enabling and level checking can done in
the Mix Window as well, it's just that there are advantages to doing
it in the Edit Window because you can see the waveform progress and
label regions there.]
CD File
Conversion Using "Audio Extractor"
There's an easy method to turn sounds from an
audio CD into Sound Designer II files that Pro Tools can use. This
approach uses software conversion; there's no analog loading, no
level setting, no worrying about distortion or hum or loose
cables.
It does, however, require using another software
program -- and you may be at a point where that prospect makes your
eyes glaze over. (Relax -- this program is pretty easy and
intuitive.)
The program is called Toast Audio Extractor. You
can use it without even running Pro Tools. (Note: This is a
program that commonly comes with CD Burners. If you have access to a
Mac with this software, you can do some sound loading onto a Jaz
without having to reserve one of the Pro Tools stations.)
You can launch Audio Extractor by selecting it
from the Apple Menu, under Audio Applications. Or, you may have a
toaster-like icon on the Mac desktop. Like this:
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You can double-click on the program icon
to launch it. A fairly large window appears.
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If you already have a CD in the CD-ROM drive, a
track list should appear. (Otherwise it'll display "No Disk" until
you insert a CD.)
To convert an entire track selection is quite
simple. Just click on the track you want to highlight. You can
audition tracks by using the play and stop buttons. When you've
highlighted the track you want to convert (or "extract" in Toast
lingo) you need to first click on the Options button in the upper
right of the Toast window. This lets you select the type of soundfile
you want to create (Audio Extractor can do formats other than Sound
Designer II.) The options window will appear; use the settings
below:
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For stereo sounds such as music, make
sure that you select the "Split" mode rather than "Stereo."
(Remember -- Pro Tools wants to see separate files for Left
& Right.)
[There are times when you might elect one of the
other choices -- "Mono" would "mix" a stereo track into a
single mono file. There might even be cases where you'd only
want the Left or Right only of a stereo recording.]
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Once your Sound Format is set, press OK to close this window. Next
press the "Extract" button. A standard Mac "Save" window will appear.
It's important that you save this file to the proper drive and
folder. It's unlikely that this "Save" window is going to magically
default to the proper place.
First, find the drive you want to end up on.
(Remember: the Desktop button on these Save windows is often a good
place to start. Then you can work your way in to deeper levels.
)
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Let's say that I want to navigate to the
"c" partition of my 9 gig drive. So I open it by either
double-clicking it or by highlighting with a single click
and then clicking on "Open."
(Next the window would display all the
session folders on my "c" partition. I locate the one called
"J. Smith Practice" and open it. The next window shows the
contents of that session folder: Audio Files, Fade Files,
and the Session document itself. In this case we'd like to
end up inside the Audio Files folder, so we double-click on
that.)
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NOTE: It is highly recommended that all your sound files end up
located inside your session's Audio Files folder. This has big
advantages in backing up your data and can help avoid major
nightmares involving laments such as "I can't find my music! It's
gone!"
Before pressing "Save",we should give this new
audiofile a name of its own. (Otherwise Toast defaults to just naming
it with the Track number, and this can get very confusing, especially
if a number of different users get careless.) But just for this
example, I'll use the default.
You should be thinking to yourself -- hey, what
about that business of appending ".L" and ".R" to the file names?
(You can see how our "Opening Music" is labelled inside the audio
files folder above.)
Well, because we selected "Split" mode in our
options, Toast is going to take care of that automatically. So if we
go ahead and press "Save" Toast will start the extraction. A progress
bar will appear...and it takes a few seconds for Toast to do this
conversion, especially on a track that's several minutes
long.
But after a bit the conversion is done and you're
back to the basic program window, ready to make another track
selection and extraction or to quit the program.
Just to make sure that the extraction worked, you
can go to the Desktop level and open your session Audio Files folder
and check the contents. I've done this so you can see that Toast
labelled the stereo tracks correctly:
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NOTE: Just putting the files in my
session's Audio Files folder doesn't automatically make them
appear in my session. I have to go through an Import
Audio step to instruct Pro Tools that these files belong
in my session. Putting these files in a logical place like
my session Audio Files folder will help me remember where
they are, simplify the import process, and greatly expedite
back-up procedures. (This should all become clearer after
you complete the section on Importing
Audio Into a Session.)
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These are large files by the way. Combined, the two stereo "Track 4"
files take up about 29 MB. (The approximate rule of thumb is about 5
MB per minute of mono sound; double the amount for
stereo.)
So there may be times when we want to extract only
a portion of a longer Track -- we might only want the first five
notes of Beethoven's 5th, not the entire 1st movement.
To do this requires a couple additional steps in
Audio Extractor.
You may have noticed that during the extraction of
Track #4, a waveform display formed in the Toast window. We could use
that display to select a portion of Track 4, but this would be a bit
pointless since we've already extracted the whole thing. But let's
select another track like Track 7 and press the "Preview" button, the
one with the waveform icon.
Toast will build a waveform display for that
Track. (It takes several seconds, about as long as the extraction
process.) We can then zoom in on that waveform using the + and -
Magnifying Glass buttons, and then select a portion of that track
using that Selector button just to the right of the Magnifiers. (It
works pretty much like the Selector Tool in Pro Tools; click and drag
to highlight.)
By pressing the Play button we can listen to just
the highlighted selection. When we're satisfied that we've got the
piece of sound that we want, we press the Extract button and Toast
will do an extraction of just the highlighted portion. (The default
name for this file will be "Audio CD Clip." Otherwise, it's the same
process as before.)
There are other programs and methods for
converting audio from CDs to usable Pro Tools files, but Toast Audio
Extractor is one of the simplest and most intuitive. Play around with
it and see for yourself.
CD Analog
Loading
The easiest way to get sound from a CD into Pro
Tools is to use Toast Audio Extractor; it's described in the previous
section and you may just want to skip the following and move on to
Importing Audio
Into a Session.
But in principle, there's no difference in loading
analog-fashion from a CD as from any other source. Remember that Pro
Tools has it's own Audio Interface for analog inputs and outputs,
separate from the Mac's built-in analog inputs and outputs. We can
use the Mac's CD-ROM drive to play the CD and take the analog output
of the Mac itself and send it through the mixer to adjust levels, and
then send it to the input of the Pro Tools Audio Interface. The
procedure in terms of level setting, avoiding feedback loops, and the
actual recording are the same. But we're using a software interface
to play the CD instead of a separate stand-alone CD player, so this
section is mainly for those unfamiliar with the Mac's CD
Player.
If you pop an audio CD into the Mac's it tends to
start playing automatically from the first selection. So to control
playback, you need to use the CD Player software.
There are two methods for accessing the CD player.
One is to use a gizmo called the "Control Strip." It lives
unobtrusively on the Mac desktop, usually in the lower left. In it's
"collapsed" state it looks like the image below on the left. If you
click on it and then click the icon that resembles a CD, a pop-up
menu appears.
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This is an easy to understand, no frills
approach. The "Play" option converts to a "Pause" operation
when actually playing, and vice versa. And it's easy enough
to select which track you want to play, and to stop playing
the CD and eject it. One advantage of using the control
strip is that it doesn't use much "screen space", so you can
easily leave the entire Pro Tools window visible.
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But if you prefer you can access a display
interface that looks a bit more like a virtual CD player. Go to the
Apple Menu in the upper left of the Mac screen; among the choices are
the AppleCD Audio Player. Select it and you get a display similar to
the one below right.
This interface gives you more information about running times and so
forth. It also gives you some software control over the Mac's output
level of the CD. (Warning: If this is set too low, you could end up
having to boost your mixer levels too much to compensate.)
One potential drawback of this interface: if this
window is in the foreground of the Pro Tools window, it becomes the
active window and Pro Tools is inactive. Click on Pro Tools and the
CD player window "disappears" (it's still accessible from the
Application Menu.)
Those less familiar with the Mac OS may find this
window-toggling a bit confusing at first.
Go to Importing Audio
Into a Session.
Or: Go
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Copyright ©2000 by Rodger Pardee
