Recording Audio into ProTools

This tutorial will provide you with simple directions on how to get audio recorded into ProTools. It assumes that you have a basic understanding of the Mac OS. The tutorial also assumes that you are using ProTools M-Powered Academic and the FastTrack USB audio interface. It does not assume you have any prior knowledge of the software and therfore takes the time to introduce you to some key features and common terms. To get started, click on the ProTools icon in the dock.

After the initial startup splash screen, you may be surprised to see very little. Files in ProTools are called sessions and ProTools does not open one for you automatically, you must create it. To do this go to the the File menu and choose the New Session option. You may also wish to simply type Apple N. After this, the following dialog will appear:

Give your session a unique name in the Save As text field and make sure that Where menu is set to the hard drive you wish to save on. DO NOT save to the desktop.

Notice the Session Parameters at the bottom. These relate to the types of sound files that ProTools will use for your session. For now it is fine to use the defaults, but be aware of the benefits that increased sample rate and bit depth provide.

Click on the Save button. ProTools will set up your session for you and open a few new windows. Briefly, let me point out the file and folder structure that ProTools uses. If you make your way back to the Finder and browse the hard drive where your project was saved, you will see a folder with the name you typed into the dialog box. If you double click on the folder, you will see items like the following in the Finder window:

Note the folders and files found here. All of them are necessary for your session to function properly, so when moving your session to another disk or backing it up to a CD, be sure to move the whole folder. The file that ends with a "ptf" extension is the main file and when double-clicked will open your session in ProTools. However, if it does not find the related files nearby errors will occur in your session.

If you left ProTools, bring it back to the foreground by clicking its icon in the Dock. Before I explain what all these windows do, you should first create a few tracks for handling your audio. Do this by going to the Track menu and choosing the New option. This will bring up a dialog box asking how many and what type of track you would like to create. It looks like this:

The default options for one mono audio track will be sufficient for now, so go ahead and click Create. Now lets look at those windows. ProTools has two main windows that you will be working with. The first of these is the Edit Window which looks like this:

This displays the audio information on each track. Time is displayed from left to right with a number of different units of measurement across the top. The tools and editing options can be found across the toolbar at the top. We'll get to these in future tutorials, but for now focus on the track in the middle entitled "Audio 1".

The second main window is know as the Mix Window as seen on the right. This provides you with a number of mixing and processing options just like an actual mixer might. Each column represents a single channel and provides control over the level, panning, processing and muting. Again, we'll learn more in future tutorials.

One smaller window that deserves some attention is the Transport, which looks like this:

If the buttons here remind you of a tape or CD player, you're thinking correctly. This is used to Start, Stop, Rewind, Fast Forward and Record. It is a small window, but don't lose track of it. You will be using it constantly.

To start recording, we will need to first connect our microphone the audio interface. On the front you will notice three knobs:

These control the mic level, mix and output level respectively. You should start with all of them turned to the left. You are then ready to connect your microphone. To do this, you will need an XLR cable. These cables have a distinct connector on each end that makes it impossible to connect them the wrong way. The two ends are frequently identified by there gender. Take the female end of the XLR cable and connect it to the microphone as you see in the photo on the left.

Next take the male end and connect it to the back of the FastTrack interface to the port with the little microphone icon next to it. Turn it back around and plug your headphones into the front for monitoring the sound. You will want to turn the output level up to about 12 o'clock for a good starting level.

Now that your microphone is connected, the next step is to prepare ProTools for recording. First, you will need to record enable your audio track. To do this, go to the mix window and click on the button marked with an R. The button should turn red. Second, you should slowly turn up the knob marked "mic input" on the front of the FastTrack while speaking into the microphone. You will notice the level meter on the track in the mix window moving up and down as you talk.

Continue turning the knob up until you see a strong signal. This is observed when the meter is moving close to the top without actually hitting the top. At the top of the meter is a dot known as a clip indicator. If you see this turn red, you have your microphone level up too high. Simply back off of the level knob and click on the red dot to make it go away.

This microphone level adjustment should be done independently from setting your headphone level. Just because the sound is nice and loud in the headphones, doesn't mean that it is recording at a high enough level. Trust the meters before your headphones in this case. If after adjusting the mic your headphones are too loud or too soft, then you can adjust the output level for them.

Next you will need to arm your session for recording. This can be done by clicking on the record button in the Transport window. Everything is now set for you to record using your microphone.

The last step is to hit the play button. After you do it will turn blue and you should start making sound for the mic to record. As you do this, you notice your track in the edit window filling in a visual representation of the sound like this:

This is a time versus amplitude rendering of your sound. It will become the graphical way for you to identify parts of your sound for editing, arranging and manipulation later. When you are done recording simply click the stop button.

Congratulations, you have just recorded your first sounds into ProTools! First thing you should always do is save by pressing Apple S, to ensure you don't lose your audio. Next disarm the track by pressing the R button on the track again. If you are ready to listen to what you just recorded, you may first need to turn the mix knob on the FastTrack to the right toward "playback". Press the rewind button and then play on the transport. You should now hear your recording play in the headphones.

You can repeat this process many times in a single session. When you are just starting out, I would recommend that you create additional new tracks for extra recording takes. There are more advanced ways to handle this, but for now keep it simple. Then start record process by record enabling the track and continue from there.

When recording extra tracks, you might not want to hear your existing tracks at the same time. To stop a track from making sound click the mute button which is marked with an M. Once it turns orange, you will not hear that track during playback. To reverse the process simply click it again.

To summarize: in this tutorial you have been introduced to the three main windows in ProTools and several of their interface elements. Future tutorials will cover more of what these can allow you to do with your audio. We also learned to connect a microphone and record sound into ProTools. We also looked at some of the file structure that ProTools uses in saving your session. This is just the beginning of what ProTools allows you do, so stay tuned for more.