Archive for 'Optimize Pro Tools'

When you start working in Pro Tools for any length of time you’ll most likely find yourself reaching for an EQ and compressor on virtually every song you mix. And if you’re like me you tend to stick with one go-to EQ and compressor instead of changing it up a lot. Not that this takes a whole lot of time to digging for your main plugs, but Pro Tools has a setting that allows you to choose your default EQ and compressor which makes them much easier to find and will save you some precious time in the long run. Let’s take look at this quick optimization.

We Start With The Preferences

Simply head up to the Setup menu, click and choose Preferences. Once the Preferences dialog box opens, click on the Mixing tab and look in the top left section of the box labeled “Setup”.

You’ll notice drop down boxes next to Default EQ and Default Dynamics. Any EQ or compressor/limiter you have installed in Pro Tools will show up here. Simply choose a plugin for each category and click OK.

Quick Access

Now, any time you insert a plugin on a track, your chosen default EQ and compressor will show up in the menu just above your plugin categories. You don’t even need to go digging for them in their respective folder.

Talk about convenient! Just another way to save time in Pro Tools and focus more energy on making music instead of messing with software!

Any time you purchase a Pro Tools system you get a whole slew of fantastic plugins bundled in. The included DigiRack effects do more than just get the job done; they sound great! And I should know since I use them every day! One set of plugins that isn’t bundled however, but should be, are those from former Digidesign employee Steve Massey.

Who Is Steve Massey?

Since leaving Digidesign (and working for Trillium Lane Labs), Massey has taken his Pro Tools coding knowledge to new levels by developing his own set of practical and great sounding effect plugins. But instead of offering “trial” versions of his plugins to get you interested, he gives his plugins away free! That’s right, no limited time of use, no noise blasts every few seconds. Just his wonderful plugins, free forever. The catch is, to get access to some additional features like Bypass, Automation, and Session Recall you’ll have to pay for the plug, but if that time comes, he’s graciously priced his product very fair.

Let’s take a quick look at two of the free Massey plugins that I feel truly compliment the DigiRack plugins you already have:

Tape-Head

Massey’s Tape-Head is a saturation plugin meant to add harmonic distortion to the signal it’s affecting. This is great for drums, bass, or guitars. It adds a “warmth” and fullness to the track while at the same time slightly compressing it. Seeing as how Pro Tools doesn’t come with a saturation plugin, Tape-Head brings something unique and helpful to your mixing palette.

L2007 Mastering Limiter

All limiters are not created equal unfortunately. If you find yourself fighting with the Digi limiter trying to push your mix bus a bit hotter without clipping you may benefit from the L2007 from Massey. This plugin couldn’t be simpler to operate, and it takes whatever audio you run through it and tames the peaks perfectly at 4 different modes (Loud, Mellow, Smooth, Vibrant) giving you musical limiting and gain boost. Plus it just looks so darn cool!

The Rest of The Gang

At present, Massey offers 7 plugins total including the two mentioned above and an analog EQ, optical compressor, distortion box, tape delay, and de-esser. Unfortunately these plugins are only coded for Pro Tools’ RTAS format so you can’t use them with anything other than Pro Tools LE, HD, or M-Powered. But if you are a Pro Tools user, you might as well check out Massey’s site, and download a few of his effects. They are a great addition to your arsenal and it won’t cost you a penny.

If you are a Pro Tools user, you may find yourself taking advantage of the markers feature in the Edit window. Markers can be used for many things, but one thing they let you do is notate where each section of the song starts and ends (i.e. Verse 1, Chorus, Outro). I find this extremely helpful especially when recording another band whose songs I’m not as familiar with. Once we setup the guide track, we go ahead and put markers in so I know where to punch in and out as needed.

Seeing In Color

What I find very helpful however is to switch on the color option for these markers. It helps me see even quicker where the song changes. Let me show you what I mean. When you insert markers into your session normally, this is what they look like, gray and dull:

The first thing you need to do is go to your Preferences window. Simply click on Setup from the menu bar and choose Preferences.

Make sure you have the Display tab selected. On the right there is a section labeled “Color Coding”. Simply check the first box labeled Always Display Marker Colors and you’re done.

Close out of the preferences and flip back over to the Edit window and voila! You now have beautiful colors in between the markers, helping you identify sections of the song with a brief glance.

It’s The Little Tweaks

I know it sounds simple, but this one minor tweak can help speed up your work flow exponentially over time. And every minute and ever second you can get back by having a streamlined process and interface in Pro Tools is time you can spend on other things like mixing or trying something creative that would otherwise be a time waster.

Depending on how you work with Pro Tools you may end up importing a lot of files into any given session. These could be drum loops, tracks from another session, or sound effects from an external sound library. Whatever the case may be, when you import audio into a Pro Tools session you want to have a few import settings in place to insure you get not only the best possible quality of conversion (if your audio requires it) but also the best file structure so you don’t lose anything down the road.

It’s All In Your Preferences

Pretty much everything you can tweak in Pro Tools is done from the Preferences box. You want to become very familiar with this as you dive deeper into this program. To access the Preferences in Pro Tools simply navigate to the Setup menu and choose Preferences.

You’ll see a dialog box with a handful of different tabs up top. Here is where you can change anything from the colors you see in the Edit and Mix windows to how long the clip indicator stays lit on your tracks. For now we want to click on the Processing tab.

Keeping Things Where They Belong

Over on the left you’ll see a section called Import. Here is where you need to make just two brief adjustments. The first thing I highly recommend is that you make sure the box labeled Automatically Copy Files On Import is checked. This tells Pro Tools to do exactly what it says. By default, when you import audio into your session, Pro Tools is simply playing that audio from where it is on your computer. If the file is deleted at some point, then it will no longer show up in your session. That is not cool, trust me on this one.

Instead check that box so that the next time you import something it will put a copy of it in your sessions Audio folder, allowing it to stay nice and safe with all your other recorded audio. This is especially important when backing sessions up. You want all your audio to be there in one place.

Choose Your Quality Bar

The very last option in the Import section is the Sample Rate Conversion Quality. Some imported files may come in a different sample rate from the one you’re using in your session. A drum loop, for example, may have been recorded at 48khz but your session may be at 44.1khz. Pro Tools has to convert the loop in order for it to play at the right speed. This menu determines how good that conversion is.

There is a drop down to the right that gives you a handful of options. Just choose TweakHead and be done with it. It doesn’t matter that it’s the slowest since this is a one time conversion to get the audio into your session.

One and Done

That’s pretty much it. Once you’ve made these switches in your preferences, Pro Tools will remember them for each session you create on that computer. You don’t even have to remember what you learned today once you’ve done it! It’s a one and done deal as I like to say. Enjoy!

Looking to get the most out of your Pro Tools system? Do your sessions tend to slow down when you get a few tracks in there? Do you get error messages a lot? Here’s a simple tip for you that will help. Buy and use an external hard drive alongside your internal system drive. This can be either firewire or USB 2.0 (depending on what ports your computer has) and can come in any size of course.

How will an external drive help?

Here’s the idea: your main system drive is where your operating system, programs/applications, and plugins are installed. When you record in a Pro Tools session, you are saving the audio onto your hard drive. As you begin laying down more tracks, Pro Tools is trying to not only operate the software and plugins off of your system drive, but it’s trying to read from and write audio to the same drive. This tends to bog the drive down causing errors or slow system performance.

The solution is to use a separate hard drive designated as your Audio drive. You install Pro Tools and all your software on your main system drive like normal, but when you create a new session you save it to your external drive. Now when you record audio it will be writing to one drive while your system drive is free to run Pro Tools. It’s a beautiful thing.

Other perks

Not only will having an external drive help system performance, it helps your mobility. If you record on a friend’s system or in another studio you can bring your drive and record the session there while leaving your main computer at home. Then just bring the hard drive back home, hook it up, and Pro Tools will read the session perfectly.

Some Options

Here just a few options for good external drives to look into. At the end of the day all that matters is that it works with your computer and is quiet!

Western Digital 500GB – $89
Lacie 1TB (i.e. 1000GB) – $109
Super portable Western Digital 320GB – $89

Anytime you open up a Pro Tools session you need to ask yourself this question: Am I going to be recording, or editing/mixing? The answer to this question will determine how you adjust some crucial settings in the software to optimize your Pro Tools system. Let’s take a brief look today at tweaking the Playback Engine in order to get the most out of your computer while recording.

Reducing Latency

If you are using Pro Tools to record for example (perhaps you’re sitting down to take the One Song One Month Challenge and you want to lay down your main guitar parts) then you want as little latency as possible. What is latency you ask? It’s the time it takes for your audio to be converted to digital information (in your audio interface), run through your software, then turned back to an analog signal coming back out of your audio interface. The result…an annoying echo or delay effect that throws off your timing.

Some interfaces have a workaround for this on the actual unit itself (the Mbox 2 Mini for example uses the Mix knob to counteract this). But one thing you can do in all Pro Tools systems is to reduce the Hardware Buffer Size. To do this, simply navigate to the Setup menu and choose Playback Engine.

If you have something like 1024 samples in the H/W Buffer Buffer Size drop down, then click on it and choose the lowest sample number available to you. It might be 128 or maybe even down to 32. Choosing a lower buffer size will noticeably reduce your audible latency and make recording much better. On the flip side if you need to edit or mix, you’ll probably have error messages pop up with such a low buffer size. Simply change it to the highest option available (1024 is good).

Your House In Order

While you’re at the Playback Engine settings you should also confirm that your RTAS Processors drop down is set to the appropriate option (this depends on your computers CPU of course). And as far as the CPU Usage option, I recommend you don’t go much higher than 85% as you need your CPU to also efficiently run your operating system in the background as you are recording in Pro Tools.

Nice And Easy

Voila! You have quickly optimized Pro Tools using the Playback Engine settings. Little tweaks like this go a long way in ensuring a smooth and enjoyable Pro Tools session. Enjoy!