Preparing a Project in Protools 10

7/30/2019 Preparing a Project in Protools 10

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Preparing a Project in Protools 10

Introduction

I'm Gustavo Jantsch, from Porto Alegre, Brazil, and in this tutorial will take a look on how to set

up a new project in Pro Tools 10.

Setting up the playback engine

Let's start Pro Tools!

Maybe the screen bellow will be the first that you see after you start the program, lets ignore

it by now, just click cancel to close the popup.


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In the menu Setup > Playback Engine you'll have this popup:

On the first select list, you will see all the interfaces that Protools found on your computer, if

yours isn't listed there, make sure that is connected and on, and check the manual if there areany drivers that need to be installed.

Buffer size

In the Settings, the first parameter is used to set the buffer size, use lower values when

recording, an ideal value for a recording session is 128 samples. But if you are mixing and using

lots of plugins, maybe you'll have to set this value higher to avoid clicks and lags when

monitoring the mixing. You can try 1024 samples, if this happens.

Delimiting CPU usage

In 'Host Processors' and CPU usage limit' you can tell Protools how many of your CPU

processors and how much of it Protools can use. This is useful if you want to limit the CPU

usage if you have to run other software in parallel. But usually we will set as high as possible.

Delay compensation engine can be used when you have the red 'Dly' indicator, showing in the

transport bar, check picture bellow. It indicates that some track is over the compensation limit

and has to use a bigger buffer to compensate (probably) some plugin delay.


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But usually you will not change these options.

Cache Size

The 'Disk playback', 'Cache Size', is interesting if you suffering when playing back a song while

mixing or recording. This feature loads your entire session into RAM for playback or recording,

which can substantially improves the read/write access time while reducing the load on your

hard drive.

Once these value are selected and the Playback Engine dialog is closed, Pro Tools will startloading the session into the allocated system RAM. This activity can be monitored from

Window > System Usage. You will see two new activity meters, Disk Cache and Timeline

Cached. Disk Cached indicates how much of the allocated system RAM has been used up for

the session and Timeline Cached indicates how much of the session has been cached into the

allocated RAM.

Click 'OK' and we are done with the setup of the hardware.

Creating a new project

In the menu 'File' > 'New Session' you'll get the following screen:


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Choose 'Create Blank Session'


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Let's start choosing the audio file type. This option allows to choose in wich kind of file, Pro

Tools will store the recorded audio clips. Ideally, chose the Broadcast wave format (BWF), but

you can choose AIFF if needed.

The Bit depth, allows you to set the resolution of the data. And this depends on capabilities of

your audio interface. 16 bit is the CD quality, but you can choose 24bit, that gives you a higherquality recording.

The sample rate also depends on you audio interface and the available values can change,

usually you will choose 44.1 KHz, that is the CD standard rate, or 48KHz or even 96KHz. Any

value will sound great. But typically we choose 48KHz.

The I/O Settings let's you choose some predefined project configuration for your in and outs.

You'll choose if your project will a 5.1 surround mix, if it uses a Eleven Rack hardware, etc.

Since we are just creating a multi track song recording, I'll choose 'Stereo' or just 'Last used'

since it is the value that I always use.

Then just click ok, and Protools will ask you where you want to keep the project and its files:

Always create a brand new folder for you project, it will make easy for you to control the files

and related audio clips, that will be many.

Click 'Save' and we are done, ready to add some tracks to our project and start to rock.

Documents

Preparing a Project in Protools 10