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Pro Tools Setup and Recording Process

Okay, so Pro Tools is mostly configured and ready to go. Let's just check a few things before we actually hit record.

Input Configuration

First of all, is our input set selected correctly?

• My microphone is plugged into input one of my interface.
• We named that mic, if you remember earlier.
• That's what we've got selected for the input of the track.

Fantastic! My tempo is 92 bpm. I'm probably going to tweak that, but we'll see when we get there.

Switching to Headphones

Before I go any further, I'm going to cut my speakers and switch over to headphones.

The reason for this is to avoid feedback. Feedback occurs when sound gets picked up by the microphone, then fed to the speakers, back into the microphone, and so on. Every time this happens, it reinforces and causes a sort of squealing, screaming noise. It's kind of unpleasant. I'm sure you've heard it before, and we want to avoid that.

So, speakers and headphones are the easiest way to manage this.

• That's all good. That's all ready.
• Now, I can hit my input monitor. This is the button that will go green just here.

Understanding Input Monitor

Input monitor is useful when setting levels.

• If I chose record arm, as soon as I hit play, I wouldn't hear my guitar anymore; I'd hear what was previously recorded on the track, which is nothing.
• This means it can be very difficult to ensure my click track is set right.

Input monitor sets it to essentially become like an auxiliary track. It's a throughput track. If I send signals into Pro Tools, they come straight back regardless of the transport mode.

It's about the only time you ever use this. Once your headphone levels are good, turn this off, and go to record.

Setting Levels

Ready?

Okay, let me grab my guitar, put on my headphones, and let's set some levels.

• A little low? I'm going to turn this up.
• The general aim is just to get as high as possible without going red.

That's cool. I'll show you what happens if I turn it all the way up.

• You get distortion, and there's a red clip indication coming in at the top of the meter.
• I can click on this to remove it, or there's a shortcut: Option + C, which will do the same thing.

Maybe a touch higher. That should do nicely.

Adjusting Tempo

Okay, let's see how well that works with the tempo.

• Maybe a little faster.
• Let's play along and see what happens.

Yeah, a touch too slow. Let's knock that up to about 130 bpm. Nice!

Recording Process

So, it's probably going to take a few takes to get this right.

• Let's turn off input monitor on the track.
• Hit the beginning, hit record, and I'll just keep playing until I get something that works.

A few mistakes along the way, but that's what we've got undo for.

And, as we'll see in the next video, it's what we've got playlists for.