This free video tutorial brought to you in association with Avid is the fourth in a series, aimed at people who are new to recording or new to Pro Tools. We follow the development of a demo recording from the point of view of someone with no prior experience of recording.
In part 3, we'd met Jess, a singer-songwriter who has written a song and needed guidance through the process of choosing a setup, setting it up and recording the song. In this fourth part, we layer an additional track on top of the original recording.
Part 4 - Overdubbing
In this video, we look at the next stage of the process, where we overdub additional instruments over the first pass, guitar and vocal recording, in this case, a high-strung acoustic guitar, sometimes known as "Nashville Style" where the bottom four strings sound an octave higher than usual, useful for adding some shimmer to acoustic guitars.
Unexpected Playback Behaviour
Before that, we look at some common pitfalls for the new user, in this case, to do with unexpected playback behaviour and then we look at setting up "drop-ins" - the common practice of replacing sections of a previous take by dropping into and then out of record. To help this we set up a "pre-roll" so that the take immediately before the point at which the drop in should start is played to the performer before the new recording starts.
Additional Resources
If you want to find out more about the techniques used in this video follow these links to additional content on Pro Tools Expert:
To find out more about Pre/Post roll here's a video tutorial from Paul Maunder- Pre Roll Tutorial
These features of Pro Tools have the unfriendliest names but they are pretty straightforward and are really fundamental to how Pro Tools works - Insertion Follows Playback and Link Edit and Timeline Selections
If you do a lot of overdubbing it might be worth trying out Quick Punch. It can be a lifesaver sometimes.
What Will We Cover In The Rest Of This Series?
Over the coming weeks, we will cover...
- Comping
- MIDI and Virtual Instruments
- Mixing and Bouncing
Part 5 - Tidying Up
Come back for part 5 in which we fix minor errors and comp from different takes.