First Song with Pro Tools
DAW guru Marcus Huyskens brings you the beginner's guide to using Pro Tools to make your first song! Marcus starts with a blank Pro Tools session and walks you through the entire process of creating and arranging your first song using only Pro Tools and its included plug-ins and instruments, along with basic mixing and exporting practices.
Videos
• Introduction (03:37) - Marcus introduces the series, and discusses how to set up your first Pro Tools session.
• Laying Down the Chord Progression (16:10) - Learn the basics of how to set up a virtual Instrument in Pro Tools. In addition, Marcus demonstrates some basic recording concepts.
• Building the Beat Using Boom (18:23) - In this video, Marcus begins to add memory locations (Markers) into his Pro Tools session. He also goes over the basics of BOOM, and demonstrates how it can be used to flesh out patterns, and how to customize them, and record your own.
• Finding a Lead Synth Sound with Vacuum (12:21) - Marcus continues to work on the Drums using Boom, then moves on to adding a Lead Synth sound, on the intro and Chorus sections.
• Adding Vocals & Tweaking the Drums (15:48) - In this video, Marcus imports the multi-track vocal's into his song, and sets up some basic Vocal FX chains to work with. In addition, he continues to develop & tweak his drum patters as the track evolves.
• Additional Elements Pt. 1 (13:29) - Marcus begins to layer in additional elements to his track. In this case turning to XPand2 for some soft pads, as well as some percussion elements over the chorus sections.
• Additional Elements Pt. 2 (13:47) - Marcus continues to develop the track, and in this video, adds a modern Sub Bass style instrument to fill out the arrangement and bottom-end.
• Adding Acoustic Guitar & Arp Synth (16:36) - Moving right along, Marcus now adds some acoustic guitars to the song. Learn all about basic editing and arrangement techniques to get them to sit in the track. In addition, Marcus demonstrates how to create simple yet effective Rhythmic arpeggiated Synth lines using Vacuum.
• Tweaking the Guitars & Adding Transitions (11:35) - In this video, Marcus demonstrates how to use some basic grouping options, as well as EQ, filters & compression to fine-tune the guitars. In Addition, see some simple techniques that can be used to create effective transitions between the different sections.
• Transition FX Editing & Mixing Vocals (16:20) - Marcus continues to work on adding impact to the different transitions, and begins to work on editing, grouping, and balancing the multi-track vocals, to get them to sit perfectly in the mix.
• Tweaking the Final Mix (14:11) - In this video, Marcus begins to apply some basic vocal FX to get a polished sound. Learn how adding EQ, filters, and basic compression can help bring vocals to life.
• Bouncing Out Your Song (12:32) - Marcus adds some last minute tweaks to the mix, and fine tunes his levels and transitions before adding a Limiter and bouncing out his final mix in .Wav and .mp3 format.