Pinnacle Systems Pro Tools M-Powered - 8.0 Getting Started
Getting Started
Pro Tools® M-Powered™
Version 8.0
Welcome to Pro Tools M-Powered
Read this guide if you are new to Pro Tools® or are just starting out making your own
music. Inside, you’ll find quick examples of how to record, compose, mix, and produce your
own music in Pro Tools.
One quick question: Have you installed Pro Tools yet? If not, follow the
tions or your detailed
Setup Guide
to install Pro Tools
®
M-Powered™ software and your M-Au-
dio interface.
Do not connect your M-Audio interface to your computer until you’ve installed Pro Tools from
your installer DVD as described in the Quick Setup instructions.
Connect Headphones or Speakers
You have to be able to hear your music, so plug in some headphones or speakers to your
M-Audio interface.
For detailed instructions on how to connect your M-Audio interface to headphones or speakers,
follow the instructions that came with it.
Quick Setup
instruc-
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Getting Started with Pro Tools M-Powered
Listen to the Demo Session
To get started, you can use the Demo Session to see and hear many of the things you’ll soon
be doing in Pro Tools. It also gives you sound to play so you can test your headphones or
speakers.
To install and open the Demo Session:
1
Put the Pro Tools M-Powered Installer disc in your DVD drive.
2
On the disc, open the Additional Files folder, then open the Pro Tools Demo Session
Installer folder.
3
Double-click the Demo Session installer icon, then follow the instructions on-screen to in-
stall the Demo Session. Make a note of where you install it.
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Pro Tools M-Powered
Installer disc
For best performance Digidesign recommends using an external hard drive for Pro Tools recordings. But if you don’t have an external hard drive yet, it’s OK to put the Demo Session on
your system drive.
4
Make sure your M-Audio interface is connected to your computer and powered on.
5
Launch Pro Tools M-Powered by clicking its icon in the Dock (Mac) or double-clicking its
icon on your desktop (Windows). If this is the first time you are launching Pro Tools, make
sure your pre-authorized iLok is inserted into an available USB port on your computer.
When you launch Pro Tools M-Powered software, you must have an iLok with a license for the
version of M-Powered software you’re using. For more info, see the Setup Guide.
Additional
Files
M-Powered D
Session Installer
emo
M-Powered Demo
Session Setup.exe
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6
Choose
File > Open Session
(click the
File
menu to choose
Open Session
), then open the file
“Filtered Dream” (it’s inside the folder “Filtered Dream Demo Session.”)
Toolbar
Edit
Window
Tracks
Play and Listen
To play the Demo Session:
1
On the your M-Audio interface, do the following:
• Verify the connections between your M-Audio interface and your computer.
• Turn the headphones or speaker monitor level fully down to be sure your volume is at a
low enough level.
For more information, refer to your the instructions that came with your M-Audio interface.
2
To start and stop Pro Tools, press the Spacebar, or click the Play and Stop buttons on-screen.
(These buttons are located at the top of the Edit window; you can also have them appear in
their own Transport window by choosing
Window > Transport
.)
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Getting Started with Pro Tools M-Powered
Stop Play
Stop and Play controls in Edit window (left) and Transpor t window (right)
3
While the session plays, gradually raise the volume on your M-Audio interface.
4
Explore Pro Tools while the demo plays: Use the zoom and Track view controls to zero in on
different tracks.
Stop Play
Vertical
Horizontal
Click to select the Zoomer tool and then drag-select to zoom in.
Click the Horizontal and
and Vertical Zoom
buttons to adjust size
and length of what is
shown in tracks
(Double-click the Zoomer tool to zoom back out again)
Click the Track Height selector and choose
a display height
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5
Next, click the
Window
menu and choose
Mix (Window > Mix)
. The Mix window shows tracks
in vertical channel strips.
Mix window
Tracks
The Edit window and the Mix window are the two main work areas in Pro Tools. Throughout
the rest of this guide, you’ll see examples of both windows being used for different types of
production work.
6
Press the Spacebar or click the Stop button to stop playback.
7
When you’re through checking out the Demo Session, choose
File > Close Session
.
The Demo Session is a great example of a complete, finished project that has been
arranged, edited, and mixed. You don’t need to return to the Demo Session for anything else in
this guide, but you might want to check it out again later, after you’ve been introduced to a few
more Pro Tools features. If you want to return to the Demo Session or any recent one, click File
> Recent and choose the Demo Session (if it is still one of your most recently opened sessions),
or choose File > Open and open it that way.
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Getting Started with Pro Tools M-Powered
Bring in a Song from a CD
This section lets you see how to create a new Pro Tools
CD. You can create a new session after you launch or when you first launch Pro Tools.
To create a new session:
1
If you already have a session open, choose
The Quick Start Session dialog is an easy way to create a new session; create a new session
from a session template; open any of the last ten most recent sessions; or open any other session. For more information on this feature and on sessions in general, see the
Pro Tools Reference Guide.
2
Now choose
New Session dialog
3
In the New Session dialog, choose
4
In the Name the Session dialog, choose where you want to save the session, and then name
it and click
File > New Session
Save.
.
File > Close
Create a Blank Session
session
and then
.
, then click OK.
import
a song from a
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5
After Pro Tools opens the new session, choose
Window > Edit
so the Edit window is displayed.
It will look something like this:
Transport window
The Edit window, with the Transport window showing in the foreground
To import a song from CD:
1
Put the source CD into your computer’s CD/DVD drive.
2
In Pro Tools, choose
3
In the Workspace browser, click the Audio CD’s Expand/Collapse icon to show the files on
Window > Workspace to
open the Workspace browser.
the CD.
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Getting Started with Pro Tools M-Powered
4
Click an item (track) to select a song on the CD.
Tip: Click the speaker icon to
audition a selected song; press
he Spacebar to stop.
t
5
Drag the item from the Workspace to the Track List at the left of the Edit window.
Track List
Tip: You can drag and drop
video, plug-ins, and MIDI, too. If you aren’t
familiar with these terms, don’t worry
you can learn about them later.
6
Pro Tools creates a new audio track, containing the song.
7
Close the Workspace browser, then press the Spacebar to begin playing back the song
in Pro Tools (see “Play and Listen” on page 3).
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Make an Audio Edit
In this example we’ll show you how to do a simple edit to change where a song starts. To show
this, we used a song where the drummer is heard “counting off” the tempo (“1...2...1.2.3...”)
before the song starts. Here’s what this song looks like in Pro Tools.
countoff
In the picture, the two
tage of this “what you see is what you hear” aspect of Pro Tools to be able to quickly silence
the countoff by “trimming” the beginning of the song.
To trim:
1
Click to select the Trim tool (located in the toolbar).
2
Click in the track after the countoff and before the start of the song (you’ll see the cursor display the Trimmer icon). Drag left or right to fine tune the location.
Trim tool
3
For future reference, you can “untrim” the song by clicking and dragging the song start back
to the left with the Trim tool. You’ll see that the previous audio (the countoff) is still there.
This is a small example of how Pro Tools lets you edit
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Getting Started with Pro Tools M-Powered
song start
waveforms
waveforms
let you visualize the different sections. We can take advan-
song start
non-destructively
.
Record Yourself
This section shows how to connect a microphone and record yourself singing or playing an instrument.
Connect a Mic
To hook up a microphone:
Plug a mic into a Mic input of your M-Audio interface.
For more information, refer to your the instructions that came with your M-Audio interface.
Create a Track
Pro Tools
session. Before you can record, you need to create one or more tracks.
To prepare an audio track for recording:
1
2
1 Mono Audio Track
Creating a new mono audio track
tracks
are where audio, MIDI and other elements get recorded and edited within a
In a Pro Tools session, choose
Track > New
.
To record a single mic or instrument (as in our example), set the New Track dialog for
, in
Samples
, and click
Create
.
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