Pinnacle Systems Pro Tools M-Powered Essential - 8.0.2 User Guide
User Guide
Pro Tools® M-Powered™ Essential
Version 8.0.2
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contents
Chapter 1. Welcome to Pro Tools M-Powered Essential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Pro Tools M-Powered Essential Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Pro Tools M-Powered Essential Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
How Pro Tools M-Powered Essential Differs from Pro Tools M-Powered. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
System Requirements and Compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Conventions Used in This Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Chapter 2. Installing Pro Tools on Mac . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Installation Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Installing Pro Tools M-Powered Essential Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Launching Pro Tools M-Powered Essential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Additional Software on the Pro Tools Installer Disc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Uninstalling Pro Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Chapter 3. Installing Pro Tools on Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Installation Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Installing Pro Tools M-Powered Essential Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Launching Pro Tools M-Powered Essential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Additional Software on the Pro Tools Installer Disc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Uninstalling Pro Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Chapter 4. Configuring Your System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Starting Up or Shutting Down Your System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Configuring Pro Tools M-Powered Essential Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Optimizing a Mac System for Pro Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Optimizing a Windows System for Pro Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Contents iii
Appendix A. Hard Drive Configuration and Maintenance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Supported Drive Formats and Drive Types. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Formatting an Audio Drive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Partitioning Drives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Hard Disk Storage Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Appendix B. Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
About the Pro Tools Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
About www.digidesign.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Pro Tools M-Powered Essential User Guideiv
chapter 1
Welcome to Pro Tools M-Powered Essential
Welcome to Pro Tools® M-Powered™ Essential.
This guide provides step-by-step instructions
to install and configure Pro Tools M-Powered
Essential software.
Pro Tools M-Powered Essential Systems
The basic components of a Pro Tools M-Powered
Essential system are as follows:
• M-Audio interface qualified for Pro Tools
M-Powered Essential
(included)
• Mac or Windows computer qualified for
Pro Tools M-Powered Essential (not included)
• Pro Tools M-Powered Essential software
(included)
For a list of qualified M-Audio interfaces and
minimum system requirements, refer to the
compatibility information on the Digidesign
website: (www.digidesign.com/compatibility)
.
Pro Tools M-Powered Essential Capabilities
Pro Tools M-Powered Essential software provides the following capabilities:
• 24-bit audio resolution, at sample rates up to
96 kHz (depending on the M-Audio interface)
• Up to 16 total mono/stereo audio tracks, 4
Aux tracks, 8 Instrument tracks, 8 MIDI tracks,
1 Master Fader
• Playback of up to 16 tracks of mono or stereo
digital audio, and playback of up to 15 tracks
while recording 1 track (stereo or mono), or
up to 14 tracks while recording 2 mono or stereo tracks.
• Normal and loop recording
• Up to 4 internal mix busses
• Up to 5 sends per track
• Processing with up to 3 plug-ins per track
• Undo or redo up to 10 operations
• Comprehensive set of RTAS effects and virtual
instrument plug-ins
• Big collection of loops for music creation
• Torq LE, DJ software with ReWire technology
Pro Tools uses your computer’s CPU to mix
and process audio tracks (host processing).
Computers with faster clock speeds yield the
best performance and more plug-in processing.
Chapter 1: Welcome to Pro Tools M-Powered Essential 1
How Pro Tools M-Powered
Non-supported
feature
Essential Differs from
Pro Tools M-Powered
Pro Tools M-Powered Essential is a powerful,
easy-to-use software application that allows you
to create and mix music on your Mac or PC. You
get to experience the look and feel of
Pro Tools M-Powered with the simplified workflow of Pro Tools M-Powered Essential.
What Menus with Icons Mean
Certain Pro Tools M-Powered features are not
available in Pro Tools M-Powered Essential.
These features have an icon before their menu
name in Pro Tools menus. This icon helps you
identify them as non-supported features.
Menu items with non-supported feature icons
When you select the menu item, you’ll see a dialog that tells you more about the feature. In the
dialog you can move up and down between topics, or click Learn More to learn about other features in Pro Tools M-Powered.
To disable the non-supported feature icons,
choose Help > Display M-Powered Purchase
Reminders.)
Display M-Powered Information dialog
Shuffle mode and Spot mode are the
equivalent of menu items that have the
non-supported feature icon.
Learning About Pro Tools M-Powered
You can learn more about Pro Tools M-Powered
by going to:
http://www.digidesign.com/mpowered
System Requirements and Compatibility
Pro Tools M-Powered Essential can be used with
a qualified M-Audio interface, running on a
qualified Windows or Mac computer that meets
the minimum system requirements.
A DVD drive is required to use the Pro Tools Installer disc.
For complete system requirements and a list of
operating systems, hard drives, and third-party
devices, refer to the latest information on the
Digidesign website:
www.digidesign.com/compatibility
Pro Tools M-Powered Essential User Guide2
MIDI Requirements
USB MIDI interfaces work effectively with
Pro Tools systems on Mac or Windows. Serial
MIDI interfaces are supported on Windows systems only.
Only USB MIDI interfaces are compatible
with Pro Tools systems for Mac OS X.
Modem-to-serial port adapters and serial
MIDI devices are not supported.
For a list of supported adapters, visit the Digidesign website at:
www.digidesign.com/compatibility
Conventions Used in This Guide
This guide uses the following conventions to indicate menu choices and key commands:
:
Convention Action
File > Save Choose Save from the File
menu
Control+N Hold down the Control key
Control-click Hold down the Control key
and press the N key
and click the mouse button
Hard Drive Requirements
Pro Tools M-Powered Essential can be used on
your system drive. For optimal audio recording
and playback, all Pro Tools systems require one
or more Digidesign-qualified drives.
For a list of minimum system requirements, visit
the Digidesign website:
www.digidesign.com/compatibility
If you are using an ATA/IDE or FireWire hard
drive, initialize your drive with the Disk Utility
application included with Apple System software (Mac) or the Windows Disk Management
(Windows).
Always back up any important data on your
drive before formatting it, as it will erase all
data on the drive.
For more information, see Appendix A, “Hard
Drive Configuration and Maintenance.”
Right-click Click with the right mouse
button
The names of Commands, Options, and Settings
that appear on-screen are in a different font.
The following symbols are used to highlight important information:
User Tips are helpful hints for getting the
most from your Pro Tools system.
Important Notices include information that
could affect your data or the performance of
your system.
Shortcuts show you useful keyboard or
mouse shortcuts.
Cross References point to related sections in
this guide and other Pro Tools or M-Audio
guides.
Chapter 1: Welcome to Pro Tools M-Powered Essential 3
Pro Tools M-Powered Essential User Guide4
chapter 2
Installing Pro Tools on Mac
This chapter contains information for Mac systems only. If you are installing Pro Tools M-Powered Essential on a Windows computer, see
Chapter 3, “Installing Pro Tools on Windows.”
Installation Overview
Installation of Pro Tools M-Powered Essential on
a Mac includes the following steps:
1 Installing your M-Audio drivers and connect-
ing the M-Audio interface to your computer.
(See the instructions that came with your
M-Audio interface.)
2 “Installing Pro Tools M-Powered Essential
Software” on page 5.
3 “Launching Pro Tools M-Powered Essential”
on page 7.
4 Configuring your system for improved perfor-
mance (see Chapter 4, “Configuring Your System”).
Installing Pro Tools M-Powered Essential Software
Make sure you’ve installed your M-Audio interface drivers and connected the interface to your
computer. Once that’s done, you’re ready to install Pro Tools.
For information on connecting your M-Audio
interface, see the printed M-Audio hardware
interface guide that came with it.
To install Pro Tools M-Powered Essential:
1 Make sure you are logged in as an Administra-
tor for the account where you want to install
Pro Tools.
For details on Administrator privileges in
Mac OS X, see your Apple OS X documentation.
2 Insert the Pro Tools M-Powered Essential In-
staller disc in your DVD drive.
3 On the Installer disc, locate and double-click
Install Pro Tools MP Essential.mpkg.
Install Pro Tools MP Essential.mpkg icon
Chapter 2: Installing Pro Tools on Mac 5
4 Follow the on-screen instructions to proceed
with installation.
5 Click Continue each time you are prompted.
6 At the “Installation Type” dialog, do the fol-
lowing:
• To install all Pro Tools application files
(which includes the free plug-in suite and
associated content), leave the Pro Tools box
checked.
– and –
• To install additional loops and demo songs,
check the Essential Audio Loops and Demo
Song box. For more information, see “Essential Audio Loops and Demo Songs” on
page 6.
Essential Audio Loops and Demo Songs
Pro Tools M-Powered Essential installation includes an option to install Essential Audio Loops
and Demo Songs.
The audio loops are pro-quality audio loops that
you can use to quickly sketch out musical ideas.
The demo songs let you see and hear many of
the things you’ll soon be doing in Pro Tools.
Once these loops and demo songs are installed,
they can be found in the following locations:
• Applications/Digidesign/Pro Tools
Essential Loops
• Applications/Digidesign/Pro Tools
Essential Demo Songs
You also have the option of choosing the
location where the loops and demo songs are
installed.
Installation Type dialog
7 Click Continue.
8 Click Install.
9 If prompted, enter your Administrator pass-
word and click OK to authenticate the installation.
10 Follow the remaining on-screen instructions.
11 When installation is complete, click Restart.
The Pro Tools Installer disc includes additional software for your system. For more information, see “Additional Software on the
Pro Tools Installer Disc” on page 7.
Pro Tools M-Powered Essential User Guide6
Launching Pro Tools M-Powered Essential
1 Click the Pro Tools M-Powered Essential icon
in the Dock (or double-click the application
icon in the Pro Tools folder inside the Digidesign folder).
2 Use the Quick Start dialog to do one of
the following:
• Create a new session from template.
• Create a new blank session.
• Open any other session on your system.
Quick Start dialog
Additional Software on the Pro Tools Installer Disc
The Pro Tools M-Powered Essential Installer
disc provides additional software for your
system, including Torq LE, DJ software and the
MP3 Export option. Once you've completed
your Pro Tools installation, you can install
them separately. Go to the Additional Files/3rd
Party Content folder on the Pro Tools
M-Powered Essential Installer disc.
Torq LE, DJ Software
Your Pro Tools package also includes Torq LE,
DJ software. You can use Torq LE with Pro Tools
using ReWire technology.
MP3 Export Option
The MP3 Export Option lets you create MP3
files from Pro Tools sessions when using Bounce
to Disk or exporting a region as a new audio
file.
For more information on creating and saving
Sessions, see the Pro Tools Reference Guide.
Chapter 2: Installing Pro Tools on Mac 7
Uninstalling Pro Tools
If you need to uninstall Pro Tools software from
your computer, use the Uninstaller application.
To uninstall Pro Tools from your computer:
1 Make sure you are logged in as an Administra-
tor for the account where Pro Tools is installed.
For details on Administrator privileges in
Mac OS X, see your Apple OS X documentation.
2 Go to Applications/Digidesign/Pro Tools/
Pro Tools Utilities and double-click
Uninstall Pro Tools.
3 Click Continue to proceed with the uninstall.
4 Choose the type of uninstall you want to per-
form:
Safe Uninstall Leaves certain plug-ins and system files needed for compatibility with some
Avid products. Use Safe Uninstall if you are using an Avid application or preparing to update
to a CS (customer support) release.
Clean Uninstall Removes all Pro Tools files, including system files, Digidesign plug-ins, and
MIDI patch names. Use Clean Uninstall whenever you are preparing to upgrade, or to troubleshoot from a clean system.
5 Click Uninstall.
6 Enter your Administrator password and click
OK.
7 Click Finish to close the Installer window.
Pro Tools M-Powered Essential User Guide8
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