Product Description

You’ve got the power. You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on recording-studio time anymore. Now, using Pro Tools—a digital-audio workstation—you can record demos at home on your own computer, edit tracks, add effects, and even output songs to a CD. But if you’re new to working with sound digitally, you face a daunting learning curve. Getting your music gear to work with your desktop computer or laptop—and producing results that you like—involves some unfamiliar tools and concepts.
At last, here’s a Pro Tools book written by a musician for other musicians! Author Gina Fant-Saez knows first-hand how frustrating it can be when you first make the move to using this complex, studio-quality audio application. Rather than overwhelm you with every detail of the program and complicated terminology or functions you’ll never use, Pro Tools for Musicians and Songwriters teaches only the essentials you need to record, enhance, and output your music.

With downloadable audio files from www.protoolsformusicians.com to help you get started, Pro Tools for Musicians and Songwriters will show you how to:
•     Use a metronome (click track) or percussion loop to help you keep time when you record
•     Record and combine multiple takes to create one seamless composition
•     Edit your tracks with crossfades, panning, doubling, automation more[  
•     Add and manipulate plug-in effects, such as reverb
•     Share your Pro Tools files with other musicians around the globe
•     Output your finished composition to a CD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #83797 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

About the Author
Gina Fant-Saez is an innovative musician and songwriter who’s written albums, jingles, and film scores; engineered and produced recordings for some of the best-known artists in the industry; and spent many years touring as both a performing artist and a technician. She runs two businesses: Austin-based recording studio, Blue World Music (www.blueworldmusic.com), and a new venture, eSession.com, which enables professional musicians to hire and record with other musicians via the Internet.

Customer Reviews

1 of a kind book on Pro Tools showing details of useful tasks
Pro Tools is a Digital Audio Workstation by Digidesign for music production and digital audio editing. It is widely used to create audio for film, television, and music and serves as the de facto standard in those industries. As one of the first programs to provide CD-quality (16-bit and 44.1 kHz) multitrack editing on a personal computer, use of Pro Tools has quickly grown in the sound recording field. It originally became popular because of its simple, streamlined interface for non-linear, non-destructive audio editing. This appealed to analog producers making the switch to computer-based production. Thus, now just about anyone can have the power of a recording studio on their personal computer, thus eliminating much of the need for expensive professional recording time.

Most books on Pro Tools are really dumbed down and basically just show you what interfaces and controls do what without giving you the big picture. None of them up to this book show artists how to use this computing package to assist them in their craft. I really liked this book's readable style coupled with useful graphics on all of the controls, as well as tips on recording techniques. It is suitable for Pro Tools novices as well as those already familiar with the controls since the book takes you from the basics into adding your own plug-ins, working with MIDI, arranging and recording your own music, and finally exporting your music to CD or to the Internet.

I notice that Amazon does not show the table of contents, so I do that here. As you can see from the table of contents, much of the book concentrates on exercises so that you get plenty of hands-on experience.
1: GETTING STARTED 2
The First Step 3
EXERCISE 1: Start a New Session 3
Fasten Your Seatbelts 9
EXERCISE 2: Create Your First Track 9
EXERCISE 3: Add Your First Plug-in 12
EXERCISE 4: Change the Click Sound and Volume 14
EXERCISE 5: Change the Tempo 17
EXERCISE 6: Get to Know the Ruler Timeline 18
Wrap Up 19

2: LOOPS & RECORDING 20
The Upside of Downloading 21
EXERCISE 1: Download Loops 21
EXERCISE 2: Import Loops into Pro Tools 24
EXERCISE 3: Resize and Move Tracks 26
EXERCISE 4: Mute, Solo, Pan, and Volume 29
EXERCISE 5: Repeat Audio Loops 31
Intro to Recording 34
EXERCISE 6: Prepare to Record 35
EXERCISE 7: Record Your Track 40
EXERCISE 8: Punch In and Punch Out 44
Manually
EXERCISE 9: Automated Punch-In and 45
Punch-Out
Wrap Up 48

3: THE EDIT WINDOW 50
EXERCISE 1: Import Audio a New Way 51
EXERCISE 2: Use the Zoomer 55
EXERCISE 3: Use the Grabber in Grid Mode 60
EXERCISE 4: Create a Snare Track and a Hi-Hat Track 66
EXERCISE 5: Use the Trimmer with Slip Mode and Spot Mode 73
EXERCISE 6: Change Timebase 80
EXERCISE 7: Use the TCE Trimmer 84
EXERCISE 8: Use Shuffle Mode 88
Wrap Up 94

4: PLAYLISTS & MARKERS 96
EXERCISE 1: Use Save Copy In 97
Working with Playlists 100
EXERCISE 2: Record with Playlists 101
EXERCISE 3: Record Four Playlists 105
EXERCISE 4: Create a Composite with Playlists 109
Markers and Memory Locations 114
EXERCISE 5: Create and Use Markers and Memory Locations 114
The Secret to Doubling 118
EXERCISE 6: Try Out Doubling 118
Wrap Up 123

5: USING PLUG-INS 124
Two Types of Plug-Ins 125
The Anatomy of an EQ 126
EXERCISE 1: Add a 1-Band EQ 127
EXERCISE 2: Repair the Snare 132
EXERCISE 3: Add More EQ 135
EXERCISE 4: Copy, Mute, and Move Plug-ins 142
Wrap Up 144

6: INSERTS & BUSSES 146
EXERCISE 1: Use a Reverb as an Insert (the Wrong Way) 147
EXERCISE 2: Use Reverb on a Bus (the Right Way) 153
EXERCISE 3: Remove Inserts and Sends 158
EXERCISE 4: Name Your Busses 160
EXERCISE 5: Use a Delay 164
EXERCISE 6: Use Solo Safe 170
Compression 172
EXERCISE 7: Tackle the Compression Plug-in 173
Wrap Up 179

7: MIDI TRACKS 110
EXERCISE 1: Download and Install SampleTank Free 181
EXERCISE 2: Download SampleTank Sounds 187
What Is SampleTank? 190
About Virtual Instruments 191
EXERCISE 3: Testing MIDI, 1 2 3 191
EXERCISE 4: Authorize SampleTank 194
EXERCISE 5: SampleTank and Instrument Tracks 197
EXERCISE 6: Record Multiple MIDI Tracks 202
EXERCISE 7: Record a Bass Line 209
Wrap Up 215

8: MORE ON MIDI 216
EXERCISE 1: Set Up a Keyboard Track 217
EXERCISE 2: Change the Song Start Time and Create a Count-Off 219
EXERCISE 3: Adjust Real-lime Properties 222
EXERCISE 4: Edit MIDI Properties Manually 226
EXERCISE 5: Work with Region Groups and Transposing 231
EXERCISE 6: Work with Mix and Edit Groups 235
EXERCISE 7: Use Mirror MIDI Editing 240
EXERCISE 8: Create a Shaker Track with Pencil Tools 243
EXERCISE 9: Use Step Recording 249
EXERCISE 10: Record in MIDI Merge Mode 253
Wrap Up 255

9: ARRANGING A SONG 256
EXERCISE 1: Create the Song's Markers 257
EXERCISE 2: Create a Song Arrangement 263
EXERCISE 3: Hide Tracks and Use Groups 271
EXERCISE 4: Finish Arranging the Song 276
Wrap Up 285

10: TIPS & TOOLS 286
EXERCISE 1: Prepare a New Session 288
EXERCISE 2: Change the Meter and Find the Tempo 292
EXERCISE 3: Change the Tempo 295
EXERCISE 4: Import and Fix More Loops 298
EXERCISE 5: Create Region Groups and Assign Colors 305
EXERCISE 6: Use Shuffle Mode 310
EXERCISE 7: Create Markers in Playback 315
EXERCISE 8: Use Loop Recording 318
EXERCISE 9: Create a Composite with Looped Recording 322
EXERCISE 10: Crossfades, Fades, and Editing Tips 326
EXERCISE 11: Punch In with QuickPunch 330
EXERCISE 12: Using REX Files 333
EXERCISE 13: Create Groups Within Groups 336
EXERCISE 14: Save Copy In 341
EXERCISE 15: Delete Unused Audio 344
Wrap Up 345

11: AUTOMATE & MIX 346
EXERCISE 1: Download and Install the Waves Plug-In 348
EXERCISE 2: Increase Your Hardware Buffer Size 351
EXERCISE 3: Set Up Your Effects 352
EXERCISE 4: Print a MIDI Track to Audio 355
EXERCISE 5: Shift the EP Audio Track 361
EXERCISE 6: Using the SuperTap Delay and Bussing Effects 368
EXERCISE 7: Intro to Automation 379
EXERCISE 8: Use Timeline Insertion 385
EXERCISE 9: Automate Plug-Ins 388
EXERCISE 10: Use AudioSuite Plug-Ins 394
EXERCISE 11: Automate a Send 397
EXERCISE 12: Tidy Up Your Tracks 401
EXERCISE 13: Create a Master Fader 408
EXERCISE 14: Use Mix Bus Compression 409
EXERCISE 15: Bounce to Disk 412
EXERCISE 16: Burn a CD 415
Wrap Up 419

12: EXPORT YOUR SONG 420
Recording Back into Pro Tools vs. Bouncing to Disk 421
EXERCISE 1: Record Back into Pro Tools 422
EXERCISE 2: Punch In on a Mix 425
EXERCISE 3: Consolidate Files 428
EXERCISE 4: Export Regions as Files 432
EXERCISE 5: Create an Instrumental Mix 435
EXERCISE 6: Clear Unused Audio 440
EXERCISE 7: Back Up Your Session 441
EXERCISE 8: Create a Folder for the Mixes 446
EXERCISE 9: Create MP3 Files in Pro Tools 451
EXERCISE 10: Create CDs and MP3 Files with iTunes 457
EXERCISE 11: Create a Stem Session 466
EXERCISE 12: Import Tracks from a Pro 481
Tools Session
Compressing Your Session Folder 486
Mac Users 487
Windows Users 488
All Together Now 488
A Little Spring Cleaning 489
Congratulations... 489

Best for Pro Tools...
If you like tutorials, (and why wouldn't you for learning material?), and you're new to Pro Tools (and there are a LOT of new users out there with the release of M-Powered Pro Tools), then this is THE book to own. Trust me, I've read them all. Gina's book goes a HUGE way in giving the user the confidence and skills to handle all but the most advanced in Pro Tools techniques. Honestly, Pro Tools is probably the easiest DAW out there (when compared to Logic Pro, Cubase, Live, Digital Performer, etc...) to master, but it amazed me to read so many books on Pro Tools written by authors who just could not write a cohesive text that truly served to educate the reader--so many seemed like English 101 plagiarisms of Digidesign's Manual rewritten just enough to perhaps fool the instructor! To prevent embarassment for other authors, I won't list them here, but just suffice it to say that if it isn't written by Fant-Saez or isn't the Digidesign 101 book, then it ain't too good unless it is deemed a "reference" book.

I won't go into detail about the contents of this book, as that has already been done by other reviewers. This book has a pleasant style, well thought out tutorials, great graphics, and goes beyond the call of duty into the "intermediate user" territory towards the end. A highly valuable resource!

That said, I have to disagree in a big way with some of Gina's editorial about Production techniques. From the beginning, she says to ONLY record with drummers using a click track. In fact, she goes as far to say that if your drummer will not play to a click, then get a new drummer! I think that this advice is ludicrous. She also claims that over 90% of production today is done to a click track! Maybe electronic music...but NOT rock n' roll, baby! Not at all. Ask Matt Cameron, the Rolling Stones, Ringo Starr, AC/DC, Jet, etc... what they think about click tracks...it has been documented in texts by engineers and others that these guys/girls DO NOT use click tracks...I just hope that her statements in this book do not kill someone's idea or dream of drumming just because they choose to be "organic" and to have a sound that "lives and breathes" instead of rigidly following some synthetic crystal-controlled machine...

Off of soapbox now, I can highly recommend this book!

Ease of learning, low frustration level
I was in the music business up until about 15 years ago. I had my own analog recording studio, and wrote and recorded many songs with other artists. Now I have recently decided to get back into it, and have discovered quite a learning curve with Pro Tools, midi, drum plug-ins, and keyboard capabilities all at once. But that's a longer story....

I have read the ProTools manual (all 700 pages), reviewed DVD tutorials, read the ProTools 101 course manual, but nowhere could I find anything that presented a learning process step-by-step that acquainted me with how to do the things I wanted to accomplish without assuming I already knew what they were talking about. But Gina's book gives me that information, shows me each screen pictorially, and moves at a pace that makes sure I understand before moving to the next step. It is far more educational than the dry presentations in technical jargon the other sources gave me. I strongly recommend this book as a straightforward ease to your mounting frustration in tackling the learning curve.