This week there was a two part written/lab test on terms and Protools. Some terms we were responsible for knowing were Sample Rate, which is the number of times per second the audio signal is sampled, a few options are 44.1K and 48K. Bit depth is a number of how many chunks the audio is sampled into. The lab portion of the test consisted of setting up the MIDI/AUX/AUDIO track matrix and recording some midi to audio. Then we were to step input a scale with the midi controller. There was a creative mix part of the assignment to rearrange the original track, add effects, and play with different software instruments. We listened to these in class and there were some good and interesting remixes. A couple of them sounded like a ton of random, non-musical tones. Some important things to be aware of when composing your own piece are to use some repetition and references. We as humans are interested in patterns and familiarity. I see a big difference between repetition and monotony are two different characteristics of music. You can have repetition without monotony, and it takes making slight differences in the loops to give spice but keep familiarity. My final remix ended up being very different, completely different than the original - chord progressions and all, but I found myself on a creative kick and just had some musical ideas in my head that I needed to record. Being a drummer, I was thinking of a simple groove in 4/4 using only a kick, snare, and hi hat. I recorded it by playing the midi-controller with my hands and using the BOOM instrument plug-in on protools for a tight, electronic sounding kit. I looped this groove, loaded an instrument track with piano, and began playing to it. I started in c minor like the original composition did, but went to the b7 instead of the ii chord. I soon found a melody that I really liked so I laid that down and in listening to the mix, thought of what other instruments I could bring in to benefit the overall jam. There wasn’t any bass yet, and listening to the beat against the piano, I added a 16th note pulsing bass synth sound to make the music feel like its moving rhythmically and give it some bottom end. I used the digital Vacuum tube plug-in, activated the LFO cut off parameter and synced it to a 16th note value. Now that I had the rhythm section in place and a nice single melody on top, it still needed to be filled out so I added a spacey warped strings patch to give a constant ambiance. I arpeggiated the same chord tones that I was using for the melody, and backed off the attack in sound envelope editor so it created a swell, and a I put a flanger on it. I played all of these parts, recording live, without quantize on. Then I went into the piano editor and made any necessary corrections. I like doing things in layers, and subdividing beats to give one 4 bar loop many different feels. Another in class assignment this week was to record a simple drum beat at 100bpm and an a minor scale played melodically on the piano. Then we were to record ourselves singing along to the scale, saying a-b-c-d-e-f-g along with it. After getting that recorded, we grouped together the two tracks because we needed to section out the different letters and piano we recorded. We rearranged them into the C major scale c-d-e-f-g-a-b, and then into a-c-e-g-b-d-f-c, and d-f-a-g-b-d-c. Then we into AUDIOSUITE > pitch shift. We doubled the vocal track and started to pitch the notes. We did a minor 3rd up and a dimished 5th up on a third track, creating a diminished chord. We then played with reversing the sound in the audiosuite’s other section.

MIDI and Instrument Tracks

Here’s a little info on the menus at the top of pro tools. The FILE menu allows you to create new sessions or load new templates. You can save your sessions, copies of your session, and quitting the program. Importing files is another valuable selection under file. In EDIT you can copy and paste information but it is much better to learn the quick keys. The VIEW menu lets you select what control windows you want to see. You can also view the number of tracks displayed. The TRACKS menu lets you creak and edit tracks, click tracks, instrument tracks. In REGION you can loop, group, rename, use elastic audio properties. EVENT is for all MIDI editing and functions. AUDIOSUITE has all the dynamics and effects processing. OPTIONS lets you select play and record modes. Setup is for hardware and software settings, and the WINDOW menu allows you to bring up different editing windows with the use of key commands and edit the way your transport window looks. They are really important to ensure an efficient workflow. There are a few ways to get MIDI into protools, and have midi tracks as well as audio tracks that were recorded from MIDI. Create 3 tracks in a new session, a MIDI track, aux track, and audio track. On the inserts section of the aux track pick a drum machine instrument plug in. Aux tracks do not generate audio or midi. They are simply a way to route audio to any designation. Instead of setting up the 3 tracks, a single instrument track will do. It can send and receive audio on the same channel and has the ability to route like an audio channel with sends. Set the input on MIDI track to the appropriate instrument. Send the aux track via bus 1 to the audio track and change the audio track’s input to bus 1. Make another set of tracks and put a piano on this time. Record enable the drum track and find the sample you want to use. I recorded a beat earlier this week with just a simple kick snare and hi hat pattern. I could have used Step input, but I didn’t. That would have taken me a little longer, because when I hear beats in my head it is much easier for me to play them than to notate them. I am much more a performer than a composer, but I enjoy both. Its great to compose what I perform! The channel strips in proTools have 10 inserts, 10 sends, an input/output selector, and panning muting soloing, and a fader. On the transport there is a cool wait for note button that if engaged will start recording right as the controller has been pressed. Pro tools also has many templates for different styles of music already set up to save time when creating an ideal session. Ins outs and sends are set up. Name all your tracks when you set up a session to keep things clear and locatable. Quantizing after recording and during recording are both options. Quantize snaps the midi information to grid, and it produces a more perfect sonic rhythm. Looping playback while recording and enabling MIDI merge is good to do when you want to record single parts at a time and go back and record another layer. The key command Option3 allows you to Input Quantize, where you can enable quantize in record mode. Make sure you choose the correct destination track, because you don’t want to quantize on the wrong track in the wrong value. The first assignment of the week was to turn a notated drum groove and piano chord progression into a midi session. I used the same process as I did to make my own little piece of music while working in the lab. It was a 28 measure piece, with a repeat of measures 5-16. We decided to record the drum parts all at the same time and the piano after. We did quantize while we recorded and it pretty much came out locked in the first time around.

Anatomy of an Mbox Interface

Lets go over the surface anatomy of a two analogue channel, ProTools LE Mbox. A green LED indicates that the Mbox is on. It is powered via USB and plugs directly into the computer. There is a ¼ inch stereo headphone jack that uses a TRS connection. On a standard ¼ inch jack, there is a tip, two rings, and a sleeve that make up this adaptor. There are 5 knobs on the front of this INTERFACE. One controls the volume of the headphones. Another controls the monitoring system such as a set of speakers or a PA. The third is a MIX dial, and it has variable control between audio that is being recorded, and audio that is already recorded and in the mix. By turning the dial all the way to one side, we hear only what is being recorded. When it is dialed all the way to the other side, we only hear the mix, and not what is currently being tracked. You can blend the two audio signals as well, getting a mix of both while recording, if necessary. There is a MONO button that you can toggle to hear a mono or stereo mix. This is a nice way to check for phasing in your mix. Another button is 48V, or phantom power. There are 3 different types of microphones: Dynamic, Condenser, and Ribbon microphones. Dynamic mics do not need phantom power, but are not harmed if it is enabled. Condenser mics always need phantom power, because they use an uncharged coil inside the capsule. Ribbon mics do not need phantom power, however some can be destroyed if they are given the 48V charge, because these are very sensitive microphones. Another knob on the front of this interface is a gain stage, and controls the amount of input received by channel 1. For a very high input that is clipping with the indication of the red PEAK LED, pushing in the button that says PAD will attenuate the overall gain by -20dB. A button for selecting DI (direct input/injection) or mic is also there. DI would be an electric guitar or bass, or electric keyboards. The mic setting is for just about any kind of microphone. On the back of the Mbox interface, there is a female XLR input for each of the 2 channels available to record on simultaneously. There are also ¼ DI and Line inputs for both channels. Two ¼ monitor outs for a right and left speaker, and a digital input (S/PDIF) for digital information. There is a MIDI input/output section for a MIDI controller to send and receive digital information as well. MIDI is not audio, and doesn’t actually become audio until it comes out of the speakers, and at that point it can’t even be called MIDI anymore. To get the first signal through the interface and talking to ProTools, set up a new session and create a mono audio track. In the insert section of the virtual channel strip and select the menus plug-in – other – signal generator. Select from the various waveforms for any tone, just to make sure audio is coming out of the headphones. On the I/O section of the channel strip, select input 1 for the audio INPUT path selector. Remove the insert from the channel strip. Plug a microphone into channel 1 and arm the track with the red R button on the channel strip. Record some audio onto the track. Create a second track and make sure input and record enable are set. Record another bit of audio. Now pan both tracks opposite ways and take a listen in the headphones. Toggle the MONO button to hear the mono/stereo effect. Let’s get MIDI into ProTools. Create a MIDI track and a stereo aux track. On the aux track, in the inserts section select: Instrument – piano. Set the input on the aux channel to the correct setting, and see if the MIDI controller is talking to ProTools.