Multi-Platinum Pro Tools [With CDROM]

by Nathan Adam and Brady Barnett

Book Overview

Learn how a real professional uses Pro Tools to make multi-platinum records with this jam-packed, fast-paced guide. Including over 300 color illustrations, Multi-Platinum Pro Tools takes you inside the minds of one of the top Pro Tools engineers in the business, giving you the skills you need to succeed. Using the interactive DVD (featuring a real Nashville recording session) you watch, listen, learn and edit alongside Multi-Platinum and Gold record...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0240520238
• ISBN13: 9780240520230
• Release Date: August 2006
• Publisher: Focal Press
• Length: 308 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 7.6" x 9.8"

Customer Reviews

I haven't stopped reading it since I got it

I would say that it is a very informative book and an easy read. I read over half the book in 3 days. I would recommend this book for all to have in their reference library. It's worth keeping near your Pro Tools rig

Make Your Sessions Sound Professional

Wow! I'm an intermediate PTLE user, and this book blew me away. Now I know what's been missing from my mixes, and what to do about it. This is not a book for beginners, although the initial section on setting Preferences for professional workflow is something I'd never seen covered in any other basic PT book. The authors explain WHY certain preference settings make your life easier or harder, and where certain settings can cause PT to behave in unexpected ways. The other feature for beginners is to show what to aim for in the way of pro quality results. However, the book assumes that the song, arrangement, playing, tracking, and basic mixing (EQ, comp, volume/mutes, panning, etc.) has been done to a reasonable quality level. The material covers the last 10% of tightening the rhythm and fixing any vocal glitches that separate a potential gold-record result from a semi-pro effort. After getting the book, I went into a session I'm doing with some rather complex rhythm parts over a synth drum loop. After "pocketing" the parts, the song now sounds much crisper and more alive, but not mechanical. (NOW I know why I should have recorded the loop to a grid, and driven the synth from PT's clock. Oh well...) My next step will be to clean up the vocals, using the book's suggestions for using Auto Tune. Now I understand why I was always a bit dissatisfied with Auto Tune, even in Graphic mode. Overall, the book is very well written and edited, and covers not just the easy situations but tells you how to handle a number of real-world oddities. Most of the text is accompanied by screen shots (including before / after, where appropriate.) The DVD is also very helpful, and I found myself really understanding material by referring between the text and the DVD.

Finally, some practical information on how to make my recordings sound more professional

I am a songwriter and have a home studio where I demo my songs. Even though I know the mechanics of using pro tools, I was missing the practical knowledge of how to apply all of the nuts and bolts. This book and the other dvds by this same publisher do just that. You are sitting right there next to the engineer with actual raw studio tracks going through the entire post production process. The accomanying DVD/ROM provides you with narration and actual pro tools screen shots so you see and hear what the engineer is doing. This book covers editing and pocketing in extreme detail. I now appreciate pocketing - a term I had heard but never really understood with respect to post production. Now I KNOW how the records I hear sound so insanely tight. There are a lot of tweaks done in post and this book shows you how to do it. The autotuning chapter also is excellent. After so many disappointments with other books that basically rehashed the user's guide this book and all of the other Multi-Platinum Pro Tools products were exactly what I was looking for. They have been my rosetta stone to pro tools. Excellent, excellent, excellent. Get it!

One Of The Few Pro Tools Books Of Value

Being a professional Recording Engineer in the music industry for 23 years and having used Pro Tools for the last 3 years, finally there is a book written that offers some useful and valuable information. Mostly all of the other Pro Tools books are written for beginners and intermediate users. They seem like edited down versions of the Digidesign documentation that already ships with Pro Tools. The most valuable part of the book to me was showing where to separate audio events before time stretching them. You always want to preserve the transient of the sound and the authors have some very good tips on how to best preserve the original piece of audio. Though editing is the tedious process that many hate to do, it many times is the difference between a good recording and a major label quality recording.

Does Everything!

If your a beginner or a pro, this book will still give you more insights to using Pro-Tools. After using this book I know enough to get by, but overall very good book and should be used when using the software.