Until version 8, Pro Tools didn’t offer any effective comping tools to its users. Now, that’s changed, and you can throw out the old convoluted comping workflows and do it this (much easier) way.

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Dealing with sessions that are fairly track-heavy can be a difficult process — even a song with as few as ten tracks gets a little tough to manage. Grouping is a feature of Pro Tools 8 that makes it easier to deal with sections of your project in bulk, saving you time and yielding more accurate results.

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Automation is an important tool for creating polished mixes. You can use it to fix problems, introduce and enhance effects, and to vary the mix levels throughout different sections of a song. If you haven’t learned to use automation in Pro Tools 8, you’re missing out on a lot of functionality.

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Managing your Pro Tools projects is just as important as knowing how to mix them. Without taking the time to learn these skills, you’ll end up with folders that are gigabytes larger than they need to be, confusing sessions that look foreign when you come back to them months later, and you’ll spend ten times as long working on your mixes. Let’s avoid these problems with some techniques I’ve learned during my time with Pro Tools.

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The equalizer is an important piece of audio technology. As one of my Conservatorium tutors once said, when you’re setting up a session, adding an EQ as the first insert is almost as essential as creating the tracks themselves. Studio audio isn’t about capturing every frequency of every sound: it’s about creating a polished track that highlights the best of each instrument. Let’s take a look at this basic yet widely misunderstood tool, the parametric EQ plug-in.

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It seems that the more elements your drum mix is comprised of, the harder it is to give them impact. With mics on the majority of drums, plus overheads, room mics and even the occasional hallway mic, there are so many different sounds competing with each other, even though together they comprise one instrument. Parallel compression is a really easy way to give some impact to the most important elements of the kit.

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As producing completely ‘in the box’ fast becomes the norm, it’s essential we maximize the potential of our computer set up. Of course, improving our computer hardware and investing in new sample libraries is one way to do this—but another is to seamlessly wire together our applications using Rewire.

Rewire is often underestimated and in many cases goes unused. Using Rewire correctly can actually expand your sound palette, avoid unnecessary rendering and even add extra processing tools to your DAW. Let’s take a look at how Rewire works, some of its history and a few situations we can use it in.

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The upgrade to Pro Tools 8 includes many exciting enhancements, new features and plug-ins that add up to make music production easier than ever. Let’s take a look at the power behind some of the best new features. Continue Reading

Compression is one of those studio processes that is all too often taken for granted and not used to its full potential. Today’s producers think nothing of inserting compressors on every single channel of their DAW when mixing, but old school engineers had to learn to make the most of only a few units of compression—and this made us learn them inside out.

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Knowing how to use an equalizer is a fundamental skill for anyone working with audio, yet it is one of the most abused. Here are some tips and tricks for using your EQ more effectively. You’ll notice there are more don’ts than dos on this list; that’s because EQ is best when used in moderation.

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