Pro Tools Sends

[peritus]

Can anyone point me to a good pictorial of Pro Tools sends? I swear this book I bought is half worthless...

 

[LeeRosario]

nevermind the pictorials, what do you want to know?

 

[peritus]

Okay... I wanna select a send (either in the input or output of the strip)... The whole submenu is greyed out for bus.... I never used sends before now.. But what I want to do is compress the higher pitched percussiion together using one plugin.... (Each one is on a separate AUX track coming from Reason)

 

[bennychico11]

so it doesn't allow you to assign a bus?
it may be your I/O setup is messed up. Try going to Setups-->I/O Setup and then click on the tab for busses. At the bottom you can press "delete" to remove the current setup and then hit default to load the default for your interface (I hope that makes sense, I don't have PT in front of me). Press okay, and then it should work.
Select a send for bus 1...then create an aux track (or audio track) and make it's input bus 1.

 

[peritus]

so it doesn't allow you to assign a bus?
it may be your I/O setup is messed up. Try going to Setups-->I/O Setup and then click on the tab for busses. At the bottom you can press "delete" to remove the current setup and then hit default to load the default for your interface (I hope that makes sense, I don't have PT in front of me). Press okay, and then it should work.
Select a send for bus 1...then create an aux track (or audio track) and make it's input bus 1.

Yeah. That does make sense.... Never thought of the I/O menu (I'm such a newbie @ PT.. lol)... When I get home in the morning I'll take a look..

Thanks you guys!

 

[LeeRosario]

Okay... I wanna select a send (either in the input or output of the strip)... The whole submenu is greyed out for bus.... I never used sends before now.. But what I want to do is compress the higher pitched percussiion together using one plugin.... (Each one is on a separate AUX track coming from Reason)

Yeah, Bennychico gave you good "before you get started" advice. Just a way to make sure you clear out any conflicted I/O settings that you may have picked up from another session or anything (which happens all the time).


What I want to know first, what is your set up exactly?

I understand that you have two aux tracks running reason, one hi and one lo percussion. You want to compress them, but you want to use a send to do that? Or do you want to create a subgroup?


Because those are two different things. If you've got a bunch of tracks going to outputs 1-2, but you want to buss them together to do group compression, then it takes just some simple routing.

Now, if you look at Pro Tools channels strips, it's wicked easy to break it down. Almost like you would an analog console. Digidesign just took the liberty to modify the usual format a little.

A quick crash course, from top to bottom (going from memory):

You have your insert section in light grey, your aux sends in dark grey (extended if working in TDM, HD or PT7), then your I/O section. I/O is short for Input/Output.

So everytime you see the term "I/O", you know that's going to involve incomming signals and outbound signals.

Pretty close to analog, but missing items you would see on a normal console. Or not nessessarly missing, just using in conjunction with the outboard M-Box, 002 and plug-ins. Which at a nominal fee, they would be glad to send you.


On a typical analog recording console channel strip:

-Pad
-Phantom power 48volts
-Preamps
-Mic trim

-Then your mic/line switch which selects between XLR and 1/4 inch.

-Phase switch (polarity reverse)
-Filters meaning (High Pass and/or Low Pass)

-EQ section

-Then on to your insert, auxes, panning, routing matrix and all that good stuff. For this explination (which is important), also it's output section. Meaning that on medium to large format consoles, you have what we call a Routing Matrix .

This will create your subgroups, or assign direct to your stereo outputs.

Not too hard to understand, because I explained it in lamen terms. I didn't explain the one that has over 200 points. Thats what we call "standard" signal flow. It's the way all manufacturers will reference the creation of thier software and console panels.

When you understand signal flow, then you can conquer just about any console and/or imitation of a console layout (aka DAWs).

Look at the similarities when compared to a home PT system. All digidesign did was omit certain things to be used as plugs (money based desisions), and/or rearranged them according to thier tastes (using an 002 rack as an example):

-Your pad is not included in the set up. Unless you buy outboard preamps with a pad on them.

-Phatom power included, just like a console

-Channels 1-4 have digidesigns "Class B" pres. 5-8 as well as the ADAT channels, they leave it up to you to mix and match.

-Mic trim is the 4 lovely little knobs you find on the front panel of the 002 rack. Just like the gain knob on a console.

-Then you have your Mic/Line switch on the front panel. Again like a console.

-Phase. This is what I'm sore about on the 002. They don't include it, but if you manage to purchase something like Waves R Channel, you get those powers back.

-Digidesign was nice enough to include a HP filter. But if you think about it, technically you don't need it if you have good EQ plug-ins.

-Then your output section: They don't include a routing matrix like a traditional console, so I beleive this is where your situation lies.

That includes your panning, your input assign (for example, in protools, something like Mic/Line 1-2 for the first stereo track you create), and your output assign which should be your standard 1-2). Odd numbers always being Left and even numbers always being Right. Your faders are one of the last on the list (asside from your volume/latency/peak metering which is the black square), but faders are actually routed pre-inserts, post preamp. Meaning that you can cut signal with your faders on everything before your inserts in pro tools.

Not too far from analog console signal flow.


Now for the help:

If you created instrument files using Reason on Aux tracks, then we are concerned with it's output section, assuming you just want to group these together?

We can create another stereo aux track to be used as a group channel. Then we give it bus input 15-16 (or whatever you prefer) on the input section. Meaning the top block above the output section.

It's output will stay as 1-2, so lets no mess with that. So once that's assigned:


We can group the percussion section by selecting all the percussion reason aux tracks using control-G and give it a name. Then you want to assign it's outputs to the input of your Percussion Buss. So it's output would be, Bus 15-16.

If you play the tracks then, they should appear on the buss. If you want to compress only certain portions of that percussion group, then you would have to create a few more stereo Aux tracks for those groups.


So for example,


Percussion Hi can be routed to Bus 15-16 with outputs to 1-2 or yet another track which can be used to bring this seperations together.

Percussion Lo can be routed to Bus 13-14 with outputs to 1-2 or yet another buss track.

And so on and so forth. You just need a sufficent number of open busses to do this.

And don't forget to factor in the stereo aux tracks you need for your reverbs, delays, pitch shift, chorus or whatever you use for mixing. These also rely on buss channels.

Of course, I don't know exactly what you're trying to do, so if this helped you out, then good stuff. If not, please elaborate on how you have your tracks set up. It's not hard, it's really easy to understand.

Cheers.

 

[peritus]

Okay... I understand what you're saying... I haven't had a chance to sit down at home to fix the first problem... I definately get the concepts, though....

So... Since I can't be at the helm right now.. I'll try to describe my normal and most basic track-setup process as explicitly as I can (even though the main subject probably doesn't warrant it.. Oh well )...

I've posted elsewhere about the topic, but a few things have been revised or changed (for better or worse).... I'm getting more and more confident with PT so I start from that end now-a-days....

Open PT

Create a randomly-named session

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Most of my tracks are built on a percussion foundation so....

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Create 1 stereo aux track

Rename it, "Drum 1"

Copy the string, "Drum "

Set the fader to 0 dbFS

Add Reason's plug-in to Insert 1

Set it to ReWire channel 33-34

Set the track input to none...

Replicate the track 9 times.

To rename the 9 tracks quickly, double click on the track name of each one and hit Ctrl+V and then type the number (in sequence)(i.e. "Drum 2", "Drum 3", etc).

Set each of the 9 tracks' Reason ReWire channels, based on the following.

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I do not use mixers [or Redrum for mixing] in Reason. They sound sub-par [compared to PT mixing] to me [Not to mention the inability to do single instrument processing in PT]. Everything is directly routed to a ReWire output.

I dunno bout you guys, but I get tired of "wires", in Reason, running random places. To solve this, I have chosen a routing "scheme".

Stereo instruments (except for ReDrum/DrRex instruments) are routed to the top left part of the "block".

Mono instruments are routed to the top right.

I usually limit my use of ReDrum(s) to 1, tops. ReDrum 1 occupies ReWires 33-52.

Any DrRex's are routed to the bottom right.

Some of this will make sense to you. For example, if I used the top row for all 10 drums, I would have a hard time seeing the routes directly below the top row. Less clutter and more standardization is the goal... More on the 10 drums idea coming up...

All drums, in my mind, should be routed into PT, WHILE THE TRACK IS IN DEVELOPMENT. I usually take the time, towards the end of production to "weed out" the extra PT Aux tracks. However, I leave the routing scheme IN REASON intact, just in case I choose to revise the arrangement. If I understand Reason correctly, a routed device doesn't consume more CPU than a device without "wires"...

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Create any other required channels, as needed, using the same scheme. After/during composition, follow the basic level guidelines detailed in this thread.

The rest really is beyond the scope of this thread...

Thoughts?

Please understand that I am trying to build a track loosely-using the guidlines above.

When I refer to higher pitched percussion instruments being compressed together, I would prefer to do it as you described, in PT.

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Example:

Aux Drum 1 > Send, Pre-Fader > Bus A
Aux Drum 2 > Send, Pre-Fadero > Bus A

Bus A > Aux Group 1 > Compression Insert > Out 1-2

I have omitted other things, like the fader to simplify....

Additional input, anyone?

 

[bennychico11]

lol, nice one Lee....straight text book post on signal flow

 

[LeeRosario]

lol, nice one Lee....straight text book post on signal flow

! You love me...you really love me!

Peritus, I think you've got the situation under control. Two thumbs up. I'm keeping my posting short today due to this *wicked* flu from hell. Feels like I have arthritis all over.