Pro Tools 101 | Adding Automation Edit Points to Volume, Panning, and Mute lines

Automation in music is the real distinction between a professional sound and an amateur sound. Knowing how to properly adjust your automation lines takes time and practice. I've created a tutorial video to help you get started. This is a basic Pro Tools 101 video for audio production beginners. However, I usually learn something new from every video that I watch, so this may be a good place to start for everyone that wants to know more about using automation in Pro Tools.

You can also check out my YouTube channel and find many other helpful videos on how to record, mix, master, and produce in Pro Tools. 

Mixing without plugins

How many of your mixes have plugins strewn across each and every channel? I'm going to guess almost all of them or at least a good portion of them. Are you relying on the plugins to make your recordings sound better? Have you ever tried to mix with just panning and volume adjustments?

Today's modern engineer has become too dependent on digital enhancements of recordings. Things like proper mic placement and quality mic preamps have been replaced with software that constantly needs to be upgraded. Thus, music is loosing the ambiance and mood of the performance that was captured in the studio. Lush layering techniques are being replaced with copy & paste keyboard commands.

I pose this challenge to all engineers that are mixing with a DAW; make a rough mix of your recordings with no plugins just so you can hear the naked truth about your mics, mic placement, and room reflections. Mastering what mic to use and where to place it to capture the best sound will exalt your recordings to unparalleled quality. Musicians will flock to you once you've learned how to capture the purity of sound and translate it in to timeless recordings. If you are using plugins like training wheels on a bike, it's time to grow up and learn how to balance your mixes with knowledge and experience.

View more articles on our site: http://shineonstudio.com

Avid HD Omni

AVID HD OMNI 

Shine On Studios is proud to announce the addition of the AVID HD OMNI system to our studio. This top-of-the-line HD interface for Pro Tools HD offers pristine A/D & D/A conversion with two high-end mic pre-amps. Paired with our 96 i/o, we now offer 20 channels of HD recording!

The studio is sounding better than ever. Tracks are clean and punchy! The clarity is amazing and Pro Tools 10HD offers our engineers so many ways to enhance and mix tracks. Everything from Elastic Audio to extremely low latency, gives every track produced at the studio that professional touch that makes them shine! 

 

Kevin Barnard recently recorded some tracks from his upcoming album and the acoustic guitar has so much emotion and life in it. The album will be completely mixed in Pro Tools 10HD and will be our first full-length album to feature the impressive quality of this HD system. Kevin has some teaser tracks up on his Reverbnation page.