Countoff in Pro Tools

 

This blog is part of our new series of tutorials based on Avid’s flagship Digital Audio Workstation, Pro Tools. In this blog, we will learn about Countoff in Pro Tools.

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Overview of the Countoff in Pro Tools

Have you ever been in a situation in which you are recording at song in which the whole band starts playing from bar 1?

You press play and BOOM! The whole band, drums, bass, guitars, vocals, all doing their thing from the start?

Well, have you ever thought about how do they sync to a tempo before the recording starts, considering they start playing from bar 1?

The answer is Countoff!

Yes, the countoff is simply an amount of click bars that playback prior to the recording starts.

So, if you set your countoff to two bars and press record, you will hear the click for two bars and then it will start recording.

This click playing back before the recording, will help you get a feel of the tempo so when you start tracking you are perfectly synced.

Let’s see how it works!

 

 

1. Open or create a new Pro Tools session:

 

 

2. From the top menu window, click on Setup -> Click/Countoff:

 

The Click/Countoff window will open as:

 

 

3. Locate at the bottom part of this window:

 

This part controls the Countoff.

By default, the countoff only happens during record, and it has a length of two bars.

We can leave this as it currently is.

 

4. Open the Transport Bar:

 

Locate the right part of this bar:

 

This area controls the countoff.

You can turn the Countoff ON/OFF by simply clicking on the word “Count Off”.

Right now it is OFF because it appears to be dark green.

 

 

5. Turn ON the Countoff by clicking on it:

The function will appear on light green now, indicating it is ON.

 

 

6. Locate the playback at the start of the timeline:

 

 

7. Start recording any of the tracks now:

As it can be seen, the click starts happening, but no recording yet.

 

 

Once the two bars of click happen, the recording starts:

 

 

As expected, the Countoff played two bars of Click and then the recording started!

And that is it!

At this point, we have successfully explained an overview of the Countoff in Pro Tools.

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