Pro Tools Tracks: Audio Track

 

This blog is part of our new series of tutorials based on Avid’s flagship Digital Audio Workstation, Pro Tools. On the following tutorials, we’ll cover the basic track types included in Pro Tools.

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Getting started with how to create and configure an audio track in Pro Tools

Once you start a new Pro Tools session, you will need to create tracks where audio, MIDI and video material will be recorded and/or played-back from.

Pro Tools presents several types of tracks that you can create and today we will focus on the Audio Track.

Audio tracks store digital audio information that you can record or simply import from your hard drive. The digital audio can then be reproduced so you can listen using your speakers or headphones.

 

 

1. Create or open an existing Pro Tools session:

 

 

2. From the top menu click on: Track -> New:

 

 

The “New Tracks” window will open as:

 

 

The “New Tracks” window has the following options:

• Create: This field lets you type the amount of tracks that will be created.
• Channels: This drop-down list lets you choose between options such as mono, stereo, LCR, Quad, etc.
• Type: This drop-down list lets you choose between track types such as audio, MIDI, instrument, etc.
• Samples/Ticks: This drop-down list lets you choose between sample-based tracks and tick-based tracks.
• Name: This field lets you type the track name.

 

For the purpose of this tutorial we will create a new mono audio track, that you could use to record a vocal, a guitar, bass, or any single mono source.

 

 

3. Apply the following configurations to your “New Tracks” window:

• Create: 1.
• Channels: Mono.
• Type: Audio.
• Samples/Ticks: Samples.
• Name: Bass.

 

 

4. Press “Create”:

 

 

The audio track will be created as:

 

 

Now we must configure the inputs and outputs of the audio track.

 

 

5. Open the mix window by clicking on the top menu bar: Window -> Mix

 

 

The mix window will open as:

 

 

Zooming into the inputs/outputs:

 

 

6. We can set the input to “INPUT 1” by clicking on the current input and selecting “INPUT 1” from the list. Input 1 is where the bass is connected.

 

 

After we click on “INPUT 1”, this setting will be applied as:

 

 

7. We can now set the outputs to “Out 1-2” by clicking on the current output and selecting “Out 1-2” from the list. Out 1-2 is where the studio monitors are connected.

 

 

After we click on “Out 1-2”, this setting will be applied as:

 

 

At this point we have successfully explained how to create and configure an audio track in Pro Tools.

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