How to Record using Playlists in Pro Tools
This blog is part of our new series of tutorials based on Avid’s flagship Digital Audio Workstation, Pro Tools.
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Getting started with how to Record using Playlists in Pro Tools
Pro Tools is a software that lets you produce, record, edit and mix audio as well as MIDI performances.
When we are recording instruments, chances are we will need to record more than one take for each part, especially because we as musicians tend to interpret our instrument differently every time.
Pro Tools lets us record different “takes” of each part on the same track using “Playlists”.
Playlists store different takes that you can switch between in order to select the one you like the most.
Today we will learn how to record different takes on a single track using Playlists.
- Create or Open an existing Pro Tools session. Make sure it contains a least one audio track:
2. Locate on the audio track you are going to record:
3. From the arrow located to the right of the track name, click on: “New”:
The new playlist window will appear as:
4. Name your playlist or leave the name as default and press OK:
The program will create the new playlist with the associated name as:
5. You can now proceed to record your take on this new playlist labeled as “Guitar.01” in this case:
Suppose you now want to record a second take of this performance because you want to “try” another interpretation for the same line…
You will need to create another playlist, and record again!
6. Create another playlist following steps #3 and #4:
7. Record your new take on this playlist:
So now you have a second interpretation (second recording) of the same line on a different playlist, in this case labeled as “Guitar.02”
You can now switch between these playlists in order to pick your favorite by simply clicking on the arrow located to the right of the name of the track and the playlist selector will show as:
It is easy to see how the “Guitar.02” playlist is the one selected and active. If you click on “Guitar.01” then this playlist will be selected and activated.
You can repeat this process and record as many takes as you wish in order to obtain different interpretations on the same track that you can later use to pick the best of each.
This is the “beauty” of working with playlists, you can record different takes of the same instrument on the same track!
At this point, we have successfully explained how to record using Playlists in Pro Tools. You can now experiment with this method during your recording sessions.
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