The Watering Hole

All right, anyone interested in a Pro Tools demo session, I've put one up.  This one is somewhat short and somewhat simple, because Pro Tools sessions are huge!  Even with a bunch of things stripped out, it's 200 MB RAR'ed.  

Before you download and play this session, I highly recommend that you download and install the freesound bundle from Soundhack, at http://www.soundhack.com/freeware.php . I use their Compand plugin frequently.  Also, if you have the VST-to-RTAS wrapper, I use a couple of other free VST plugins in this file: Kjaerhus' Classic Chorus, BuzMaxi3, Ambience, and Blockfish.  In some instances, I've thrown on Digi plugins (bypassed) to substitute if you don't have a plugin I am using.

I decided to upload this session because it has a good mix of elements... electronic sounds (exported from FLStudio), multi-miced guitars (57 and ribbon), two very different room mics on the drums (a ribbon and an LD condenser), and two stereo auxes--one that provides chorus for a guitar line during the chorus, and the other that provides reverb for a few tracks.  There are some simple tricks in here, like sending a bus from an aux to another aux... but it's pretty simple overall.

Enjoy!

sweetness (old drums version)

Thanks for putting that together.  I'll pull it down and check it out when I get home later today.

Excellent Charger. I'll download that in a bit and have a play with it.

Interesting.  That gives a good overview of how things fit together. Surprisingly, (or not) it is pretty much how I am mixing etc now that I have a handle on things.  It is odd that Pro Tools on first use is not intuitive at all, however after only 2 days of using it I am finding that Pro Tools is actually much easier to use than Sonar. It also has far superior sound quality, it IS rock solid, no glitches at all even with lots of plugins running, and best of all I can use pristine space "live" so that I record the guitar dry, but can hear the reverb "live" from pristine space, all without any glitches at all. Absolutely marvellous. It's what I've been looking for, for a very long time.  I can't believe what I've been missing by using Reaper and Sonar (especially Reaper, the depth of sound, dynamics and detail just isn't there in Reaper.)

I tried to tell ya.  If you were closer. I would have twisted your arm. :D

DM — Aug 30, 2008I tried to tell ya.  If you were closer. I would have twisted your arm. :D

You did, and I am forever in your debt  :)

I'm familiar with all of the Plug-ins Charger mentioned except for "ambience".  Is that the Smartelectronix Ambience?

Nice Demo, Charger.  I'm sure I have heard this before.  Couple of Questions.

1.  What is that "BLIP"?  I solo'ed and it sounds cool.  Sits in the mix well.  Kind of a cool addition with the Rhodes.

2.  What is the "Inspector" Plug?  I'm not familiar with it and since I don't have it, I was curious of its use at the end of the Master Bus.  I deactivated the Buzmaxi3 on the Master and used the McDSP ML4000 Master Limiter.  I'll post the bounce hear so you can hear it.  Kind of goes with the Master Limiter thread, only I wasn't around for that.

3.  What do you call it when the faders move in like that, and how do you set that up?  Give me some terminology to look for in My PT book and I'll hunt it up.

I didn't have, well I do, but they won't run in 7.4, the McDSP Plugs that you used on the Kick and Snare so I used the McDSP Project Studio CB4 and FBE4 presets for snare and Kick.  I just tried to set the volume to match the other drums.

It was also cool to see your Effects Busses.  I'll have to dig into those to see the routing.  I do something similar, but not quite the same.

Thanks for posting that up.  It was cool to see how you are loading it up.

Oh, you must download Inspector. I believe it;s free, it was made by Elemantal Audio, who is now owned by Roger Nichols.  Get it here:

http://www.rndigital.org/inspector.html

The blip synth is a vst synth called Rez, and I believe I am using the preset Bell Drone.  The guy who makes this synth makes a couple others: Motion, Texture, Rez, and String Theory. All free, all really excellent.

The moving faders is "automation" and it's the greatest thing ever about a digital system, so ready up on it.  To see my volume automation, you can look at any of the automated tracks (I think it's on the drums in the beginning) and change the view from Waveform to Volume.

Thanks for this Charger, I'm in the process of downloading it now.

Hey Charger.  I downloaded that Inspector Plug.  I'll have to read up on it a bit but I get the basic gist of what it is.  They have a new version 1.3.  It wouldn't load the plug-in, I guess because the one you used was an older version.  So, I just selected it from my Effects rack.

I also looked at the drum tracks automation.  I switched it to volume and I could see what was done.  Basically a fade in without affecting the original audio.  Easy to change the length and such without being destructive.  Awesome.  I will read up on the particulars, but it looked like you have a few things checked in the options tab to go along with it.

Cinvala's no idea what I'm doing embarassing Q1: the plug ins that I downloaded, where do I put them? Is there a specific folder for them, should they go on the system drive or my protools audio drive?

The ones that have an RTAS install should be automatically placed in a Digi folder for plug-ins.  If it's a VST, It needs to go into a VST file where you store your VST's.  You may already have one from a previous DAW.  I Made one Labeled VST (imagine) and have it on my C: Drive.  It sets by itself and is easy to find.  Now these VST's need to be wrapped with a wrapper so that they'll work in PT.  Do you have the wrapper?  Any Trojan will do. :D

Thanks
I haven't had a DAW before, so I think this will all be above me, I need to get into the basics first.
Charger, can these threads be stickied or put them into their own  group so that they can be found later, when I have a bit of a better idea of what I'm doing.

It's not above you, It's just new.  I'm sending you a PM.