I’ve mentioned numerous times in blog posts and episodes of “Ask Joe” that you need to record at 24-bit. Then I realized that I’ve not written an article specifically on this topic.
When you’re recording digital audio, there are two main settings that you will come across at some point – bit depth and sample rate.
We won’t get into sample rate today. I’ll save that for a future article. To summarize, sample rate measures how many times per second the audio is “sampled,” or measured. Common sample rate values are 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz, 88.2 kHz, 96 kHz, and 192 kHz. Is higher better? Hmm…I have my own take on this, but that’s for another day.
A lot of us home studio owners focus on microphones, preamps, converters, monitors, etc. But what happens if we need a piano part, but we don’t have a piano to record?
Or perhaps we want a drum kit, but we don’t have the equipment to record one ourselves, and we can’t afford to hire out a professional studio?
That’s where MIDI comes in. I’ve talked about MIDI quite a bit here on HSC. I’ve even posted on MIDI Frequently Asked Questions, but I’ve never done a proper overview of it. So here it is!
Here’s an Intro to MIDI video. It’s taken from the Week 3 content of the HSC Production Club. Enjoy!
I’ve recently received a few questions regarding MIDI, and I realized that I haven’t discussed MIDI all that much here on Home Studio Corner. While the majority of articles and videos deal with recording, mixing, productivity, etc., I would imagine most of us will utilize MIDI to some degree in our home studio setups.
Rather than do an exhaustive series of posts on MIDI, I thought it would be helpful to do address some of the most frequently asked questions. After all, if you’ve never used MIDI before, it’s a pretty mysterious new territory.
What does MIDI stand for?
MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface.
Okay, so you’ve got Pro Tools, and you’ve recorded a masterpiece, but how do you get it to a CD or iTunes? That’s where Bounce to Disk comes into play.
In this video, I explain Bounce to Disk and show you how to do it.
If you’re already familiar with bouncing, be sure to come back for the next video. I’ll show you an alternative to Bounce to Disk that I like to use.
Quick quiz: How many track types are there in Pro Tools?
Anyone? The correct answer is five. Surprising, huh? For some reason I had this idea in my head that there were more, but as it turns out, you only need five types of tracks to do pretty much anything in Pro Tools - Audio, MIDI, Instrument, Aux, and Master.
I think it’s a good idea to go over each track type, since there tends to be confusion among newer Pro Tools users as to how each track type is to be utilized
Today I’ve got more basic video on how to create a click track in Pro Tools. As I mentioned in The Importance of Pre-Production, recording your music to a set tempo is a good habit to develop. It may be helpful to read that article first, then watch this video.
Tomorrow I’ll be posting a video about how to get more sounds out of your click track. (Let’s face it, not everyone wants to have a wood block blasting through the headphones.)
Do you use a click track? What advice or tips do you have? Leave a comment.
When you’re getting started with Pro Tools, or any DAW for that matter, the whole idea of inserts and sends can be a bit confusing. If you’re a bit hazy on what these do (and the differences between them), this video should help.
Thanks to Jon, one of my readers, for asking me to cover this!
What are some tricks you’ve come up with with your inserts or sends? Leave a comment for the rest of us!
I’ve mentioned numerous times in blog posts and episodes of “Ask Joe” that you need to record at 24-bit. Then I realized that I’ve not written an article specifically on this topic.
Okay, so you’ve got Pro Tools, and you’ve recorded a masterpiece, but how do you get it to a CD or iTunes? That’s where Bounce to Disk comes into play. 
Quick quiz: How many track types are there in Pro Tools?
