From the course: Pro Tools 2021 Essential Training: 110 - Advanced Techniques

Preparing for punch-ins and overdubs - Pro Tools Tutorial

From the course: Pro Tools 2021 Essential Training: 110 - Advanced Techniques

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Preparing for punch-ins and overdubs

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- [Instructor] After you've completed the initial tracking in a session, you'll commonly need to perform additional recording in selected areas to correct mistakes, or to try out different ideas. Pro Tools provides a precise way to handle this. By making a proper selection, and using appropriate pre-roll and post-roll settings, you can create automatic punch points for recording new takes and over-dubs. Here, I'll illustrate the basic principles using a portion of the guitar-1 track in the crash down session. In this part of the track we need to replace a portion of the guitar that wasn't recorded the way I'd like it. So let's take a listen. ♪ All comes 'round again. ♪ ♪ Crash down when it ♪ - [Instructor] So right in this selected area is where we need to punch in. Let's hear it in isolation. (electric guitar strumming) Now, I could try to punch the guitar in and out on the fly, and although that would work, I might miss the punch points. It could also get a bit messy if we need to record multiple takes. Instead, I'll use my selection as the record range. That will insure that I don't accidentally record over material I want to keep, and it will also insure that each record take is the same duration, which can be helpful when it comes to auditioning and selecting takes later on. Now, recording in just a short area like this can be difficult and unnatural for musicians. It helps for them to hear the music leading into and out of the punch points. Pro Tools makes this possible using pre-roll and post-roll values, which I can set here in the transport window. I've set these each to one bar, so now I'll click to enable them both. Now it will be much easier for the guitarist to hit the mark during recording. ♪ Her heart crash down when it all comes 'round again ♪ ♪ Crash down when it all comes 'round ♪ - [Instructor] So, notice that Pro Tools automatically punched in and out where I have the selection. Also notice, that once you've set your initial pre and post roll values in the transport, you'll see the pre and post roll flags in the rulers, here and here. You can click and drag on the flags to set the pre and post roll positions, which updates the values in the transport window. Lastly you can collapse, or hide, the pre and post roll flags by option-clicking within the edit selection on the track playlist. Option-clicking in the front half of the selection here, will disable the pre roll, and option-clicking in the back half of the selection over here, will disable the post roll. Now, if you're a Windows user you can use the alt-modifier for these actions instead. This same technique works to display and enable the pre and post roll flags. Option-click before the selection to set the pre-roll value, and option-click after the selection to set the post-roll value. Keep in mind that this technique works on the track playlist only, it will not work if you option-click in the rulers. So that's the basic set up you can use to prepare a session for automatic punch recording. Make a selection representing the time range you need to target, set the pre and post roll values to provide a smooth transition in and out of the record range, and use the record-enable button to set the target track. With these conditions met, you'll be ready to record perfect punch record takes, making life easier, both for yourself, and for the in-studio talent.

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