Ok, so I'm pretty new to recording and all that stuff. You'll notice some volume issues, mixing issues and of course, playing issues on this one, but what has me excited is that I just recorded a song and did all the parts on it. Drums, Bass, Guitars and Vocals all through Pro Tools and the Eleven Rack!!

My recording skillz will get better, I hope, but the fact that I don't really need a group to get to this point is awesome!


http://soundcloud.com/chuckst34k/heretic

I'm pretty excited about the 11r. I have ableton live as well and normally would prefer PT to Live, however, Live let's me record @92 sample rate compared to PT's 48 sample rate. Any idea why that is? I might give Live a try and see if that helps with the over all quality of the recording.

Just start a new blank session at 24/96...just set up the inputs to Eleven Rig for recording, Guitar In for your DI's. For reamping just solo a DI track, record enable a Eleven Rig track and set the input on the Eleven Rack window for "Reamp." Remember to change the 11R GUI input back to Guitar after that (I always forget and wonder why there's no sound lol). Give yourself 4 tracks or so and a Stereo Master Fader. Once you get set up, save it as a template that way you can start a new one without any excess audio data from playing around.

Rough around the edges, but at the core there is lots of great stuff happening! Creepy vibe I can get into

Wait..wait...slow down..!! dang..I read this like ELEVENTY times and I still cannot make this work..

I hate being stupid!

yeah, what he said. we could use some numbers or spaces to break that up TLTD. forgive the mad genius guys....he just thinks at a faster rate than most of us.

i gave up on protools after a couple tries 2 years ago because the sound would disappear. lol.

lol let's see...

1- Create Blank Session

2- Click up top "Track" then "New" and make some stereo tracks (or mono)...you can put the number of tracks then click the "+" and add another type of track like "Master Fader" (that will give you the levels of all the tracks together so you need that).

3-Click the record button on a track to light it up red, then you can either hit Numpad 3 to start recording or click record and play on the Transport Window (looks like a tape recorder with stop/play/record/etc).

4-Click "View" and you can get to your Mix Window (looks like a Console Mixer), go back to your Edit Window (where you see your recordings), and sometimes the Transport Windows might not be there and you can check that so it's there and put it where you want.

5-In the Mix Window, you can click and insert FX on each track and on the Master Fader itself too which is cool.

6-You can double click on the colors in the Mix Window and saturate them and make it pretty and change important tracks to pink or something lol. It actually helps when you get a lot of tracks and have to put the Master fader in the middle of everything and start to get lost (you can just drag them around).

7-Click (I think) the dropdown is "Edit" and you can "Select All" before you bounce the mix. I think that's "File" dropdown, then "Bounce To Disk" (same thing as "Export Audio" in other DAWs).

Then somewhere in between all that, if you have problems then you can click the dropdown for Options and set the Playback Engine buffer larger if you get plugin happy.

I probably messed up somewhere but just click around if you get the concept. One thing that is a little weird is that when you go to do punchins or edit you have a bunch of ways to do it. I just use Cakewalk most of the time because it's so much easier lol.

BUT...you will see a little box on the top left of the Edit Window that shows 4 modes like "Slip/Grid/etc" and it's easier for me to put it in slip mode if I'm trying to cut out a noise before I start playing a part. If you need to make a cut, hit "B" and it will split the track there then you can delete parts or "Slip" your WAV over the noise or screwup and try it again. In Cakewalk, you can literally just record right on top of your track (and it will not even mute the old one) so it's so much easier to crossfade and punch in. There's a Punch In mode in Pro Tools, but it has to be set at a certain point, just a pain. I learned to play better because I thought I had to use Pro Tools for a while and didn't figure it until I got done with classes then I still didn't like it for much other than dialing new tones, mixing and reamping stuff. Maybe 10 is much better.

there are times when i think Sonar records things and it sounds different from what i was hearing when i laid the track. do you ever have that problem? maybe it's just a hearing perception because the volume changes and gets lower when i play back or something.

finally, is it really worth the time to learn protools for recording? i can record, mix and master in Sonar...so i hate to waste time on any other DAW unless it's going to sound superior in some way.

Pro Tools uses a split mono stereo wav by default, you can change it in Cakewalk to be like that. It makes a difference on some things I would imagine (why that Air Stereo Widener works so well). I never really gave it a good test in Cakewalk/felt the need. I like to keep it simple and having two dials drives me nuts lol. It could arguable be better, but only because of that not because anything else that the two do differently I don't think.

I think in Pro Tools it does something to let you better hear what you are going to hear whereas in Cakewalk you wont hear what's actually being printed until you play it back. A lot of people have commented that when you use Pro Tools, all of a sudden everything sounds weird but it's monitoring what it's going to print at all times. Cakewalk can do it with other sound cards (and this one with input monitoring enabled...but it doesn't mute the sound so you wont hear it properly like in Pro Tools...the point goes to Pro Tools on input monitoring).

I usually have to find some trick to try and get my sound the way I want it with both programs by EQing or something anyway. Even on the highest end Pro Tools interface in a studio, we had to EQ stuff because you really don't hear all the details while recording. Maybe it's just a "first time you hear it" thing with our ears and nothing more I don't know but it's probably just that the digital interface "hears" better than us and then "shows us what it heard." I miss tape sometimes lol

Cool song dude! I wish I could sing So I could lay down full songs like you ... I can play guitar/bass and program drums though!



This is also what I love about my Eleven Rack ... the music scene where I live is dead so getting a band is next to impossible ... With the Eleven Rack I can lay down songs without involving another person. And the more tracks you lay down, the better they will sound because in every track you'll have an "aha-moment" where you figure stuff out ...

Chuck.....Thanks for sharing this track w/ all of us here in the land of milk & oranges.......

I like it & think there are many cool little things going on.......There is a great knowledge base here to draw from......& over time....Your production values will just better & better........

Thanks again for sharing & good luck son......

Peace! X-Mann