Tutorial for getting started?

[John Link]

I just got a copy of Pro Tools Free and I am having a very difficult time getting started. I would like to start with some simple tasks, like recording from a CD playing in my computer's CD drive, or recording the sound sent to my speakers by my notation program, or recording from an analog tape deck connected to my Cube by an iMic digital-to-audio-converter. Is there a turorial to guide me through these steps? The PT FREE Quick Start Guide seems to be written for someone who is already familar with digital recording programs and just needs to learn how to do things with Pro Tools Free. That's not me!

I also wonder whether my 54,000 rpm hard drive is fast enough for the program to work at all. Somewhere I read that PT Free requires a fast hard drive. How fast? I think I read in the Pro Tools Manual that a 72,000 rpm drive is needed. Does that apply to PT FREE as well?

Thanks in advance for your help,
John Link

[This message has been edited by John Link (edited May 26, 2001).]

[Avid]

Try the QuickTime Tours in the Products section, also on the Links page in Downloads at http://www.digidesign.com/download/links.html
Several other useful resources linked there, like the free Digi 001 video that give you a better visual idea of what is going on in Pro Tools. I also understand that there's a book due this summer that will be very useful for beginners.

A 5400 rpm drive is not optimal, but can certainly get you some tracks. All of the laptops that are qualified come with slower drives.

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Bruce Paine
WebAdmin
Digidesign Customer Service

[John Link]

Thank you for the suggestions about where to go for help to get started, and I look forward to getting the book. If getting started with PTF could be made easy I think that it would then be a better inducement to buy Pro Tools.

John Link

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www.mp3.com/JohnLinkFeldenkrais
www.mp3.com/JohnLinkVocalQuintet

[John Link]

Bruce, is that book available yet? I need help from the very beginning, including installation. I think I've correctly installed PTF but I'm not sure. I would now like to take a cut from a CD and edit out some sections. That should be easy, right? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

John Link

[John Link]

It seems that I didn't have PTF installed correctly so I uninstalled it by trashing everything that contained Digi or Pro Tools or Opcode or OMS or DAE. Fortunately my computer is still functioning properly. Somewhere in the documentation I read that PTF could be uninstalled from the Start menu. I believe that the Start menu is in PTF, since I can't find it anywhere else, so it seems quite useless, at least to me with PTF installed but not correctly enough to get it to actually load.

So now I think I'm back to ground zero, with PTF completely off my computer. I'd love to install it and learn to use it. Any suggestions from anybody out there where I can find step-by-step instructions? I know that this task is not beyond me, but I do need a good set of directions.

John Link

[ June 24, 2001: Message edited by: John Link ]

[M.Brane]

Make sure you read through the PDF guide. Make an extension set that contains only those things necessary to run it ( base OS+ Digi&OMS). Turn off ALL automatic/background stuff(screen savers, auto-protection, sleep, etc.). It takes some searching through the manual to figure out how to work this stuff. It was obviously written by coders, not musicians! Take your time and don't take anything for granted. It's working fine on my syst. FYI this is my setup:

PM8500/XLR8 G3 400
96MB
2G boot drive
18G work/storage drive

HTH LOL [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[edjog]

Hey John,
you havn't replyed to M.Brane's post, are you still having trouble? Did you read the Digi PDFs? You might want to "Set Playback Buffer Size" to a higher value. I believe this will help because of your slow HD. You can access this control Panel from the DAE 'File' Menu when DAE is active, changes take effect on next opening of DAE. Also Disc Cache in the Apple Memory Control Panel. Digi recommend a custom setting of 512K, however I have had problems with this setting and am currently using 2016K, OK.
To get Audio from a CD, go to the PT 'Movie' menu and select 'Get Audio From Other Movie' then navigate to the Audio CD on Desktop, click a track and 'Convert'. If you just want a snippet of the track use the 'Options' button. Navigate to a valid folder, the audio files folder of the open session is probably best, name the audio in the dialogue field and hit return. You can import any valid audio files into PT from the Audio menu at the top of the audio regions list, far right of PT edit window. Drag them from the regions list into the edit window.
Good luck!

[John Link]

Thank you for the suggestions. On a day when I have little else to do I'll take another slow, careful, follow-the-documentation-each-step-of-the-way approach and see whether I can get this thing running. At the first sign of trouble or confusion I'll post a question and maybe I can get some advice about how to proceed.

John Link

[ June 30, 2001: Message edited by: John Link ]

[John Link]

Well, I'm back at it again. I have an AIFF file that I would like to edit. All I want to do is remove several sections of the file (i.e., remove several repeated sections of music). I inserted the PTF disc in my CD player, clicked on INSTALL PRO TOOLS FREE, and then followed the directions. Installation seems to have been successful. In the process I saw a message saying be sure to install OMS and follow ??? to configure it properly. I have not yet done anything with OMS.

Would someone please direct me through the next few steps? I'm not even sure which of the several pieces of documentation I should read first.

Thanks,
John Link

[M.Brane]

Find the section in the PDF guide "Chapter 2- Macintosh configuration" This contains your system software settings. Make sure you have everything set accordingly.

I made a custom extension set just for PT. Just the bare-bones stuff.

If your not using any MIDI stuff (like me [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] ) you only need to have the OMS extension installed. Don't worry about OMS config. unless your using MIDI.