please explain to me as if i were a child...

[cydonia]

Thanks for the link, M.Brane. Looks very interesting and useful. I know i can use it. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[cydonia]

Wow there is just so much to learn! It's fun but very overwhelming.

Now i have my instruments going into my 4-track, and my aux send cord going into my imic, i can hear what i'm doing in pro tools, and i can also monitor it live thru the phones in the 4-track.

My questions for today are: How do i get the sound out of pro tools and into my 4-track? Will that the best way to compensate for latency? I'm used to plugging into my 4-track and doing my over dubs live without latency, i hope i can get used to doing it the artifical way.

Is there a real difference between a mixer and my Yamaha 4-track?

Thanks again, guys.

[Bastiaan]

Cydonia,

to get your sound into protools, you need to run a cable from the mac's or imic's audio-out to some input of your 4-track. If it has an aux-input (for the return of a reverb....) connect to that one. Then make sure you turn the knob on your 4-tracks, so it will mix the signal from the aux-bus to the main-outs.

Once you have a setup like this, you are also almost healed from the latency issues. Just make sure you make a mix on your 4-track between the output of protools, and the performers mic. Then while recording you have to mute the track from within protools, otherwise you will hear it twice. Make sure you only record the microphone, and not the output of protools!!! So you need to set up a different signalpath for the cans, and for protools.

When you are done recording, you may feel the need to shift the whole newly-recorded track a bit to the left. This happens because you dont hear the track being played by protools when tracking, it still is delayed.......and that has to be corrected, and then it is very handy that protools is an audio-editor too [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

And for the difference between your 4-track and a mixer....i cant really say, because it depends on the type of mixer and the type of 4-track. I think in general you will get more features with a dedicated mixer. But if your 4-track has 4 input-strips, inserts or direct-outs or 2 aux-sends, you have something that could last long.....

[cydonia]

Thanks Bastiaan, i know i'll figure this thing out eventually. I think i'll have to end up getting a mixer, i only have an aux send input on my 4 track.

[love666]

for the price of a suck mixer, you can get a used copy of PT Toolbox (AMIII card and LE 5.0+) and have 24 tracks, two analog inputs that sound better than the mac input, no latency and 24-bit s/pdif digital i/o and the ability to use all four inputs simultaneously.

[Bastiaan]

True, but Cydonia is a little short on cash....

Leaving ptfree and entering ptle would be a good move...

gives you

24 tracks instead of 8
low latency monitoring
better stable software
digital in/out
and newer software with more possibilities.

But you still need a mixer.......or atleast a pre-amp. but i think it could work with your 4-track.

[cydonia]

Wow, that was fun! I still have 99% to learn, but i tested with a song with 8 tracks, 3 vocals + 5 synth tracks. I routed all sound in and out of my 4-track, pressed mute on the tracks i was overdubbing. Thing ran out of memory, sounds kind of flat, but i mixed one version and i think i'm hooked! Thanks for the help getting me started, guys!

[M.Brane]

Originally posted by love666:
for the price of a suck mixer, you can get a used copy of PT Toolbox (AMIII card and LE 5.0+) and have 24 tracks, two analog inputs that sound better than the mac input, no latency and 24-bit s/pdif digital i/o and the ability to use all four inputs simultaneously.

Where can you get that for under $100?

[Bastiaan]

A used AudioMedia III card will cost about $200. If it doesnt have a copy of ptle with it, you can buy that for $50. An AMIII card is no good companion for ptfree....it works wonderful with ptle.

[love666]

any "full-featured mixer" in this price range would suck. why buy junk when you can spend $250 and get a Toolbox? some users find that they never have to upgrade to anything else. what I'm trying to say is that it doesn't make any sense to buy little pieces of junk to go with pro tools free . . . pro tools free is beautiful for what it is.