TICKS / SAMPLES - STEREO or MONO Questions

[Elton Hyland]

1) After going thru the tutorials and doing a search, I must ask this simple question. What is the differance between a TICK and a SAMPLE when creating a track.

2) Is there a simple guideline when it comes to deciding when to make a track STEREO or MONO? I read where when bouncing to disk, if you had 2 L & R .wav files that it would be stereo after the bounce. ( Is this correct? )

I am "revamping " a lot of old MIDI sequences and the mastering them using the OZONE presets.

[nikki-k]

1) After going thru the tutorials and doing a search, I must ask this simple question. What is the differance between a TICK and a SAMPLE when creating a track.

Tick=anchor is a Bar|Beat; If you change the tempo, the anchor will remain at the specific Bar|Beat for Audio Regions, and MIDI notes.

Sample=Time based. Basically, the anchor will remain with a specific time, (min|seconds, for example), for Audio Regions and MIDI Notes.

This is useful in many ways. An example would be if you played along with a song, recording MIDI. If you then discover the song was not tight to a click, and thus editing the MIDI is a bit rough, simply tempo map the audio with the MIDI track set to Sample Based. This will keep the MIDI from "adapting" to the new Bar|Beat positions along the timeline.

Tick based for audio can be useful as well. A simple example would be dragging a REX file onto a Tick based Audio track. The slices of audio would each anchor to a specific Bar|Beat. Thus, changing tempo would now have the slices remain on the Bar|Beat they roginally were dropped, but the "loop" as a whole will speed up or slow down as tempo is changed. There are many other uses, of course.

2) Is there a simple guideline when it comes to deciding when to make a track STEREO or MONO? I read where when bouncing to disk, if you had 2 L & R .wav files that it would be stereo after the bounce. ( Is this correct? )

I am "revamping " a lot of old MIDI sequences and the mastering them using the OZONE presets.

There are many ways to bounce. With Pro Tools flexable routing abilities, al one needs to do is use appropriate routing, and walla! Job done.

Personally, I prefer to keep mono sources mono, and stereo sources stereo, but then I prefer multi-mono plugins as inserts on those channels, when available.

Was there a specific type of bounce you were after?
Also, if you are rendering MIDI sequences, are you going to be triggering hardware or software? If hardware, remember that there will be timing issues with any MIDI device, with at least a slight delay (easily compensated for). If you describe what you plan to do, and want the result to be, I am sure yo will get responses with suggestions and solutions for you.

good luck!

[Elton Hyland]

When I load a MIDI sequence, all the tracks are mono of course. 1st question is where should the PAN be set? L, R or Center. I defaults to the left.

Next is the MASTER track. Seeing that the MIDI tracks are mono, should the master track be mono or stereo.

BTW; What is LATCH? When I "WRITE / RECORD" data ( ex: VOLUME ) to a track, the selection says LATCH after I stop the recording. This is located on the tracks "automation mode selector" in the EDIT window.

Finally you said With Pro Tools flexable routing abilities, al one needs to do is use appropriate routing, and walla! Job done. Job done.
Can you explain what you mean by "routing"?

[nikki-k]

When I load a MIDI sequence, all the tracks are mono of course. 1st question is where should the PAN be set? L, R or Center. I defaults to the left.

MIDI tracks send data to tell *something* how to do *something*. For instance, MIDI data can be sent to a sound module or virtual instrument, telling it when to sound a note of this pitch, at this velocity on value, for this long..and more. The pan and volume/level objects on those tracks are simply MIDI data sliders as well. If the sound module is capable of producing a stereo audio output, then the pan on the MIDI track would be telling the sound module to output the sound panned to "X". Or, you can automate it, and create panning effects.

Your MIDI sequence is niether mono, nor multi-channel, but rather just a simple set of instructions. The audio that is output from a device or software instrument will determine the "width of field," which is mono, stereo, or multi-channel of greater width. If you have a hardware sound module that is outputting in stereo, you could record that into a stereo Audio Track in Pro Tools, or you could record each channel to it's own mono Audio Track. This is completely user choice, and will develop as time passes and one becomes more experienced.

Next is the MASTER track. Seeing that the MIDI tracks are mono, should the master track be mono or stereo.

Oh, the Master Fader.
A Master Fader is actually not a real track, as the other types so obviously are. Instead, it is ismply a visual representation that you can assign to control an object that sits inline on EVERY buss within Pro Tools, except for the input busses. Internal busses, which you will use to route audio data within Pro Tools from one track type to another, and then Output Busses, which are the software "pipes" that carry audio data from the Pro Tools software to the actual outputs on your Digi interface/hardware.

So, if you have a desire to contorl, monitor, etc the audio data as it heads to your final output, then you can create a Master Fader track, and assign it to control that particular object. In your I/O Setups, the Output page will show your Outputs. YOU set these up, but the default config is to have outputs 1 & 2 paired as a stereo out, or Main Out. To control the object that is inline on that output pair, you then need to create a Master Fader of stereo width to be able to control it. It is actually very simple, but can take a bit to explain. If you click my name, and then choose "Show all users posts" you can flip thru the pages, and not too long ago, there was a thread I posted a very lengthy explaination of this in.

BTW; What is LATCH? When I "WRITE / RECORD" data ( ex: VOLUME ) to a track, the selection says LATCH after I stop the recording. This is located on the tracks "automation mode selector" in the EDIT window.

When writing automation, you have several modes to choose from. "Latch" will begin writing new automation moves/data as soon as you grab a fader or knob, and will continue until you hit stop. "Touch" will do the same, but will only write data so long as the contorl (fader or knob, or whatever) is held. IOW, if you are in Touch mode and have existing automation, new moves will only be recorded while you are touching a control; if you were in Latch mode, as soon as you touch/move a control the existing automation data would continue to be overwritten regardless of whether or not you were touching a control.

Finally you said With Pro Tools flexable routing abilities, al one needs to do is use appropriate routing, and walla! Job done. Job done.
Can you explain what you mean by "routing"?

Go to your I/O Setups page. There you can assign Inputs and Outputs, name them, etc. You also have a set of Busses that allow you to route audio between input and output nodes within Pro Tools. It is basically like having the wires from a patchbay, all able to be labelled, and you then "plug" one end into here, and another there. PT allows you to route pretty much however you desire. PT even allows you to do things that may seem stupid, ro wrong!

There is alot to take in, and I would recommend a good book or training video. Or, find someone who teaches this stuff. Or, spend alot of time with Google. Getting from "never used a DAW before" to "comfy doing most things" takes a bit of time.

[Elton Hyland]

Thanks a bunch for the info. A lot to soak up and although I have went thru the tutorials, there are things that I did not grasp or absorb. I'll check your other posts too.