Is there a way to have an independent pan setting when recording vs playback?

[kedavis]

I love having the ability to unlink the Play and Record faders and would like to do the same with the pan knob. This would be helpful when re-recording already panned background vocals (I prefer recording them centered). Is there a way to do this?

[RobertDorn]

Originally Posted by kedavis

I love having the ability to unlink the Play and Record faders and would like to do the same with the pan knob. This would be helpful when re-recording already panned background vocals (I prefer recording them centered). Is there a way to do this?

I guess you’re on HDX. When you’re not on HDX, turn on Low Latency Mode. Especially when you’re recording with something like an Apollo, make a nice vocal monitor chain in console, and use that vocal monitor sound for yourself and the talent throughout the whole pro tools session , wether you dub in on heavily processed vocal tracks or backing vocals that are panned or bussed to an aux/routing folder, you will have consistent monitor sound.

I asked avid support for a preference/option like LLM when using HDX , exactly for this workflow. Because it’s very annoying when punching in on (heavily) processed and panned (backing)vocal tracks , to have a different sound or another stereo placement every time you’ll make a punch on another track.
When I was still working natively with an Apollo, I was like speedy Gonzales with this. Now on HDX it’s rather a sluggish workflow for quickly dubbing vocals in a session.

[BScout]

Originally Posted by kedavis

I love having the ability to unlink the Play and Record faders and would like to do the same with the pan knob. This would be helpful when re-recording already panned background vocals (I prefer recording them centered). Is there a way to do this?

Suspend Pan automation and then change it to centered.
After recording, un-suspend pan automation to put it back.

(hopefully you've written pan as automation. If not, put a break point on pan automation before the track first so it is now automation before doing all this.)

[RobertDorn]

Originally Posted by BScout

Suspend Pan automation and then change it to centered.
After recording, un-suspend pan automation to put it back.

(hopefully you've written pan as automation. If not, put a break point on pan automation before the track first so it is now automation before doing all this.)

Mm, I guess it would already be less of a hassle to manually center pan it and put it back after recording on that track.

Otherwise you first have to add breakpoints to all BV tracks, suspend pan auto , manually center pan it for recording, un suspend after recording on the track to get the pan setting back, record enabling next BV track, suspend automation again to manually center pan that track… etc. That’s a lot of actions to be taken for (eventually not so:)) quickly dubbing vocals.

[kedavis]

Robert, actually I'm not on HDX. I use an Apollo (no Console) with Pro Tools Studio and record at a low buffer. I think I stopped using low latency monitoring because I couldn't hear prerecorded audio when punching in. Is that no longer the case? If so, I might go back to LLM.

BScout, cool idea but I'd like to keep it simple so I'll just change it when I record.


Thanks for the ideas.

[RobertDorn]

Originally Posted by kedavis

Robert, actually I'm not on HDX. I use an Apollo (no Console) with Pro Tools Studio and record at a low buffer. I think I stopped using low latency monitoring because I couldn't hear prerecorded audio when punching in. Is that no longer the case? If so, I might go back to LLM.

BScout, cool idea but I'd like to keep it simple so I'll just change it when I record.


Thanks for the ideas.

This exact thing got bugfixed in 2022.4, you’ll hear prerecorded audio with pre roll when LLM is active

[BScout]

Originally Posted by RobertDorn

Mm, I guess it would already be less of a hassle to manually center pan it and put it back after recording on that track.

Otherwise you first have to add breakpoints to all BV tracks, suspend pan auto , manually center pan it for recording, un suspend after recording on the track to get the pan setting back, record enabling next BV track, suspend automation again to manually center pan that track… etc. That’s a lot of actions to be taken for (eventually not so:)) quickly dubbing vocals.

You can suspend, put break points, center pan, and unsuspend auto on all tracks at once by selecting all the tracks and doing it to all selected. And duplicating a track, carries all suspend and breakpoint/automation from the original track. It's 4 clicks through it all. And once you've put the breakpoint, it's just 2 before (suspend and center) and 1 (unsuspend) after tracking.
It's not a lot of extra.

[BScout]

Alternatively, track to a new track and move the file/clip (but if you are playlisting, suspend makes more sense)

[RobertDorn]

Originally Posted by BScout

You can suspend, put break points, center pan, and unsuspend auto on all tracks at once by selecting all the tracks and doing it to all selected. And duplicating a track, carries all suspend and breakpoint/automation from the original track. It's 4 clicks through it all. And once you've put the breakpoint, it's just 2 before (suspend and center) and 1 (unsuspend) after tracking.
It's not a lot of extra.

If I only do this once, I hear playback of my backing vocals center panned all the time. If I want to hear it panned just like when recording with LLM on native pro tools, I have to do this after recording on every track. Sometimes I’ll easily do 30 tracks of backing vocals in a session. Definitely don’t want to click or hit any knobs other than play and record, just to focus on the arrangement and not some geeky workaround stuff because HDX has no LLM option:)

[RobertDorn]

Originally Posted by BScout

Alternatively, track to a new track and move the file/clip (but if you are playlisting, suspend makes more sense)

This is the fastest work around for this indeed. Use 1 track to record to, and drag clips to the destination tracks quickly after each recording pass. Still far from ideal, because when punching in with prerecorded audio on the track itself, the punch point of prerecorded audio to live input is always sharp and manages itself. When your prerecorded audio is on another track than the one you punch in to, you have to manage this manually (cutting away audio quickly when you on the fly decide to punch in earlier to prevent the prerecorded audio is still playing)