Producing in the Home Studio with Pro Tools [Paperback]

David Franz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2001

Get the most out of Digidesign's Pro Tools software with this comprehensive home studio guide that will show you how to create the highest quality recordings by honing your production skills and engineering techniques. With a complete explanation of the entire production process, you'll find out everything you need to know to make your music projects stand out from the rest. You'll learn how to: mix and master recordings like the pros; run a recording session and produce great songs; set up your home studio and improve its efficiency; set up mics to capture superior sounds; master the intricacies of Pro Tools with keystroke shortcuts and technical instruction; record real-sounding MIDI tracks; and much more. Ideal for producers, engineers, songwriters and artists. The Second Edition is fully updated for the new features of Pro Tools 6.X software and all Digidesign home studio hardware products. A new chapter on Digital Audio Editing was added to the book, and new hands-on projects have been added in every chapter. Additionally, there are new, more advanced Pro Tools sessions with audio examples that explain many in-demand Pro Tools techniques.

Product Details

• Paperback: 282 pages
• Publisher: Berklee Press; 2 edition (October 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0876390084
• ISBN-13: 978-0876390085
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 7.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #962,299 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BEST book there is for Pro Tools users..., December 9, 2003

By 

Michael Mccarthy (Wayne, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Producing in the Home Studio with Pro Tools (Paperback)

I just took an online Pro Tools class at berkeleymusic.com, and Dave Franz (the author of this book), is the most knowledgable person on Pro Tools around. We used his text to supplement the online course. But I bought his book months before the course began.

Immediately, I was learning about sound fields and phantom images so I could get my monitoring and recording environment set up correctly (which I had set up VERY incorrectly to begin with).

Next, he goes step by step into simple recording, and helps you out with input signals and example setups for all of DigiDesign's hardware (Digi001, Digi002, MBox, even PT Free) so you get good signal flow in through you whole system. From there, he progresses to more advanced recording techniques like punching and auto-punching and the different record modes.

Also included in this book are system settings that will let you get the most out of Pro Tools from your current machine and chapters on mixing and basic plugin usage. The best are the example sessions included on the CD that allow you to see what he does in real time as compared to what's beign taught in the book. There are also trials of popular third-party plugins on the CD so you can sample some really powerful RTAS plugins while working in Pro Tools.

Make sure if you buy this book, you are running Pro Tools 6.x. He has an earlier version of this book for users still running PT 5.x.x.

All in all, if you are a beginner, this is the place to start, hands down, and more advanced users will find juicy tidbits here and there as well.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Stuff, January 9, 2002

By 

Matt Kaiser - See all my reviews

This review is from: Producing in the Home Studio with Pro Tools - with CD (Paperback)

I bought this Pro Tools book because it's been on Digidesign's home page for the past few months. It goes past what the manual talks about, and has a bunch of examples in text, pdf, and also on the CD rom. Another nice plus is that ProTools Free comes with it. Beats waiting for my modem to download it. It shows a lot of the more technical side of producing on ProTools, but also It basically teaches the reader how to be a successful producer and engineer. There's chapters on preproduction, miking, running a recording session, and a bunch of other topics.

I got the most out of the chapters on Improving
System Performance and Efficiency, which explains ways to maximize your computer's processing power while using Pro Tools. My computer is kind of slow, so this made things quite a bit faster. Also, the chapter on mixing techniques explained things much more clearly than I've seen before. All in all, a good read. I highly recommend it for Pro Tools users of any level.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Bad dog !!, December 29, 2001

By 

R. Hendee (Norcross, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Producing in the Home Studio with Pro Tools - with CD (Paperback)

...The reason I bought the book was because the manual provided with Pro Tools is a reference manual and I was in search of a "how to" guide with useful examples and real-world applications. And I'm still looking! This book simply mimicks much of what is convered in Digidesign's supplied reference manual and adds little additional content except for an odd emphasis on the producer and engineer's role in the preproduction and production process. And frankly I bought the book as a Pro Tools primer, not as a generalization of the production and engineering process---there are books far better than this which are dedicated to those topics. Additionally, the "bonus CD" included with the book is the equivalent of a "bonus" copy of AOL --- nothing more than a copy of Digidesign's "Pro Tools FREE", available as you would expect FOR FREE from their web site. As in music, books are subjective so you may glean far more than I from this book. Just buy at your own risk (or buy mine used...).