Live Sound / Live Music
Course 5: Pro Tools

Pro Tools is used the world over by audio engineers, music producers, and artists alike. It’s one of the most powerful digital audio workstations available, and its staying power has proved it’s one of the most respected as well. With a strong enough laptop, Pro Tools is like having a complete studio in your laptop bag.

In Course 5, you’ll work on getting your computer or laptop ready to load an academic version of Pro Tools. This will allow for remote learning opportunities if you are unable to be in the studio with your mentor for any reason. After prepping your computer and installing Pro Tools, you’ll learn all of the ways the software can help you engineer your own music.

Depending on your experience with a digital audio workstation, some of these lessons won’t take as long or won’t be needed. As a beginner, you’ll learn how to navigate the settings, including using some of the things you learned in earlier lessons and optimizing your workflow within Pro Tools.

As a live engineer, you’ll need to be able to move fast on your feet, so organization is key. You’ll be shown the file structure and how to save sessions, audio, backups, clips, and other files for ease of use and easy retrieval of the sessions you’ll be working with. Basic key commands, edit windows, stages, and more will also be shown. It’s a crash course in Pro Tools, but you’ll have plenty of time to investigate the DAW for yourself.