Mastering in Pro Tools

[Vanman4254]

Hey guys,
Ive been attempting mastering at home on a project that I recorded and mixed. This is the first time im attempting to master. It's amatuer but Its what Im working with. I'll be using Pro Tools. My questions are:

How to I set up the final mastered tracks in Pro Tools in a single session?
How do I seperate the tracks in that session when ready to burn a disk? Do I use markers?

I'll also try and explain my last question. I want to put a clip before one of the tracks. Like on a CD where the clip would start in negative time and count up to zero, then the track starts. But if you were to skip tracks, you would not have to listen to the clip everytime. Only when you listen to it through. Does that make sense? Im really curious how to do this.

If i could get some pointers on this, that would be awesome. Thanks guys

[narcoman]

can't do any of that in protools at all.

you'll need something that deals with CDs....

[just_oboe]

Originally Posted by Vanman4254

Hey guys,
Ive been attempting mastering at home on a project that I recorded and mixed. This is the first time im attempting to master. It's amatuer but Its what Im working with. I'll be using Pro Tools. My questions are:

How to I set up the final mastered tracks in Pro Tools in a single session?
How do I seperate the tracks in that session when ready to burn a disk? Do I use markers?

Bounce out the individual tracks to a stereo interleaved file. Remember to put a dithering plug-in to 16bits at your master fader track. Bounce it to 16bits 44.1khz (CD format). After which, just use any CD burning software (I use Toast..) and burn it as an audio CD. You can re-arrange your tracks here again.

I'll also try and explain my last question. I want to put a clip before one of the tracks. Like on a CD where the clip would start in negative time and count up to zero, then the track starts. But if you were to skip tracks, you would not have to listen to the clip everytime. Only when you listen to it through. Does that make sense? Im really curious how to do this.

Toast can do that. Just change the default 2 secs pause between tracks to 0 sec. Your track will just continue smoothly without any break between the two tracks. Other CD burning softwares should be able to do this as well. Just remember to burn it as an audio CD, not data CD.


If i could get some pointers on this, that would be awesome. Thanks guys

Hope this helps..

[fourvector]

Originally Posted by just_oboe

Hope this helps..

I think he meant that he did want the 2sec gap when playing the CD through, just not when skipping through tracks. So that shouldn't be too hard; I think the CD player normally starts from index 1 when you skip to a track doesn't it?

[Vanman4254]

I dont think that I clarified my last question enough. Ive got a movie clip that I want to put before a song. But instead of making the listener hear the clip everytime they listen to the track (it's like 20sec. long) I want the track to count up from negative numbers during the clip, then start at zero when the actual song starts. This way, if someone were just wanting to listen through, then they would hear the clip, but if they use the track skip on their CD player, it would just skip to the zero mark on that song and bypass the clip all together. If seen this done on commercial releases and was curious how I could pull it off. Thanks again

[fourvector]

Yes I'm pretty sure that's done by putting audio between the markers for Index 0 and Index 1 on the track. You'll need a program that can deal with the index markers as well as the track markers. Sorry I'm not knowledgeable enough to suggest any particular software; I'm sure someone else can.