Pro Tools: 1 bar countoff before recording?

[Chrono]

I was watching a tutorial and noticed that the guy in the video has a one bar countoff tick before it records, just like the mpc does before you record. I searched the documentation and could not find any answers. I called the local store and they had no idea. The documentation only refers to the metronome which I am not interested in.

thanks in advance,
-Chrono

 

[bigdmakintrax]

Glad you saw that, for me i instinctively started doing it, I also asked resident protools consultant and Guru, DJ Swiv about this, for me, i use midi clock and have everything synced, but , if i dont insert the 1 or 2 bars first, a small portion of the audio gets cut out, i am sure there has to be somewhere to adjust this but is unnoticeable if you dump full tracks, but if you just dump 8 bars, cut and paste to mute etc...then you will notice the loop is not going to be perfect because of the slight difference between the midi signal and the audio....its sort of like track starts rolling before the recording for like a billionth of a second....if anyone knows how to adjust this in protools holla!

Actually i read your question again, but it appears that he clicked the precount, thats not necessary, and I also tried that to see if the above problem would be solved but its not, you can use that precount for instance if you might have a midi enable track in protools and are recording from a keyboard or controller straight to the protools sequencer.

 

[Relic]

wow I use PT aaaawlll backwards lol

 

[Ash Holmz]

yeah .. u can do it a number of ways .... all of which are located directly on the transport.

1) just click the icon that says 2 bar click or countdown or something like that.

2) you can record your instruments with pre roll on..


big d ... if that happens where it slighty off u can

1) lower your buffer rate ... anything 128 or lower wont have any noticeable lag... if that doesnt work..

2)try using the tab to transient feature. TAb to transient, then cut away the portion before the waveform, and then slide the waveform back on the grid.. it usually works perfectly.

 

[bigdmakintrax]

Cool, good tips imma try it next dump and get back Ash! that makes since cause i have a helluva high buffer set, just so i dont get the problems if i use too many plugins to process, so imma try 128.

 

[Ash Holmz]

^^^ what i do is RECORD at a low rate 128 or lower... then once u got all ur tracks in the box.. then put the buffer back up to mix/plugins/effects ...etc.

 

[bigdmakintrax]

ok, yeah that makes too much fucking sense...damn why didnt I think of that !

 

[Chrono]

yeah .. u can do it a number of ways .... all of which are located directly on the transport.

1) just click the icon that says 2 bar click or countdown or something like that.

2) you can record your instruments with pre roll on..

On the windowed transport there is a "preroll" and "postroll" button but neither will initiate the 1 bar ticks. I even opened an "instrument track" in-case it only worked in a midi instrument track to no avail. I also put my cursor over every botton on the main transport for the name of the button and there was no button for this. I am using Pro Tools 7.4 so this might be the reason why there is a difference, but if you do not mind will you open up your Pro Tools and give me a menu direction for it. I am not sure what the actual name for this button is so it makes it very difficult to search for an answer. Thanks for your help!

-Chrono

 

[djjumpinjoe]

U have to select 2 bar on transport (view image)

 

[Lazy Eyes]

I got the same thing, in live..

I sync the mpc to midi. then hit play & record in ableton..
When i look at the grid: the start of the bars and up to par with the grid.
This is kinda hard when editing the arrangement and trying to fill in with VST's and all..

 

[bigdmakintrax]

Ash I tried that buffer remedy, no dice homie, any other thoughts? I cant find out that tab to transient...it seems my protools always did this, thats why I edited all my ish on the mpc or the sequencer instead of in protools cause of this, an imperfect loop is the biggest pain, anyhow i tried it and when i loop it, the first note is cut slightly for some reason, not sure where the lag is coming from.

 

[Ash Holmz]

what u could try is to let t play for longer ...... let it loop 4 or 5 times.... by the second bar the loop should tighten up .. then cut away the off one and repeat the good section .. tab to transient i think is in the newer pro tools after 7 i think. the feature is located under the slip menu on the upper left next to grid,suffle and all that stuff up there. turn it on, then go to the drum track and keep hitting tab. the cursor should go right up to where the kick waveforrm starts.

chrono, see above post by djjumpinjoe.

 

[bigdmakintrax]

Cool ok thanks Ash, yeah i got 6.7 , i see what your saying about the loop, that makes sense also, i think there might be a setting on my configuration that needs tweaking.

 

[Relic]

Not even gonna tell you's how I use PT 6.4 , you may be impressed but laugh or just laugh, either way I aint saying lol..

 

[Chrono]

U have to select 2 bar on transport (view image)

excellent! Initially the controls for this were not shown, after seeing your pic though I knew it was just an option not viewed. So I went into the View->Transport->MidiControls and then Boom I had it.

UPDATE:
Ok, for Pro Tools 7.4 to get the click you have to enable the Midi Controls as described and then to get the actual click you have to go to Track->Create Tick Track. In Setup->Click/Countoff Options->Countoff Area and you can set either 1 or 2 bar countoff.

Doing this you will get the 1 or 2 bar countoff before the actual recording, to give you time to get to your midi keyboard or guitar, just like the MPC1k. Thanks Everyone for the Help!


-Chrono

 

[Chrono]

Glad you saw that, for me i instinctively started doing it, I also asked resident protools consultant and Guru, DJ Swiv about this, for me, i use midi clock and have everything synced, but , if i dont insert the 1 or 2 bars first, a small portion of the audio gets cut out, i am sure there has to be somewhere to adjust this but is unnoticeable if you dump full tracks, but if you just dump 8 bars, cut and paste to mute etc...then you will notice the loop is not going to be perfect because of the slight difference between the midi signal and the audio....its sort of like track starts rolling before the recording for like a billionth of a second....if anyone knows how to adjust this in protools holla!

Actually i read your question again, but it appears that he clicked the precount, thats not necessary, and I also tried that to see if the above problem would be solved but its not, you can use that precount for instance if you might have a midi enable track in protools and are recording from a keyboard or controller straight to the protools sequencer.

I'm not sure if this is the same problem that plagued me for a long time but I used to have a delay whenever I recorded. I would hit "record" then "play" and would have a 1-8 second delay. To fix this: I set hardware buffer size to 512 samples, cpu usage 85%, rtas engine to ignore errors (7.4 only i think), and DAE playback engine to 1500ms Level 2 (default). Good Luck

 

[Ash Holmz]

also .. it helps to set PT as the master and mpc as the slave even though some people will tell u diffrent ... and course as common sense would say make sure your pro tools session tempo is the same tempo that ur song is in the mpc so you can easily maniuplate the files and still stay in time.