Pro Tools 11 - #15 - Comping Takes; Playlist Recording and Editing Video Lecture | Pro tools Tutorial: Basics to Expert - Video & Sound Editing

hello this is music tech help guy and
welcome to episode 15 of my Pro Tools 11
video tutorial series in this episode
I'm going to talk about recording to
playlists and comping those playlists
now comping is essentially the process
of creating composite takes out of
multiple takes within your playlist so
what this lets you do is it lets you
record multiple takes and it take the
best parts of each take and bump them up
into a main playlist and edit them
together to create essentially a
flawless perfect take there's no
mistakes in it so this is a really
really useful feature for recording any
instruments voice as well as MIDI so for
this video I'm going to do it with
acoustic guitar and then in the next
video show you how to do it with vocals
keep in mind you can also do this with
MIDI as well we just haven't really
touched much on MIDI yet so so I've got
my acoustic guitar up I'm going to play
in a little chord progression and I'm
going to play that same thing two
additional times I'll have three total
takes and then we'll pick the best
playlist from the best parts of of the
three and I need my click track to stay
in time so let's give this a shot
all right so there's our first take in
order to put this down into playlists
there's a couple different ways you can
do it one you can go to the waveform
view or the track view selector and
switch to playlists view you can grab
this take and just pull it straight down
into your first playlist here and then
you keep doing it that's kind of the
hard way there is a shortcut as long as
you select the track you can hit ctrl
backslash it'll say do you want to
create a new playlist and you say yes
bumps your current take down into a
playlist and then creates a new blank
playlist for you to work on now if it's
ctrl backslash on a Mac that probably
means that it is like the windows button
backslash on a PC I'm honestly not
really sure but now we have this
playlist down here now when you do use a
playlist you're only going to hear the
playlist when you actually solo the
playlist if you just hit play you're
just going to hear what's up here on top
which right now is nothing but if I solo
the playlist will hear the playlist
there we go so we are free as long as we
unseal this we're free to go back to
waveform view and record another take on
top of this so that's what we're going
to do hit 3 and my number pad and we'll
do another take
all right so I'm going to hit ctrl
backslash again hit Enter I'm going to
do a third take
you
now I'm not really happy with the part
that was I went like that's what I was
trying to do so I'm gonna do is I'm
going to start in here somewhere I think
it was so get measure 9 a create a new
playlist jump in at measure 9
there we go okay so let me just go to my
playlist view here are my four playlists
let me just bump there we go sorry not
sure what happened there I'm going to
bump this latest playlist down into a
new playlist and there we go so we have
our four playlists to work with now just
put my guitar down here I normally don't
do this but I'm using my recording like
is my vocal capture mic as well so bear
with me let's just aim this actually at
my mouth now there we go okay um so
let's go through this well generally
what I like to do is I go through this
line by line
you know bar a couple of bars at a time
and I listen to what the best takes are
so let's use my selector tool slip mode
and let's just listen to maybe the first
two bars here so this is the first take
down here actually go to the first four
bars so you solo that take and hit play
it's not too bad let's solo the next
take
I like the energy of the first half but
I like the energy of the second half and
listen let's listen the third take now
by the way when I select these I'm
making sure that my insertion follows
playback is off because then that means
when I click here and I hit play the
insertion point will jump back to the
original point so I have to keep
resetting the insertion point one so
when I do this I like to make sure that
that's off so let's listen to the third
take yeah I definitely like this part of
this one so you drag over it you hit the
UP button and it punches that take up
into the main playlist and I'm going to
take this part of this one and punch
that up into the main playlist so now I
have take two and take one so let's move
over let's listen to the next section
here's take three yeah like how I add it
a little high note in there
and here's the first one yeah I like
this one actually uh believe it or not
it's actually take one two three I'm not
really sure how that happened because it
says acoustic guitar acoustic guitar Oh
102 normally it just it puts them in
order I'm not sure what happened there
but I do definitely like this take the
most so let's drag over that hit the
up-arrow let's move on to the next
section here's the first one I really
like this part but I know that I want to
grab this part from this one so let's
listen to this one real quick
so then I'm just going to drag from
basically before 8 through halfway
through 9 so go from here to will say
there there we go let's just trim this
over a bit there we go all right so I'm
going to unsolo my playlist there I'm
going to put myself back in waveform
view and let's take a listen to this
actually let's do a heads and tails edit
and everything let's just go ahead and
edit everything up here everything nice
and tight again I'm just going back and
forth between my trim tool and my
selector tool or you can just use your
smart tool one little trick you can do
is if all the trim points are correct
you can drag over everything and just
hit F on the keyboard will actually
automatically add a fade everything as
long as the key focus mode is on but I
like to kind of go in and manually add
the fade just because I know I feel like
I have more control over the fade and
I'm actually paying some attention to
where the fade is generally we should be
putting our edits at a point of low
volume you know it should never it
should never be right on like a waveform
so I'll generally find myself moving
these edits around just fine tuning the
Etzel a bit just so I end up with the
best best take possible because again
the goal here is to make this sound like
a flawless take like I played this all
perfectly the very first time and you
know we'd have to worry about it at all
yes again the goal is to make it sound
like a perfect take so let's listen to
this and some times like this area right
here it just didn't jive right just
doesn't sound right you know it sounds
like it wasn't there's an edit in there
so you may find yourself just finding a
different edit point and just honing in
on that at an edit point and just
cleaning that up a bit as opposed to
using the Edit you did before so it's
it's part of it's about yes it's about
like you know making sure that there's
no bad notes but there's a part of it's
also but flow you know if the flow
doesn't sound right then you can tell
that there was an edit and that's you
know that's not the goal here and yes I
mean that chord right there wasn't
exactly the perfect chord but the flow
makes sense now so I'm you know I may
have to go back down into the playlist
and find a different chord there that
works better and maybe bump that chord
up and this again this is the wonderful
thing about playlist studying is editing
is that those playlists are always there
for us we go so we solved our problem
there but just by bumping up another
playlist so once you're all done you can
drag over all these edits and you hit
shift option 3 and you can render all of
your edits into a new file and so all of
the fades are gone and we now have a
perfect take alright so in the next
video I'm going to show you guys how to
do this exact same process but for
vocals which is really where this comes
in handy you can do this with a single
mic like I'm doing here or with a stereo
pair or even for a multitrack instrument
like drums we'll eventually get into how
to comp live drums is a group which is
you know it's that's a task in itself so
eventually we'll get to that so I hope
you enjoyed this video and thanks for
watching