14 Recording Audio Video Lecture | Tracktion 5 Tutorial: Master Music Editing - Video & Sound Editing

in this video I want to show you how
recording audio works interaction five
we're going to talk about the inputs and
we're also going to talk about the click
track so you can hear an audible click
to keep your timing in line while you're
recording your audio take and so we're
gonna get started by just taking a look
at the setup here I created a new edit
and I have a two by two audio interface
configured that means I've got two
inputs and two outputs now this extra
one here is a MIDI keyboard you can
record MIDI or audio one of the same
kinds of tracks in traction 5 what your
record depends on how you set up the
input now I'm not gonna use MIDI in this
particular video so to turn this input
off all they do is right-click right
here on the input and select no input
and then I get that out of the way now
my guitar is connected to input number
two it's really just a microphone on an
amp and if I turn up my guitar you'll
see it you'll see the the meter there
now if you want a larger meter all you
need to do is click on that input and
down here in the properties section
there's a really large meter that can
help you with recording and setting your
levels but my level is coming in about
half way so that's pretty good but
really I want to record my guitar track
onto track one so these inputs you can
just drag them around I can take this
input too and put it on track three if I
want I could take input one and put it
on track two or I can take two and put
it on one which is what I want to do now
if I click on the track name then the
properties shows all kinds of properties
for the track but right now all I want
to do is rename it GTR one to get
started you can see I've got GTR one
right here now this input one I don't
really need that either so I think I'll
just go ahead and hide that right click
select no input and I've got a nice
clean view a few empty tracks to work
with and I'm ready to start recording so
in order to record we need to enable
recording on the input so we click right
there we get this bright red color so
I'm going to rewind the cursor to the
beginning of the salon I can do that
with home I'll make sure loop is turned
off if the click track turned off right
now I'll turn that on later then I'm
going to click the record button over
here in the transport I have mine set up
where our
we'll also start recording and I'm just
going to play a few notes or some chords
and then just test to make sure the
recording is working
alright now I'll hit spacebar to stop
that recording and you can see I've got
a little audio if I grab the cursor here
place it back here and play
[Music]
all right so that worked pretty well but
I want a timing reference I'm gonna
enable the click track you can do that
right here and this keyboard shortcut
for that as see you can see that in the
transport I can either use C or I can
click here to turn the click track on
and off or the click sound now in the
menu area over here on the left you can
see there's click track properties we
can turn it on and off we can also set a
count in so I'll do that in a minute but
right now let's just play a little bit
and see if we get to click so we're
hearing an emphasis on the downbeat and
that's an option in the click track it's
right here use loud clicks to emphasize
bars so the downbeat on the beginning of
the bar will be loud when it's set up
this way we could also set it up where
it only clicks during recording I
typically will use that if I've got a
drum part or something like that or once
you've got a few parts in you can turn
this click only during recording on
right now we'll leave it set this way
where the click during recording and
playback now the other key setting here
is if you want a countin we can have a 1
bar or a 2 bar count in there's a to
beat count in I'm gonna use a 2 bar
count and that means after I hit record
then it will give me 2 bars of click
before it actually starts recording so
I'm gonna do that will delete this the
other thing we might want to do at this
point is set a tempo other than 120 120
is the default temple you can see it
over here and that's set either here or
in the tempo track but I'm going to
click right here where it says 120 beats
per minute that lets me edit it right
here so I'm gonna slow this down just
gonna make it a hundred
make it'll just a little bit slower when
we get started so with that setup that
way I'm gonna play something try to keep
it a little bit more in time this time
around I'll hit home to rewind
I'll hit R to start recording I'll turn
up my guitar and play a little bit
[Music]
all right well generally that work my
timing isn't that great on this example
but that gives you an idea if I play
back you'll be able to hear it
and with the click we can tell actually
if it's in time if this is a good enough
take or not or we can use that as a
reference now I want to talk a little
bit about input monitoring I'm
monitoring the microphone for this
guitar through the audio interface and
this is typically the way you'd do it if
you've got a microphone or a guitar any
kind of instrument that you're miking
you typically will use the mixer on the
audio interface that keeps the delay
between what you're hearing down to a
very minimum or basically negligible my
little audio interface has what's
basically a mixer or a button on it that
allows in my headphones for me to hear
directly off of the mic preamp what's
happening and that's mixed in with the
playback signal from traction now lots
of the audio interfaces that you might
use have a program or an app that looks
something like this and this allows you
to set up the monitor mix in your
headphones separately from what's
happening in the recording software so
with this I can mix in what's happening
in my software separately from my actual
mic input and I can kind of mix those
together kind of virtual mixer and this
is extremely common this is what I'm
using for the voiceover for this video
but this is a very common kind of
approach and I can't give you specifics
because this is based on what comes from
your manufacturer now you can monitor
directly through traction if you turn
off your input monitoring which I'm
going to do here for a second
there's an input monitoring button on my
interface and I just turned it off and
now at this point
[Music]
you're not gonna hear anything off that
microphone all you're hearing is the
guitar strings through the voiceover
microphone now in order to get around
that you can monitor directly through
the software all the way through and
then mix in over here and there is a
little lag in that which is why we
typically wouldn't do it if we don't
have to but to do it sometimes that's
called input echo or input monitoring in
other programs in traction it's called
enable end to end meaning into end
monitoring so if I turn that on now we
you should be able to hear we can hear
right through attraction but there is a
little latency there's a little delay
between when I pick the strings and when
you actually hear the note playing and
you could adjust that up and down in the
settings by how you set the audio buffer
size so if you go to settings audio
devices buffer size if you get this
buffer size too low the playback could
break up if you have too many tracks if
you set it high like even in the 512
range then the latency starts to be
pretty noticeable you might be able to
hear it
even through the microphone if you
listen to the string noise off of my
guitar compared to the sound as you hear
it and if I really turn this up that
will exaggerate so let me turn it up to
somewhere like 1024
and you hear almost an audible slapback
echo kind of a song so I'll go ahead and
reduce that but in reality for something
like this particularly if you're singing
this can really throw you off I would
turn enable into end off so you're not
actually hearing the audio pass through
this channel but it's just going through
your audio interface the mic preamp and
directly into your headphones so I'm
gonna turn that back on
then I've got pretty much negligible
latency now we definitely need to enable
in to end when we're using a guitar amp
simulator and I'll cover that in a later
video and we also will use it for MIDI
with virtual instruments we have to have
that turned on but for normal vocal and
instrument recording it's a lot better
to find another way using your mixer or
your audio interface to do that
monitoring directly now once you've
recorded some audio if you don't like
what you've recorded all you need to do
is highlight the clip just click on it
and hit delete if you don't want to keep
it and then you can rewind and try it
again
so I'm gonna just do that here and then
there's one other thing I want to show
you which is called abort record and
delete the take so I have that assigned
to f4 it's a built-in command
interaction v that allows you in a
single keystroke to say this take is
just not going well cancel it throw out
what I did
rewind to the beginning and let's get
ready to go again so I'll just
demonstrate that here
[Music]
see the cursor is back ready to go all I
have to do is hit record again what I
did is a hit f4 on the mapping that I've
created the alternative mapping for the
keyboard for this video I've assigned
that to f4 one other thing I want to
point out is we're recording a single
microphone if you're recording a pair of
microphones you wanted to create a
stereo input from that then over in the
settings you have the choice of taking
the any of the input pairs from your
audio interface and making them into a
stereo pair you can see right now input
1 and input 2 are treated as two
separate inputs but if we click on input
1 and then down here click treat as
stereo pair you'll see that that becomes
basically a stereo pair then back over
on the recording that disappeared
because I don't have the single one
anymore but now I could choose that as a
stereo pair this will be useful for
recording maybe stereo keyboards or
using a stereo mic acoustic guitar
something like that so if I enable
recording here I've only got one thing
hooked up but you can kind of get the
idea that you'll wind up with a stereo
clip if you do it this way so I'll make
sure I'm rewound and hit record
and you can see that the resulting clip
is actually a stereo clip now if you set
up your interface and you see that
you've got stereo input pairs like this
and you don't want them you actually
want them as separate inputs then you
could do the same thing just go back to
settings on your audio device and in the
channels area here click on the stereo
pair and then you can separate them out
by deselecting treat as stereo pair like
that and then back over here you've got
the two independent inputs that you can
use like this alright so there's one
more I think I want to show you about
the way that click works so that you're
not confused when you start to enable
the click in the middle of a song or you
start recording but not right from the
beginning of the song so if I position
at bar 2 and in the click track make
sure that the pre count is set to no
count first of all so you can see how
this works with no count it should start
recording right from where I place the
bar marker so I've got input 2 enabled
and I'll start recording I'll just
record just any kind of noise starting
at bar 2 here
[Music]
all right so you can see no problem it
started right on the bar as soon as I
hit the record button so let's take that
out I'm going to position the cursor bar
to and then on the click track I'll go
to the pre count I'm going to set that
to two beats and what you'll notice is
that when it starts to record it will
actually back the cursor up and take a
running start so any audio or any part
of the song that overlaps in the pre
count you'll actually hear it it won't
just click off and start recording here
will actually back the cursor up so just
watch that behavior so that's just with
a two count pre count I have the click
track set to pre pre record count in
length
set to two beats if I set that to two
bars it backs up even more and that
might be a little confusing if you're
used to a program where it just clicks
in the cursor just sits there but
traction actually backs the cursor up so
that gives you a little context if
you're starting to pick up your
recording say at a chorus you'll hear a
little bit of the verse before the
recording actually kicks in so that's an
introduction to audio recording using
the click track in traction 5 thanks for
watching