Hey Casey! I was wondering how your journey of learning Pro Tools began, I'm currently taking a class and this program is absolutely daunting... Any tips for a budding artist?
- Asked by Anonymous
That is so awesome to hear! First of all, congratulations! you just took the first step in learning a skill that’s going to pay you back the rest of your music-making life. I encourage even people who don’t plan on doing their own engineering all the time to learn the basics of one DAW (Logic/GarageBand are great and more affordable). I use PT and sometimes Ableton. It was helpful to me and alleviating for my anxiety-prone personality to know no matter what I can record something any time I want. It also strengthened my arranging skills because so much of production is about making better spacial decisions. I work better this way, but it’s different person to person. Sometimes I wish I’d taken a class!
My first DAW ever was PT which made for some initial headaches. Now that I use it all the time, I think it’s a lot more intuitive than some people on the boards say it is. For one, the grid and tab-to-transient features make editing really fast/easy. You’ll get the hang of it! And it’s visually really easy to organize (I like to color code all my tracks). Youtube is your new best friend. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent watching 14 year olds teach me how to EQ vocals or manipulate the midi features. It’s such a brilliant and free resource. Take advantage of it.
To get you started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwVgaBOvP9s
I had next to no experience messing around with Logic or Garage Band; only reason I started on PT was because that was what my friend who I was learning how to produce from was using. Now I think maybe having no point of reference with other DAWs made it easier for me to learn. He gave me a cracked copy of PT and from there I spent about a year studying. The first half of the year was me hitting my head against the wall, the last 6 mos. were extremely productive and resulted in a record. My ears and eyes adjusted to things. I started to have dreams about trimming wavs. I think if I had to do it again I wouldn’t have isolated myself to much. It’s a lot easier to learn when you have some sort of community around you.
Aside from YouTube, I’ve found the avid community forum is a great resource–I always recommend troubleshooting between more than one opinion because the issue might differ depending on your computer/interface/DAW PT edition. I started out on PT 10 and when I switched into 11 I had to take some time adjusting.
Overall, ask as many questions as possible–make lots of mistakes and show them to your friends as much as you can for feedback. Hope this helps and good luck!
xox
CD