How to Punch In and Out Record in ProTools 8 LE
- 1). Listen to your track and determine the point where you want to begin recording (punch in) and the point where you want to stop recording (punch out).
- 2). Set the punch in point by clicking the "Start" field in the transport window. (If this section of the transport window is not showing, click on the small, downward-pointing triangle on the right side of the transport window and click "All" from the drop-down menu). Similarly, enter a value in the "End" field to stop recording. The values you enter can be in time (minutes and seconds) or in measures (bars and beats), depending you how you have the display set in the transport window.
- 3). Alternatively, set the punch in and out points with the "Selection" tool and "click and drag" the mouse over the section you want to re-record. Small arrow markers will appear on the time line to indicate the punch in/out points.
- 4). Allow yourself time to listen to a portion of the song leading up to the punch in point by entering a value in the "pre-roll" field in the transport window. Entering a value of 10 seconds, for example, instructs ProTools to start playing the song 10 seconds before the punch in mark. Similarly, you can set a "post-roll" time to listen to the track once the punch out point is passed.
- 5). "Arm" the track (set it in the record mode) by clicking on the track record enable button on the track control section, which is to the left of the track's waveform.
- 6). Set the track to the "input only monitoring" mode. Do this by clicking on "Track" on the top menu bar and looking for "Input only monitor" in the drop-down menu. If you see it, then it is already set. This allows the musician to listen to the pre-recorded music on the track up until the punch in marker, and then it switches to monitor her input performance. If you don't see this phrase, you will instead see "Audio input monitoring." Simply click on that line and it will toggle to the "Input only monitoring" mode.
- 7). Prepare your instrument. Check that the input you are using on your D/A (digital-to-analog) interface device is set to the input of the track you are going to record on (input 1, input 2, input 3 and so on).
- 8). Click on the record and play buttons in the transport window, listen to the song and start your performance.
- 9). Click on "Edit" on the top menu bar and "Undo record" from the drop-down menu if you are not satisfied with your performance. ProTools defaults to a "non-destructive record mode," so you aren't committed to your take if you aren't happy with it. You can perform the punch in/out procedure again if you desire.
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