Tips & Tricks #1 Setting up Protools for Recording Part 1 (Time Operation)

This trick is for engineers who want to line up the first bar of the song to the meter. Usually musician need 1 or 2 bars of metronome to count in before playing the intro of the song. So this can mess with your head if the actual Bar 1 of the song is Bar 3 on your meters. This is how you can setup your meter so everything line up.

Step 1: Set the tempo of your song.

Step 2: Open up the Time Operation window and select Move Song Start on the first tab on top of the window as shown on the picture below:

Here are a few parameters you need to change:

1. Change the settings to Bars under the Timebase tab.

2. Key in the Bar number that you want your song to start in the 'Move start to' tab. (For example if you want 1 Bar of metronome to be played before the song start, you can key in 2).

3. Key in 1 and check the box beside Renumber song start to tab.

4. Under the Realign tab, select the second option as shown on the picture above.

5. Finally remember to click Apply

Once you hit apply you will see the meters start from Bar 0 instead of Bar 1 as shown in the picture below. So now you do not need to start adding bars in your head when the musician says: 'Can we punch in at Bar 56?'