The Musician's Guide to Pro Tools

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review




A great resource for the Pro Tools novice, August 4, 2008
By Reid H. Geisenhof (Athens, Ga United States)
I love this book, unreservedly and unabashedly. It's entertaining and informative, and covers the concepts recordists like myself need to know, and skips all the junk recordists like myself haven't any use for. It is concise where it needs to be, in-depth where it needs to be, and explains step-by-step how to use the program, hitting the high points while referring one to the manual for the deep, deep, DEEP capabilities of Pro Tools. As one who uses the computer basically like a very capable tape-machine, and as one who has no use for probably 80% of what the program can do, I found this book indispensable; it's sitting next to my Mac, on top of the Digi manual as I type, and I refer to it almost every session for one thing or another. Even if I were into electronic music or into slicing and dicing performances unto "perfection", I'd still have use for this tome, though I think I really love it because it seems geared towards musicians like myself: we're tracking live bands, real instruments, and we're used to using tape machines, and we don't care one whit what depths one can plumb with the program. I want to capture performances quickly and easily, edit out the coughs and chatter, and this book has helped with that immensely. The Digidesign manual is a fine thing, but one problem with the transition from analog to digital is in nomenclature; i.e., if you don't know what a process is called in the world of PT, good luck finding it in the manual. Things that should be easy to figure out and find in the manual, simply put, ain't, and the volume becomes 750 pages of frustration. Enter this book: the information I need is right where I think it oughta be, and the session continues rather than me having to send my band-mates home (again) while I slog through the Digi manual. Thank you, John Keane.



What You Need To Know, July 7, 2008
By T. Spaulding (Nashville, USA)
As stated, Keane wrote this initially as a guide to get his friends who had purchased Pro Tools rigs up and running. The official Digidesign Pro Tools manual is comprehensive, but not particularly instructional.

Keane provides the answers to all of the obvious "How do I do this?" questions, and throws in savvy engineering and production tips to boot. The addition of actual sessions to practice with is invaluable, since seeing is believing...and learning.



Great introduction to Pro Tools., June 28, 2008
By M. Sanders (AUSTIN, TX USA)
This is a great book for learning your way around Pro Tools. It's basically a Pro Tools course that you take at your own pace. A bit of patience is required because it's very important that you follow every instruction sequentially and specifically. If you do that, you will have a good grip on PT techniques when you finish.



Just Want To Add..., June 26, 2008
By Pyrotechno (NoVa)
The other reviews pretty much cover what this book is about, but here's another perspective. I consider myself an intermediate PTLE user, but recently upgraded from 6.9 to 7.4. This is the only book I found that covers PTLE up to 7.3.1, and I've found it very helpful in explaining many of the new features that 6.9 didn't have. Even some of the material I thought I knew is covered from a slightly different perspective, which was helpful, and there were some cool tips about things I'd never thought of before.

Overall, the book is well written and edited. I think if you're coming into PT from another DAW, this might be all you need to get to an intermediate level fairly quickly. (Wish I'd had it when I was first starting out.) If you have no recording experience at all, you might also benefit from a more basic primer on general hard disk recording. For a basic PT reference, I like "Pro Tools for Dummies". As others have pointed out, the whole topic of subtleties in mic setup and EFX for various instruments, mixing/mastering in general, studio layout, etc. requires its own material. Check out Bobby Owsinki's books on those topics.



This is a great book.........., April 7, 2008
By Douglas Dillon (Florida)
I've used a number of these and this one seems to get down to the practical things that you need to know in dealing with recording with Pro Tools. It's been a while since I've recorded so this was sort of like starting over. This book takes you step by step in set up and gives good pictures and illustrations of what you're doing. It comes with some files you can load but it recommends that you create some of your own. I found that to be very helpful. It took me from hooking up any instruments, drum boxes, or whatever to recording something to work with. It made it more "real world" instead of just following a file you've been given.

It's truly a book from a musician to a musician. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get down to recording!!!

Doug