Software Free for All
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Man, I have a really cool job! A little while ago I got a Digi 002 Rack with Pro Tools 6.1 software. With that gear came a music production suite, featuring an amazing collection of free software that integrates seamlessly with Pro Tools. For my Groundwork column this month, my job was to learn this software, make some music with it, and write about my experiences. I'm pinching myself right now...is this a dream? It must be. I get paid to learn cool software, make music, and write about the experience.
What makes this dream so much better is that these software add-ons are ridiculously easy to incorporate into my Pro Tools system, workflow, and music creation process. It literally took more time to install and register the software than it did to learn how to use it and actually make a song with all of the components — and that even included a quick skim of a few manuals! But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you about the products that come in the free bundle.
What is the Music Production Suite?
The music production suite is an awesome array of software bundled with every Pro Tools system, from the Mbox, Digi 002, and Digi 002 Rack units up to Pro Tools|HD Accel systems. This suite includes Reason Adapted (Propellerhead Software), Live Digidesign Edition (Ableton), and three products from IK Multimedia including AmpliTube LE, SampleTank SE, and T-RackS EQ.
Reason Adapted
Reason Adapted is a virtual studio rack with MIDI-based synthesizers, samplers, drum machines, loop players, effects units, pattern sequencers, and a mixer — many of the tools and instruments you need to turn your ideas into music. Specifically, the components in Reason Adapted are
The audio outputs from Reason Adapted can be streamed directly into the Pro Tools mixer via ReWire for additional processing within Pro Tools. For a partial view of the Reason Adapted components, check out Figure 1.
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Figure 1: The Reason Adapted interface Click to enlarge |
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Live Digidesign Edition Ableton's Live Digidesign Edition software is a sweet sample sequencer that's extremely easy to use. It enables you to create, edit, and play loops, phrases, and songs at whatever tempo you decide. You can drag and drop samples into Live (even in real time) and Live will automatically tempo-match them to the current Live Set or Pro Tools session. And, like Reason, the audio outputs from Live can be streamed right into Pro Tools via ReWire. |
Figure 3: The Live Digidesign Edition interface |
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| SampleTank SE SampleTank SE is a powerful MIDI-driven sample playback module. As a plug-in within Pro Tools, SampleTank puts plenty of aurally pleasing samples at your fingertips for immediate insertion into your session. |
Figure 4: The SampleTank SE interface |
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| AmpliTube LE AmpliTube LE is a plug-in that puts many amplifiers, cabinets, stomp boxes, and effects at your command. Besides having numerous presets and just plain sounding amazing on guitars, AmpliTube works well on bass and many other instruments for creative sonic treatment. |
Figure 5: The AmpliTube LE interface |
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| T-RackS EQ The EQ module from IK Multimedia's acclaimed T-RackS analog mastering suite, T-RackS EQ offers Pro Tools users a powerful, tube-modeled parametric EQ to use during tracking, mixing, and mastering. |
Figure 6: The T-RackS EQ interface |
But Wait...There's More
In addition to all this software, you also get a heaping helping of free samples, loops, and presets on the installation disks to use with the software, such as:
Reason Adapted — tons of drum kit samples, analog synth and bass sounds, and settings for all the other gear (like different reverb types)
Live Digidesign Edition — loads of sample banks from Big Fish and Power FX sample makers
SampleTank SE — samples ready to load, from Accordions to Warm Pads
AmpliTube LE — numerous presets for amp models and specific effects
T-RackS EQ — a bunch of presets for mastering, generic, and special FX equalization
Using the Music Production Suite
Once I got all the software installed, it was time to play. I'm a big fan of electronica in all its forms, and have had a taste for groovy ambient tracks recently. So I decided to go that route for this example. Here's what I did while creating an ambient track in Pro Tools incorporating all these songwriting tools.
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Figure 2: The ReWire insert connects the audio outputs of Reason (Mix L – Mix R) to an audio or aux track in Pro Tools. Live utilizes the same signal routing technique |
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First, I created a stereo audio track (or you can use a stereo aux track) within Pro Tools, and chose Reason Adapted as the first (topmost) insert on the track. Reason Adapted launched automatically. I clicked back into Pro Tools and selected the audio output channel from Reason in the ReWire plug-in window, "Mix L – Mix R," as in Figure 2. Then I set the song's tempo at 100 bpm in Pro Tools, went back to Reason, and created a beat with the Redrum drum machine using the "Abstract Kit 06," as seen in Figure 1. Reason automatically set its tempo at 100 bpm.
The chord progression (and added percussion)
With the primary beat complete, I decided to find a sample in Live for the song's main chord progression. First, I created a stereo audio (or aux) track within Pro Tools and selected Ableton Live as the first insert on the track. Then I chose an output from Live ("Mix L – Mix R" again) and launched the Live application. Live doesn't launch automatically like Reason does.
[NOTE: After installing Ableton Live Digidesign Edition, launch it once on its own before you use it from within Pro Tools so that Live can install its ReWire engine in your system.]
Within Live, I searched through some samples using the Browser window on the left side of the Live screen (as in Figure 3). For this example, I chose the "Pno C11-Bb11.wav" sample from the free Power FX Loops included on the Live installation CD. The original tempo of the loop is 130 bpm, but the tempo of the song is 100 bpm — so Live automatically time-stretched it to fit my tempo. I also added a free drum loop called "drumbox_a.wav" and several other free samples into my Live Set, as you can see in Figure 3.
The bass line
For the bass line, I decided to create a MIDI track in Pro Tools and trigger an analog synth sound called "LatelyBass" from Subtractor in Reason. I drew in the notes with the Pencil tool in Pro Tools and assigned the MIDI track output to Subtractor 1 – channel 4. Each Reason instrument is assigned its own channel in Pro Tools, which makes it easy to keep track of MIDI signals.
The string part
The song needed another layer, so I chose to add a high string part to the song using string samples in SampleTank. I created a stereo audio (or aux) track, instantiated the SampleTank plug-in on that track, and loaded the String Orchestra 1 sample set (as shown in Figure 4). Then I created a MIDI track and chose SampleTank 1 as the output. This routes the MIDI signal on that track to SampleTank and triggers the string samples. Finally, I drew in the MIDI notes with the Pencil tool on the SampleTank MIDI track, and voilá...strings!
The guitar sound
With the musical bed in place, I plugged my electric guitar into input #2 on my Digi 002 and created a mono audio track. After instantiating the AmpliTube LE plug-in on that track, I chose the "Wah drive riffs" preset (Figure 5) and started jamming away in tone heaven.
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Figure 7: the Pro Tools session Click to enlarge |
This track took me less time to create than it did to install the software — that's how easy it is to write songs with this stuff. Figure 7 shows all of these tools at work in my Pro Tools session. I recommend making a session template similar to this, so that you can open Pro Tools right up with everything at your fingertips.
gw_session.zip (6 MB)
gw_session.sit
(5 MB)
Wrap-Up
Regardless of your music-making style, the products in the music production suite will enable you to get your ideas out faster and be more creative with the wide variety of instruments and effects available, all from within Pro Tools. Join me next month for more Pro Tools production techniques. See you soon. Peace.
David Franz is a musician, producer, engineer, instructor, and author. Like what you see in this column? Check out his book, Producing in the Home Studio with Pro Tools (2nd Edition). You can buy it online through http://store.digidesign.com.
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