Setting Levels for Recording in Pro Tools

Video Transcript

"Okay, when we record a voice over, there's a couple of things to keep in mind. the first thing is that we get the proper level. We don't want to record too loud and we don't want too record too low. So that's adjusted by the input level. But, the other thing we need to be aware of is how we actually hear ourselves. So we need to connect a headphone. Now you notice this adapter is an eight inch jack. The inbox comes with a quarter inch jack, so you're either going to find another set of headphones or your going to get an adapter like this which is a quarter inch to eight inch adapter, plug that in, plug our headphones in. Now we can start hearing things. Once we put our headphones on, we have a headphone volume which controls our overall volume. It's not a recording level, this is just the volume to our headphones and it's important to know the difference. We want to make sure hat any speakers that we have connected are turned off because when a microphones on and a speaker's on at the same time you get feedback and that's not something that you want to hear through your headphones, hear the loud volume, The other thing that's real important that the inbox has which is a great advantage is that it has the ability to listen to the microphone when it's armed, by turning this knob all the way one way, you no longer hear what's coming out of the tracks, you only hear the microphone input, and that's a good way to give yourself a, see how you sound. So, let's take a listen how I sound. Mmm, that's wonderful, okay, I have a good voice. I think I want to bring up my headphone level a little bit more, then that way I can get a good level. I'm also taking a good look at the meter right now. The meter shows that I'm in the middle. I'm not quite to high or to low. If I had this brought up too high then I might be distorted and once it starts hitting red, and you'll also see the clipping on the box. You don't want to do that so you want to bring it down a little bit. So now I have a good level and I have a way to hear myself. So let's go ahead and record a little bit. I'm going to start recording my track, and I have my voice over. Here I am talking about how to connect the microphone to Pro Tools and how to do a recording. There we go, and I have a good recording. And now I hit stop and there we go. Now in order for me to hear that, I won't be able to hear it unless I turn my mix knob back over to pro tools, and that's real important. So that's how I listen to what I have on the tape inside the hard drive."