M-AUDIO Pro Tools Recording Studio - Manual (Page 171)

Chapter 11: Tracks 153
Chapter 11: Tracks
This chapter covers the different types of tracks
in a Pro Tools session and basic track manage-
ment tasks.
Track Types
In a Pro Tools session, you can have several dif-
ferent types of tracks. These can include audio,
Auxiliary Input, Master Fader, VCA Master
(Pro Tools HD only), MIDI, Instrument, and
video tracks.
Audio, Auxiliary Input, Master Fader,
and VCA Master Tracks
Pro Tools provides mono, stereo, and multi-
channel format audio, Auxiliary Input, Master
Fader, and VCA Master tracks.
Audio Tracks
Audio tracks let you record to disk and play back
from disk recorded or imported audio files.
Auxiliary Input Tracks
Auxiliary Input tracks can be used as effects
sends, destinations for submixes, as a bounce
destination, as inputs to monitor or process au-
dio (such as audio from external MIDI instru-
ments), and for many other audio routing tasks.
Master Fader Tracks
Master Fader tracks control the overall level of
audio paths that are routed to physical output
paths. For example, you could have 24 tracks in
a session with channels 1–8 routed to Analog
Output 1–2, channels 9–16 to Analog Output
3–4, and channels 17–24 to Analog Output 5–6.
You could then create three master faders, one
to control each of these output pairs.
Master Fader tracks have additional uses (such as
controlling submix levels). For more informa-
tion, see “Master Fader Tracks” on page 830.
VCA Master Tracks (Pro Tools HD Only)
VCA Master tracks (or VCA Masters) emulate the
operation of voltage-controlled amplifier chan-
nels on analog consoles, where a VCA channel
fader would be used to control, group, or offset
the signal levels of other channels on the
console.
Video track features are described in
Chapter 48, “Working with Video in
Pro Tools”