M-AUDIO Pro Tools Recording Studio - Manual (Page 201)

Chapter 11: Tracks 183
Pro Tools LE systems let you play or record up to
48 simultaneous stereo or mono tracks. For de-
tails on LE system capabilities, see Table 7 on
page 34.
Track Priority
While your Pro Tools hardware allows a fixed
number of voices, Pro Tools software allows for
additional audio tracks beyond that fixed num-
ber of voices. While all of these tracks can be re-
corded to or imported, arranged, and cued for
playback, not all of them can be played back si-
multaneously.
When the number of tracks exceeds the number
of available voices, tracks with lower priority
may not be heard. For these situations,
Pro Tools assigns priorities to tracks that com-
pete for the available voices. Because there can
be more tracks than available voices, Pro Tools
provides multiple ways of adjusting the play-
back priority of audio tracks. See “Changing a
Track’s Playback Priority” on page 183 and
“Freeing up Voices on a Track” on page 183.
With Pro Tools|HD systems, you can assign spe-
cific voices to multiple tracks such that those
voices are shared by more than one track. This
feature is called voice borrowing. The combina-
tion of playback/record tracks and shared voiced
tracks comprises the total number of voiceable
tracks on a Pro Tools|HD system.
To set multiple tracks to the same voice, see
“Setting Voice Assignment” on page 184. For
additional information on voice borrowing,
see“Voice Borrowing” on page 186).
Changing a Track’s Playback Priority
Tracks with higher positions (leftmost in the
Mix window or topmost in the Edit window)
have priority over tracks in lower positions in a
session.
To increase a track’s priority, do any of the
following:
„ In the Mix window, drag the Track Name but-
ton to the left of other tracks in the session.
Tracks at the left of the Mix window have higher
priority than those on the right.
„ In the Edit window, drag the Track Name but-
ton above other tracks in the session. Tracks at
the top of the Edit window have higher priority
than those below.
„ In the Track List, drag the Track Name to a
higher position in the list. Tracks at the top of
this list have higher priority than those below.
Freeing up Voices on a Track
You can also adjust the relative priority of tracks
by freeing up the voices of individual tracks,
making them available to other tracks in the ses-
sion.
To free up the voice of a track, do one of the
following:
„
Click the Voice selector of the track and set it
to Off. See “Setting Voice Assignment” on
page 184.
„ Deactivate the track by Control-Start-clicking
(Windows) or Command-Control-clicking
(Mac) its track type icon in the Mix window.
„
Make sure the track does not have an Output
Path or Send assignment.
„ With Pro Tools HD, you can temporarily free a
track’s voice during playback by muting it (see
“Mute Frees Assigned Voice” on page 192).