Recording Guitar with MBox2 Mini

[Bdog]

Hello everyone,
New to digi, first time poster.
I want to record a song using my classical guitar and a condenser Mic with Pro Tools Le.
The song is basically an Intro, 3 verses, a chorus and an outro.
My question is what is the best way to achieve this recording?
Should I record each verse and chorus as seperate tracks?
Or can I just sit down, hammer the song as one track, and go back and edit the good takes?
I need help understanding the editing process from a guitar players point of view.
What are the best resources out there for learning Pro Tools Le?
Books? DVDs? Online Resources?

Thanks in advance for any advice.
Bdog~~~

[albee1952]

It depends on if you want to (or can't) play to a click. If you are okay with a click, I would simply do 3-4 passes and then(if you don't have a single solid track) create a comp track from the lot of them. Without a click, you pretty much have to run the song start to finish or use quick-punch(which will likely suck on Mbox)but, again, you certainly can record to a new track and just start playing before the mistake on the previous pass. Read up on Playlists or just create several audio tracks and its up to you whether you play along with a previous track, or do it blind(deaf?) each time.

As for learning PT, DigiTV has some good videos. Then I recommend youtube and search for "protools" (without the quotes). The tutorial DVD's out there are certainly worthwhile but maybe a tad expensive.

[Bdog]

albee,

Thanks for the response. Playing with click tracks go without question. I use them on every recording I do. I will look into the items you mentioned and try and figure it out. I was hoping to be able to play the song in 1 track, while replaying any mistakes, and be able to kind of copy and paste the song together. I know it's an editing thing, I just don't have the experiance yet of how to do it. I basically need the resources to learn Pro Tools. Is Pro Tools 101 a good buy for $50? I was checking it out in the book store the other day, but couldn't really tell whether it would be worth it to purchase. It seemed like most of the information in the book was readily available in the Pro Tools online manual and other online sources.

Thanks again for the help,
Bdog~~~

[flommer]

It seemed like most of the information in the book was readily available in the Pro Tools online manual and other online sources.

I have found that some of those books basically regurgitate the Manual, adding in a bit of commentary. And then when you are done with the book, there really isn't much reason to use it any more. Then Protools comes out with a new version and it's not up to date or obsolete..

Believe it or not, the "Getting Started" or "Mbox 2 basics guide" are actually really good for showing you how to hook cables together and how to do the basics, like record a track/playback.. etc..

+1 of the Digi TV videos. They are professionally produced so everything is really clear. They cover a lot of details really fast, so be ready to pause and rewind... YouTube videos are hit or miss, but some are great..

Do you have ProTools version 8? if so then make sure you watch the Digi video that shows track comping. That will give you a good idea of how you can deal with multiple takes.

There is also punch in recording, which allows you to record over just a section of an existing track.. There's kind of an art to doing that well.

One thing to be aware of is that you need to duplicate the sound on each take as closely as possible, so the sections sit together nicely.. With acoustic guitar, a small change in the position of the Microphone can have a huge affect on the sound. Also, a solo guitar recording is going to sound more interesting if you record in stereo, but you'll need more equipment for that (another mic and a mic-pre)..

There is lots to learn...!