Record­ing a Stereo Mixdown

This guide will step through how to record a stereo mix made on the SSL XL back into Pro Tools.

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SSL XL Desk:

1. The aim here is to record exactly what you are hear­ing through the mon­i­tors (except for the mon­i­tor con­trol vol­ume). To achieve this set all the chan­nels that should be present in the mix to Mix Bus A. This is done by press­ing the ‘A’ but­ton which is located just above the fader on each chan­nel strip.

2. If you are using mix bus B, C or D also route these to Mix Bus A. This can be by press­ing the ‘TO A’ but­ton on the mix bus mas­ter sec­tion (located on the right hand side of the desk) for each mix bus. This but­ton is located above the black level dial for the respec­tive mix busses.

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Patch­bay:

1. Once every­thing desired is routed to Mix A, patch Mix A left and right out­puts to two inputs on the MOTU 16A sound­cards on the patch­bay. For this exam­ple, MOTU 16A 2 Line Ins 7–8 are being used which will cor­re­spond to chan­nels 23–24 in Pro Tools.

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Pro Tools:

1. In Pro Tools, click ‘Track’ to open the drop down menu, located on the MAC tool­bar located at the top of the screen, and click ‘New’.

This will open the New Tracks window.

TIP: Alter­na­tively use the key­board short­cut shift + cmd + N to cre­ate a new track.

2. Cre­ate 1 new stereo audio track in sam­ples using the drop down menus in the New Tracks window.

3. Set the input on the stereo track to be inputs that have been patched into on the patch­bay. In this case, that is 23–24. (Image shows where 23-24 should be found)

4. Make sure that the out­put has been muted, as mon­i­tor­ing this chan­nel through the desk will cause a feed­back loop. To mute an out­put, press the ‘M’ on the chan­nel strip. When the M is lit up orange the out­put of the chan­nel is muted.

5. Arm the track by press­ing the red record arm but­ton on the stereo chan­nel you’ve just cre­ated, find the start­ing point of the audio and press record and play within the trans­port bar.

6. After the track has fin­ished stop the record­ing, trim any silence from the audio file if necessary.

7. To bounce down the recorded track, unmute and solo the track by press­ing the ‘S’ but­ton on the chan­nel strip within pro tools. Solo is active when the ‘S’ is lit up yel­low. This ensures that only the stereo track is playing.

8. Set the out­put of the track to out­put 23–24.

9. Next go to file > bounce to > disk.

10. Set the out­put to match the out­put of the stereo chan­nel. In this case, we are using out­put 23–24.

11. Select 44.1Hz, 16bit, inter­leaved and offline bounce.

12. Choose ‘Select Path’ to choose where to save the file.

TIP: It is best to keep the bounce in the same folder as the PTX file to avoid mis­plac­ing the file.