Specifications

Chapter 13: Tracks 213
Chapter 13: Tracks
Pro Tools provides different types of tracks for
working with audio, MIDI and video in Pro Tools
sessions.
Track Types
In a Pro Tools session, you can have several differ-
ent types of tracks. These can include audio, Aux-
iliary Input, Master Fader, VCA Master (Pro Tools
HD and Pro Tools with Complete Production
Toolkit only), MIDI, Instrument, and video tracks.
Audio, Auxiliary Input, Master Fader, and VCA
Master Tracks
Pro Tools provides mono, stereo, and multichan-
nel 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 au-
dio 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 audio (such as audio from external MIDI
instruments), 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 information,
see “Master Fader Tracks and Signal Flow” on
page 936.
VCA Master Tracks (Pro Tools HD and Pro Tools
with Complete Production Toolkit Only)
VCA
Master tracks (or VCA Masters) emulate the oper-
ation of voltage-controlled amplifier channels on
analog consoles, where a VCA channel fader
would be used to control, group, or offset the sig-
nal levels of other channels on the
console.
VCA Master tracks do not pass audio, so they do
not have inputs, outputs, inserts, or sends. A Mix
Group is assigned to a VCA Master track, which
appears in the VCA track’s Assignment selector.
The controls of the tracks in that Group, called the
slave tracks, are modified by the controls on the
VCA Master. For more information, see “VCA
Master Tracks” on page 939.
Video track features are described in
Chapter 51, “Working with Video in
Pro Tools”