Planning the project on “paper” first

The biggest mistake I see from early users of Pro Tools or any DAW, in general, is diving right into a project without a solid plan. After becoming comfortable with the inner workings of a DAW, you may be able to jump right into a project with a basic idea of what’s going to be needed, but there are many advantages to determining the scope and requirements of a session before even opening your DAW. Let’s look at some examples of what works for different types of projects.

Scripts

If you are working on story-based content, then a script is a great place to start. This might seem like extra work for some non-fiction projects – why not simply bring in all the audio and start editing it in the DAW? The reality is that audio clips and waveforms without any pre-planned guidance are much more challenging to cultivate into a cohesive narrative from within Pro Tools and almost every other DAW. Some of the most powerful...