Beyond Eleven: Some Suggested Effects
If you’re new to guitar or new to Pro Tools, you might want to know about a few simple effects you can add to your Eleven guitar tracks using nothing more than a few of the plug-ins included with Pro Tools.
Not so much a plug-in or effect as a standard operating procedure, multiple guitar tracks are often submixed to stereo Aux Input for centralized level control of those tracks. This is especially useful for applying compression or limiting, creating stem mixes, and many other practical uses. See your Pro Tools Reference Guide for mixing and submixing setups and suggestions, and try them out while exploring some of the following effects suggestions.
Compression, limiting, expansion and gating are all useful effects for guitar. Different results can be achieved using each of the different types of dynamics processing, in combination with signal routing for individual (discrete) versus submix (shared resource) processing. Here are a few examples:
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If all you seek is the taming of occasional dynamic aberrations within a track (meaning, you just need to clamp a couple “overs”), try putting a limiter on the individual track (after Eleven).
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To “glue” multiple rhythm tracks or tones together, bus them to a stereo Aux Input and apply heavy compression or limiting to that Aux Input. Experiment with different dynamics plug-ins such as Dyn 3 or any of Avid’s classic compressor processors to find one that works best for the material. Don’t be afraid to use extreme compression ratios to achieve this effect.
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Simple EQ processing can be used to soften “hot spots” in the playing range of some guitars. Using any of the included EQ plug-ins, you can also try applying drastic shelving or band-limiting as a special effect, or automate a filter sweep to simulate a wah-style effect.
To add echo to the guitar track, bus an Eleven track to an Aux Input and put a Delay plug-in on the Aux. Try other delay plug-ins to unlock the secrets of multi-tap, ping-pong, and other specialized applications.