DigiDesign Digidesign Pro Tools 8.0, Reference Manual

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Chapter 2: Pro Tools Concepts 7
Chapter 2: Pro Tools Concepts
This chapter explains some of the principles and
concepts that form the foundation of Pro Tools
operation and functionality.
Hard Disk Audio Recording
Hard disk recording is a nonlinear (or random ac-
cess) medium—you can go immediately to any
spot in a recording without having to rewind or
fast forward.
This differs from tape-based recording, which is
a
linear medium—where you need to rewind or
fast forward to hear a particular spot in a record-
ing. To rearrange or repeat material in a linear
system, you need to re-record it, or cut and
splice it.
Nonlinear systems have several advantages. You
can easily rearrange or repeat parts of a record-
ing by making the hard disk read parts of the re-
cording in a different order and/or multiple
times. In addition, this re-arrangement is
nonde-
structive , meaning that the original recorded ma-
terial is not altered.
Pro Tools Nonlinear Editing
Pro Tools is a nonlinear recording editing sys-
tem that lets you rearrange and mix recorded
material nondestructively. Nonlinear editing
simply means that you can cut, copy, paste,
move, delete, trim, and otherwise rearrange any
audio, MIDI, or video in the Pro Tools Edit win-
dow.
Nonlinear editing provides significant advan-
tages over dubbing (re-recording), and cutting
and splicing magnetic tape. It gives you the
greatest possible flexibility for editing and ar-
ranging, and it is all nondestructive and “undo-
able.” Additionally, with nonlinear editing in
Pro Tools, you will never introduce any degrada-
tion of audio fidelity as you would with tape.