Before Recording

Before you begin recording in a session, you should ensure that your system has enough storage space for the project. The amount of storage space consumed by audio regions in a project will vary, depending on the bit depth and sample rate of the session. (See the “Analog-to-Digital Conversion” section in Chapter 1 for a detailed discussion of bit depth and sample rate.)

Audio Storage Requirements

Pro Tools records all audio using sample rates ranging from 44.1 kHz to 192 kHz, with bit depths of 16-bit or 24-bit. At a sample rate of 44.1 kHz, each track consumes 5 megabytes (MB) of disk space per minute for 16-bit audio (mono) and 7.5 MB per minute for 24-bit audio (mono). With increasing bit depth and sample rates, hard disk space consumption increases correspondingly; recording at a sample rate of 88.2 kHz, therefore, consumes twice as much space as recording at 44.1 kHz. Similarly, recording in stereo consumes twice the space of recording in mono.