need 12-16 simultaneous tracks. What's the best system?

  • Thread starter Thread starter ibleedburgundy
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ibleedburgundy said:
Can any of you guys recommend a bundle I can use with Pro tools? I have almost zero experience with all this Joe Meek/moogerfooger stuff. What are the essentials?
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If you're looking at a 002, consider getting the factory bundle. I think its still called that. A lot of the plugs that come in that bundle are pretty specialized - you won't use them all that much- but there are a few that make it more than worth it. I really like the LA-3A, the Meek compressor and EQ, and the Moogerfooger Analog delay.

The only essential that Pro Tools doesn't cover, IMO, is reverb. The d-verb plug that it comes with is a joke. I think I've gotten 2 useable sounds out of it... for background sounds. :rolleyes: For PC I like Ren, Verb from Waves. My favorite is Altiverb, but its Mac only.

Other than that, PT comes stock with a pretty good EQ, useable delays and a good compressor. Apparently V.7 is introducing another compressor. I have no idea how it sounds, but I'm hopeful.

Anyway- the plugin bundles that come with Pro Tools are a good deal. Buying those same plugs later would cost 4x as much, in some cases.

Take care,
Chirs
 
This is what comes with an LE system-

http://www.digidesign.com/products/bundle/

I agree with Chris, the D-Verb is discusting, along with the Digi Limiter.

I've used Altiverb, but I personally think TL Space sounds a little better, and is a little less taxing on your CPU. Either way, both plugs have amazing features and actually sound very good.
 
TuoKaerf said:
I'm a few months away from graduating from a recording school, and almost Digidesign PT certified in post and music (maybe will go onto the 300 level expert certification in the future, I'll give that a few years).

The school I go to made no false hype about my job outlook. They flat out told me within 10 minutes of my first meeting with an admissions rep that if I wanted to be successful, I'd have to do it for myself. They will help me for as long as needed to try and find a job, but its up to me to make it happen. They arn't blowing sunshine up our asses.

The school is honest, has 9 on site professional studios that are for our use only, a great lab staff keeping things running, and pro instructors that have engineered/produced numerous platnum albums (and still do aside from teaching a few classes during the day).

Sure I could have learned all of that on my own, but I don't have the money or resources to do it. I'm being trained by some of the best in the industry (people who take the time to show you exactly what they know, and how to apply it), along with using some of the best gear (Trident large format, SSL E and G series, Digidesign D-Command and D-Control, great outboard gear, many different DAWs like Pro Tools 6.9-soon to be 7-/Logic Pro 7.1/Digital Performer/Reason 3/Ableton Live and so on). I've also met some great contacts/current clients, and I'm already well on my way to starting my own business, and I'm months from graduation. (on a side note, clients like to see degrees and certifications)

I get to play in full studios almost everyday during class, and after class if I book time. I feel comfortable walking into new studios, and can be up and running with unfamiliar gear after a little bit of playing. If I had not gone to school, I'd be a fish out of water in a professional enviroment.
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do you mind me asking where you go?
 
Nothing about protools is a scam or money pit, and it certainly has a much higher than a 50% success rate. Whoever gave you that information is a total idiot or hates protools so blindly they'll tell you whatever you need to hear not to buy it. I've had my 002r for over a year now and have never had a real problem. Maybe 10 times out of the entire year the recording would freeze and I'd have to retrack, and it was never a huge deal. And 3 grand? Where the hell did you get that, I know the factory bundle retails for like 1600 but you can hassle the guys at guitar center, they knocked mine down to 1460 for me and I find the plugs that came with it to be very helpful. EQ3 is surprisingly nice(i like it better than waves eq) and the bombfactory compressors sound great. I started by adding a behringer ada8000(one of their more useful units) for about 250, it has the lightpipe option and allowed me up to 12 simaltaneous tracks right from the get go. So 1700 bucks and you could have 12 tracks to start. You can add preamps to the line ins and a two channel into the spdif and you'd have 18 simaltaneous tracks and if you went cheap you could probably do it for just over 2 grand. Don't come on here and bash something you have no knowledge of, that can be pretty counter productive for you, I can think of a couple of forums that if you came in saying that you'd have a huge flame war and you'd get almost no help.
 
jonnyc said:
Nothing about protools is a scam or money pit, and it certainly has a much higher than a 50% success rate. Whoever gave you that information is a total idiot or hates protools so blindly they'll tell you whatever you need to hear not to buy it. I've had my 002r for over a year now and have never had a real problem. Maybe 10 times out of the entire year the recording would freeze and I'd have to retrack, and it was never a huge deal. And 3 grand? Where the hell did you get that, I know the factory bundle retails for like 1600 but you can hassle the guys at guitar center, they knocked mine down to 1460 for me and I find the plugs that came with it to be very helpful. EQ3 is surprisingly nice(i like it better than waves eq) and the bombfactory compressors sound great. I started by adding a behringer ada8000(one of their more useful units) for about 250, it has the lightpipe option and allowed me up to 12 simaltaneous tracks right from the get go. So 1700 bucks and you could have 12 tracks to start. You can add preamps to the line ins and a two channel into the spdif and you'd have 18 simaltaneous tracks and if you went cheap you could probably do it for just over 2 grand. Don't come on here and bash something you have no knowledge of, that can be pretty counter productive for you, I can think of a couple of forums that if you came in saying that you'd have a huge flame war and you'd get almost no help.
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Let's see here, the 002 is $1300 and the bundle was $1460. That's $2,740. I rounded up to 3 grand but $2740 doesn't include preamps. From what I understand, the program is incomplete without some sort of bundle so I included that as a part of the cost, whereas you have yourself convinced you payed $1200 for pro tools but you really payed $2700. That's an outstanding marketing strategy they got there.
 
I don't think you understand how this works. A Digi 002 Rack, with the factory bundle, is $1,549.97 from Sweetwater. That INCLUDES the Digi 002r hardware, AND the Pro Tools 6.9 LE software, plus the plug ins.

You buy the bundle, thats that. You don't need to buy anything else to make Pro Tools run.

The Digi 002 has preamps built into it. They are ok, but are about as good as you're going to get at that kind of price.
 
ibleedburgundy said:
Let's see here, the 002 is $1300 and the bundle was $1460. That's $2,740. I rounded up to 3 grand but $2740 doesn't include preamps. From what I understand, the program is incomplete without some sort of bundle so I included that as a part of the cost, whereas you have yourself convinced you payed $1200 for pro tools but you really payed $2700. That's an outstanding marketing strategy they got there.
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Wow man are you playing with me? My 002r was 1460, that includes the interface(002r w/4 xlr preamps built in) Pro Tools LE and a plug ins "bundle". So thats $1460 for the whole get up, plus I spent 235 for my ada8000 when i first got started, and you could get 4 cheap pre's for 400 bucks and a decent digital with spdif for 400 could probably get cheaper. So 18 mic preamps capable of recording 18 simaltaneous tracks onto pro tools le for less than $2500 and if you don't ever want to upgrade you don't have to. I repeat for my 002r and my protools software with plugs ins i paid $1460, however much you choose to spend on the additional mic pre's is up to you. You really need to get your info straight and do some research before getting on here and saying ridiculous bullsh**.
 
ibleedburgundy said:
Let's see here, the 002 is $1300 and the bundle was $1460. That's $2,740. I rounded up to 3 grand but $2740 doesn't include preamps. From what I understand, the program is incomplete without some sort of bundle so I included that as a part of the cost, whereas you have yourself convinced you payed $1200 for pro tools but you really payed $2700. That's an outstanding marketing strategy they got there.
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listen to the two guys above me
they have just RE-stated what I said before.
here are some links:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Digi002R/
002 Rack with basic plugins. About, maybe, 15 or so. That includes some soft synths....1200
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Digi002RFactory/
002 Rack with more plugin bundles.....$1600

And I actually paid $950 for Pro Tools. And only $950. No hidden costs, no extra fees...just one simple price. Software and hardware in one.
 
Wow. Yeah, I'd never have bought the 002 if that was the case. :confused: Pro Tools is a little more expensive than other options (and less than others, as well) but NOTHING like that!!! Hype will carry a product far, but not THAT far!! :eek:

I paid $2000 for a 002 and got 4 preamps, 4 additional line inputs, MIDI i/o, a motorized control surface, Pro Tools software and a complete set of plugins (included some Waves stuff at the time. :D). It was a complete system and I didn't need to buy anything else. When I eventually needed more than 8 analog inputs, I added them with an ADAT and the lightpipe I/O as I explained earlier.

Anyway, I can see how you made that mistake but its WAY off!!! We *aren't* that stupid. :D

Take care,
Chris
 
holy crap I didn't realize the rack factory bundle included the 002. Boy do I feel dumb.
 
Its cool, most of us were confused with the Digi systems at one point or another.

Think of Digidesign as a hadware company. You buy Digi hardware, and you get the software with it (except for M-Audio hardware or Pro Tools M-Powered, where you need to buy both seperate).
 
Yeah I meant to mention mpowered you could get the maudio firewire 1814 for 600 plus mpowered with plugins for 300, so really for 900 bucks you could have a pro tools system capable of 18 inputs. Just another option for you, and don't look down too much on digi, they have a lot of odd and frustrating practices but they've always been very helpful and really isn't bad, limited yes, but not bad.
 
Less is More

I just built my first DAW with an 800mhz P-3 (cost me 2 games in trade), M-audio 2496 and cubase SE. Along with the extra 256 RAM (512 total) I have invested $300. This system is awesome and I have recorded 16 tracks of audio no problem (this includes a few VST effects). I have a 7200 rpm drive (10 gig) for my OS and Cubase and a 5400 2nd drive (20 gig) for my audio. I get up every Saturday morning, gulp down a bunch of coffee and have a blast with this setup. No problems yet. I looked on the net on how to streamline Win XP for a recording rig and it's great. A buddy of mine spent 10 grand on a Pro Tools setup and he scratches his head trying to figure it out on a weekly basis. Hope this helps. Just keep it simple.
 
If you're buddy spent 10 grand and can't figure out his pro tools rig then he's some kind of idiot for spending that much and not knowing or at least taking the time to learn it. I'll admit when I bought my 002r I was a retard I just jumped right into it without thinking and a year and a half later, Zero problems. What pt rig does your friend have that never works right, thats one of the most positive things I can say about digi is the stuff works. How simple is the 002r, plugged it in, followed the extrememly short simple instructions and I was recording, and I don't know S*** about computers. IMO pro tools le is keeping it simple.
 
Hmmmmm

I knew someone would read to far into this. My buddy has a Digi002 system and shame on you for calling a fellow musician an idiot! I'm not knocking Pro-tools. My friend is a vocalist that has recorded in pro studios using Pro Tools so he wanted his own rig but parts of it are a struggle. If it took you a year and a half for you to learn how to use it then whether you want to admit it or not it has it's challenges. It takes some people more than others to grasp its potential. Let's not turn this into a Cubase verses Pro Tools debate. There are enought "Mac vs PC" debaters already. This is a Newbee's area so how about staying positive. No DAW or software for acheiving the same result is simple or else every musician would have one. All I'm saying is just learn the basics and find out what you are capable of and what not. It's to bad you read my post as an attack rather than an aid like it was supposed to be. Nuff Said!
 
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Well I went out and got the factory bundle and I'm in the installation process. I have not done any recording yet cause I'm doing everything slowly and carefully. Also, I'm not using a pentium 4 so it's a little more difficult to find out how to turn off the hyper-threading (if my computer does that?). It doesn't have BIOS, rather it uses intelli-something or other.

I have the ADAT hooked up with light pipe and all my channels routed (1-8 on the 002, 9-16 on the ADAT and 2 more somehow?) but I have not run any sound checks so the moment of truth still awaits...
 
ibleedburgundy said:
Well I went out and got the factory bundle and I'm in the installation process. I have not done any recording yet cause I'm doing everything slowly and carefully. Also, I'm not using a pentium 4 so it's a little more difficult to find out how to turn off the hyper-threading (if my computer does that?). It doesn't have BIOS, rather it uses intelli-something or other.

I have the ADAT hooked up with light pipe and all my channels routed (1-8 on the 002, 9-16 on the ADAT and 2 more somehow?) but I have not run any sound checks so the moment of truth still awaits...
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If you don't have a Pentium 4, then you don't need to worry about hyperthreading.

Reading and taking it slow will help make sure you don't skip over something and get frustrated later. If something doesn't work, don't throw down the manual and take back the unit right away, figure out what you may have missed.

If you have any installation, setup, or technical/software questions...feel free to join over at protoolsforum.com
 
The last 2 channels are accessed by 2 of the RCA's jacks on the back- S/PDIF, a different digital format than ADAT. I have a TC Finlizer that I use as both the system clock and the S/PDIF in and out. Just about any effects box with S/PDIF in and out will work- you just bypass the effects and use it as a convertor like you're using the ADAT.
 
in all honesty.... get mackie tracktion (tracktion 2 actually) and two Delta 1010's and you're good to go. 20 track simultaneous recording, all the VST support you need. then just buy my 24 channel mixer for 450 bucks and we're good as long as you've got patch cables.
 
My main issue with ProTools is being tied to a particular manufacturer for hardware.

Take a look at the various software options. I'd recommend Reaper (download it and try it, it's uncrippled shareware - http://www.ReaperAudio.com), especially as you are planning mostly audio. It's highly flexible, and doesn't limit the number of tracks you can have on a project.

I'd also take a look at RME or MOTU for interfaces.

Unless you already have them, don't forget to allow for mics, cables and some good preamps in your budget (you won't need 16, but a couple of really nice ones for vocals, etc would be desirable).
 
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