should i buy pro tools?

[Henchman]

Tell me of a commercial song done in nuendo.

The latest Dixie Chicks album for one.

Furthermore, as somebody who started off in the analogue world, Pro-Tools is pretty much the worst sounding sofwtare out there. And the filemanagement is atrocious.

I personnally know guys who can get mixes that sound as good as stuff mixed on an SSL9k using Cubase SX.

I personnally use Fairlights and a Mackie D8B. And Have had the chance to hear the same project mixed on an SSL9k and my mixes on the D8B. The mixes sounded at least as good on the D8B. And I'me used to mixing on SSL's.

Pro-Tools creates flatsounding mixes with no depth IMO. It does soemthing weird to the top-end that makes it sound grainy. And none of the plug-ins really sound Great. period.


Pro-Tools is great if you want to keep sending money to digi for more DSP farms. I know guysthat get more plug-ins using dual AThglon or Pentium computers than you can buying a Fullblown PT system with mixcards.

But if having PT's makes you feel like a pro, go ahead and bklow you're wad.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Oh MY, what in the world are you doing here Henchie?

Welcome aboard!

PeeTee is gonna sniff out the word fairlight in your post and register here Im afraid

This BBS is getting more an more heavy hitters and thats a cool thing

 

[sjoko2]

I love this thread
Real World, like a bunch of other studios and engineers / producers, were given Nuendo. PG used it for some editing.
Henchman - the D8B sounds cool. Petty it cannot pass more than 16 bit, and that's all, while its sold as a 24 bit piece of gear?
Also - I can assure you that you'll never see or hear the day I'd do a final mix on an SSL, apart from the latest one, as I think they all have a serious defect in the high-mid region and therefore sound awful.
Pro Tools create flat sounding mixes if you try and sum loads of channels through it..............as does any DAW with a limited one chip summing system (in other words, all of them). Use a good front end, a good clock and good converters and you'd be using Pro Tools for what its really good at - a recorder and editor. Then compare it in a similar fashion to any other system, and you'd be surprized. With regards to none of the plug-ins sounding good, I'm sorry, that's utter bull. We've done away with many high-end analogue units, vintage and new, because their plug-in alternatives sounded better and were infinately more versatile.
Pipeline - May I suggest you send your mixes somewhere else for mastering? I can assure you that over here we can make stuff as loud as the loudest crap out there - if we have to - without clipping, distortion or any other artifacts.

 

[Henchman]

Henchman - the D8B sounds cool. Petty it cannot pass more than 16 bit, and that's all, while its sold as a 24 bit piece of gear?


Pro Tools create flat sounding mixes if you try and sum loads of channels through it..............as does any DAW with a limited one chip summing system (in other words, all of them). Use a good front end, a good clock and good converters and you'd be using Pro Tools for what its really good at - a recorder and editor.

The 16bit thing was a bug in the old software, and only under certain circumstances.

And the Fairlight already comes equipped with very high end clock, great converters and all the synch options necessary to be considered a piece of pro equipment. It's the most musical sounding DAW I've ever used. period. And I've used pretty much every one of them

I'm involved with a summing test of various DAWS, and it will be interesting to see what the results are.

I'll keep you posted.

 

[Shailat]

I'll add my 16 bits,

I have also worked on "2" and Adats and SSL's and Ameks and DA -88's and practicily every single PT hardware software to have come out.

I have made at least 6 albums using PT. 5 of them were summed using an analog board and the last was done on the new HD system.

Why people are bundling the 001 with the 002? why are people comparing the 002 with a 24 mix? and why are people comparing the 24 mix to the HD ?!!? they are all different animals with different quality. Saying you heard a PT system means nothing unless you tell the exact hardware configuration.

I first want to know who has worked here on the HD. I Want to hear him tell me it's shit......please humor me.....It's in a different league then the 24 mix (which pretty much sucks for pro work....IMO. Pro work I mean pro cards and not your typical home recording gear ). The 002 is a good deal period. The 001 is a nice card like many of the cards of it's type, Delta 1010 and the sort. It can sound better then 16 bit ADATS if your carefull with the summing and avoid at all costs bouncing. I have made a few albums on ADATS and they sound pretty damn good.

There is no point in putting all these hardwares in one basket. To use a 001 with the on board converters is one thing and to use a high quality converter is another. To bounce the mix is one thing and to send EVEN to a DAT is another.

Bottom line is to know the pitfalls of the PT and to work around them brings you excellent results. The HD sounds very good period.

 

[plexi]

I'll add my 16 bits,

Why people are bundling the 001 with the 002? why are people comparing the 002 with a 24 mix? and why are people comparing the 24 mix to the HD ?!!? they are all different animals with different quality. Saying you heard a PT system means nothing unless you tell the exact hardware configuration.

Ahh, finally someone making the right point here!

I

first want to know who has worked here on the HD. I Want to hear him tell me it's shit......please humor me.....It's in a different league then the 24 mix (which pretty much sucks for pro work....IMO. Pro work I mean pro cards and not your typical home recording gear ). The 002 is a good deal period. The 001 is a nice card like many of the cards of it's type, Delta 1010 and the sort. It can sound better then 16 bit ADATS if your carefull with the summing and avoid at all costs bouncing. I have made a few albums on ADATS and they sound pretty damn good.

There is no point in putting all these hardwares in one basket. To use a 001 with the on board converters is one thing and to use a high quality converter is another. To bounce the mix is one thing and to send EVEN to a DAT is another.

Bottom line is to know the pitfalls of the PT and to work around them brings you excellent results. The HD sounds very good period.

Some projects tracked at my studio(MCI JH-24,CAD 64-ch console) went to another "studio" for mixing, because they had Protools, turned out it was a guy with 001 in his bedroom....

Amund

 

[pipelineaudio]

probably because digi themselves try to equate them. Theyre marketing seems to say that ALL PT is far superior to ALL other formats. The same exact arguments being used today are the same ones that has been going since the PT vs everything else debate started. Its funny how they said everything was perfect before, yet somehow things are " more perfect" now.

 

[Light]

you obviously didn't read the article. And yes, their summing can handle the most basic mixing tasks. That's why the busses will not clip!!!!!

Tell me of a commercial song done in nuendo.

Sorry, but attenuating a signal in order to keep the mix buss from clipping is NOT acceptable. Look at some real digital mixing consoles sometime. Even the O2R doesn’t need to do this. The mix buss needs to have enough headroom to handle the signal coming from the individual channels. If it does not, than the system is poorly designed.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi

 

[Hard2Hear]

Why people are bundling the 001 with the 002? why are people comparing the 002 with a 24 mix? and why are people comparing the 24 mix to the HD ?!!? they are all different animals with different quality. Saying you heard a PT system means nothing unless you tell the exact hardware configuration.

I first want to know who has worked here on the HD.

Hey Shailat!

I was one of the first who talked about working on the different platforms. One of the reasons was simply in response to a "Pro Tools sucks" comment.

One of the producers I work with loans me his titanium Mac laptop from time to time with an MBox, so I can work on new ideas while Im traveling around. Then I work in a studio where this guy has 2 Digi 001's and something like 5 Terabytes of samples on hard drives, it's where we work on sampling (strings, etc) and drum programming for music. We ultimately end up in the large studio where they upgraded from Mix to HD when Digi released the studio upgrade offer to current Mix users. They also recently upgraded all the DA and AD converters to a brand I was not familiar with, but cost alot I know. In that studio, at least 10 gold selling and 5 or 6 platinum selling records have been recorded. And it has been mostly Pro Tools since the mid 90's.

Pipeline- Youre doing these big projects and sending to Oasis to master?? You're doing yourself a dis-service and you should know that. Theyre kind of like a first mastering project kind of place to me, like for bands who recorded their own CD and are getting it finished and replicated.

Like I said, I'm an artist and not an engineer. But I know what sounds good and bad or I wouldnt be able to be doing this for a living.

H2H

 

[cominginsecond]

Sorry, but attenuating a signal in order to keep the mix buss from clipping is NOT acceptable. Look at some real digital mixing consoles sometime. Even the O2R doesn’t need to do this. The mix buss needs to have enough headroom to handle the signal coming from the individual channels. If it does not, than the system is poorly designed.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi

How can a digital board have "headroom"? When you sum a bunch of digital signals and they exceed 0 it has to clip. It's not like analog where you can exceed this level and have it either not distort or distort in a pleasing way. It is digital, where O is O is O is O.

By arguing that a mix bus should not clip when you sum a bunch of signals that would normally result in levels that exceed 0, you are actually supporting digidesign's approach. This is becuase they are doing the only thing you can do in the digital domain to prevent clipping: they're reducing the level.

 

[fenix]

This is becuase they are doing the only thing you can do in the digital domain to prevent clipping: they're reducing the level.

I would like to point out especially to sonusman and pipeline that digidesign is not the only company that lowers the input of their busses. Mackie mixers have a reduced input level on their busses but not the master bus. If you have a unity signal going into a mackie and the fader is at unity, if you send it to a bus it will not be unity!

 

[pipelineaudio]

nail on the head, perfect

comparing mackie mixers to pro tools is about right

comparing pro tools to functioning professional consoles and tape recorders is the bone I have to pick

 

[Light]

nail on the head, perfect

comparing mackie mixers to pro tools is about right

comparing pro tools to functioning professional consoles and tape recorders is the bone I have to pick

There is one big difference though. Mackie usually doesn’t over price their gear. Occasionally, but not usually.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi

 

[Henchman]

There is one big difference though. Mackie usually doesn’t over price their gear. Occasionally, but not usually.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi

And the fact is that I can get mixes that are as good or better than mixes done on an SSL9k or PT's, done faster.

 

[charger]

Am I missing something? I read the article, and it seemed to indicate to me that they added bits to the top and bottom of the bit range on each channel, thus preserving the entire bit range of the original signal. How is this "lowering the volume?" You have 48 bits to work with in the mixer section! So the entire original bit range is still there, right?

If the other audio apps don't do this, then for a full-code track you're going to have to manually reduce the volume on each track, thus "losing bits," right? Otherwise, it will clip like mad. I don't think that's going to make it sound better or worse than PT.

Bottom line is, people who make good records are going to make good records. They will do it on SSLs+2", and they will do it in Cubase, and they will do it in Pro Tools, and some will even do it on 16-bit ADATs.

Technology is a means to an end. If you can make it sound good, or work for you, then you are using it correctly. When it becomes religion, you are wasting your humanity.

 

[therage!]

Technology is a means to an end. If you can make it sound good, or work for you, then you are using it correctly. When it becomes religion, you are wasting your humanity.

And therein lies the problem with so many human beings Maybe another parallel to becoming religious about something is having tunnel vision. People get tuned in to one thing and for the light of day cannot see anything else.

I can’t even count how many articles I’ve read where major label artist’s are talking about Pro Tools this and Pro Tools that. Some of these interviews might lead one to believe that PT is the only system out there. Why is it that so many artists seem to only be aware of PT? Is it because so many of the studios they work with have PT? Or do the artist’s lack education and have tunnel vision?

 

[Shailat]

And therein lies the problem with so many human beings Maybe another parallel to becoming religious about something is having tunnel vision. People get tuned in to one thing and for the light of day cannot see anything else.

I can’t even count how many articles I’ve read where major label artist’s are talking about Pro Tools this and Pro Tools that. Some of these interviews might lead one to believe that PT is the only system out there. Why is it that so many artists seem to only be aware of PT? Is it because so many of the studios they work with have PT? Or do the artist’s lack education and have tunnel vision?

Lets put aside for the sake of your post the audio quality.

Do you make a living doing Audio for other people?.

PT works period. Throw at it almost anything at it will work and work and work. Since the Hardware and Software and connecting lines all come from the same company, you will hardly ever have a breakdown unless you didnt follow Digi's compatibility list.

I'm not going to take you through 10's of stories were I had to shut down the studio for a day or even hours due to
malfunctioning gear. It happends in every single studio. Sometimes the "2" is running slow and sometimes the power supply breaks down and sometimes 3-4 channals are crackling while 2 others collapse. If I have had one gear that I can rely on it's PT. If you follow the guide lines supplied by Digi, and you work out the first bugs during the first week, you get yourself a rock solid running all the time 24 hours piece of hardware.

When you have a band all set up and after they have booked the studio and waited a month to work for weeks and that day you set up and all of a sudden your main recording media breaks down and you have to go in and tell the band you have to shut down for a day or 2 or more...and you lose money and even possibly the band or it's trust (they really don't give a shit why it isn't working...) then you might understand why PT is so popular.

It delivers and then delivers more. Every day every night 24 hours a day.

I used to use many years ago, Logic and after a 2 years I gave it away free to the other local studio nearby, I said why should I lose clients?!?!? let him also eat some shit.

 

[pipelineaudio]

thats the point, I ONLY record other people. I and I alone need to decide how best to meet the clients' needs, as it is on my head where any blame will be placed. Lately there has been stupid crap being put into bands' heads about some magic thing that they MUST use, PT.

According to the mythsNo records were EVER made before PT. Without PT no record could EVER sound good

I got nothing against people using what they want, tape recorders, wax cylinders, whatever the one and ONLY thing that matters is the end product

Clients do NOT dictate format, but now they are starting to

If I were only tracking and then they were taking the tracks to mix somewhere else, then yeah I MIGHT need to make sure that my files are compatiable with PT...MIGHT. All the other apps can get along fine, but you do need to do some futzing to make sure the world's most INcompatiable app ( PT ) can work. No problem.

but still that in NO way means I gotta track in PT. I MUST use whatever will get me the desired result. I choose other routes, but now I am suffereing because of the same sort of bullshit that got spewed around when adats came out.

This is a no joke conversation:

Potential clients: " Can you record us Digitally? "
Me: "Yes, we have a Sony 3348, a Studer D-827, and a Mitsubishi x-850"
Client: " the place down the street has adats, those machines you have are tape recorders, theyre not digital, were going there unless you can get some adats and throw those old cheap tape recorders away"

I am seeing the same stupid misinformation and bullshit rearing its ugly head again. THAT is what I object to. People can use a broken math, numbers magic, incompatiable, NON delay compensated, limited plugin app if they want, I'm not going to stop them. But calling it " industry standard " and convincing bands that it will magically make them sound better, and that my stuff cannot, pisses me off.

 

[Shailat]

So pipeline...

Your ramming PT cause you don't own one and the clients are demanding it? or cause you think it's a peice of junk?

It still is a industry standard like it or not.

 

[fenix]

i'll agree that mixing in protools and plug ins in protools doesn't sound the best. But tracking in Protools HD is a breeze. Editing in protools is fairly easy. If you are using protools as a recorder and mixing on a real board, protools is probably more favorable than adat.