PRO TOOLS? Why The Hype? Compared to SX, Sonar...

[sangha]

It's been my impression that PT is more directed to recording audio with MIDI support taking a lesser role, which is not to say that PT ignores MIDI. This, combined with PT's wide use throughout the recording industry has led me to believe that PT is *not* as appropriate a choice for music composition as other DAW's. Instead, it's meant for recording.

Unless your band has boatloads of money to spend, it's unlikely you will be going to a professional recording studio, and paying their high hourly rates, in order to write music and/or wait around for your lyricist to be struck by inspiration. The odds are, you already have songs written when you enter the recording studio. You may not have them completely arranged yet, but I would think that the large majority of the composition and arranging work, work that other DAW's excel at, has already been done.

[Nev]

Just adding my two cents.

I use PT LE 6.4 every day at work on a Win PC and it runs fine.

But the one thing that drives me nuts is the real time bouncing of files!

Nev

Oh yeah and I learnt on Soundscape at college. Didn't even realise it was still going!

[Sascha Franck]

[...]and Nuendo still can't multi-track and give you tracks of the same audio length even when recorded at the same time. That is an absolute disaster.

OMG - I allready noticed that but thought it'd be like the highest entry on Steinbergs priority list.
This is just freaking unbelieveable.

[SJ_Digriz]

[...]and Nuendo still can't multi-track and give you tracks of the same audio length even when recorded at the same time. That is an absolute disaster.

OMG - I allready noticed that but thought it'd be like the highest entry on Steinbergs priority list.
This is just freaking unbelieveable.

Look how long it took them to fix the db law. On the good side is that it looks like they have finally at least admitted that there is a "problem". They don't even admit its a bug. But, I believe the summer patch is going to have an improvement and the next full version will supposedly address it completely.

The format export errors are actually worse if you ask me. Again people keep talking about recording in studios and stuff like that. I don't think people realize that the majority of "studios" especially the big budget ones do far more production/comping work than they do recording. The TV stages many times have no recording facilites at all as part of the post stage.

[bduffy]

I haven't heard about this Nuendo bug - audio files come out at different legths? (I know Nuendo ain't perfect, don't worry)

[SJ_Digriz]

I haven't heard about this Nuendo bug - audio files come out at different legths? (I know Nuendo ain't perfect, don't worry)

When multi-tracking the files can randomly have differing lengths when you hit stop. It also happens when using punch out but far less often. As you can imagine for 99% of stuff people do with Nuendo this is no problem. For format transfer purposes it is unacceptable in the extreme.

There is also an auto-header that gets put in front of every clip and event. Again, you never see this header, but it messes up transfers and makes it mentally difficult to decide "am I at the beggining of the clip or the biggining of the header". The clip tag should align the file automatically, but as I said previously there are bugs in that process so it gets very frustrating very fast. If you are doing hundreds or even thousands of stem transfers it is unusable.

[SJ_Digriz]

I want to keep repeating that I love Cubase/Nuendo. I'm just pointing out unecessary and uninformed PT bashing.

[stag]

We are tasting the future .
I know a lot Pro Tools user that are not satysfied with Avid Policies and products .
For instance Phil Ramone , is a producer who goes way back to the 60´s and has managed to keep up with new technologies .
AFAIK Phil Ramone records on studios or places where he feels it could achive the best sound possible , and then , because studio time is too expensive , he takes his work home to mix and edit things .
I believe at his home studio he has complete crew , with two sound engineers , one working with a Pro Tools HD full rig and the other with Nuendo , a Dual AMD and Yamaha DM2000.
the man says he uses the pro tools only when the job can´t be scheduled on Nuendo , he clearly prefers Nuendo .
he should know better why , i guess it´s because the Sound Engineers who works with him know how to keep it going and going editing and mixing the takes he has done .


I sincerely don´t believe Pro Tools or anything else could claim to be the industry standart , unless you are a pro tools user b/c hard disk recording it´s a very recent technology .

In 95 i was a member of a sligthly sucessfull band , so we got to record on a real studio , it was not big but it was packed with everything from Eventide . Yamaha and Lexicon sound generators and processors plus he had huge 64 channel Mackie , the board was not the best but it was decent .
He was recording on a PII with cakewalk 2 or 3 and Session 8 , the sound the man could get get was awesome , really great .
I don´t believe he could do better with VST or Protools , but if he had at the time a regular PC : a 2.4 Ghz P4 and SX3 , editing , mixing and routing would be a lot cleaner and easier .
The industry standart is a myth , some prefer digital boards others analog and then some an all tube circuitry desk or die ,in my case a simple ASIO sound card with nice inputs does the trick.
The good bit is today at home with a budget from $2000 t0 $ 30.000 we can kick äss using a modern sequencer .
I like better SX and frankly i don´t care much about the others , SX1 did everything i needed , now with SX3 , i got it for almost a year and I´m still discovering new and usefull functions to help me to get things done .

And if someone likes whatever , i couldn´t care less , good for him , i think tool anxiety is the mark of poor craftmanship .

Bye .

[SJ_Digriz]

I don´t believe he could do better with VST or Protools , but if he had at the time a regular PC : a 2.4 Ghz P4 and SX3 , editing , mixing and routing would be a lot cleaner and easier .

Everything you wrote up to and including this point are absolutely dead on. PT doesn't sound better, perform better or whatever better for the song creation editing process.

The industry standart is a myth ,

This is because your perspective, like so many on this thread, see a DAW strictly from the "recording studio" mentality. These are a flea on the dogs ass from a $ standpoint. It is an industry standard because Post and Production studios can pass data around without spending time trying to figure out why it won't show up where and how they want it. They won't change to something else unless it is absolutely, completely painless.

[bduffy]

I want to keep repeating that I love Cubase/Nuendo. I'm just pointing out unecessary and uninformed PT bashing.

That explains why my brother has had so many problems providing stems to PT studios! I'll pass this along to him.
Thanks for the info, SJ.

[SJ_Digriz]

I want to keep repeating that I love Cubase/Nuendo. I'm just pointing out unecessary and uninformed PT bashing.

That explains why my brother has had so many problems providing stems to PT studios! I'll pass this along to him.
Thanks for the info, SJ.

What is he creating them in? There are suitable workarounds from the export side that will work. It's just more work for the exporter.

[bduffy]

Uhm...I meant he's bouncing down tracks - or stem mixes, from Nuendo 2, to removable media, to send to another studio (usually PT). They were created in Nuendo? Not sure what you're asking there.

[SJ_Digriz]

Uhm...I meant he's bouncing down tracks - or stem mixes, from Nuendo 2, to removable media, to send to another studio (usually PT). They were created in Nuendo? Not sure what you're asking there.

ah, ok. There is an extensive thread on the Nuendo site by LEX about this exact problem. I believe somewhere in there he lists the work around.

[ozinga]

For me Protools is the easiest program for audio editing.I did not go out and bought full blown PT and try to prove myself that I did a good investment.I used it at studios and saw its potentials and then bought it while I was using Cubase or Logic.Also with what other software based system can you record 64tracks of orchestra live or in the studio without worrying?If you are not to get in to this kind of situation than disregard it.And it is a fact no matter what Protools is the professional industry standard.Try sending your files in Cubase Logic etc format to a recording facility for mix.But I am also aware that still all other big hosts are much better in midi.this is the weakest part of PT.Thats why I still use Logic and cubase for midi part.But for audio editing or mixing there is nothing i feel more comfortable.I have been doing live recordings with PT with lots of inserts on them without worrying about latency or crashes for years.
Someone else mentioned mac users are idiots.I am using macs and pcs for more than 15years.I am an idiot so when I use a mac I make music without worrying about dlls or other stuff.When I use a pc i become a pc technician with a half open pc case,who has to go in to bios or regedit from time to time and deal with strange lines,who has to do defrag frequently,paranoidly update antivirus program to check for spyware viruses trojans etc.(I am still angry with myself that I had to learn something called bios)I also should not forget which usb port on the pc did I plug the printer or a bluetooth adapter for the next time if I dont want to install the drivers again.Also the warnings:Don't use internet don't install games etc on your music machine.Did you optimize it did you do blah blah blah.I dont need to know which mobo is better than the other or what graphic card gives better performance than the other .I dont have time to do maintanence for a pc, since i am a mainly mac using idiot i dont have the brains for it either.i do music I dont need those.I know that a software i use on my mac is tested with the same machine i have.Thats enough for me.Yes my machine does not crash or slow down after 3months.But yes programs do crash.
Back to PT...I think where the stupidty lies is when a company like Waves tries to take advantage of TDM users by selling the same plugins for double prices.For me those are the real idiots who accept to pay those double prices.I never buy or use any plugin priced differently than the native version.So if I speak for myself,using mac and protools, luck or being computer geek is out of the equation when making music, because i am an idiot who just wants to write good music.If I dont open the case of my triton every month I dont want to open my computer's either.These are my thoughts coming form my experiences.And I have no intention of starting a mac-pc war.If you use your pc happily without any problems( i know it is possible) I am happy for you.We are half brothers since i am bound to a pc to use Discovery,Z3+a, Gigasampler etc. We are all trying to do music, no need to fight.Everyone uses whats best for them.I just felt offended being called an idiot or stupid because of my choices of platform or software.If someone does music happily using an amiga and he says its the best for him and cant do what he wants with mac or pc, who has the right to call him idiot?Why some people feel they have the right to do it for mac or protools users?I don't understand.
Have inspirational days
Oz

[Sascha Franck]

Uhm...I meant he's bouncing down tracks - or stem mixes, from Nuendo 2, to removable media, to send to another studio (usually PT). They were created in Nuendo? Not sure what you're asking there.

One question: Why don't you just use OMF? It's working pretty well and by now I've been using OMF numerous times to export SX projects into Logic.
PT will read OMF files just fine, too.
No need to bounce full tracks, no need to care about file start points, etc - everything will just line up automatically.
Oh well, the 32bit float fade files created by Nuendo/SX won't make it properly into the OMF file, but it should be a matter of minutes to replace them in the target sequencer.
But others than that OMF is working fine - and the "uneven file length bug" won't apply either.