Pro Tools = Rip Off

[MattmaN]

Just going to play Devil's advocate for a second, correct me if I'm out in left field (not a ProTools owner/user)...

Protools M powered is available for $150-$300, correct?

A production toolkit enabling extra tracks and plugins and what-all is available for $500, correct?

The latest version of Cubase costs 6-$900, correct?

The price differential doesn't seem that wide, but rather very much in line with Cubase, Logic, Samplitude and others.

So what's the fuss? Just playing with ideas here, please don't shoot!

; )

Also, as for click tracks and tempo changes accross hosts (Tracktion -> PT), why not simply render a midi click track on Tracktion along with all your other tracks? Bring that to the studio as well and forget about the timeline, although it probably won't be difficult for them at all to synch up their PT timeline using the beats on the click track as a guide.

Just a thought.

Feature for feature M-Powered is probably best compared to Cakewalk Music Creator 3.
It's $39.

[GreyLion]

No offense meant, MattmaN, but you know not of what you speak.

Beat Detective alone makes M-Powered a very interesting piece of software at this price point. You don't get that kind of functionality in Cakewalk software, for instance, until you move up to Sonar 6 Producer.

[coreydavid]

I'm intrigued by the lure of ProTools, but the lack of delay compensation is a deal killer for me. There's just no excuse for it, save, perhaps, as enticing investment copy for the shareholders of Digidesign. I could see, though, buying a cheap version someday with a workflow something like this:

1. All my tracking in Tracktion
2. Assuming I may want the outside assistance of a pro studio, I'll import/tweak/adjust my Tracktion tracks into protools myself and then bring the PT project to the studio to save on time and hassle.

That said, I think more studios will be finding it worth their while to become versed in a number of DAW's and not just PT. I think that the onus is on them, if they want my business, to say, "Tracktion? We've got that, no problem. Just bring in your project and we'll hit the ground running." Same with Cubase, Logic, Samplitude, whatever.

Clearly not all studios will rise to this, but those that do should advertise this aspect, and they will find an enthusiastic sub-group of customers responding. This is a strategic area where some smaller studios could outshine the larger ones.

While I understand your point of view; the business reality will likely not support it. Remember that these DAWs are not just software. There's a hardware investment that has to pay for itself. There are driver issues, etc. Time spent reconfiguring a system is not free. That cost is passed on to a client. It's probably best to talk to the studio and ask them. The owners of a studio want it to be busy and pay for itself.

I'm not promoting PT or any other software. I've worked IN two studios part-time but we also deal with (at least) 8 other studios and media houses. They all use PT (Avid) as the main workstation and then use other editors depending on their needs. We use DigiDelivery and it makes transmitting files so easy. Time is money. Speaking of which; lunch is over.

[theshaggyfreak]

That said, I think more studios will be finding it worth their while to become versed in a number of DAW's and not just PT. I think that the onus is on them, if they want my business, to say, "Tracktion? We've got that, no problem. Just bring in your project and we'll hit the ground running." Same with Cubase, Logic, Samplitude, whatever.

Learning Pro Tools is enough work by itself. Most studios do not have the time to dive into other DAWs with the amount of work they have on their plate. Plus, using these big mighty consoles that Digidesign puts out, life becomes quite nice when you have the ability to control everything at your finger tips. Most of the larger studios will rarely have more than one DAW going. Sometimes they might have Logic or Nuendo but you're most likely not going to find the others you mentioned. It's just the way things are from what I've seen in my tours of different studios.

[bool]

Hence it's wise to have a SX and a PT Mpowered or LE, you can edit at home and burn project on a CD right away.

[bduffy]

Hence it's wise to have a SX and a PT Mpowered or LE, you can edit at home and burn project on a CD right away.

SX PT LE CD??

[Art Evans]

I think part of the resentment in some quarters towards PT is simply the effect of the monopoly it has built up. I'm involved in the setting up of a new studio. I'm not a PT user. The management keep saying that for compatibility it'll have to be PT based, regardless of almost any other factor. Price/performance of other apps, and retraining of studio users, seems not to be taken into consideration. I've got nothing in particular against PT (not being a user) but having it rammed down my throat does not endear it to me.

[theshaggyfreak]

I think part of the resentment in some quarters towards PT is simply the effect of the monopoly it has built up. I'm involved in the setting up of a new studio. I'm not a PT user. The management keep saying that for compatibility it'll have to be PT based, regardless of almost any other factor. Price/performance of other apps, and retraining of studio users, seems not to be taken into consideration. I've got nothing in particular against PT (not being a user) but having it rammed down my throat does not endear it to me.

Welcome to the music industry...or for that matter just about any other industry. You learn what is necessary to get the job done. If the boss says, "learn to use this tool", you learn to use it. When I worked in IT, I hated using Lotus Notes but that's what the company used despite there were better applications suited for what was being done. If I got a job at a studio that used Logic, I would need to spend some serious time getting used to the program. That's just the way it is.

In the recording industry, it's best to learn as many DAWs as you can as well as analog gear. It puts you in a better position down the line if you're looking to get a job at a studio that uses something different. Pro Tools does not have a monopoly but people began using it early on since it was one of the first applications out there to fit the bill.

[MattmaN]

No offense meant, MattmaN, but you know not of what you speak.

Beat Detective alone makes M-Powered a very interesting piece of software at this price point. You don't get that kind of functionality in Cakewalk software, for instance, until you move up to Sonar 6 Producer.

Whoppi doo a timeline beatslicer?
Why is that such a big deal?
Can't acid do the same thing?
I guess everyone has thier prefered way of slicing audio, and mine is inside a vsti sampler.
To me Beat detective is something I'd rarely use.
Therefore not worth it for me.
Being able to extract grooves from differant sources is cool, but without being able to play this by way of midi makes it crippled for my workflow, and importing the slices into a sampler would be pointless when I could use any number of apps that handle this efficiently already, such as FL, Orion, EXT, or any vsti sampler with slicing.

I would be curious to see side by side spec comparisons of M-powered, and MC3.
I don't doubt PTLE/MP has some audio advantages, but I seriously doubt it could beat MC3's midi.
Wich is sad for $300 app.

[GreyLion]

Oh, no, Beat Detective does so much more. It's not a beat slicer. It's a beat finder. I use it to freely play in an audio track, then detect the transients, write an evolving tempo map, and make the tempo track in the sequencer automatically conform to my playing. Not vice versa, as other sequencers do.

If you're just into loops and MIDI this will seem trivial to you.

If you're into audio, it's a very big deal. Up until recently, the other big hosts only pretended to have something like this. Theirs didn't work worth a damn. Trust me, I obsessed about it for six months, and tested them all. Supposedly Sonar 6 Producer has it now, but I haven't checked, because M-Powered does it all just fine.

And I only use it in the crudest, simplest way. A PT ninja can do amazing things to tighten and edit audio tracks, and have them matched perfectly by MIDI instruments, into a coherent, shiny production with this thing.

And M-Powered 7 introduced Instrument Tracks, which makes MIDI suck much, much less in it.

[GreyLion]

Incidentally, the second-most requested unbundled upgrade that M-Powered users have is for Digi to implement multi-track Beat Detective, like big PT has. You can then make groups of tracks conform, eliminating timing errors between multiple instumentalists. The song goes into polished harmony between all the parts. This is also a very big deal with pro production of music.

Way beyond my capabilities to use properly, I suspect....

[MattmaN]

Oh, no, Beat Detective does so much more. It's not a beat slicer. It's a beat finder. I use it to freely play in an audio track, then detect the transients, write an evolving tempo map, and make the tempo track in the sequencer automatically conform to my playing. Not vice versa, as other sequencers do.

If you're just into loops and MIDI this will seem trivial to you.

You know that looks like the kinda thing my guitar playing friends would drool over.
I honsetly thought it was just a fancy timeline slicer.

I'm a midi guy, and sometimes it's hard for us midiots to understand were not the only ones out there , lol.

[thelizard]

To answer Toxikator....
You summed up most of it. The hardware/software integration is brilliant (same reason I use KORE). I'm a stickler for 1:1 integration. Also, as mentioned, Beat Detective is beautiful. We had a class two weeks ago where a guy recently hired by one of the Big Five to do Groove Quantizing did just that... He synced a drummer, two percussionists, and a bassist up perfectly in about as much time as it took to actually listen to the track.

And yes, Sonar 6 has AudioSnap, which I'm sure is quite beautiful. I'm not really going to defend why ProTools is "better" than any host... it's been said a million times but a host is only as good as its user. A good user of FLStudio can beat the hell out of a Live preset monkey, or vice versa. Anyhow, I'm just defending why ProTools shouldn't be thought of as a rip-off or a second rate jump-on-the-bandwagon sequencer.

[Toxikator]

I guess that beat-quantizing thing does sound rather cool... Though for now Melodyne does any "correctional" editing I need, I save my host for creative editing, I can see where that fits the "You can stop playing, we got what we need. It's Pro Tools" bill.

Also, keep in mind the recent changes in the audio industry landscape. 5 years ago there basically was no such thing as a not-Pro-Tools studio, but that's changing. In another 3-5 years it may change even more, as more and more applications come to the calibre of PT (and as PT comes to their calibre in other areas)

[theshaggyfreak]

Also, keep in mind the recent changes in the audio industry landscape. 5 years ago there basically was no such thing as a not-Pro-Tools studio, but that's changing. In another 3-5 years it may change even more, as more and more applications come to the calibre of PT (and as PT comes to their calibre in other areas)

While that may be true you're forgetting that Pro Tools isn't just about the software but it's about the hardware integration as well as it is with their ICON stuff. There aren't many companies that put out the kind of hardware/software packages that Digidesign does. While you can do it by paring up hardware/software from different companies, it's not always as tightly mixed together.