KVR Audio

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Sat Dec 26, 2015 8:48 pm

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LawrenceF · Post by **LawrenceF** » Sat Dec 26, 2015 11:14 pm

Every brick and mortar studio here has PT, with no exceptions I've ever seen. Some of them have other things also (Logic, Cubase, Ableton,etc) but they all have PT and they all record and mix in PT. The phrase "studio" is somewhat vague because studios do different things, but if you thumb through the Yellow Pages where you live and make a bunch of calls, I bet they all have PT.

For the most part, discussions about studios on the net are referring to production studios, not so much conventional studios with tracking rooms and 40 mics and all that. Different thing, PT kinda rules that space. It also pretty much rules for freelance audio guys, because they know they can hop on a plane and find a room with PT in it just about anywhere.

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 12:00 am

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SJ_Digriz · Post by **SJ_Digriz** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 12:35 am

I think the biggest problem a lot of KVR and Gearslutz has is that there are a LOT of DJ/Producer types who see a studio as a laptop and a couple of MIDI devices.

The closer you get to a commercial environment of any size, the need for portability and stability increases. Those studios rarely care about things like stretch algorithms because they are not writing music, they are mixing and mastering audio tracks. When they use elastic it will be for a VERY minor fix. If they need to do something drastic, they will dump it out, process it, and import it back in. Working in a commercial environment is ridiculously different than using a DAW for creative purposes. I mean completely.

If you are going to be a career engineer, PT is still the center of that universe. But, being able to use Ableton, Cubase, Logic, Wavelab etc ... as processing utilities is handy.

I've been in a ton of studios that don't have Cubase and/or Logic and/or Ableton and/or Final Cut.... I don't think I've ever been in a viable commercial studio that wasn't centered on PT. That's not a huge sample size. Maybe 15 or 20 in the last 5 or 6 years.

I can't stress enough though, that they aren't trying to write songs.

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 1:28 am

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LawrenceF · Post by **LawrenceF** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 2:08 am

SJ_Digriz wrote:I can't stress enough though, that they aren't trying to write songs.

Bingo.

While a lot of them do have musical skills, and musical backgrounds (sight reading, playing an instrument of some kind,whatever), that's really not what they buy audio workstations for. You can even see that in some of the products that don't record midi at all... like Pyramix... or the SSL workstation.

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 3:29 am

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Mister Gibson · Post by **Mister Gibson** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 3:44 am

I see a DAW as a tool. It often takes multiple tools to complete a work. I prefer studios which have a variety of "tools" at its disposal.

lfm · Post by **lfm** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 5:36 am

Cubase to ProTools over OMF is always an option.
One thing though, if that still is for ProTools not doing stereo tracks over OMF, needs to be monotracks.

So doing Render in place in Cubase, to get audio everywhere and see to splitting stereo to separate monotracks would work. I talked to Steinberg some months ago about this - if they are serious to compete with PT anywhere you must still be able to move stuff easily to PT. Both Sonar and Samplitude has a simple checkbox for splitting stereo to monotracks at OMF export.

I find ProTools very straight forward with many things like not endless different track types - you want a synth on a track, just put it in a slot - nothing more to it. Just not sure with Avid where they are going from how they behaved the last year. Not until shares went from $18 to $6 did they start to act and adapt to market - aprt from how they treat PT HD users, that is still a mystery how those that bought $3000-$5000 hardware should pay three times annual fees for software. There is still something wrong with Avid as a company. But you can stay current for $99 annually with PT software unless you have HD version.

do_androids_dream · Post by **do_androids_dream** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 4:01 pm

Pro Tools, by far, still reigns. I've lost work because I don't have it. So, it's not actually a noob impression - it's actually the truth in the main.

Also, as regards loading a project.. I've always used raw audio to work with - partly because I have my own ways of gain staging and structuring a project and partly because the likelihood of me having the same plugins is pretty low. Even if it's only a few plugins missing it's still a lot of farting around to find alternative ones that do similar things. I would rather just start from scratch and do it my way.

I think it's quite different at the highest level of pop production - it seems that it's the norm to work from project files (judging from watching a lot of Dave Pensado videos).

fedexnman · Post by **fedexnman** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 4:35 pm

It's confusing what Avid did so you buy ProTools for $599 or( $299 with an annual subscription of $99 to keep it working or rent it for $29 a month no money down)????? Really confusing business idea ???... I wouldn't be surprised if alot of studios use an older version of ProTools just to say they have ProTools and use something entirely different .

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 6:22 pm

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do_androids_dream · Post by **do_androids_dream** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 6:59 pm

TheoM wrote:ok so basically, i can just do my project in cubase as normal and bounce everything to stems. Midi to audio, audio to audio.. and obviously 100% dry except where I have done any filter sweeps for tempo synced fx or anything like that.

Yes - consolidate/bounce so that you end up with a bunch of files that all start and end at the same point - makes it easy to dump them into the arrange page without having to line everything up. What I say to clients is that if there's any processing that is essential to the sound - the production really - then leave it all in place. If it's there for mixing purpose's ie. eq'ing to make space etc. then bypass all of that.

TheoM wrote:1) If i have used say, 5 drum loops with kicks cause there were no top versions (and i use my own kick anyway), should i bounce the eq'd versions of the loops (where i have already removed all lower info myself) or just bounce as is and let the engineer use his own EQ's to remove that stuff? The way that makes sense to me is to send the engineer the kick stem and each loop stem at least with all the low info already out

It's entirely up to you really. If your eq work has achieved exactly the outcome you want then I would just bounce it with it in place. Alternatively you can give both versions to the engineer - one as a reference to work from and one as the 'dry' version to work with.

TheoM wrote:2) Tempo changes - how would that work if my music has a tempo change or more? sure it's fine giving stems with all the changes already done but wouldn't the engineer want the mix to align with his pro tools project tempo?

If you detail exactly where the tempo change occurs I'm sure most engineers will be prefectly happy to punch in a tempo change marker at the correct place. I take it there is this functionality in PT? I don't know because my use of it was fairly limited at Uni.

TheoM wrote:3) if i were to do it the other way and just buy PT, and not use ANY plugins that were not included, that would be fine and another way to do it too right? And he/she could just change whatever they wanted.

Seems like a very sensible idea if you were going to work, say, long term with a PT guy.

TheoM wrote:You seem to have an impressive resume.. do you do much dance pop and edm? Perhaps i could commission you to do a couple mixes for me of my latest work at your regular rates, and see how we go?

Thanks

I'll send you a pm about that shortly.

LawrenceF · Post by **LawrenceF** » Mon Dec 28, 2015 1:06 am

TheoM wrote:that doesn't mean PT can't be used effectively to create ANY kind of music though

No, it doesn't. It's a fine daw but like every other tool ever made, it's not the best tool for every job or every user. It may be the best tool for it's core job though, recording and mixing, like Cubase may arguably be the best tool for it's core mission, being a jack of all trades (of sorts) for modern music production.

If you ask me, that's where most of these companies kinda go wrong, trying to be everything to everyone. Bitwig didn't do that. They made it perfectly clear that they weren't making another PT or Cubase and to paraphrase what they said about that...

"If you need that, there are multiple great choices already available."

But back on topic, if I opened up a "large" studio, I'd most certainly put PT in the A room.

LawrenceF · Post by **LawrenceF** » Mon Dec 28, 2015 1:21 am

TheoM wrote:2) Tempo changes - how would that work if my music has a tempo change or more? sure it's fine giving stems with all the changes already done but wouldn't the engineer want the mix to align with his pro tools project tempo?

The only real need for a tempo map at the mix stage is maybe for subjectively heavy post editing, otherwise, it's not even necessary. Just make sure everything sounds the way you want it (per track), and make sure all of the stems are good. That is to say, actually load the stems and play them to make sure it's all there and it's all in sync, and send it. I can't count how many times I've gotten stems where things were just ... screwy... piano playing on the vocal track, whatever. Listen to them in isolation.

And for God's sake... (taken from the "mix engineer gripe handbook") ...

1. Name all of your tracks. Don't send the guy 40 tracks named Audio_1_30.wav.
2. Bounce things that should be mono to mono.
3. Commit. (!!!) The worst thing in the world is to hand the mix engineer 12 tracks of guitars or 40 takes of vocals where he or she has to pick through your takes. He or she isn't a producer, so commit to your raw sounds and only send the things you want them to use.

If you want to also include a tempo map, render a midi file and put in with the stems. Most any daw that's also a sequencer can pull the tempo map from a midi file.

what real world proportion of pro studios, do you think still use PT of some kind?