Dumbass Newb PT questions! yay!

[j_howell]

Alright...so i finally got a laptop, and am ready to drag my ass into the modern world and get PT, if for nothing else, than to dump to from tape for editing/adding non-essential bits like shakers and whatnots.

I guess what I'm wondering most of all is this- what options are out there for I/O from my li'l laptop? I was thinking an Mbox would do for now, while I'm between places and can't use my tape machines, just to throw ideas down, then I thought about how impractical that'd be when I get settled into a new place and want at least eight channels of I/O...I've heard that Digidesign is rather dickish about having to use their interfaces if you want use PT...is this true? Can I get an MBox and then use a more affordable Tascam or whoever interface later? Are the pres on the MBox beefy enough for my awesome but very low-gain RCA ribbon? Any advice before I start spending money on this would be much appreciated! Gracias!

[mattwhritenour]

First thing, I would recommend getting one of the interfaces that have Firewire.
No you can't use a tascam interface, if you're running Pro Tools LE it has to be a digidesign interface. You can look into the M-Audio interfaces because they have more options which might fit your needs better then you have to purchase Pro Tools Mpowered.

As far has having enough gain for your ribbon mic, i'm not sure.

[Gentleman Jim]

It's a cliche, but if you don't have to go with ProTools, you really should check out other DAW's. All of them have their pro's and con's, and whatever you choose will be far more than sufficient for what you're talking about here. If you want to get more involved then you may have harder choices down the road, but a few others have 'Lite' versions that you can start with, and then the 'Pro' version isn't too cripplingly expensive to upgrade to later.

As far as I know, ProTools is the only DAW that is hardware specific. So you'd be able to buy whatever you want if you use almost any other DAW. With ProTools you have the LE version that requires Digidesign hardware and the M-Powered version that can use M-Audio hardware. And then there's ProTools HD, but that's an expensive proposition.

ProTools LE and ProTools M-Powered are fine and many people do great work on them, all I'm pointing out is they're kind of the Coke/Kleenex of the DAW world. There are other good choices as well, and many people are doing great work on them too. Don't be fooled into thinking it's ProTools or nothing.

On PC check out Cubase, Cakewalk/Sonar, Reaper, SAW Studio, and Tracktion.
On Mac check out Garageband/Logic, Digital Performer, Tracktion, and Cubase.
On Linux check out Ardour.

[j_howell]

Yeah...in a lot of ways, I'd almost rather not go with PT, but it seems to be the "industry standard", and I'm thinking a lot about being able to take what I do elsewhere, if need be, and it seems like everybody has PT.

I've used Cubase and Tracktion before, and liked both, though I haven't done any real deep editing with either. Tracktion was great for getting things down in a hurry, though, for sure. I'm still undecided. Plus, it looks like I'll actually have to upgrade my li'l laptop to run the newest PT LE anyway- don't have enough RAM for it. I dunno...too bad RADAR is so damned expensive! Anyway...

[John Jeffers]

I used Cubase for a LOOOONG time, and ended up grudgingly buying and learning Pro Tools for the same reason you're considering it--the "industry standard" thing. Here's what surprised me: I actually like Pro Tools a lot. For me, the workflow and routing makes more sense. I'm sure others would feel exactly the opposite and prefer Cubase. It's just a personal preference.

There are definitely things I miss about Cubase--or rather, there are some things I don't like about Pro Tools LE.

- The lack of full plugin delay compensation. I know people are sick of hearing about this, but it really does suck.

- Lack of VST plugin support. Easily worked around by getting FXPansion's VST-RTAS adapter.

- The artificially imposed input and track number limits that are there only to make you want PT HD. The Music Production Toolkit helps with the track count problem, but it's another $500, and doesn't do anything about the 18 input limit.

- That I have to use Digi hardware. Luckily with the 002/003 you can get at least 8 channels of better converters by using the ADAT port, and another 2 off the SPDIF port. Having everything clocked to a Big Ben helps, too.

As I said above I found workarounds for some of these, but it's at best an inconvenience and at worst a huge investment (in Pro Tools HD) that I can't afford yet to get what I really want out of Pro Tools.

I could easily see myself going back to Cubase, except for that whole "industry standard" thing. If you're running a commercial studio and you're not at least offering Pro Tools as an option, you're limiting yourself. Every mix job I've been offered since I opened my studio has come in as a Pro Tools session. If I didn't have Pro Tools I would have either lost that work, or at the very least made things more complicated and time consuming for myself.

[Professor]

I was talking with a student about this on Friday and explained that the biggest reason ProTools is the de facto standard is that it was simply there first. It has 17 years of history in the marketplace as "ProTools" and a little more than with other things. And yes, they connect their hardware and software so they know the two will always work together as intended - personally I've always viewed that as a benefit rather than some even marketing scheme. It's easiest to think of it as a hardware purchase that comes with really great software, but we seem to be so used to piecing together random hardware and software and hoping it will work that we kind of miss that. People used to lament that Apple computers were too expensive, but they wanted the operating system - they tried that briefly in the late 90s and bailed on it pretty quickly because it became such a hassle for the company to keep everything covered. Now we just accept that a Mac Book Pro comes with Mac OS, and that you can't put Mac OS onto a cheap little Acer designed to run Windows.

Now if all you're looking at is a closed-loop system just for your stuff that will never get moved around to other studios, and will never record projects for other people, then get whatever looks the coolest, cheapest, or whatever criteria are important to you. But if you think you might ever communicate with external studios in some capacity, then you should have something compatible.

Here's a good example:
On Thursday, I had a group of guys come in with a CD of their mom playing Christmas songs on piano, and they were going to add strings over the top. I loaded up the CD tracks (wish they were .WAV files but that was out of my control) and found that there was a ticking sound that seemed an awful lot to me like a bad burn, probably caused by cooking the CD too fast... most likely at something stupid like 24x or 48x speed. (I trust everyone here knows not to burn master CDs any faster than 4x, right?)
Anyway, we couldn't just mix the tracks as they were with the ticking sound, the guys called their mom, the other studio owner, etc. and the decision was to cut an audio CD of the mixes as-is, and then to save the ProTools session to DVD so they could send it out to him, he could drop in the original piano tracks, and be done.
Well I got a call at 5pm Friday that the guy doesn't have ProTools, so can I spend a bunch of time reworking the audio material into something that will translate onto his system so they can send it out to him.
Oh yeah, and mom wants to be able to sell the discs at some fair/festival thing next week.
His choice of software (combined with a bad CD burn) are going to cost me annd the musicians a lot of extra time and money, becauuse I need to head into the studio today to rework the tracks and post them onto a server so the guy can download them and put them into whatever he is using.


I know that seems like a pretty random set of causes and events that may never apply, but it's amazing how often that stuff comes up. A band has a friend who wants to mix their nnew album, but they need somwhere else to track the material. Alright, not so bad, but it severely limits our flexibility and costs extra time to convert everything to some lowest common denominator so he can mix on whatever software he happens to own.
If Cakewalk, or Cubase, or Audacity, or whatever, were the first one out, and became the de facto standard we would all be either using it or complaining about it. In the music notation world, it Finale that has been around forever and has become the standard, but it has a miserable user interface that started off in one direction and only got more complicated as it grew. When Sibelius came out it was designed from the ground up with everything Finale had to learn the hard way and patch on already acknowledged and written into the system. Lots of people want to use it now, but a lot of schools and teachers had made considerable time & money investments into Finale. It's taken about a decade, but a lot of places have finally come around to teaching and maintaining both platforms in their labs - and that's just a piece of software that will run on any Mac or PC platform.


So I guess the short statement is that if you are going to invest the money and the time to learn anything, you should probably look at what you want it to do in the future and plan & spend accordingly.

-Jeremy

[dsw]

Just to add to what Jeremy said:
Digi bought Sibelius and have included a version of it in PT8.

I like Pro Tools because of the way it works.
It's easy and powerful at the same time, and the routing makes sense.

[chris harris]

And yes, they connect their hardware and software so they know the two will always work together as intended - personally I've always viewed that as a benefit rather than some even marketing scheme. It's easiest to think of it as a hardware purchase that comes with really great software,

It's hard to think of it that way because nobody would CHOOSE any of that awful hardware if they were freed up to decide for themselves.

I do agree, though, that having an integrated system is definitely an advantage. It's just ridiculous, especially with digital connectivity and lots of great converters available these days, that they don't offer more, better, scalable options at prices that are more competitive with other manufacturers.

People used to lament that Apple computers were too expensive, but they wanted the operating system - they tried that briefly in the late 90s and bailed on it pretty quickly because it became such a hassle for the company to keep everything covered. Now we just accept that a Mac Book Pro comes with Mac OS, and that you can't put Mac OS onto a cheap little Acer designed to run Windows.

I feel like this is a really bad analogy. If the Digi hardware were superior to the other options available to users of other DAWs, then the analogy would work. But, it's not. That "cheap little Acer" is the equivalent of the hardware you have to buy to be able to run the great software. It would be like Apple requiring you to buy a crappy computer, and charging much more than other better computers, in order to run OSX.

(I trust everyone here knows not to burn master CDs any faster than 4x, right?)

I've been burning at 8x, per the recommendation of a few mastering engineers on this board, for a couple of years now. I've never had a problem with a bad burn at that speed.

[the finger genius]

I guess what I'm wondering most of all is this- what options are out there for I/O from my li'l laptop?

To answer the OP's question, look for a used 002R. They can be had for between 500$ - 600$, and can support up to 16 ins / outs (for more than 8 you'll need a converter with an ADAT lightpipe connection.)

As to whether the preamps on an Mbox (or an 002R) will have enough gain for your ribbon mic - probably not, but it depends on the source. I have an Mbox and 002R for separate locations, and the preamps are fine with ribbons on drums and other loud instruments, but are on the quiet side when recording acoustic instruments. I also wouldn't expect any other preamp (or interface / preamp combo) in this price range to do any better, if that means anything.

[allbaldo]

Gotta say, I actually think PT works really well. I've tried other DAW's, and none were as intuitive to me, and some seemed overly complicated. As the poster before me said, watch for a 002. They can be had pretty cheap, are reasonably expandable as far as inputs go, and if you need the preamps to be better, you can have it modded by Black Lion, which many people claim makes a major improvement in the sound. Many people dislike having to use Digi's hardware in order to use their software, but as the Professor was saying (as I took it), there are advantages to having a system that is designed to work as a whole, instead of messing around with different drivers, etc. For me, that's an advantage to PT, not a drawback. At least there is some effort to make the whole thing work.

[mattwhritenour]

To answer the OP's question, look for a used 002R. They can be had for between 500$ - 600$, and can support up to 16 ins / outs (for more than 8 you'll need a converter with an ADAT lightpipe connection.)

a 001, 002, 002r, 003, 003r, and 003r+ can all support up to 18 i/o (not 16)
8 i/o onboard then you can get another 8 through ADAT then 2 through SPDIF.

[388]

I don't have a rad RCA like yours but the ribbon mic I have is pretty low gain and I find the Mbox2 preamps have plenty of gain. But I'd recommend the 002 or 003 because the lack of inputs will quickly drive you crazy. It is possible to get 4 inputs out of the Mbox2 with the s/pdif input and a preamp with s/pdif outputs. I do it and it works pretty well.