Digidesign Pro Tools: Rethinking The Industry Standard Mentality

[articles]

There is no doubting that Digidesign Pro Tools is the undisputed most popular recording application in the pro studio realm. This article will discuss why I don't think Pro Tools is the champion in the home studio realm.

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[bilco]

I read the article and I agree that buying PT of any version just because the Big Boys have it is a mistake.

I don't think that PT is a mistake though.......

In defense of Pro Tools:

I started with N-track and a Soundblaster clone and gave up on that because of the lack of stability. I moved to Cakewalk Guitar Tracks Pro and a Turtle Beach Montego II card and gave up on that because of the lack of editing features, track limits and mostly because they excommunicate you if you sell the software you gave them money for, which really irks me.

I got into Pro Tools because:

1. Automation - Pro Tools Free was the first recording ap I saw where I could automate the mix by moving the faders instead of drawing lines in an edit window. I was amazed.
2. Pro Tools Free- It was funky and glitchy, but it worked reasonably well for me and hooked me just like they knew it would.
3. Stability - Compared to N-track and the 3 different versions of Cakewalk I had, PT LE was and still is very stable. (PT Free was an exercise in patience.)
4. Transfer of Ownership - I love this feature. I bought it; I can sell it to whoever I want to and they can register it and trade it in toward a more recent model if they want. Which leads me to:
5. Upgrade Path - They really give a pretty fair price for the hardware we trade in.
6. Laziness - I know I could render the audio files down from another recording ap and take them to a PT studio, but it is just so easy to walk in with a DVD of the whole session and have the engineer see what I was feebly attempting to do with the plugins.
7. Industry Standard - Okay, I admit it; early on I thought that PT LE must have a superior "sound" to the recording algorhythms since the Big Boys use it, but after I followed the responses from the experts rating one DAW against another on the 3dB forum, I realized that if they could not hear a consistent difference, then neither could I. Paris scored a few more points than the other software, but other than that, there was NO clearcut winner.
8. Lack of computing horsepower/Lack of $ - When I was debating what software to go with, I was running a really tired Pentium II with Win98 and minimal RAM. At the time I think I could only run 256 colors. I was at the bottom of the food chain and always a couple of generations behind state of the art computing. I built PCs from used parts at wholesale resellers. I was looking at Cubase, Steinberg, something that the local music store was convinced I needed and a couple of other audio recording aps, but they all wanted way better video, Win XP and more horsepower than what I had. Basically, no DAW software being sold in the music stores at that time would even run on my system. So, I got an old Audiomedia III card off ebay and downloaded PT LE 5.1 for $50, which was an older version than the current PT LE release at the time, but it worked okay on my system. A cheap Behringer mixer and I was in business. I still have those tracks from 2004.
9. Why I stay with PT LE - Most of the tutorials I see out there that explain the things I want to do seem to be written for PT. Maybe I just think that because I am looking for PT tutorials, but it seems that way to me.
10. Another reason why I stay with PT LE - I make more money now than I did then and in the last few years I have bought used Macs and PT LE is really stable on the OSX platform. I still buy used and got a Digi002 rack and an Mbox 1. They will both run PT LE 7.X, which is what I am running.
11. All of my co-writing buddies have PT LE systems. It makes it easy to swap ideas. We can just ftp the entire session back and forth (as soon as the steel player teaches us how to do it.)
12. The basic GUI looks pretty much the same in 7.3 as it did in 5.0. Some of you may not like that, but I like familiarity and consistency in a product. i hated the GUI change when Cakewalk went from Pro Audio 9 to Sonar. Didn't care much for the name change either.....

Things I don't like about PT:

1. I am lamenting the MIDI editing capabilities of PT LE right now. I didn't think I would ever need it until I started playing with soft samplers and drum hits the other day.
2. I wish it had notation.
3. Limit to the preamps - I have whined on the DUC about how if we want 8 channels of mic preamp, we have to get some sort of external preamps and go line in or we have to get an external Firewire device with 8 preamps built in. The M-Powered M-Audio combination offers some choices, but I wish the Digi004 or whatever they come out with next for PT LE would have 12 high quality preamps BUILT IN, like the Mackie Onyx 1200F.
4. I wish I could edit on the laptop without having the dongle attached.
5. ADC - I am not really deep enough into the DAW recording experience yet to really appreciate what this does, but apparently, it is a big deal and PT is running behind by not offering it.

Brandon talked about liking "having to commit" in the blog article and I guess I am kind of the same way when it comes to loyalty to products once I find something that works. I buy Toyatas and Geos because they are reliable and fairly repair free. They get me where I want to go. Martin Shenandoah - plywood back and sides, but it works for me. Same thing with my Pbass. It may not be the BEST tone for what I am working on, but the tone I get from it is always usable. I have gotten that way about the Shure SM7b, SM57 and SM81. Old school mics, not being hyped, again maybe not the best, but they always provide a usable tone. (I really love the SM57.) I am the same way about my Mbox. Nothing to patch in, the preamps are usable, just plug it into the ibook, plug in an SM57 and hit record. My desert island recording rig, it just works.

I questioned my motives for having Pro Tools when I read the article, but this has helped me put it in perspective. If I really were swayed by the "industry standard" argument and popularity, I would be playing a Taylor guitar and a Warwick bass, singing into expensive LDCs and driving to work in an SUV or a Lexus.

Wow, it got late, time to go to bed.......
bilco

[guavamusic]

I have protools Le mbox 2 & 002 and I do like the system. However, it is expensive to get all the plugins and cubase is much more affordable to have greater usability. I thought that by having protools that more people would come to my studio, this however is not the case. I had more when i was using Fostex Hard Disk Recorders!