Purchasing ProTools

I'm just saying that "don't bother listening to different applications because they all sound the same and use the same math" is false. The panning is one example of a thing that can differ from application to application.

  On 5/4/2010 at 3:21 PM, Ascdi said:

I'm just saying that "don't bother listening to different applications because they all sound the same and use the same math" is false. The panning is one example of a thing that can differ from application to application.

well it seems that of all things employing math that panning would be pretty negligible but perhaps once you start using phasers or whatnot it would make a difference...ill keep my ears open

Well basically the idea of a pan law is (and I am gonna screw this up): when something is center panned you have two speakers playing it to you as opposed to one, when it's hard-panned. Therefore you have to choose to attenuate signals panned center by a certain amount so that they won't sound like they increase in volume the closer they get to the center.

So the usual pan law is -3 db, which means that center-panned signals are attenuated by 3 db. This is only for mono tracks though. For stereo tracks there is no attenuation because technically you're dealing with a balance control and not a pan control (whole other can of worms).

Of course in Pro Tools you don't really get a balance control as much as you get two pan controls that are by default hard panned. This alone makes mixing stereo tracks together in PT pretty fun.

Also there's the question of, okay, so you decide on -3 db, do you interpolate linearly or logarithmically as you go from the center to the edge (ie. "circular" vs. linear panning)?

Again, it's just an issue that's out there, and an example of why it's not stupid to think about this stuff. Personally, I like the way PT LE does all of this and if it had plugin delay compensation I would do all my mixing in it.

  On 5/4/2010 at 3:37 PM, Ascdi said:

Well basically the idea of a pan law is (and I am gonna screw this up): when something is center panned you have two speakers playing it to you as opposed to one, when it's hard-panned. Therefore you have to choose to attenuate signals panned center by a certain amount so that they won't sound like they increase in volume the closer they get to the center.

 

So the usual pan law is -3 db, which means that center-panned signals are attenuated by 3 db. This is only for mono tracks though. For stereo tracks there is no attenuation because technically you're dealing with a balance control and not a pan control (whole other can of worms).

 

Of course in Pro Tools you don't really get a balance control as much as you get two pan controls that are by default hard panned. This alone makes mixing stereo tracks together in PT pretty fun.

 

Also there's the question of, okay, so you decide on -3 db, do you interpolate linearly or logarithmically as you go from the center to the edge (ie. "circular" vs. linear panning)?

 

Again, it's just an issue that's out there, and an example of why it's not stupid to think about this stuff. Personally, I like the way PT LE does all of this and if it had plugin delay compensation I would do all my mixing in it.

thanks for the info...was the plugin delay compensation not what people were referring to w. 0 latency?

Yeah definitely, if there's any difference in panning aside from distribution of amplitude between the left and right channels (or distribution of amplitude of the multiple channels) then I'd hate to use that panning effect

Last I heard, only PT TDM had automatic plugin delay compensation. In LE and M-powered you get a delay meter for plugin delay, but you have to compensate by hand (nudging tracks and whatnot).

Hey, there's a good thing about PT. Nudging stuff works real well and the settings are right there for you to fiddle with on the main screen. Just make sure you have a numpad on your keyboard (I do not and am sad).

  On 5/4/2010 at 3:47 PM, Ascdi said:

Last I heard, only PT TDM had automatic plugin delay compensation. In LE and M-powered you get a delay meter for plugin delay, but you have to compensate by hand (nudging tracks and whatnot).

 

Hey, there's a good thing about PT. Nudging stuff works real well and the settings are right there for you to fiddle with on the main screen. Just make sure you have a numpad on your keyboard (I do not and am sad).

that sounds rather frustrating. I really havent encountered many problems with latency or plug-in delay. i havent used the compensation tool in Ableton as my recordings sound fine to me (though I tend to stay away from line in so maybe this is why). Was what was said about most digital latency these days being negligible to human ears not a fair appraisal?

It's more just a practical consideration for me as I like to bounce, re-slice, bounce again, slice again, etc. So if stuff is gradually sliding further off the grid that makes later editing steps a pain in the ass.

There's some effects where the delay is quite noticeable if you don't have automatic delay compensation (eg Voxengo's Pristine Space), however I'd be surprised if most DAWs don't support that nowadays, I know Reaper does and that's only $60 and I believe the new versions of Buzz support it too (and that's completely free)

I actually just bought an mbox 2 mini yesterday to use with pro tools LE because i want to work in post-production and audio engineering. It's not my ideal program and frankly i can get by just fine editing shit in adobe premiere or sony vegas and ableton or reason or renoise or what have you. But it's really not at all about my personal preferences, it's industry standards. If you walk into a studio to record a gig and youre fumbling around in PT because you dont know the ins and outs, you're fired, end of story, regardless of how good a mixer you are. Refusing to work in a studio because you dont want to use the software is plain idiocy, and if you want to seriously work in the field you will be begging for any opportunity you an get, you will not make any money turning down opportunities. I will be learning Logic in time, but it's mac only and i dont have a mac, so for now im going to wrap my head around ProTools and become the baddest hotkey slingin motherfucker i can because i want to be a professional.

I like the Mbox 2 mini package because it comes with the hardware and the software, if you have a compatible m-audio interface its probably worth it to go the m-powered route.

anyways ive only skimmed the first page of this thread so sorry if im being redundant, but this is my experience from taking audio recording and post-production classes and talking to successful working professionals. There really is more to it than just knowing software and being a technically proficient mixer.

The other thing about PT LE is that it's not really that expensive. Especially when you consider that the hardware is decent and included and you get a good amount of plugins (even instruments) with it these days.

  On 5/4/2010 at 4:50 PM, 24ourange said:

I actually just bought an mbox 2 mini yesterday to use with pro tools LE because i want to work in post-production and audio engineering. It's not my ideal program and frankly i can get by just fine editing shit in adobe premiere or sony vegas and ableton or reason or renoise or what have you. But it's really not at all about my personal preferences, it's industry standards. If you walk into a studio to record a gig and youre fumbling around in PT because you dont know the ins and outs, you're fired, end of story, regardless of how good a mixer you are. Refusing to work in a studio because you dont want to use the software is plain idiocy, and if you want to seriously work in the field you will be begging for any opportunity you an get, you will not make any money turning down opportunities. I will be learning Logic in time, but it's mac only and i dont have a mac, so for now im going to wrap my head around ProTools and become the baddest hotkey slingin motherfucker i can because i want to be a professional.

 

I like the Mbox 2 mini package because it comes with the hardware and the software, if you have a compatible m-audio interface its probably worth it to go the m-powered route.

 

anyways ive only skimmed the first page of this thread so sorry if im being redundant, but this is my experience from taking audio recording and post-production classes and talking to successful working professionals. There really is more to it than just knowing software and being a technically proficient mixer.

thank you this is an insightful reply that is well targeted towards my questions. im still wondering, though what differences there are between dif. versions of protools?

Ascdi, from your description PT panning actually doesn't seem... attractive. I much prefer attenuation and regular centered pan knobs per track. If any PT users feel that is less professional, well... I'm not trying to be a dick, you were pretty much the only constructive poster in my virus thread from olden times, but i disagree.

Scrambled Ears, the difference between audio input/midi input latency and plugin delay is that, while latency refers to the interval in live input between producing the audio/midi that is being played into the computer and hearing said input (or simply the offset between the performance and its recording), plugin delay refers to the offset between mixer tracks introduced by sophisticated or otherwise CPU-costly plugins on either of said tracks. Lack of automatic delay compensation is, IMO, a big problem. Almost every other host has it (I'm not sure about Sonar or Acid, but I'm sure they do). Honestly i was surprised and a bit underwhelmed to read above that PT lacks it. Even FL Studio has it since version 9 (and FL Studio has always been notoriously slow to implement a couple of fundamental things). I do most of my programming and arranging in FL and i have to be honest most of the time I'd be about to introduce some delay-heavy plugin I'd just choose another alternative rather than manually offset every other track by some random increment (or even route all of them to a single buss and just offset that, as Imageline asininely suggest in their manual ). Truth is, wasting time with manual delay comp is one of many workflow vampires, and you don't need that.

24ourange, cool story PRO.

Since you're so keen on relenting to some outmoded expectations of what makes a PRO (i.e. using a certain PRO DAW), here's my PRO TIP:

1. Get a Mac

2. Learn Logic

3. ????

4. PROfit

Logic is slowly becoming as ubiquitous today in PRO STUDIOS as PROTools was (and indeed it was) in the 90's. Let me repeat that. Slowly. Ahem. Thhheeeeee naaaiiinnneeeeeeteeeeeessssssss.

PRObably?

  On 5/4/2010 at 2:38 PM, Ascdi said:

It's become way trendy to diss Pro Tools nowadays, but I still use Pro Tools LE (feature-wise, basically the same as M-powered) all the time. Here's some opinions:

hahaha, this new phrase 'it's becoming trendy to _____' is a funny & kind of sad way of trying to discredit extremely valid cutting criticism. It's like when you talk about how shit radiohead is people on watmm will respond with 'you're just being trendy like everyone else who hates radiohead' , jesus fuck it's annoying. Anyways there are plenty of legitimate and understandable reasons for trying to talk someone out of purchasing a propitiatory hardware rack unit that at this era in digital recording doesn't offer that many advantages over DAWs that do not require proprietary pieces of hardware. Would you call it 'trendy' to point out that it's completely unnecessary to buy a protools HD system to do fully professional multitrack digital recording on a computer? arg, calling criticism 'being trendy' is just as stupid as saying criticising something is being a 'hater' im really sick of this bullshit.

  On 5/4/2010 at 2:38 PM, Ascdi said:

1. No idea what people don't like about the MIDI in PT. I only use it for softsynths, so I can't speak to the timing to external devices (it probably sucks), but as a MIDI editor, it's fine. You can build stuff really quickly with MIDI regions, and the built-in real-time MIDI effects are awesome. They don't really work the way a lot of other "quantize" or "shuffle" functions work in other programs. The controller editing is still kinda wack, but other than that I have no complaints about the MIDI.

pretty important feature to have considering that Cubase and Logic have pretty seamless elegant uses of CC and automation. So again real points subtracted for Protools havving an outdated midi setup. You also didn't address any of my previous points about lack of plugins compared to other hosts (cubase, logic), what's your take on that?

the only big advatanges protools had are now exsistent in most other DAW hosts, for example the ability to modularly move around inserts and sends and groups on a mixer after you've connected them, Cubase has adopted this since version SX3 (it's now on version 5).

I would also say Logic has superior built in plugin suite than Protools. Can't say the same for Cubase unfortunately.

  On 5/4/2010 at 9:00 PM, Lube Saibot said:

Ascdi, from your description PT panning actually doesn't seem... attractive. I much prefer attenuation and regular centered pan knobs per track. If any PT users feel that is less professional, well... I'm not trying to be a dick, you were pretty much the only constructive poster in my virus thread from olden times, but i disagree.

 

Scrambled Ears, the difference between audio input/midi input latency and plugin delay is that, while latency refers to the interval in live input between producing the audio/midi that is being played into the computer and hearing said input (or simply the offset between the performance and its recording), plugin delay refers to the offset between mixer tracks introduced by sophisticated or otherwise CPU-costly plugins on either of said tracks. Lack of automatic delay compensation is, IMO, a big problem. Almost every other host has it (I'm not sure about Sonar or Acid, but I'm sure they do). Honestly i was surprised and a bit underwhelmed to read above that PT lacks it. Even FL Studio has it since version 9 (and FL Studio has always been notoriously slow to implement a couple of fundamental things). I do most of my programming and arranging in FL and i have to be honest most of the time I'd be about to introduce some delay-heavy plugin I'd just choose another alternative rather than manually offset every other track by some random increment (or even route all of them to a single buss and just offset that, as Imageline asininely suggest in their manual ). Truth is, wasting time with manual delay comp is one of many workflow vampires, and you don't need that.

 

24ourange, cool story PRO.

 

Since you're so keen on relenting to some outmoded expectations of what makes a PRO (i.e. using a certain PRO DAW), here's my PRO TIP:

 

1. Get a Mac

2. Learn Logic

3. ????

4. PROfit

 

Logic is slowly becoming as ubiquitous today in PRO STUDIOS as PROTools was (and indeed it was) in the 90's. Let me repeat that. Slowly. Ahem. Thhheeeeee naaaiiinnneeeeeeteeeeeessssssss.

 

PRObably?

I never said knowing pro tools automatically makes you a professional. However i did say it is still the industry standard in the majority of professional studios. Could you expand on your experience or knowledge of logic being used as the propreitary software by successful recording studios? How about film production studios? I'm not trying to challenge you here im sincerely interested in your experience.

I could just "get a mac" but a decent mac these days is in the thousand(s) dollar range, and logic pro is probably quite spendy as well. The mbox mini is 250 dollars brand new. Also im pretty confident logic will be much easier to learn.

  On 5/4/2010 at 10:09 PM, 24ourange said:

I never said knowing pro tools automatically makes you a professional.

You kinda did, which is why i got all trolly. If it's truly a misunderstanding on my part, i retract.

  On 5/4/2010 at 10:09 PM, 24ourange said:

However i did say it is still the industry standard in the majority of professional studios. Could you expand on your experience or knowledge of logic being used as the proprietary software by successful recording studios? How about film production studios? I'm not trying to challenge you here im sincerely interested in your experience.

Here (in Romania) Nuendo and Logic are pretty much the norms. All rock/metal-oriented studios use Logic, film and tv studios are mostly Nuendo-based. You could argue that Romania is just a puny inconsequential spec of a country that is irrelevant. I could argue that since mainstream media is 10 years behind everything here, and all the studios that have cropped all around to fill the void are carbon copies of American and UK studios standards, we're pretty much a vivid example of how ProTools has been largely outmoded. Plus, I've been subscribed to FutureMusic for a long time + I'm a huge nerd that reads up on the kitlist of pretty much any music he remotely likes, and from this these i gather that, with very few exceptions: rock/metal studios are Cubase/Logic-based, club-friendly electronic music (techno, house, trance, DnB, dubstep, wonky) is all Live/Cubase/Logic, and as for more experimental electronic music, well, this is where it gets into hardware sequencing, modular setups (both hardware and software), programming suites, self-made hosts etc. I will confess to being ignorant of what is used for film production in the States and the UK.

But honestly, the only two instances of ProTools use i've heard of in the past... 5 years, was a Mike Shinoda interview and a Beastie Boys interview.

  On 5/4/2010 at 10:09 PM, 24ourange said:

Also im pretty confident logic will be much easier to learn.

Now that i agree with.

Most BIG studios in the UK and America are ProTools HD based, I work at them fairly regularly, this is the case! Nuendo you don't see very often but is around. Almost all of the main studios have Logic as well for the 1/5th of big engineers who prefer to use that.

This is from a band tracking point of view, pro tools as a program, not a system, is GREAT for editing big recording projects. The extras that used to be fairly exclusive to pro tools HD are now pretty common in all high-end interfaces, but protools has stuck around because its what most people are used too, and for the cool little ways it deals with group editing and that sort of thing.

However, pro tools HD is FAR too expensive to be considered by anyone but big studios, and its just not worth it unless you are recording bands all day, every day. Its still a viable choice for very big studios but in almost all other cases you'll get more bang for your buck with a native setup. (If you are looking for HIGH end, then pro tools is still FAIRLY competitively priced. You can get a great HD setup for about the same price as a similar 'High End' setup in Logic etc, but thats only the case if you are looking for really top gear and it does remove quite a lot of choice from the equation).

Pro Tools LE, I wouldn't bother, its all the bad things about pro tools with none of the good things (for example midi editing, pro tools 8 has solved a lot of the basic stuff but it has nothing to compare with logics hyper editor or the flexibility of the environment). At home I use Logic, and its really really great. At work I use pro tools (even though logic is available) for the fluidity of the editing. If I know that at some point a project will end up being mixed in the box or at my home then I will move it to logic, its only if I'm gonna mix it at work on the great desks that it will stay in pro tools AFTER the tracking and editing stage.

Pro tools HD and LE/MPowered (which are basically the same) are not comparable, they are different worlds. LE has crippling restrictions, no Plug in delay compensation, rubbish low latency settings, no DSP, 32 (or maybe its 48 now) track limit, lack of choice with interfaces. I wouldn't bother. Get Logic and a great soundcard and you will have much much more. REAL pro tools has all the above as well as DSP, zero latency on great (but not the best) A/D's, and very good stability.

If you are worried about compatibility, just learn how to create 0-start wav's from your DAW of choice, thats all you need. All DAW's can do this fairly easily. Pro tools takes 2 key commands and 5 minutes of computer thinking to prepare a project for ANY daw. Logic, 1 key command and 5 minutes thinking. Cubase is a little more fiddly but still only 10 minutes or so to prepare for migration to any DAW.

Digital Latency is very much noticable. When recording, the latency settings you have will effect how a drummer or singer performs quite a lot. A zero latency setup like pro tools hd or a decent soundcard negates this, but this doesnt matter at all for stuff when you are not recording real instruments. Plug in delay compensation is important, especially when effecting different elements of the same sound with different effects (like when making massive layered basslines). Without it the different time delay on each element of the sound can cause phase issues and thin out the sound, even though the effects you are adding should be making it massive!

I think that bashing pro tools LE is completely fair, though it is very cheap compared to other (non cracked :) ) setups so I guess that counts for something. I think that bashing Protools HD UNLESS you are in the sort of environment where a £10k soundcard setup is common is not that productive, as there are many other things at play. In short I think HD is only worth it these days for the biggest of setups, but in that sort of studio the cost of a pro tools rig is nothing compared to the cost of the desks, tape machines, outboard etc, or whatever focus that studio has.

I'd go logic, or just stick to what you know and buy a killer soundcard with great A/D's and maybe some nice pres, thats much more important especially if you are already happy WORKING with the program you have.

I added loads of shit to my post and it wouldn't let me 'edit' so I decided to post it again :)

Most BIG studios in the UK and America are ProTools HD based, I work at them fairly regularly, this is the case! Nuendo you don't see very often but is around. Almost all of the main studios have Logic as well for the 1/5th of big engineers who prefer to use that.

This is from a band tracking point of view, pro tools as a program, not a system, is GREAT for editing big recording projects. The extras that used to be fairly exclusive to pro tools HD are now pretty common in all high-end interfaces, but protools has stuck around because its what most people are used too, and for the cool little ways it deals with group editing and that sort of thing.

However, pro tools HD is FAR too expensive to be considered by anyone but big studios, and its just not worth it unless you are recording bands all day, every day. Its still a viable choice for very big studios but in almost all other cases you'll get more bang for your buck with a native setup. (If you are looking for HIGH end, then pro tools is still FAIRLY competitively priced. You can get a great HD setup for about the same price as a similar 'High End' setup in Logic etc, but thats only the case if you are looking for really top gear and it does remove quite a lot of choice from the equation).

Pro Tools LE, I wouldn't bother, its all the bad things about pro tools with none of the good things (for example midi editing, pro tools 8 has solved a lot of the basic stuff but it has nothing to compare with logics hyper editor or the flexibility of the environment). At home I use Logic, and its really really great. At work I use pro tools (even though logic is available) for the fluidity of the editing. If I know that at some point a project will end up being mixed in the box or at my home then I will move it to logic, its only if I'm gonna mix it at work on the great desks that it will stay in pro tools AFTER the tracking and editing stage.

Pro tools HD and LE/MPowered (which are basically the same) are not comparable, they are different worlds. LE has crippling restrictions, no Plug in delay compensation, rubbish low latency settings, no DSP, 32 (or maybe its 48 now) track limit, lack of choice with interfaces. I wouldn't bother. Get Logic and a great soundcard and you will have much much more. REAL pro tools has all the above as well as DSP, zero latency on great (but not the best) A/D's, and very good stability.

If you are worried about compatibility, just learn how to create 0-start wav's from your DAW of choice, thats all you need. All DAW's can do this fairly easily. Pro tools takes 2 key commands and 5 minutes of computer thinking to prepare a project for ANY daw. Logic, 1 key command and 5 minutes thinking. Cubase is a little more fiddly but still only 10 minutes or so to prepare for migration to any DAW.

Digital Latency is very much noticable. When recording, the latency settings you have will effect how a drummer or singer performs quite a lot. A zero latency setup like pro tools hd or a decent soundcard negates this, but this doesnt matter at all for stuff when you are not recording real instruments. Plug in delay compensation is important, especially when effecting different elements of the same sound with different effects (like when making massive layered basslines). Without it the different time delay on each element of the sound can cause phase issues and thin out the sound, even though the effects you are adding should be making it massive!

I think that bashing pro tools LE is completely fair, though it is very cheap compared to other (non cracked :) ) setups so I guess that counts for something. I think that bashing Protools HD UNLESS you are in the sort of environment where a £10k soundcard setup is common is not that productive, as there are many other things at play. In short I think HD is only worth it these days for the biggest of setups, but in that sort of studio the cost of a pro tools rig is nothing compared to the cost of the desks, tape machines, outboard etc, or whatever focus that studio has.

Almost all the big BAND albums you hear these days have used pro tools extensively, most of the stuff that involves programming of some kind has come from a particular DAW, and either stayed there or moved to pro tools for mixdown.

I'd go logic, or just stick to what you know and buy a killer soundcard with great A/D's and maybe some nice pres, thats much more important especially if you are already happy WORKING with the program you have.

EDIT- re panning law, it makes a difference. No one DAW is better or worse but they behave differently. Pro tools for me behaves more like an GOOD analog desk pan pot, whereas Logic behaves a bit more controlled and balanced. I'm not sure why, but I'll happily use either. The pro tools pan law seems a bit more agressive in its spacing, logic gives you more focus in the middle ground. I'm cool either way :) but it does effect how my mixes come out.

Once you have Pro Tools you can TRANSFUSE the living fuck out of everything.... yes everything...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaoV7rmMeUM

And I absolutely love it!

  On 5/4/2010 at 9:05 PM, Awepittance said:

hahaha, this new phrase 'it's becoming trendy to _____' is a funny & kind of sad way of trying to discredit extremely valid cutting criticism. It's like when you talk about how shit radiohead is people on watmm will respond with 'you're just being trendy like everyone else who hates radiohead' , jesus fuck it's annoying. Anyways there are plenty of legitimate and understandable reasons for trying to talk someone out of purchasing a propitiatory hardware rack unit that at this era in digital recording doesn't offer that many advantages over DAWs that do not require proprietary pieces of hardware. Would you call it 'trendy' to point out that it's completely unnecessary to buy a protools HD system to do fully professional multitrack digital recording on a computer? arg, calling criticism 'being trendy' is just as stupid as saying criticising something is being a 'hater' im really sick of this bullshit.

I didn't read all your blabby blah posts at the beginning of this thread because I already know what I need to know about plugins and shit because I already use Pro Tools. You know, sometimes.

PT LE or M-powered is actually CHEAPER than most other DAWs for what you'd get. No one here is suggesting buying a PT HD system which is indeed crazy expensive.

I have no interest in getting heated about DAWs because it's pointless and also because I've tried most of them (as well as being "in the music software industry" for a while if that matters at all), so I've already made up my mind about what I like. Oh, also it's a waste of time.

To me, "it has become trendy to diss Pro Tools" is a valid statement and is validated by this thread, considering that some of the main Pro Tools "haters" here apparently haven't even used the app enough to realize that the mixer knobs are totally different or know the difference between pan and balance or know what a pan law is. Nothing PERSONAL here, but I'm just saying .. if your opinion is formed from Internet BBS battles ZOMG and not from actual USE OF THE APP IN QUESTION, then yes, your opinion is "trendy". If it helps, consider "uninformed" a synonym for trendy here.

  On 5/4/2010 at 9:05 PM, Awepittance said:

  On 5/4/2010 at 2:38 PM, Ascdi said:

1. No idea what people don't like about the MIDI in PT. I only use it for softsynths, so I can't speak to the timing to external devices (it probably sucks), but as a MIDI editor, it's fine. You can build stuff really quickly with MIDI regions, and the built-in real-time MIDI effects are awesome. They don't really work the way a lot of other "quantize" or "shuffle" functions work in other programs. The controller editing is still kinda wack, but other than that I have no complaints about the MIDI.

 

pretty important feature to have considering that Cubase and Logic have pretty seamless elegant uses of CC and automation. So again real points subtracted for Protools havving an outdated midi setup. You also didn't address any of my previous points about lack of plugins compared to other hosts (cubase, logic), what's your take on that?

 

the only big advatanges protools had are now exsistent in most other DAW hosts, for example the ability to modularly move around inserts and sends and groups on a mixer after you've connected them, Cubase has adopted this since version SX3 (it's now on version 5).

 

I would also say Logic has superior built in plugin suite than Protools. Can't say the same for Cubase unfortunately.

No idea what you're talking about here. You can send MIDI CCs in Pro Tools obviously, and edit them, I just don't care for how its done. wikipedia.org/Matter_of_taste.

Anyway in case it wasn't clear from the entirety of my previous post, I USE PRO TOOLS and I like it and would consider many of its advantages to be workflow or "feel" things rather than things that can be summed-up in a bullet-point feature list. But in case it's not clear from this post, I DON'T GIVE A FUCK what you use and yes, I'm sure it probably kicks ass.

But this is a thread about purchasing Pro Tools and when I read it all I saw was people who don't know shit about Pro Tools bashing Pro Tools for reasons that were frequently incorrect. Don't get me wrong, Digidesign is a shitty company and audio interface lock-in is obviously not ideal, BUT I CAN TELL YOU IN ALL HONESTY that PT LE is the best DAW I have right now for stuff, all that besides. I AM NOT TRYING TO TRICK YOU OR COME OFF LIKE A COOL BADASS ON AN INTERNET FORUM AT MIDNIGHT ON A WEDNESDAY. THIS IS MY REAL OPINION, THE OPINION OF A HUMAN BEING. I AM TRYING TO HELP BY OFFERING A MULTITUDE OF POINTS OF VIEW AND INFORMATION TEMPERED BY MODEST EXPERIENCE.

Okay? Is everybody all set now? Are we all prepared to see a multitude of different, reasonable opinions expressed in this thread ABOUT OPINIONS ABOUT SOFTWARE? No one is going to freak out right? Can we all handle how crazy it is that I am saying words backed up by facts and also experience? Okay, swell.

Kudos to all for mentioning Nuendo though. Definitely go spend $1500 on Nuendo based on a thread on WATMM, it's totally worth it

lol, people getting butthurt

in b4 awepittance schools some foo's

I've tried out my friend's Pro Tools HD (version 7.4) and found the audio editing to be much better than in Logic 8 (which I own). In fact the audio editing part of Logic is its weakest feature in my opinion. I only really use Logic to record audio though, most of my effects and sequencing is outboard hardware and any precise editing I usually do using an old copy of Cool Edit Pro on a PC (find my an equivalently brilliant editor for OSX!)

You can use a VST wrapper to convert normal VSTs to RTAS format for use in Pro Tools: http://www.fxpansion.com/index.php?page=15 (my friend uses this one and he says it works fine) I disagree with a lot that's been said in this thread. Pro Tools HD is still in use in a lot of studios, especially big ones. Lots of the more well known techno producers here in Berlin are using it. But I think its days are numbered as computers are getting faster and the actual Pro tool HD accelerator cards are about four years old at this stage.

I don't like their "we tie you to a certain type of hardware" policy. PT HD is tied to the PCI/PCIe card, you can use a select few different AD/DAs though providing you buy their special Pro Tools card for extra money (eg, Apogee and Lynx both sell Pro Tools adaptors for their audio interfaces). I'm not so up on PT LE, but I believe you can only use a select number of M-Audio devices and I don't think there are currently any M-Audio devices out there with particularly amazing AD converters (I could be wrong though!).

I meant to say this last night but I got sidetracked into an abyss of pain.

Really what you should do if you want to try out PT is buy someone's used Digi or M-audio hardware for cheap and just make sure the license is okay to be transferred. You should be able to find a real good deal that way and you can get all the "learning experience" you want zipping around in PT (even if you don't end up liking it) for cheap.

Plus, I bet you'd still find reasons to keep it around. The Mini Grand plugin is pretty cool, for example.

Also I would describe my feelings right now as more of a groinhurt than a butthurt. Not to be nitpicky

EDIT: Slow day at work today so I'll be around answering questions for the next few hours if you need more information on which parts of my anatomy are hurting and in what way.