Definitely not getting PT9 for a least year because of bugs, I always wait around 12 months. I love PT8 but there are a few annoying things with it...

Whilst PT LE does have [i]some[/i] built-in delay compensation, latent plugs get annoying when you can't compensate for them. Reaper has plugin delay compensation in the same vein as PT HD.
Also, PT LE doesn't have 5.1 capability. I believe Reaper does?

Regarding the Zoom handheld recorder, they're good (very commonly used) but I'd recommend building your own shockmount for it, otherwise you get a shit load of handling noise and the HPF won't cut it fully (personally I don't think you should cut any information from the raw recording anyway).

Example:
[url]http://www.zenreich.com/ZenWeb/audio/h2_shockmount.htm[/url]

i wouldn't worry about that, PT9 is pretty stable

Still, I'd rather not pay £400 for a crossgrade from LE 8 (that's including the production toolkit that provides the 5.1 capability) when I could stick with 8 and try and out Reaper for much, much less.

well don't PAY for it jeez, utilize the internet if you get what i'm saying

can't find

Nah I don't do that shit

it's not out yet but it will be

think of it this way, most other people in the entire world of music are doing "that shit" making it tougher to compete against them in just about every aspect.

if you want to support the companies you use, then buy their software, if you can't afford that; torrent it until you can, i torrented all sorts of plugs until i was able to actually afford them, and when i could... i did

in fact i dodged a lot of bullets that way, i tried all sorts of massive piano packs, and in the end i found pianoteq was the best so instead of dropping hundreds of dollars on crap i would have been severly dissatisfied with, i spent 400 bucks on pianoteq and couldn't be happier with it, AND i had money left over to buy things like fab filter, auto tune etc.

I know you're an honest person, but a lot of companies who make these products aren't, they don't care about sonic quality, or how sick your band is... they just care about numbers at the end of each quarter. So with that said, shred that warez up, and support the companies worth supporting.

I agree with auditioning media and items before purchase, but I've got enough faith in PT from using 7 and 8 without having to audition 9. Whatever Avid say about 9, I'll believe is the actual spec, so that if I decide to buy it, I know exactly what I'm getting.

Plugin manufacturers aren't corporate giants like Avid are, but unfortunately a lot of people assume they are. Most plugin manufacturers offer incredibly reasonable use of their software via demos, so you can audition the plugins that way. Also, in my experience, plugin companies offer the most ridiculous offers and discounts, so there really is no excuse. These guys bust their balls making quality software, give them what they're due.

However, Waves ARE [practically] a corporate giant, so I [i]encourage[/i] the torrenting (?) of their software. Their 'Waves Update Plan' is a disgrace. Also, apparently, they have certain political interests (Israeli-based company) that many people don't want to pay for. I am indifferent about this because, other than their reverb, I tihnk the majority of their plugs are wank. Actually their L3 is pretty sweet, but most of the others are wank with a massive price tag and Waves emblazoned on them. Fight the power!

FWIW, regarding music, I have two currently contrasting opinions:
1. If I want to check music out before I buy it, torrenting it isn't necessary; listen to it on youtube first, if you like it, buy the record, if not, don't. Simple (and I've heard the whole 'but youtube quality doesn't truly represent the music maaaaaan'; neither does shitty mp3s or CD-quality formats then...)
2. Regarding sales of records and monetary gain of artists:
"Perhaps the love of music is sufficient to encourage the true musicians, and anyone who requires payment is a fraud?" (Nick Collins, 2010)

i agree with everything ya said, and you're right about most of them being moderately priced/ good demos, but you really do have to look out for you when it comes to purchasing things, 15 days isn't really long enough to really get familiar with something like omnisphere when there are thousands of different samples to choose from.

i wasn't exactly referring to purchasing music from artits, but since you brought it up, the artist gets just about all of their money from live shows/ merch/ publishing, you don't really see a lot of money from music sales anyways so why not just give it away? Groveshark is what i use to preview bands before i mindlessly blow my load on amazon or itunes or wherever i feel like buying them from at the moment. I would also add that heavily compressed/ poorly mastered million dollar albums aren't going to get anything more than a torrent from me

PT9 eats any other DAW or previous version of Pro tools alive. Find a student you know and get them to get you the student price.

And fyi, that 400 pounds you quoted and the features you get is wrong on several different levels.

It's like $2000 US for the CPTK which gives up 7.1 mixing, VCA's etc. Basically PTHD without the TDM side.

The crossgrade for a student (just find a friend to send in their details or something as I said) is a bit cheaper cheaper. Basically chump change for what you get in PT9.

And btw, if you think time adjuster is 'built in delay compensation' then you must be crazy.



@warez: Yeah they have their time and place, but if you wanna go legit and actually legally get paid to do the craft then you need to buy your own stuff. I mean you don't have to. But as soon as you start charging clients, your chance of getting caught increases 9000%. But they're great for extended demos/unrestricted demos, and if you hate Waves lol.

But yesh, me going teh legit with the dawn of PT9.

i wouldn't shoot ALL of the other DAWS down but i feel the same way, even PT LE has time adjusting capabilities where one can nudge the audio... but when recording; every little thing you can do to save time, you should be doing... i'd rather be working with the band on songwriting than trying to manually time adjust because something was printed out of phase due to ill accounted manual time adjustments. on top of that recording to a cleaner version of the raw will make your own mistakes clearer, so tracking to drums that have some plugs on them would be ideal, TDM is the only means in which you can REALLY get accurate results.

in short, the less time you spend on tedious bullshit, the more time you spend on other, more important shit, like making music

[quote=embracerandom;18271241]nah i don't do that shit[/quote]

123

[QUOTE=Xomblies;18271439]i agree with everything ya said, and you're right about most of them being moderately priced/ good demos, but you really do have to look out for you when it comes to purchasing things, 15 days isn't really long enough to really get familiar with something like omnisphere when there are thousands of different samples to choose from.[/quote]
15 days, with what are generally full-working demos, is more than enough time to discover whether you want to buy the plugin or not. They're there so you can understand the software's potential, not exhaust [i]all[/i] its capabilities. In my experience, it only takes a week or so of playing around with a plugin to realise whether you really want it or really don't. And if you're not sure, even after 15 days, then don't get it because it clearly hasn't convinced you.

[QUOTE=Xomblies;18271439]i wasn't exactly referring to purchasing music from artits, but since you brought it up...[/quote]
I know, hence why I said 'FWIW, regarding music' lol

[QUOTE=Xomblies;18271439]...the artist gets just about all of their money from live shows/ merch/ publishing, you don't really see a lot of money from music sales anyways so why not just give it away?[/quote]
It's common knowledge that artists make almost all of their money from live shows, because their record sales are bled dry by their label. Record labels are the true frauds because they don't operate on musical passion, they're businesses so only really care about profit. That's why I believe the only thing record labels offer, that is superior to what a band can do alone, is promotion. But if a band worked hard enough to promote themselves as best as they could, it wouldn't be hard for them to organise a tour themselves (where, again, they could charge just what is necessary to cover their costs; why ask for profit if you enjoy it?) and produce their own records (which they could then give away for free, via downloads).

[QUOTE=Xomblies;18271439]Groveshark is what i use to preview bands before i mindlessly blow my load on amazon or itunes or wherever i feel like buying them from at the moment. I would also add that heavily compressed/ poorly mastered million dollar albums aren't going to get anything more than a torrent from me[/QUOTE]
I wouldn't tar all albums with the same brush, some feature exceptional mixing and mastering and at the moment, and as it stands, the CD record is the most accessible way of listening to a band without going to see them live. Plus, a CD being a physical thing means in the event of a serious computer crash, my music is stored in a 'physical' medium (I know harddrive storage is technically physically written to disc, but you get my point).
Furthermore, if bands offered free downloads of their record (that people would use rather than torrents), then they would be able to see their own growing popularity and success. However, as it stands, their record sales, iTunes downloads etc. is the only way of determining the success/popularity of their record release. If a load of people really like the music but have torrented it, then the the bands perceived popularity isn't as high, so they'd be less inclined to do live shows. So for the time being, whilst I know my money is principally going to the record labels, I'll continue to buy music because ultimately it's better for the band I support, until the revolution comes ;)

[QUOTE=Convectuoso;18271932]PT9 eats any other DAW or previous version of Pro tools alive. Find a student you know and get them to get you the student price.[/quote]
I am a student.

[QUOTE=Convectuoso;18271932]And fyi, that 400 pounds you quoted and the features you get is wrong on several different levels.

It's like $2000 US for the CPTK which gives up 7.1 mixing, VCA's etc. Basically PTHD without the TDM side.

The crossgrade for a student (just find a friend to send in their details or something as I said) is a bit cheaper cheaper. Basically chump change for what you get in PT9.[/quote]
My bad, I was going off what my supervisor had said. For the crossgrade from LE to PT9, it's £210. But for the multi-channel mixing capability (in this case, 7.1), the Complete Production Toolkit has to be purchased. At the moment, by basket is on £1,889.90. I doubt even my student discount will bring that down to chump change, even it's chump change compared to HD. I'm not in the market for that kind of investment, so, like I said, I'll stick to PT8 which is quality even with it's annoyances (which, tbh, can be majorly fixed with the Mellowmuse ATA, £35), or try out Reaper which seems to stand for being a quality program without the huge price tag.

[QUOTE=Convectuoso;18271932]And btw, if you think time adjuster is 'built in delay compensation' then you must be crazy. [/quote]
What are you talking about? I'm saying LE8 has some built in delay compensation, in the way that aux sends (that take 5 or 6 samples to process; so a 5 or 6 sample delay from the original) are perfectly in sync with the original audio track because their delay is automatically compensated for. My annoyance with LE is that I have to go around the houses to combat plugin delay, i.e. track audio, process with plugs, track audio again, nudge in-line with original (with parallel compression, for example).

[quote=EmbraceRandom;18273938]It's common knowledge that artists make almost all of their money from live shows, because their record sales are bled dry by their label. Record labels are the true frauds because they don't operate on musical passion, they're businesses so only really care about profit. That's why I believe the only thing record labels offer, that is superior to what a band can do alone, is promotion. But if a band worked hard enough to promote themselves as best as they could, it wouldn't be hard for them to organise a tour themselves (where, again, they could charge just what is necessary to cover their costs; why ask for profit if you enjoy it?) and produce their own records (which they could then give away for free, via downloads).


I wouldn't tar all albums with the same brush, some feature exceptional mixing and mastering and at the moment, and as it stands, the CD record is the most accessible way of listening to a band without going to see them live. Plus, a CD being a physical thing means in the event of a serious computer crash, my music is stored in a 'physical' medium (I know harddrive storage is technically physically written to disc, but you get my point).
Furthermore, if bands offered free downloads of their record (that people would use rather than torrents), then they would be able to see their own growing popularity and success. However, as it stands, their record sales, iTunes downloads etc. is the only way of determining the success/popularity of their record release. If a load of people really like the music but have torrented it, then the the bands perceived popularity isn't as high, so they'd be less inclined to do live shows. So for the time being, whilst I know my money is principally going to the record labels, I'll continue to buy music because ultimately it's better for the band I support, until the revolution comes ;)
[/quote]
So let me get this straight. You want a band to self-promote while doing everything for free and expect them to be successful? Most people have to hold 8-5 jobs to pay for their bills and it makes what you suggest incredibly unfeasible. Sure it's possible, but at some point you're going to need some sort of financial backing.

Mate I'm not saying [i]all bands should fall under this rule or die by my hand![i]
I'm just saying, as per the quote I posted on the last page, that true musicians shouldn't compose/produce/perform music for profit, but just for the love of composing/producing/performing. At the moment, even these true musicians can't help but earn money, because it seems to be the only way they can get by just creating and enjoying music and getting their music heard. But do you not think a band that didn't care about earning money but just wanted their music to be heard etc. would do well?

- Composing, is free.
- Producing music can be 'free' if a relatively small investment is made so that the musician/band becomes self-sufficient; in the long-term, this will be much cheaper than hiring studios etc. [i]and[/i] (again, long-term) the musician, if determined, will develop their production skills. I believe there should always be someone to overlook the production process, i.e. a producer, as they instil a connection-free quality control. Again, the best producers cost money. The free producer might just be a friend, who is musically-orientated but doesn't have any emotion invested in the musician's/band's music.
- Regarding the performance of music, ticket prices should really just make up the costs to the musician/band, so the ticket prices would be much cheaper for the consumer.
Promotion: promoting can be done for free in many, many ways, but the main avenues that record labels exploit are the expensive ones and hence unrealistic for our 'self-sufficient' musician/band. But, if enough free promotion is utilised, and enough performances are arranged (true promotion and the main source of 'word-of-mouth' promotion), then a band can promote themselves to a certain degree.

I know that seems incredibly utopian, but it's a newborn thought to me, I'm just playing with it at the moment.

[QUOTE]- Producing music can be 'free' if a relatively small investment is made so that the musician/band becomes self-sufficient; in the long-term, this will be much cheaper than hiring studios etc. [I]and[/I] (again, long-term) the musician, if determined, will develop their production skills. I believe there should always be someone to overlook the production process, i.e. a producer, as they instil a connection-free quality control. Again, the best producers cost money. The free producer might just be a friend, who is musically-orientated but doesn't have any emotion invested in the musician's/band's music.[/QUOTE]
This shows a very small understanding of the classic model and why it's there.

There are very few people that can be a good...no wait...an amazing musician/songwriter and still have the chops to compete with a pro engineer. And usually if they can make their shit compete, they only know how to make their shit sound good. It leads to having a very pigeonholed set of production skills.

The amount of dedication and time it takes to be great at either of these things is redunkulous. Good luck trying to play like the greats and still be able to mix pro sounding records time after time in the space of 5 hours.

Not to mention the cost of even a decent sized mixing room. Not to mention the price of hiring a nice big room for drums. Not to mention the stress of having one guy produce their entire band from composition all the way through to mastering. Ask Misha, he had to do it and from interviews/etc it's pretty plain to see it was a pretty fucking daunting task.

Of course if you're into electro stuff it's a lot easier to do yourself. Things sound great out of the box. Your drums are prerecorded for you. You don't have to worry about having good songs because your fanbase listens to beats and beeps and bloops instead of lyrics and melodies. But of course there's always going to be exceptions to every rule.

To conclude my rant I would like you to give me three examples of low budget bands that sound anything like a pro recordings, or at least have a nice sounding aesthetic to them that is relevant to their genre. I.e. if it's supposed to be trashy, it better be good trashy, not harsh crappy trashy.

[quote=Convectuoso;18276024]To conclude my rant I would like you to give me three examples of low budget bands that sound anything like a pro recordings, or at least have a nice sounding aesthetic to them that is relevant to their genre. I.e. if it's supposed to be trashy, it better be good trashy, not harsh crappy trashy.[/quote]

Man, there is some fun to be had with this one.

Distorted Penguins - [I]Magic, Billiam Rockwell[/I]
Slick Olde Bishops - [I]Stomping the Corn, Getting Rowdy[/I]
Buzz Poets - [I]Buzz Poets EP[/I]
Oblivion - [I]The Garden in the Machine[/I]
Unit:E - [I]Straight Out the Basement[/I]
Peter Mulvey - [I]The Trouble With Poets[/I]
Every Minutemen release (so far as I know)


Since I'm not sure about the "low budget" aspect (since you didn't specify what that means exactly), these releases were all done (at least in part) in home studios:

Foo Fighters - [I]There is Nothing Left to Lose[/I]
Sufjan Stevens - [I]Greetings from Michigan, The Great Lake State[/I]
Grandaddy - [I]Under the Western Freeway[/I]
Bruce Springsteen - [I]Nebraska[/I]
Echobrain - [I]Echobrain[/I]
Unit:E - [I]Straight Out The Basement[/I]
Every Fugazi release (so far as I know)


I'm sure there's more. Would love to hear what they might be.

[QUOTE=Convectuoso;18276024]This shows a very small understanding of the classic model and why it's there.[/quote]
Seriously man, you are one patronising mother. I've got no problem with debate, but I draw the line at condescension.

[QUOTE=Convectuoso;18276024]There are very few people that can be a good...no wait...an amazing musician/songwriter and still have the chops to compete with a pro engineer. And usually if they can make their shit compete, they only know how to make their shit sound good. It leads to having a very pigeonholed set of production skills.[/quote]
What is it to sound 'good'? A provocative question, maybe, but my point is that everything is down to taste. Many people like the lo-fi production quality of early punk and black metal artists because they believe it gives the record a certain character.
There is the encouraged, 'good' technique when producing, but any sound is music, and music is art; a recording of a guitar may have a terrible SNR but that can be used for effect. And the rarity of such an effect could be the difference between an album that just sounds like the last, and the kind of album production that The Beatles, Led Zep, Frank Zappa etc etc were experimenting with. A records character is subliminally determined by the production, whether 'good' or 'bad' the result is nonetheless an individual character.

[QUOTE=Convectuoso;18276024]The amount of dedication and time it takes to be great at either of these things is redunkulous. Good luck trying to play like the greats and still be able to mix pro sounding records time after time in the space of 5 hours.[/quote]
Well then you've already lost your determination ;)

[QUOTE=Convectuoso;18276024]Not to mention the cost of even a decent sized mixing room. Not to mention the price of hiring a nice big room for drums. Not to mention the stress of having one guy produce their entire band from composition all the way through to mastering. Ask Misha, he had to do it and from interviews/etc it's pretty plain to see it was a pretty fucking daunting task.[/quote]
Technically, you can have a home studio without an acoustically treated mixing room with decent monitor speakers etc - technically, you can eliminate that (and the respective cost) by producing music using reference class headphones (e.g AKG K701s or Senny HD650s) and spending the time to get used to them, so you can compensate for the huge spatial differences, general lack of low end and their specific frequency response. And as I said, I think its always best to have a producer, even if its just a musical friend without such a vested interest in your music, because they can help out and give you that outside perspective. So you wouldn't be entirely on your own. And if I took my compositions to be mixed by someone else, it'd be more out of convenience; I'd rather do it myself and improve my ability. Yeah it might take time but I wouldn't winge about it.

[QUOTE=Convectuoso;18276024]To conclude my rant I would like you to give me three examples of low budget bands that sound anything like a pro recordings, or at least have a nice sounding aesthetic to them that is relevant to their genre. I.e. if it's supposed to be trashy, it better be good trashy, not harsh crappy trashy.[/QUOTE]
As I mentioned above, I believe production defines a subliminal character in most cases and cannot be seen as just good or bad, unless you believe all production should be stuck to 'non-experimental' technique. Also, if that was the case, why would new listeners to old productions find them appealing today? So with that in mind, I think my point, at least for now, overrules the need to list artists.

However, Alanis Morrisette's [I]Jagged Little Pill[/I] was produced in Glen Ballard's home studio and remains the best-selling debut album by a female artist in the U.S., and the highest selling debut album worldwide, selling 30 million units globally:
[url]http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/alanis-morissette-you-ask-the-questions-754619.html[/url]

Also, Calvin Harris' success all began with his bedroom demos that he [I]promoted freely and by himself[/I] on Myspace.

[QUOTE=EmbraceRandom;18273938]
I know, hence why I said 'FWIW, regarding music' lol


It's common knowledge that artists make almost all of their money from live shows, because their record sales are bled dry by their label. Record labels are the true frauds because they don't operate on musical passion, they're businesses so only really care about profit. That's why I believe the only thing record labels offer, that is superior to what a band can do alone, is promotion. But if a band worked hard enough to promote themselves as best as they could, it wouldn't be hard for them to organise a tour themselves (where, again, they could charge just what is necessary to cover their costs; why ask for profit if you enjoy it?) and produce their own records (which they could then give away for free, via downloads).
[/QUOTE]

i didn't knwo what FWIW meant lol

a lot of bands are giving away albums with ticket sales and calling that an "album sale"

Logic 9

/end of discussion about PT

I fully condone stealing software from digidesign any way you possibly can

Good luck doing fades in Logic for an entire session *gasp*

> view automation
> on Output 1-2 track click once at -99 at the beginning of fade and once at 0.0 at the end of the fade

holy shit that was hard eh

edit you could also use the automation curve to make the fade not be a straight line BUT NOW WERE JUST GETTIGN COMPLICATED

GOOD LUCK *GASP*

I worked with Logic for a couple of years prior to using PT7.4 and now 8. Logic is good for sequencing and electroacoustic music composition but, in my opinion, it's nothing compared to PT for music production in a recording/mixing (even mastering) sense.

However, Reaper's £25 price tag and features may actually shit all over PT and Logic. We'll see, downloading the demo when I'm back at mine

reaper is so fucking elite.

also, why would you ever want to use anything that apple makes? their business model with everything is shady, proprietary, and has arbitrary limitations.

[QUOTE=Convectuoso;18278917]Good luck doing fades in Logic for an entire session *gasp*[/QUOTE]

doud, top right, change it from split to fade... then you can have all your shit fade AND by nature snap to the grid...


it matters not what DAW you use as long as you know how to work it HARD

[QUOTE=The Transporter;18279092]reaper is so fucking elite.

also, why would you ever want to use anything that apple makes? their business model with everything is shady, proprietary, and has arbitrary limitations.[/QUOTE]

i wouldn't go that far, you just can't fix it yourself as easily if it breaks but macs work great for music production, the whole mac vs pc argument can really only go as in depth as the pronunciation of tomato or potato

yeah, but you get but raped when you buy shit and they decide to stop making/supporting it

apple RAID arrays anyone? fucking raped. you better hope your harddrive doesnt die or that you got a ton of spare properiteiry drive modules laying around

can't you do raid with a bunch of hdd's simply connected to SATA ports though?

I'm talking for a SAN. You can do that, but for an enterprise environment it isn't feasible. The fact is, they stop sellign the drive modules (which are necessary to add harddrives to the SAN) as well as the harddrives that work with the san. there is no reason that they couldnt have used standardized shit or continued to make/sell those. they're just dicks and don't care

they're a terrible company, and people keep drinking their koolaid because they're too dumb to know any better.

You can't raid on mac towers? I'd for sure have mirrored drives if I had a legit studio running