# Pro Tools 9 announced



## bsound76 (Nov 4, 2010)

Details are available here:

http://www.avid.com/US/products/family/Pro-Tools


Pretty cool stuff.


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## Reegs (Nov 4, 2010)

It finally does OMF import out of the box!


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## gsilbers (Nov 4, 2010)

Now it'll be easier and cheaper to send stems if u have another computer amd audio interface and be synced via network. 

So this means avid will drop pt le right?

Any interface ?!?!??


So why would anyone buy their hd native card and interface if the 192 not only are expensive but don't have such a good rep.
Much better to buy apogee/lynx/rme/ssl etc
IMO 

Very interesting move

And if pt9 doesn't have an interface dongle then it'll be crack in no time


Weird move indeed.

Great or me except that my ppcmac is not
Compatible :(


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## José Herring (Nov 4, 2010)

Thank you.

I've never been a real PT user but if I got PT9 in the standalone version would it be sufficient enough to use as kind of mix down deck to transfer stems from my studio to a dubbing stage. Or would I need some sort of PT hardware to do this? I've never really trusted OMF. Have had better luck with AFF(AAF), but I'd like to be able to take my stems and have them locked to the correct time code position, save the session and have the dubbing mixer open the session.


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## gsilbers (Nov 4, 2010)

Jose,

No pt hardware needed. Any asio or core audio interface will do.


And yes it has time code . No need for add ons.

True about omf . They are flakey , AAF much better. Do them daily for avid editors.


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## José Herring (Nov 4, 2010)

Do you run it on PC or Mac? Does it make a difference if all you're going to do is transfer sessions?

Though I must admit, even though I'm a big PC user and lover, I went to a pretty high end mixing studio once for the final mix of a film I was doing. They had a fully loaded HD3 system and they were running it on a PC! I looked at that and was the first guy to raise and objection. I was such a Mac snob about it. My producer knew I was a PC man as he use to come to my studio to listen to the score all the time. He looked at me and was like rolling his eyes, that "I" was the one being the Mac snob. He's the one that's the big mac user and I always gave him a hard time about Macs being overpriced, and blah, blah. But as soon as I came across somebody running PT on a PC, I was like, "this just ain't right"  But it did work flawlessly.


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## gsilbers (Nov 4, 2010)

maybe its the schools we go to that embed mac for music and post and thus we automatically assume that if someone is in pc doing music or audio then its not that pro. 
pro tools is still pro tools in whatever OS , so yes, it wont matter if you deliver stems in a pro tools session made in a pc or mac. 
i personally dont like windows at all. but maybe its because im used to A (read one) way of doing things. 
for high end studios the mac thing is because its more compatible with clients... 
clients in this sense means sound engineers which are used to working on macs. 
engineers bring a lot of work into studios or if a client wants to do something he might bring his own engineers who will be more at ease with mac OS. 
but other than that, i dont see much of a difference. 



now, as for pro tools 9...

ill still bitch because i just bought a used PTHD2 system. :( 
to be used in my G5 to sync up to logic in my main DAW on a mac pro. 

you know ... the hans zimmer/ remote control setup thing..

now with pt9 i can pretty much do the same with a mac mini and an maudio light-bridge. >8o 
for a grand less. (the hd2 was not that expensive in ebay)

off load video and do stems in pt becomes easy as pie. 

i do post as well so the HD2 still might help in the TDM side. 
(to stay positive)


so for those composers wanting to have the PT slave thing for video and stems ..
there u go. 

a mac mini will easily handle stems and playing QT

THAT...imo , is the good thing about PT9 for composers. (OMF too)


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## gsilbers (Nov 4, 2010)

fuk! really??

Automatic Delay Compensation—Equips customers using version 9 of Pro Tools with the ability to create better sounding mixes faster.

- More audio tracks and busses—Allows customers to create more elaborate music and audio productions, with support for 96 mono or stereo voices in the new software-only version of Pro Tools (192 voices with Pro Tools HD systems), 256 internal busses, and 160 aux tracks.

- Advanced production toolset—Gives customers access to standard professional tools in version 9 of Pro Tools to create more polished mixes out-of-the-box. Users can analyze and adjust timing across multiple tracks for tighter rhythm with the built-in multi-track Beat Detective™ module, improve organization and asset sharing with the DigiBase™ Pro file management tool, and save time with full Import Session Data dialog.

- OMF/AAF/MXF interchange and MP3 export—Provides customers with simplified session and file exchange between applications.

- Built-in Time Code Ruler—Enables customers to achieve greater accuracy when syncing audio to video in post production (software only configuration of Pro Tools).

- Updated 7.1 surround panner—Allows customers to more easily mix multichannel surround for full film sound production.

- New variable stereo pan depths—Equips customers with authentic and precise track panning capabilities to achieve analog-console feel.

All from $599 US
D, available November 12. 


notice that it says "from" $599

sounds like a "base price" to me right?


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## midphase (Nov 4, 2010)

From what I can gather, if you have a PT LE, the upgrade is $250. Also, if you already own DV Toolkit 1 or 2, then the upgrade to the Complete Production Toolkit 2 is $300. It all seems almost too good to be true!


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## gsilbers (Nov 4, 2010)

i saw the dv toolkit 2 for PT 9... 

seems a bit odd... 

you know get 192 tracks instead of 96.. which is still a LOT! 

i dunno... whats so good about dv toolkit2 with PT9?


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## booboo (Nov 4, 2010)

midphase @ Thu Nov 04 said:


> From what I can gather, if you have a PT LE, the upgrade is $250. Also, if you already own DV Toolkit 1 or 2, then the upgrade to the Complete Production Toolkit 2 is $300. It all seems almost too good to be true!



Their pricing structure is insane and convoluted for a reason....

I PROMISE you that you cannot find a way to 'cheat' their system. If anything, from what I can gather, it's actually cheaper to just go all in (assuming you need everything). 
I'm sure hundreds of thousands of dollars goes into R&D, which includes pricing structures and profit margin analysis. 

As far as I can tell, DV Toolkit is completely removed ("LE" now comes with that stuff - finally - only a decade behind everyone else). Complete Prod kit comes opens surround mixing and a few other things for $2000.....that's right.
http://shop.avid.com/store/product.do;j ... 6370322096


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## gsilbers (Nov 4, 2010)

im just not seeing ANY reason to get dv toolkit2

64 tracks of video?
192 tracks playback?

with pt9 u get all the things u really needed which wad timecode/omf/more tracks etc

if u going to get dv toolkit might as well just get PTHD with tdm to be able to play and do those things.


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## José Herring (Nov 4, 2010)

midphase @ Thu Nov 04 said:


> From what I can gather, if you have a PT LE, the upgrade is $250. Also, if you already own DV Toolkit 1 or 2, then the upgrade to the Complete Production Toolkit 2 is $300. It all seems almost too good to be true!



That's what I keep thinking. There's got to be some catch. After decades of PT being the leader in screwing everybody with each new hardware change, this just seems like there's got to be a catch. I've been looking at the fine print. There's got to be a catch in there somewhere.

If it is true. Then I see no reason what so ever to not jump on this. At the very least they've created the ultimate mixdown deck.


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## noiseboyuk (Nov 5, 2010)

gsilbers @ Fri Nov 05 said:


> im just not seeing ANY reason to get dv toolkit2
> 
> 64 tracks of video?
> 192 tracks playback?
> ...



Scanning the manual, I think what's happened is that anything a regular composer needs is now in PT9 software, but for sound dubbing you'll really still need the toolkit. Field recorder import, for example, is still only included in the toolkits. (And for anyone remotely interested, it still looks light years behind Pyramix FWIW... it still can't auto reconform to other media, for example, which would double my dub lengths right there).

EDIT - have just been chatting to a dubbing mixer friend who uses Protools. He points out there are still appear to be fundamental limitations - you can't crossfade between clips on the same track, and all tracks are mono (these two mean, on a surround project, you burn up 192 tracks amazingly quickly). These things are staggering to me, used to Pyramix... Protools looks archaic still! I appreciate it is the standard used by seemingly everyone, but they only get away with by using multiple high-end rigs chained together. I'll be avoiding it as long as I possibly can, but I fear it will still take over the world because its just what people know. Betamax / VHS, PC / Mac etc sigh....


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## Ashermusic (Nov 5, 2010)

josejherring @ Thu Nov 04 said:


> midphase @ Thu Nov 04 said:
> 
> 
> > From what I can gather, if you have a PT LE, the upgrade is $250. Also, if you already own DV Toolkit 1 or 2, then the upgrade to the Complete Production Toolkit 2 is $300. It all seems almost too good to be true!
> ...



The catch is the woeful inefficiency of RTAS as a plug-in format. You can only run a handful before you run out of CPU. And it is not (and from what my insider sources tell me will not be for quite a while) 64 bit. So I do not think they have creaò9   îÓ9   îÓ9   îÓ9   îÓ9   îÓ 9   îÓ!9   îÓ"9   îÓ#9   îÓ$9   îÓ%9   îÓ&9   îÓ'9   îÓ(9   îÓ)9   îÓ*9   îÓ+9   îÓ,9   îÓ-9   îÓ.9   îÓ/9   îÓ09   îÓ19   îÓ29


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## dcoscina (Nov 5, 2010)

I jumped aboard PT8LE for a while, liked its look and workflow quite a lot but that damned RTAS/CPU limitation made me go back to Logic 9 which, frankly, beats anything else I have worked with as far as CPU efficiency, stability, and number of virtual instruments I can load and work with at one time. 

That said, for me $261 is almost a no-brainer. I have PTLE and could stand to have a higher version of PT for mixdown and such. I'll be ordering this.


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## germancomponist (Nov 5, 2010)

And now there is *Automatic Delay Compensation*. o/~ o=<


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## gsilbers (Nov 5, 2010)

Ashermusic @ Fri Nov 05 said:


> josejherring @ Thu Nov 04 said:
> 
> 
> > midphase @ Thu Nov 04 said:
> ...




i think the catch is the DV toolkit2 itself. for that price of upgrade when in reality no one except hard core post sound engineers with a hexacore mac /pc will be the ones who actually needs it. 
most users will not go over 96 AUDIO tracks. you can still have 512 midi tracks or something. 

if you are running sync'ed pt machines for re recording mixes AND using RTAS.. 
then no.. u def will get the PT HD with tdm. as u pointed out the rtas is not that efficient. and when u have clients and a high end demanding situation then u go all out or u loose clients. 

but avid made a very big move and i am guessing its because they where loosing sales to logic. dp. cubase etc in the low end and prosumer market.


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## midphase (Nov 5, 2010)

Well...I think the main selling point of the Complete Toolkit upgrade is to be able to do Surround mixing. 

I also guess that Avid saw the end of the party coming, especially when the hack appeared that allowed you to run PT HD without hardware. Pro Tools 9 makes it a no brainer for many people like Jose for example who see the benefit in being able to deliver to post houses while not needing to invest thousands just for a relatively small benefit.

On the negative side, this will make Pro Tools (especially HD) a lot less exclusive and elite-sounding. We can expect pretty much the democratization of Pro Tools which will undoubtedly have some negative impacts on some people.


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## gsilbers (Nov 5, 2010)

cant do surround mixing in pro tools 9??!?!? 

the spec say u can have up to 7.1. 

is it the VCA you are talking about?

now im curious.


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## Dan Mott (Nov 5, 2010)

No 64bit :(

Looks like I'll still be having issues with VE Pro.

However..... Pro Tools is the best and I love it!!!


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## SvK (Nov 5, 2010)

Cmon AVID really??

You've done the right thing here......supporting coreaudio and allowing us to use any audio interface...

Smart.....

So why not go all the way and open up to vst and au?

Stoopid.

SvK


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## clonewar (Nov 5, 2010)

gsilbers @ Fri Nov 05 said:


> cant do surround mixing in pro tools 9??!?!?
> 
> the spec say u can have up to 7.1.
> 
> ...



No surround mixing in the $599 base version. CPTK (for $2000) adds 7.1, VCA groups, advanced automation, etc. 

I think it's a great move by Avid and I fit their target audience for the base version of PT9 to a tee.. I've wanted/needed to be able to run PT, but haven't been able to justify the cost of an HD rig and didn't like the limitations of LE. 

It seems like the kind of move Apple did a few years ago when they released Logic Studio and slashed the price to $499. Lots of studios and composers that wouldn't have bought Logic otherwise picked up a copy. There are going to be a LOT of new PT users in a short period of time!


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## Ashermusic (Nov 5, 2010)

kdm @ Fri Nov 05 said:


> Ashermusic @ Fri Nov 05 said:
> 
> 
> > The catch is the woeful inefficiency of RTAS as a plug-in format. You can only run a handful before you run out of CPU.
> ...



I cannot speak to PC but I have a friend who is an Avid PT beta tester who was composing in Logic and mixing in PT and got irritated with Logic. He tried for well over a year to ditch Logic and to compose in PT8 and now 9, but he simply could not run nearly as many libraries and software instruments because of RTAS inefficiency to get done what he need to do, which he said Avid relatively admits and is "working on." He also found the MIDI editing to still be inferior to Logic's. So he is back to composing in Logic and mixing in PT.

He also said that the Windows beta testers reported far more buggy behavior with PT9 on a PC than on a Mac.


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## gsilbers (Nov 5, 2010)

clonewar @ Fri Nov 05 said:


> gsilbers @ Fri Nov 05 said:
> 
> 
> > cant do surround mixing in pro tools 9??!?!?
> ...



now i dont feel that bad i bought the HD2 rig  

it makes sense then to have to pay more for features that would be used by more pro users (or simply are getting paid more to justify the toolkit)

and i agree on the apple-like move. 
this problably got apple by surprise and will have to do something to counter act it before they start loosing ground. seems now in features , both are about equal. 
right?


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## gsilbers (Nov 5, 2010)

Ashermusic @ Fri Nov 05 said:


> kdm @ Fri Nov 05 said:
> 
> 
> > Ashermusic @ Fri Nov 05 said:
> ...



yep, your friend is right. rtas will makes pt heavy. 
most of my plugins come in both rtas and AU and using the same interface, i couldnt do nearly as much with pt8 rtas.

do how does he go back and forth, does he simply have them slaved/sync to each other or after finishing a project in logic he exports everything to PT?


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## RMWSound (Nov 5, 2010)

Did the update last night. I've used Pro Tools for Post work for years, but could not justify the cost of an HD rig when Logic was working pretty well for me. This update changes the game. I'll play around with it for a few weeks to see how I like writing with it, and if I feel limited by RTAS at all. Personally, I was never really floored with the way Logic handled my 8-core, so I can't imagine it being significantly worse.

Has anyone else who has done the update to PT9 tried using Vienna Ensemble Pro (Latest build)? I couldn't seem to get the plug-in to recognize my servers yesterday, but it was late, so maybe I was just overlooking something simple. 

-RMW


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## gsilbers (Nov 6, 2010)

Nick Batzdorf @ Sat Nov 06 said:


> And actually the guys at Digidesign oops Avid told me they have a free Soundflower-like application (acquired with Euphonix). That bears investigation.



interesting.


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## kdm (Nov 6, 2010)

Ashermusic @ Fri Nov 05 said:


> I cannot speak to PC but I have a friend who is an Avid PT beta tester who was composing in Logic and mixing in PT and got irritated with Logic. He tried for well over a year to ditch Logic and to compose in PT8 and now 9, but he simply could not run nearly as many libraries and software instruments because of RTAS inefficiency to get done what he need to do, which he said Avid relatively  admits and is "working on." He also found the MIDI editing to still be inferior to Logic's. So he is back to composing in Logic and mixing in PT.
> 
> He also said that the Windows beta testers reported far more buggy behavior with PT9 on a PC than on a Mac.



I can't speak to Logic vs. PT on the Mac side (or PT9 on Win7), but I've been comparing PT8 to Nuendo recently on WinXP and *not* found this to be the case. 
Working surprisingly well based on the typical net commentary on RTAS. I used to be a Logic user - great for midi, but sucks for audio (still does - editing workflow just isn't there, or at least wasn't a year ago).

Beta? Not too much of a surprise, but that is interesting to hear from their perspectives. It might take a bit more fleshing out the details to determine where/why it works for some and not for others. Comparisons have to pit the same plugins in both RTAS and AU, or RTAS/VST, and that may vary depending on how well each is implemented in that format. Presumably it wouldn't in most cases, but it is a consideration.

RTAS also might vary from one instrument to another (VST does as well, despite the general assumption that it always works). 

Omnisphere is loading fine compared to VST in Nuendo. Apparently the general cross-platform benchmarks a friend of mine is about to publish will shed some light on this and might surprise a few. I'll leave the results to the official release though.

I posted this more to dig into the typical "RTAS sucks" assumptions to find out how realistic and widespread they are in reality. 

My goal is simply to use what works for me and find the limits to know if they are acceptable or not for my work. Some problems with Nuendo have simply left me more frustrated than productive, and my systems are all custom built, tweaked and solid, so I can be fairly certain I'm comparing the apps, and not system dependencies. 

I know several users upgrading to PT9 this weekend so hopefully I'll have some direct insight from them soon. I plan to upgrade sometime in the next couple of months as time allows. Take into account that this is my preference as well - PT just flows better for me across the board - both audio, and even midi despite its' limitations. I don't often need or care about a lot of programmability, macros, etc since I'm a long-time keyboard player, but what works for me might not work for others.


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## tripit (Nov 6, 2010)

I've been a very loooong time PT user and I currently have an HD2 in my studio. I applaud Avid's move - it's a really smart move and will open PT up to many, which will only help them. It's still the premier DAW for pop music and film mixing. Making it more accessible to entry level users is a good thing all the way around, even for us old HD users. 

RTAS has been a bane for PT for sure, but if you are using VEP or Bidule, which most of us would use anyway, regardless of RTAS, PT performs well as long as you aren't trying to load up massive sample laden VI. But the same could be said about Logic, DP or Cuebase. Anyone who is trying to stuff their DAW full of double digit sample loads is asking for problems. Just having the load separated because of load times between sessions is reason enough.

But in reality, I load tons of RTAS processing plugs in my sessions every day and never have any issues. PT has been really stable for me. It's really just the massive VI that seem to cause the most problems. 

Also, many (including myself) use VST wrapper which works well and gives you access to VST inside of PT. In fact, there are a quite a few who swear it performs better this way.


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## booboo (Nov 7, 2010)

booboo @ Thu Nov 04 said:


> midphase @ Thu Nov 04 said:
> 
> 
> > From what I can gather, if you have a PT LE, the upgrade is $250. Also, if you already own DV Toolkit 1 or 2, then the upgrade to the Complete Production Toolkit 2 is $300. It all seems almost too good to be true!
> ...



Mid Phase - you were right, I was wrong. I just downloaded PT 9 and the complete kit (upgraded from PT 8 and DV TK 2) from the website, and everything seems to be in order.

I'm successfully running a deep Pro Tools session directly to my Metric Halo, including 5.1 stems. BTW, the complete kit comes with a cool plug in that conforms 5.1 tracks to stereo, which is very useful for me to listen to my mixers 5.1 stems from my stereo studio.
Total O.T.D. is around $580, running PT out of any hardware I want, with FULL PT HD features and function. 
Just thought I would report.


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## dcoscina (Nov 8, 2010)

I actually found even when using VEPro that my CPU usage was higher than on comparable DP or Logic systems.


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## Mike Connelly (Nov 9, 2010)

noiseboyuk @ Fri Nov 05 said:


> you can't crossfade between clips on the same track, and all tracks are mono (these two mean, on a surround project, you burn up 192 tracks amazingly quickly).



You've been able to crossfade clips for years. It doesn't happen automatically by just overlapping two audio regions, but it's still easy to do. And while all audio _files_ are mono, tracks can be stereo or even surround, so those 192 tracks can be more voices than that if you use surround or stereo.


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## noiseboyuk (Nov 9, 2010)

Nothing is as easy as crossfading just working without thinking. When you do 500 crossfades a day, a 2nd step is one too many. Put it this way... I don't know a dubbing mixer who works with both pyramix and protools that prefers protools...


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## Mike Connelly (Nov 9, 2010)

I'm just pointing out that you can crossfade clips in PT, whether it's as easy as other apps is another question.


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## noiseboyuk (Nov 9, 2010)

Sure, no probs. My original point was that there are better daws for dubbing, and I'm pretty certain there are better tools for composing too. Protools has 2 huge selling points - it can (sort of) do everything in one package, and it's a standard.


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## kdm (Nov 9, 2010)

tripit @ Sat Nov 06 said:


> But in reality, I load tons of RTAS processing plugs in my sessions every day and never have any issues. PT has been really stable for me. It's really just the massive VI that seem to cause the most problems



The latest Dawbench tests from Vin C. just came out and RTAS/PT9 actually performed better than Cubase and Studio One - about even with Reaper. An odd dip in PT9 performance at 128 and 256 (not much), but other than that - surprisingly good RTAS performance vs. VST, and it's pretty much the same on Win7 and OSX.

Omnisphere, RMX, Absynth, Kontakt 4, etc perform about the same here in PT 8 as in Nuendo 4/5.

(edit - added link to RTAS performance tests)


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## brianmusic (Nov 13, 2010)

...I just ordered Avid Digidesign Pro Tools Mbox 3 on 11/4 and received the box 2 days agao and then now I found the article.

If I shouldn't but it last week and wait until now so that I can save the money to upgrade the software from 8 LE to 9?

No....


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## tripit (Nov 13, 2010)

noiseboyuk @ Tue Nov 09 said:


> Sure, no probs. My original point was that there are better daws for dubbing, and I'm pretty certain there are better tools for composing too. Protools has 2 huge selling points - it can (sort of) do everything in one package, and it's a standard.



Actually, others (myself included) might point out that they think the huge selling points for PT is that it is best DAW for tracking, editing and non dub mixing. It's not the best for midi though. 

And, I have to admit that while I use DP for composing (cause it's great for that) I've been doing some composing in PT since 8 came out, and it's gotten a lot better.


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## tripit (Nov 13, 2010)

kdm @ Tue Nov 09 said:


> tripit @ Sat Nov 06 said:
> 
> 
> > But in reality, I load tons of RTAS processing plugs in my sessions every day and never have any issues. PT has been really stable for me. It's really just the massive VI that seem to cause the most problems
> ...



Thanks for that info, I'm not all that surprised really. 
Funny enough, Digi has long stated that RTAS did in fact perform as well as or even better in cases than VST. And, my experience has been the same. The only area that has caused me issues has been with sample loading VI. The heavy memory usage would cause RTAS errors, seemingly a lot earlier than in the same VI in VST or AU. 
Used to be you would open one or maybe two light to moderate instances of Kontakt (pre memory server) or Omni and you would run into out of memory RTAS errors quickly. Of course, off loading and memory servers have solved this now. PT9 may be better in this area, and the memory servers have really helped, but I'm still gun shy about loading directly into PT. And, actually, I've taken this approach for any DAW. Keep the heavy VI out of any DAW and it works better (at least until we get to 64) 

Another bonus for RTAS is that if you use VEP, you aren't stuck with one midi port per instance of VEP.


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## kdm (Nov 14, 2010)

tripit @ Sat Nov 13 said:


> And, I have to admit that while I use DP for composing (cause it's great for that) I've been doing some composing in PT since 8 came out, and it's gotten a lot better.



Similar here - been a Nuendo user for years, but moving to PT for audio, so trying scoring as well just to simplify - so far it does have some advantages even over Nuendo for midi, despite missing the bells and whistles of midi processing (not a big deal for me - having Sibelius integration is far more useful, for me at least).



tripit said:


> Another bonus for RTAS is that if you use VEP, you aren't stuck with one midi port per instance of VEP.



Good to know about the extended port access (rewire with Reaper is limited to one midi port - a Reaper limitation I think). I tried VEP in PT8.0.4 but it has a buffer sync problem, at least on my system - the VEP stream from the slave sounds like it hit a 4-bit decimator (audio/instruments in PT are fine - only the VEP stream is off, regardless of buffer setting). Planning to move to Win7/PT9 soon so I'll try it again then, hoping for the best.


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## José Herring (Nov 14, 2010)

How are the included fx in PT? I noticed that they have a few software emulations of hardware. How do they compare to other software emulations like UAD?


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## kdm (Nov 14, 2010)

josejherring @ Sun Nov 14 said:


> How are the included fx in PT? I noticed that they have a few software emulations of hardware. How do they compare to other software emulations like UAD?



Jose - if by emulation you are referring to the Bomb Factory plugins - not as good as UAD's imo - they work fine on some things, but are quite different from UA's implementation, which is why they are free/included instead of $500+ add-ons. Air plugins are pretty good as a basis. Delays and the filter can be cool for some automated fx. Dverb and Air's non-linear verb aren't bad from time to time for special fx verbs, but won't replace Altiverb, etc. There are a lot of other options out there though for alternatives to the stock set, but that doesn't mean one can't do good work with the stock set with the know-how (there are plenty of engineers using these plugins on high profile projects, in addition to/along with other options).


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## Mike Connelly (Nov 15, 2010)

brianmusic @ Sat Nov 13 said:


> ...I just ordered Avid Digidesign Pro Tools Mbox 3 on 11/4 and received the box 2 days agao and then now I found the article.
> 
> If I shouldn't but it last week and wait until now so that I can save the money to upgrade the software from 8 LE to 9?
> 
> No....



It doesn't make a difference, they're not going to put PT9 in the box until next year, and at that point the price will go up. If you're going to buy one of their boxes now, it's going to come with LE 8 and require paying for an update.


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## dcoscina (Nov 15, 2010)

I'l wait for the boxed upgrades from PT8LE. It's a couple hundred clams and I don't know if I need this considering I am finding DP7 to be pretty damn awesome these days. Also wanna get HollywoodWinds.....

But I'll eventually upgrade....


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## MikeH (Nov 15, 2010)

This might be the right place to ask this-- how important do you think it is for a composer to at least own and be familiar with Pro Tools? I've been using Digital Performer for years (I'm on v.7) and for composition that is definitely my go-to software. I'm pretty much content with DP's audio mixing, but I'm wondering if I should switch to Pro Tools for that task. Some feel that DP's summing is slightly inferior to Pro Tools and I guess there's the ability to more easily interface with other studios and musicians with Pro Tools. All the stuff I do is in-the-box and there's no outside recording going on. Do you think it's absolutely necessary that someone like myself has Pro Tools?


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