Article:		The Ultimate Portable Studio
Subject:		Other thoughts
Date:		2005-07-03 21:33:17
From:		meech
Protools is a very strong piece of software... in some areas. I would not recomend jumping in and buying protools or an mbox off the bat. Digidesign has generally bad drivers. Protools also does not like to share the sound card so if you want to use another audio program with protools, it won't let you or you have to listen to the stuff with another soundcard. There is also Adobe Audition formerly Cool Edit. It is a very strong editing environment at a much lower cost and it will work with any professional sound card you choose. It it also plays nice with other audio programs. I would not suggest that Adobe Audition is supior to Protools in everyway, but there are some other very strong programs out there besides protools. If you are really daring or want to do live music, Max/MSP/Jitter can do wonders. Protools is a versital program for very many things however, it is not for everything. As for a macintosh, they are great but they have not improved their performance much over the past two years. I'd go with a PC since at this point, you'd get way more bang for the buck. Many of the people I know who do lots of audio are now thinking about switching to pc because of performance issuses. For more portability, the Echo makes a set of high quality laptop cards and it can sample at 96kHz 24bit which is better than the mbox. It is also half the cost. It doesn't have a mic preamp though. But if you want quality input, you really want an external preamp. I can't really speak for the m-audio boxes. Portable speakers are going to be hard to find. None of them are going to be studio quality. And even if you get something studio quality you are not going to have a proper room to put them in. And room sound is part of the sound. Put out for some audiophile headphones like the sennheiser HD600s instead. .... but to each his own. This is just my mobile studio. :)

Showing messages 1 through 3 of 3.

• Pro-tools Inquiry
  2005-10-01 03:17:28  scalhoun [View]
  
  
  I was wondering if anyone had any helpful info on which operating system on the PC would run Pro-Tools with the best over all performance. I was not sure if windows 2000 or XP had any performance differences while running protools?
  
  Thanks so much!
  
  Shane
  
  *Sorry about the double post I messed up the first one*
• Pro-tools Inquiry
  2005-12-02 00:37:29  StevenCain [View]
  
  
  Ok, I'm growing tired of people bashing what Gina has to say about Mac usability vs the PC for new users of music technology.
  
  I strongly agree with her and have been a PC user for longer than I care to admit (15 + years). My first DAW was Digidesign's Session8 (which I had a love/hate relationship with but that's another story). I first started using sequencers on Atari ST.
  
  I recently switched to a Mac at the beginning of this year and ya know something? I wish I had done this years ago! Now instead of being hemmed in by un-necessary geekery, googling and re-installing drivers, I can be creative.
  
  Who is this guy that doesn't understand...three installations doesn't equal three different installation programs! I've had to install drivers for several different PC DAW systems over the years multiple times just to get them to work. Nevermind the times when I'd record a track in Cubase PC only to find out that an error had occurred and the recording failed! This was usually (murphy's law) during a take that I thought would be a keeper...
  
  I have a great amount of respect for Gina, as well as her creativity (both left and right brain).
  
  When was the last time one of you guys had Tony Levin play on one of your tracks?
  
  Gina - "plug me in" is a great track...I love it! You have a wonderful voice. Were the horns played by you as well?
  
  Cheers,
  Steve
  
• Pro-tools Inquiry
  2006-04-18 10:29:10  didimusic [View]
  
  
  Guys! Guys! Guys!
  
  Hello! What you're doing sucks! Gina was nice enough to actually state a clear opinion! I've been trying to put together a simple system without becoming a professional producer for over two years. This stuff is not my life and I don't want it to be. She graciously gave an opinion. She uses the stuff. She seems to have a good deal of experience. Do I need to buy the absolute best that cannot be impeached? No. I need to get a setup that is probably going to be moderately easy to learn to use with a reasonable amount of learning curve (I'm signed up for Pro Tools at my community college this summer). I don't need big arguments - I've seen article after article telling me I could choose this or that or that or that or that. Just *&%ing shoot me. I just wanted a decent opinion. Something that is reasonable, will work, that a qualified user is happy with, won't break the bank and that I won't regret having bought one year later. Thank you Gina for being willing to give your opinion. If the only proper way to right an article for the internet is to write in political speak, where you qualify every single sentence with "some people" or "in my opinion" then the article won't sound conversational, hence will not be easy to read, ergo will turn the reader off. Any good writer knows that conversational is best. There's no reason to attack the woman for being willing to give an opinion. Where's your concise list of what you consider to be a really good, moderately priced setup that you currently use and can vouch for? I really would like to see it, maybe I'd go for it instead. But you didn't take the time to put the article together did you? Yes, Gina does this for a living and is writing a book. But believe me - there is an audience out there that just wants a qualified person's best opinion and doesn't need to get into all the arguments - there are millions of us out here who don't want to spend all our personal time learning about computers, home producing and recording and studio recording softwares - we just want to finally make our demo recording.