Three Top DAW's

[horacejesse]

Great posts keep pouring in. Please don't stop. I need you.I have another question. I have heard Nashville referred to as a ProTools town. But if you can just put things easily into a standard format anyway why would anyone in Nashville really care what system you were on?I feel this could be related to the portability issue Gator brought up. Notice I said "feel." Because I don't realy understand what is meant by portability in this context.

[mazz]

The issue with portability as I understand it is this: You've worked on a song at your home in your Pro Tools rig. Now you take your hard drive to the big studio with the mondo Pro Tools rig and they load it up and you hear it and go "Holy Crap, what happened to that cool echo effect on the vocals?" Well, turns out, the mondo studio doesn't own the same echo plug in you do for some strange reason.Or the other way around. You work in a big studio on their Pro Tools rig and you decide to take the piece and work on it at home on your rig. Well, you load up the session and it doesn't sound right because you haven't spent 10s of thousands on having every plug in ever made. I'm not sure if the session will even load up!! At one point I'd heard of this happening (ProTools gurus will chastise me heavily here, I'm sure! ).Hope this helps a little bit.Mazz

[gatorjj]

What Mazz says is true, I'll put it a slightly different way. If you have ProTools and they have ProTools, you can bring the whole project with you on a drive/DVD or whatever. When they load up the project, all the tracks should be right where you left them, mixed them, panned them etc. (Replace ProTools with Cubase, Logic, Sonar, Tracktion, etc. and the same applies)If a few plugins are different, then a few things need replacing but that's about it. If you're using a different DAW than the studio, then you lose all of the "mix" stuff when you export the tracks. This is not that big a deal if all you are doing is purely tracking and then handing it off to be mixed. But if you're booking time in different studios along the way, this "portability" will become a lot more important to you. Not to mention time is money in the studio, so the quicker your project is up on the board the better!I don't use ProTools but I've heard the same thing Mazz is referring to, I think it has to do with recording with TDM (the high end version) and loading up on an M-Powered or LE version. I think they are generally compatible, but there's things you could do in TDM (higher sample rates, more tracks) that would not work if you took the project to a lower end version. I'll leave that question for somebody who knows!

[mazz]

Here's an interesting development that speaks to our portability question. Of course, it's by SSL so it probably costs a bundle:http://namm.harmony-central.com/WNAMM08 ... ator.htmlI wonder how well it works?Mazz

[slideboardouts]

With the portability thing, I wouldn't really worry too much about making sure you have PT just because the studios you are going to use PT. Just bounce all the tracks out as wav files with the effects on them if you want/have to. But, if you are taking it to a big studio, part of the reason for doing that is to have them mix/master with what they have to make your track shine. They will have better monitors, plugs, and most importantly better ears and more experience to mix and master with.If I'm doing a track that I know I will take in to a pro studio, I mainly just track it. No compression, eq, verb, etc. I let them do that because they are better at it than me and thats what I'm paying them for. The only thing that having PT would bring me is that I could just take the project file to them instead of bouncing each track out as an individual wav file. PT would just save you a little time but its really no more "portable" than the other DAWs, especially if you aren't working with the EXACT same tools as whatever studio you are going to be taking your project to. Even if you were using the same tools, the engineer would probably want to start mixing with raw tracks instead of having to go back and tweak/fix things that you did at home.-Steve

[gatorjj]

Quote:Here's an interesting development that speaks to our portability question. Of course, it's by SSL so it probably costs a bundle:http://namm.harmony-central.com/WNAMM08 ... ator.htmlI wonder how well it works?MazzThat is really cool...and hopefully some studios would use it on their end to expand the client base (instead of us poor hacks doing it to fit their environments ). And yep, being SSL we probably couldn't afford it anyway

[gatorjj]

Quote:With the portability thing, I wouldn't really worry too much about making sure you have PT just because the studios you are going to use PT. Just bounce all the tracks out as wav files with the effects on them if you want/have to. But, if you are taking it to a big studio, part of the reason for doing that is to have them mix/master with what they have to make your track shine. They will have better monitors, plugs, and most importantly better ears and more experience to mix and master with.If I'm doing a track that I know I will take in to a pro studio, I mainly just track it. No compression, eq, verb, etc. I let them do that because they are better at it than me and thats what I'm paying them for. The only thing that having PT would bring me is that I could just take the project file to them instead of bouncing each track out as an individual wav file. PT would just save you a little time but its really no more "portable" than the other DAWs, especially if you aren't working with the EXACT same tools as whatever studio you are going to be taking your project to. Even if you were using the same tools, the engineer would probably want to start mixing with raw tracks instead of having to go back and tweak/fix things that you did at home.-SteveGreat discussion and great points!Even if the plugs are all different, not having to convert in and out makes life easier on both ends. Some folks bounce in and out of different studios (due to rates, availability, capability, or whatever). Portability for these folks is more important. Someone tracking at home, then sending off to get mixed, not that important...but still easier on both parties.To me it's most important to determine what the right product for you is, before you worry too much about portability. You're going to spend a lot more time in front of that program than you'd ever save by not having to export files, and what you use should best fit your creative process.Cheers,J.J.

[billg]

I'm also going to throw in a thumbs up for Tracktion (ok, guess there are only three of us in the whole world!). Solid system, easy to use & learn, plenty of tools.

[dryan]

This is all great advice. I guess I will add my two cents. If you would please, list some of your kit. Without knowing what you are looking to supplement, this may be difficult and vague. If you have already decided on PC then this is left...1. Decide on an audio interface based on your workflow. If you need to mic and track several things at once, pick up something with more than two mic inputs. 2. Read about the DAW's in question, downloading demo versions if possible. Everyone has their favorite DAW. Take advice with a grain of salt. I recommend Computer Music magazine for info about the DAW's. The DVD that comes bundled with the magazine also has enough content to get your feet, ankles, shins, and knees wet.3. With it software, controllers, and interfaces being a very considerable investment, buy only AFTER you have decided how a computer fits into your work flow.

[mojobone]

Bump