Favorite/Best DAW software for Tracking Audio??

Mr_Clifford · Post by **Mr_Clifford** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 9:22 pm

Guitartist wrote:
Pappy725 wrote:The SE is great for editing audio. and I'm doing it on a PowerBook!
Pardon my ignorance, but...What's SE??

The Sequence Editor. Very similar to the Pro Tools main track window. It's where you'll do the majority (if not all) of your audio editing.

Guitartist · Post by **Guitartist** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 9:40 pm

This is cool..
The more the merrier!

Mr_Clifford: Sequence Editor...Got it! Thanks!
So, you're saying DP's GUI approach is somewhat like PT? Is AudioDesk anything like DP? I've had a little taste of AD (when Rosetta isn't crashing it...)
Also a good point that I was somewhat aware of...Logic is supposed to be very CPU efficient, especially on a Mac.
Doesn't DP have a pretty long history working with Macs?

Well, gee... can't quite tell if King O Loud really digs DP (grin)
Sounds like you've been using DP for a while. Does the Sound Designer II file thing present any problems for you? I mean, my drummer lives an hour away and we're talking about having him develop drum tracks on his Logic setup and sending me the results to use in whatever DAW I end up with, rather than driving back and forth, etc.
Does the SDII thing mean DP will have trouble using his Logic stuff?

So, Brad...
I gather you are the only one so far who prefers PT on a PC to DP on a Mac??

Mr_Clifford · Post by **Mr_Clifford** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 10:07 pm

Guitartist wrote:Well, gee... can't quite tell if King O Loud really digs DP (grin)
Sounds like you've been using DP for a while. Does the Sound Designer II file thing present any problems for you? I mean, my drummer lives an hour away and we're talking about having him develop drum tracks on his Logic setup and sending me the results to use in whatever DAW I end up with, rather than driving back and forth, etc.
Does the SDII thing mean DP will have trouble using his Logic stuff?

You should be able to transfer via OMF files. Or else just import in his drum track audio files and spot them to the time stamp - does Logic timestamp? I dunno (DP will convert them to SDII, but there's absolutely no quality loss).

So, Brad...
I gather you are the only one so far who prefers PT on a PC to DP on a Mac??

Well, let's be frank. Pro Tools is EXCELLENT for recording,editing & mixing audio.

BUT....

1. You'd have to spend many thousand $$$ to get PT HD in order to really utilise its benefits.

2. PT LE will require you to buy more (inferior) hardware (as I mentioned before) and you will very quickly run into its artificial limitations - I mean, still NO plug-in delay compensation in 2007!!!!!

3. Pro Tools will make you spend more $$$ just to be able to import an OMF file, whilst every other DAW includes OMF import/export for free.

4. You have an 896HD, which won't work with Pro Tools.

BradLyons · Post by **BradLyons** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:53 am

Actually, PTLE has had delay compensation built-in for quite some time..... many aren't aware of this. Okay, BACK TO MY CORNER!

Mr_Clifford · Post by **Mr_Clifford** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 4:17 am

BradLyons wrote:Actually, PTLE has had delay compensation built-in for quite some time..... many aren't aware of this. Okay, BACK TO MY CORNER!

Dude, that's just not true. I have PTLE 7.1 and I still have to shuffle my audio forward if I want to use the TC Powercore Plug-Ins. Digi states on all their literature that PT HD is the only Digi Hardware that has delay compensation.

If they've included it in PTLE 7.3 then they've stayed pretty quiet about it.

Pappy725 · Post by **Pappy725** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 4:20 am

Sequence Editor- the part that kinda looks like PT
Stephen

monkey man · Post by **monkey man** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 5:25 am

Mr_Clifford wrote:
BradLyons wrote:Actually, PTLE has had delay compensation built-in for quite some time..... many aren't aware of this. Okay, BACK TO MY CORNER!
Dude, that's just not true. I have PTLE 7.1 and I still have to shuffle my audio forward if I want to use the TC Powercore Plug-Ins. Digi states on all their literature that PT HD is the only Digi Hardware that has delay compensation.
If they've included it in PTLE 7.3 then they've stayed pretty quiet about it.

Brad's a high-end kind o' guy.
HD is all he knows, the bugger.

Kind Of Loud · Post by **Kind Of Loud** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 5:48 am

[quote="Guitartist"]

Well, gee... can't quite tell if King O Loud really digs DP (grin)
Sounds like you've been using DP for a while. Does the Sound Designer II file thing present any problems for you? I mean, my drummer lives an hour away and we're talking about having him develop drum tracks on his Logic setup and sending me the results to use in whatever DAW I end up with, rather than driving back and forth, etc.
Does the SDII thing mean DP will have trouble using his Logic stuff?

A friend of mine uses Sonar. We send files back and forth to each other all the time, with no problems. His files come back as wav., and DP just converts them to sdII. If there's any sound loss, I can't tell.
We just tell each other the bit/sample rate/tempo, and just drop the file(s) in and have at it.
Works out great....

vier-personen · Post by **vier-personen** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 6:43 am

yes, no problems with sdII here either - I didn‘t want to make the impression that this is a huge problem with my earlier posts, I just wanted to get my view of DP a little more subjective (because if you have a lot of long wav files to get into DP every day, it takes some time)...
but even time stamped wav files work with no problem in DP, you just have to wait a few extra seconds or minutes (depends on the machine you‘re running and the length of the files) for the conversion ; )

Guitartist · Post by **Guitartist** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 9:40 am

re: SDII file format...
I think that's cleared up. Thanks guys!
So not a big deal. I've been in the graphic arts industry for a few decades and we had to deal with dueling proprietory formats from the git, some caused more headaches than others. The hardware, software and operators got smarter and nulled most of the problems. Sounds like the SDII issue is a pretty minor one.

Just curious...
The fact that, as Mr_Clifford points out, DP and PT have significant similarities and DP uses SDII file format, etc., etc....makes me think the two met in a motel somewhere a long time ago??...wouldn't be surprised if they shared some source code

Happens all the time around here in, as my dad calls it, "Silicone" Valley

I have to remind him...,"No, Dad, "Silicone" Valley is North Hollyweird."

Guitartist · Post by **Guitartist** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 10:30 am

Mr_Clifford wrote:Well, let's be frank. Pro Tools is EXCELLENT for recording,editing & mixing audio.

BUT....

1. You'd have to spend many thousand $$$ to get PT HD in order to really utilise its benefits.

2. PT LE will require you to buy more (inferior) hardware (as I mentioned before) and you will very quickly run into its artificial limitations - I mean, still NO plug-in delay compensation in 2007!!!!!

3. Pro Tools will make you spend more $$$ just to be able to import an OMF file, whilst every other DAW includes OMF import/export for free.

4. You have an 896HD, which won't work with Pro Tools.

Thanks for reinforceing my prior conclusions re: PT!
What you said here sums up pretty well why I didn't go that route. Didn't care to buy an M-Box or 002 as a PT LE dongle. And the jump to PT HD is overkill for my needs and budget.
Plus, I have engineer friends with massive suites(like our friend Brad) and experience I can hire by the hour for whatever I can't do.

And, from what you guys are telling me, I can get the (how best to put it...?) "analog legacy/linear" work flow that PT seems known for, from DP?? As compared to the other major player, Logic Pro. Am I on the right track here?

Also, can anyone give me a brief idea about these others...? Where are these mostly used?

Nuendo, Ableton, Reason

BradLyons · Post by **BradLyons** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 10:43 am

Clifford,

You're correct, when using the POWERCORE or other products like the UAD1 and LiquidMix, you have to provide your own method of delay compensation. Because these products are not 100% RTAS plugins, then there is no known means of compensating for the delay as there would be with say a McDSP Filterbank or Sony Oxford plugin. Native RTAS plugins for ProToolsLE are supported within ProToolsLE and its own delay compensation, it's NOT adjustable--but it's predictable. With other hardware that's not officially supported, it's not supported.

Mr_Clifford · Post by **Mr_Clifford** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 4:20 pm

BradLyons wrote:You're correct, when using the POWERCORE or other products like the UAD1 and LiquidMix, you have to provide your own method of delay compensation. Because these products are not 100% RTAS plugins, then there is no known means of compensating for the delay as there would be with say a McDSP Filterbank or Sony Oxford plugin. Native RTAS plugins for ProToolsLE are supported within ProToolsLE and its own delay compensation, it's NOT adjustable--but it's predictable. With other hardware that's not officially supported, it's not supported.

Except that the bugger (PTLE) knows exactly how much latency is being induced by the plug-in because if I command-click on the bottom of the fader strip it tells me how many samples the signal is delayed by. Yet it won't move the audio earlier to compensate.

Either way, it does certainly make DP far more attractive for mixing, even though I do have a slight preference for the way PT handles the automation data (mainly in editing it).

gearboy · Post by **gearboy** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 1:18 pm

I use DP for all of my audio recording, either on my G5 (where I also mix) or on my PB for location recording. Most of the folks that I know in the Philly area are all PTLE users annd they can't believe that I'm not running my audio through a Digi002. I've been using Digital Performer since... well... 1995. I used to sync it to 1" 24 Track tape at school via SMPTE!

I have no need for PTLE or Logic. I'm 100% satisfied with DP for tracking audio.

Jeff

Guitartist · Post by **Guitartist** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 7:49 pm

Hey Jeff,
Welcome to the discussion!

You've been using DP for pretty long...would you say, as Mr_Clifford did in earlier posts, that the DP and PT GUIs have similarities?

off topic, but...
I noticed "BLA" in your gear list. Are you happy with what they did for your MOTU 828mkii?
Another piece of interest"Sytek MPX-4Aii w/Burr-Brown 3-4". Seems this piece gets tagged for classical recordings a lot. Is that how you use it?

Thanks,
Guitartist