DP vs PT

[Jamie]

Now I'm not wanting a war, of course I expect everyone here to be biased towards DP, that's why I'm asking here. I'm not looking for a confirmation bias, but I'm looking for actual reasons to come back to DP. My first experience with DP was bad. 2004, I was a freshman at Berklee and got DP4.5 as part of the incoming bundle. The MIDI confused me, I just went back to Sibelius 3 (and then Finale). The MIDI still confuses me. I use other programs for MIDI composition, so that's not the issue here. Logic Pro X is great for sketching with the Drummer plugin, and Reason is great for composing really fast and getting a sound down using all VIs.

I am running an independent recording studio (mobile). I started using PT11 about a year or so ago, so I know the workflow, but I'm not superman with it. That said, I have a (bad) habit of switching DAWs now and then - call it a hobby, maybe... So I learn VERY fast and become fluent in a week or two.

I mean for audio, and maybe some combination (if I'm producing a rock album and I want to put some VI organ or who knows what).


TL;DR?

I want the best experience for 1) Tracking Audio 2) Editing 3) Mixing 4) VI integration with bouncing/printing.

Those are my priorities in that order.

Is DP where I want to be, or did I get it right with PT? I'm worried about AVID as a company, not sure I want to stick around for whatever nonsense is going on financially. Sell my copy and get out. I'm not a loyalist, not to AVID anyway! Maybe a Boston loyalist

[Robert Randolph]

It's hard to answer without you asking very specific questions, but I can tell you that I recently jumped ship from Avid.

I really like PT and am quite proficient with it, but Avid's consistent fumbling made it look like a poor choice to stick with my HDX system. I sold it, and I'm now on DP9.01. I'm extremely happy with the switch.

I don't do much with MIDI, but for audio work I'm working faster and capable of experimenting more. That translates to a better product and more fun for me.

If you had any specific question like: "I do X a lot in PT, how is that task done in DP", then I think you'd get much better answers.

[Gravity Jim]

The best place to find those reasons would be within a 30-day demo copy of Digital Performer. Download it, use it, see if it has whatever you wish ProTools had.

It is amusing that every one of these threads begins with the identical disclaimer.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I wonder how many posts on the "other side" exist where people go to the PT sites and ask about jumping ship from DP?

[Robert Randolph]

I wonder how many posts on the "other side" exist where people go to the PT sites and ask about jumping ship from DP?

Most of the threads on the 'otherside' are about jumping ship from PT.

Almost no one is happy with the situation.

[mikehalloran]

The MIDI still confuses me.

And therein lies the issue.

Download DP 9.01, get un-confused and then you can make an informed choice about what works best for you. All the rest is talk, talk, talk. Sure we can give advice and help where we can in the eval process but you need to check it out for yourself.

It doesn't really matter what we think. It matters what you think, right?

If you have an old G4, and your 4.5 CD, you can still run 4.61, a great version, IMO.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I moved to DP because the MIDI editing was so good.

[Jamie]

I wonder how many posts on the "other side" exist where people go to the PT sites and ask about jumping ship from DP?

Most of the threads on the 'otherside' are about jumping ship from PT.

Almost no one is happy with the situation.

It's true, this is what gave me the idea - the AVID DUC forum has so many people talking about DP (which is never mentioned places like GS or KVR for top google hits...) When you join a forum and notice many of the discussions are about leaving the forum (and the company) your feet get sudden chills...

The MIDI still confuses me.

And therein lies the issue.

Download DP 9.01, get un-confused and then you can make an informed choice about what works best for you. All the rest is talk, talk, talk. Sure we can give advice and help where we can in the eval process but you need to check it out for yourself.

It doesn't really matter what we think. It matters what you think, right?

If you have an old G4, and your 4.5 CD, you can still run 4.61, a great version, IMO.

I have 4.5 and a copy of 8 at first it was so I could open older sessions and sessions people send me, but now I'm wondering if my Boston loyalties are going to win out anyway wishing I bought an 828x instead of the focusrite saffire pro 40...

I understand how it works, I dislike that the MIDI track is separate from the Instrument track. I like the idea that it *can* be, for multi-timbral Kontakt for example, but it's not quick, and the fact that there are no MIDI bites (clips, regions, whatever). This makes some of my work much more difficult.

Also, one of the things I love about PT is the Tab to Transient, and one key to break the region at the playhead, so I can hit TAB, B a few times to break up a baseline, and then quantize the regions (like beat detective, which I also use a lot for drums).

Are there ways to get DP to work the way I would want for MIDI regions in the Tracks window, and something like Beat Detective for drum groups, tab to transient and break for audio editing? (the audio editing is more important to me here, I can futz with non-regions, or figure out a workaround, do MIDI in logic or sibelius and import, etc.)

Thanks for all the quick replies!!

[Robert Randolph]

Also, one of the things I love about PT is the Tab to Transient, and one key to break the region at the playhead, so I can hit TAB, B a few times to break up a baseline, and then quantize the regions (like beat detective, which I also use a lot for drums).

You can actually do this faster in DP, and it's one of the first things I wondered about coming from PT too.

Beat detection needs to be on, or you need to do it manually first. I have it set to analyze automatically, so I don't have to think about it.

Turn off the grid snap and turn on snap to beat. Snap to beat is the 'purple marker' in the upper left of your sequence window. In OS X by default, toggle grid snap is control-g, and toggle beat snap is control-option-shift-command-b. It will look like this:



Now all you have to do is hold C to temporarily use the cut tool (or double tap the C key to make it a static tool selection) and drag it over the area you wish to slice. It looks like this (click the image for full size):



----

Another option is that you could select your area of interest and use the command Audio->Audio Beats->'New Soundbites From Beats' (control-g, in os x, by default). That will automatically slice your selection at the beat markers. Another animated image (click it!):



From the same Audio Beats menu you can adjust your beat markers as necessary.

--

Tab in the sequence window selects the next event, option-tab selects the previous event. There's a number of commands to move the current selection to/from the previous events, and holding shift will add them to the current selection.

Hope this helps

[Robert Randolph]

Are there ways to get DP to work the way I would want for MIDI regions in the Tracks window, and something like Beat Detective for drum groups, tab to transient and break for audio editing? (the audio editing is more important to me here, I can futz with non-regions, or figure out a workaround, do MIDI in logic or sibelius and import, etc.)

For beat detective type workflow, see this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fXMpWddPwg

There are big discussions about MIDI regions and how to work without them. Hopefully someone else more invested in this issue can point you towards those. I don't use MIDI much at all.

I strongly suggest looking at DP's 'search' feature. It makes selecting and manipulating specific MIDI data very simple. In Cubase there's a very similar feature called the "Logical Editor" and it's lauded as a very useful feature there as well, with most folks I know eschewing the usage of region-based editing workflow for a selection-based workflow.

[Jamie]

Thanks guys, that is going to help a lot with the transient based editing.

Does that work on multitracked drums, for instance? With multiple lanes selected?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Robert Randolph]

Thanks guys, that is going to help a lot with the transient based editing.

Does that work on multitracked drums, for instance? With multiple lanes selected?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes, it works on multiple tracks that are grouped, and when you use the 'new soundbites from beats' command, you can even select which track's beats are used for the slicing.

That means you can slice all your drum tracks based on the kick, or snare or bass guitar or whatever.

You can also apply another track's beats to a different track, or quantize to another track. That means you can copy grooves for instance, or align only the snare hits on all your multitracked drums but leave the hats relatively in position.

Lots of stuff you can do!

[Jamie]

If I align the snare hits, won't the hats move along with the newly created bite (as with BeatDetective)? Or will there be stretching? That's why I'm quitting Logic, the stretching ruined some drums on an album I did, had to completely redo it in PT. lesson learned.

And I assume tracking and doing multiple takes (on groups like 10 drum mics) is relatively simple?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Robert Randolph]

If I align the snare hits, won't the hats move along with the newly created bite (as with BeatDetective)? Or will there be stretching? That's why I'm quitting Logic, the stretching ruined some drums on an album I did, had to completely redo it in PT. lesson learned.

You can do it either way. If you want the video I linked, it explains it pretty well.

You can also do the 'quantize soundbites' method that simply slices and moves the regions around, keeping them in relative phase.

And I assume tracking and doing multiple takes (on groups like 10 drum mics) is relatively simple?

Yep.

[Jamie]

You can do it either way. If you want the video I linked, it explains it pretty well.

You can also do the 'quantize soundbites' method that simply slices and moves the regions around, keeping them in relative phase.

In that video it showed quantizing beats within bites, and I couldn't tell if that stretched the audio or not, it wasn't explained that in depth.

What I do in PT is chop the drum tracks based on kick/snare using Beat Detective, quantize audio regions, then fill gaps. I've seen that people figured out how to do this in Reaper with some scripting, but I'm not a fan of a daw that lets me accidentally put MIDI notes on my aux tracks... That said, this is a very important feature for me to use, it's probably the one that I could not live without now that I've used it.