Protools 9

[billostech]

Good day, Alembic family. Does anyone here have experience with Protools. I am considering buying it to interface with Garage Band on my Mac. Any input on your experience will be appreciated.

[terryc]

My son uses Protools at college, he says that it's THE best recording software you can get..if that's any use

[billostech]

Yes, it does help. Thanks, Terry.

[jzstephan]

If you're happy with Garage Band, just get a nice hardware interface to go with it. Apogee makes some nice ones. You'll spend a lot more money getting a PT rig that sounds better.

[JimmyJ]

I'm a ProTools guy just because it's still considered the industry standard.  But if you're running Garage Band on a mac (or iPad!) and feel you've reached the program's limits then Logic may be the way to go as it's more closely related.  I believe you can open Garage Band projects in Logic...
 
ProTools comes from a background of audio recording (actually the parent company is all about video) and it does that very well.  But the midi and loop functions are not very intuitive.  
 
And as John suggested, it's the hardware that you hear.  All the software does is manipulate audio files in slightly different ways.  So mics, preamps, A to D and D to A converters are what will effect the actual sound.
 
It is amazing what we can do on our personal machines these days!
 
Have fun,
Jimmy J

[billostech]

Thank you, Jimmy. I am a longtime fan of yours. I will take your advisement into consideration.
 
(Message edited by billostech on August 17, 2012)

[sparechaynge]

I use ProTools 10 for my college class, and it's certainly way bigger than Garage Band is. If it helps, for most of my personal projects I find that a combination of Garage Band and Audacity works well. Sometimes I just don't need a whole studio, just a few simple loops and effects to get the point across. Hope this helps.
 
+1 to getting a good interface, that's part of my problem too.

[rustyg61]

I have Pro Tools 9 & love it! You can do professional sounding recordings right in your bedroom! I use a Presonus Audiobox USB interface & it works great with Pro Tools too.

[flpete1uw]

When I left the Biz a bunch of years ago Pro Tools was the standard, still is today from what I understand. The late 90's saw a large consolidation. The combining Digi Design, Pro Tools, Audiovision became what everyone used. Moving files from Studio to Studio was easy again like moving a 2 Multitrack. Remember those?
 
Pete

[sonicus]

I use both older large  Protools TDM systems and older LE consumer systems.  If you are using Apple Garage Band as your DAW I would agree with both jzstephan and 'jimmyj . I think that if you get a nice little Apogee interface as jzstephan suggested above you will get excellent results. You will be spending BIG money if you want better results and higher resolution with Protools HD hardware.

[billostech]

Thanks again, for all of your input.  I currently use an Apogee Jam to plug in my bass into Garage Band. I use Sony's Sound Forge on my my PC for light editing and audio enhancement.
 I was looking for something more robust to use on my MAC for tunes created in GB with my bass and Garage band instruments.  Like Jimmy said, It is amazing what we can do on our personal machines these days!.

[dannobasso]

I just upgraded with a new mac and protools 10. Took some time rewiring all the stuff but the result of adding a track to an old session was very enjoyable. An Alembified strat direct into the digi 002 rack. Mbox has great bundles and values. Small footprints with big results.

[elwoodblue]

I'm thinking about purchasing PT 9(upgradeable to 10 ) and a Focusrite Sapphire 40 as a breakout box.  
 
  Anyone here have experience with the Focusrite consumer line?  
 
  I've been using my old LE and Mac G4 for a good decade or so...I sure will enjoy more tracks/memory/etc.  
 I'll have to get a new (to me) computer too,
I like Macs alot, but I might get more processing power if I have a friend custom build a PC for the studio...any thoughts,input,opinions are much appreciated.
 
Elwood

[darkstar01]

i used to run several Focusrite pre's at my studio, and to be honest i was never really impressed with them at all. they always just seemed a bit flat to me, for lack of a better term. but i did get a lot of good use out of them after working out some tweaks here and there. i had/have the ISA828 and two ISA430 MKII, though. so no experience with the saffire line.  
mind you, i am by no means an engineer. just someone with an ear. and a studio.

[edwin]

I have made my living as an audio engineer (and now run a location recording  business) and I have to say that these things are very personal. For me, ProTools is the only way to go if your main focus is audio. Jimmy is right that other solutions have the edge with certain MIDI functions, but PT has come a long way. OTOH, if you are really used to the Garageband paradigm and want to have some ability to exchange files, Logic is a good way to go. It comes with lots of decent software instruments and plugins. I do actually use it a lot for my current business because it does one thing that ProTools doesn't: bounce in faster than real time. When I do a location recording of 3+ hours, I don't want to tie my computer up for 3+ hours doing a rough mix. Logic handles mixing tasks very well. OTOH, if the work needs a lot of edits, it goes right into ProTools. For me, editing audio in Logic is, well, illogical. But at the end of the day, all the DAWs have a different feel, so if you can find a way to play around with them, it's well worth it.  
 
I also like to encourage everyone to check out Reaper. The demo is free, the full version (which is actually the same as the demo) is dirt cheap and it's run by a company that is very responsive to the user base. Like any other DAW, there is a learning curve, but it's a very deep and capable program.