New to PT and New to MAC - General Questions
 

Hello... let me start by saying that I am very new to home recording, PT, and MAC. Having said that, I have alot of questions, mostly general at this point, but trust me... lots more to follow.

So here is what I did... I have been reading this forum and all the advice from some of the pro's on here (Thank you) and have used that info to put together what I think is a nice home studio.

My set-up
Mac Pro quad core 2.66 Ghz with 8 gig of Ram - OS X Snow Leopard ( my windows PC with AMD processor would not work so I bought the Mac)
M Box 2 Pro with PT LE 8.0 (downloaded 8.0.3) factory bundle
dual 20" flat panel monitors
M Audio reference monitors

The QUESTIONS;

1. PT says that you should record and save your sessions on a separate external HD. Not the drive that your OS is on. they also have specific criteria that the drive should have...
- Can I just use a second internal HD in the Mac Pro?
- Any thoughts on the MERCURY Elite-Al Pro (Firewire 800/400, USB 2.0, eSATA) external HD from Other World Computing?

2. PT recommends in the basic user guide that you change some settings so that your computer will run PT better...
- Should I turn off the auto update feature? If so... how do you get the updates from MAC, and are there any updates I should avoid that will mess with PT?

3. This may sound stupid, but how do I get to the programs that I would use to record guitar or bass... (like Amplitube). Again, I am new to MAC and what I would like to do is plug my guitar in and hear some of the guitar plugins... are they in there????


At this point, I have PT installed, I have opened it and listened to the Demo and clicked a few buttons... did record a Mic check and it seems to be working ok... I am not getting any error messages at this point.

thanks for the help... many more questions to follow.

Re: New to PT and New to MAC - General Questions
 

1. You will get the best performance by using more internal drives in your mac pro. You can get these internal drives from OWC also, in addition to their external drives you mentioned (which are great, by the way). Since you have a mac pro, the internal ones are a better option.

2. Definitely follow the Digi advice about system settings. Turn off auto update. You don't always want to update quickly as sometimes there can be technical issues. When you do update, use the "combo update" available from the Apple website. It just works better.

3. As far as guitar plugins, you mentioned Amplitube. This does not come with protools, unless you bought it seperately. The only ones are Eleven Free and Sansamp. Regardless of what guitar plug you use (whether 3rd party or included), you create an audio track and insert the plugin. Record arm the track to be able to hear the guitar through the plugin.

Re: New to PT and New to MAC - General Questions
 

Thank you so much.... So overwhelming at this point.

Re: New to PT and New to MAC - General Questions
 

1. MERCURY Elite-Al Pro (Firewire 800/400, USB 2.0, eSATA) external HD is a good choice. Internal drives are super EZ enough to install as well.

2. already covered

3. On the mix window, at the top, click any insert button and scroll down to plugin>harmonic and then your plug of choice. This should usually be a mono track for guitar. Sansamp is not bad...but check out the Studio Devil British Valve Custom (BVC) http://www.studiodevil.com/download/downloadBVC.htm This virtual amp blows away eleven free, amplitube, line six and most of the others for a tube tone...IMHO. And the price can't be beat.

Re: New to PT and New to MAC - General Questions
 

Thank you as well for the info... Feel free to send me any other tips or suggestions.

My next situation... When I open a new session, my transport window is not coming up? where the heck did it go. Is this a window that I have to open like the mix window?

Re: New to PT and New to MAC - General Questions
 

The transport window should come up visible as long as the session was saved that way. Just choose it to show(I think under the windows drop down menu....not at my PT machine right now).

Re: New to PT and New to MAC - General Questions
 

cmd+3 on the numeric pad will get you the transport window

although you should already have transport stuck above

in PT 8 u have 2 transport - one stuck above and one can by floating