Pro Tools Training & Certification

[ScottFB]

Hi,
My apologies if this isn't the right place to post this!
I was wondering how many of you have taken any of the Digidesign Certified ProTools courses offered by Pro Media Traininghttp://www.promediatraining....alog/index.php (or any other formal courses) and if so, how was that experience? I've heard mostly positive things from sources other than this site the most common being that the level of intensity and the volume of material covered is astonishing. Look forwad to hearing from anybody on this subject
-Scott

[tpowell]

A coworker of mine recently took the certification classes when they were taught at Stankonia (spelling?) in Atlanta. He seems to be very pleased with the experience. I saw some of the materials they provide and based on that and the exercises he described, the courses appear to be pretty good. I believe you can also do some training and certification through Atlanta Pro Audio as well.

[Paul Maunder]

I have taken both the 101 and 201 courses and found them to be very good. The course materials provided (text book and cd-rom) were pretty thorough and I'd recommend doing the courses, even to experienced Pro Tools users. Whereas you could teach yourself Pro Tools from the reference manual (as I did originally), the courses cover everything in the manual and more. For example, I picked up a number of keyboard shortcuts which just aren't mentioned in the reference manual. It's also much more practical in that example sessions are provided to support the material in the textbook. The 101 & 201 courses consist of a total of 24 hours of course time with a multiple choice 50 question exam at the end. In my opinion it was well worth the money

[max cooper]

I'm absolutely in favor of any kind of education no matter what.

My first reaction to this thread, though, is that learning a platform is the easy part of recording.

The real art is in knowing how to place a drum kit, how to tune it, where to put the mics, how to deal with too many "cooks", how to make sure your mix is ready for the ME, etc., etc...

I'm sure that PT certification has it's purposes, however considering the fact that time is a hard thing to come by, it might be a good idea to consider interning at a studio first.

[Paul Maunder]

I'm absolutely in favor of any kind of education no matter what.

My first reaction to this thread, though, is that learning a platform is the easy part of recording.

The real art is in knowing how to place a drum kit, how to tune it, where to put the mics, how to deal with too many "cooks", how to make sure your mix is ready for the ME, etc., etc...

I'm sure that PT certification has it's purposes, however considering the fact that time is a hard thing to come by, it might be a good idea to consider interning at a studio first.

This is all very true. One thing which I did notice when doing the courses is that people would be asking questions such as "what does a compressor do?". Anyone who needs to ask basic questions such as this shouldn't be learning Pro Tools. That's why I did an 18 month course at SSR in Manchester and worked for 7 years as a sound engineer before doing the pro tools certification.

[ScottFB]

I'm sure that PT certification has it's purposes, however considering the fact that time is a hard thing to come by, it might be a good idea to consider interning at a studio first.

First of all I'd like to say thanks to those who have contributed to this thread.

For my purposes, getting a Pro Tools operator certification probably won't amount to much other than the sense of accomplishing a personal objective which is to maximize my knowledge of my PT rig and make better recordings in general. I'm keenly aware that getting an engineering job because "I've now got my PT certification" would be as likely as getting a record deal because I just bought a guitar! Like some folks here, I can get around OK on my various software apps but I know there's much more to learn. Yeah, it would be ideal to get an internship at a studio but as we all know it's hard to make a living not getting paid which is the case with most internships in this business. Add to that the simple fact that there are no studios in my area at all.
I'd venture a guess that a lot of folks on this board work in jobs other than the recording business although they would prefer to be recording and mixing all day. In my case, I've been toying with the idea of going back to school specifically to learn as much as I can about what interests me most which is learning the 'art "of recording. Of course that's not what these classes will be teaching per se although they have added a new somewhat "generic" engineering class to the syllabus.
Being a small business owner, time is definitely hard to come by and I can hardly leave my business for an extended period of time to be an unpaid intern. I can however find someone to cover for me for the ten days it will take to attend the training classes. It's been over 15 years since I've been in any type of classroom environment but I'm definitely looking foward to investing 10 days (and $3000) to learn something that will be totally useful to me even if I never earn a dime from it later. To some, that would be an absurd thing to do because there is the chance the classes will be all hyped up and amount to nothing other than someone reading the manual TO me instead of me reading it as thoroughly as I should have to begin with. But this time, for once, I'm going to push aside my cynicism and treat this like any other "back-to-the classroom-at-age-45" situation. Not only will I benefit from the learning experience but I'm looking foward to being around like minded individuals who have similar goals. And just like any other business, when you have knowledge and proper networking abilities you're going to be more prepared for an oppurtinity when it presents itself.
Sorry, this isn't a sales pitch for Pro Media training. It's my personal thoughts.
Maybe it will help someone else who's been pondering "going back to school"

[O.G. Killa]

one comment I have about the classes, if you haven't already used protools you'll be lost. The courses move so quickly it's very difficult for anyone who isn't familiar with the program already to really learn anything.

I've taken a few of the classes and more often than not I end up helping the teacher teach the class because there is just so much information covered at such a fast pace that it just goes over most beginners' heads.

One thing I would recommend to anyone, especially a novice, is to read through the whole 600+ page reference guide a few times and actually sit in front of protools while you're reading it. Some things won't make sense at first but once you get to the class and you see the teacher doing it everything starts to make sense.

Learning things like keyboard shortcuts don't do you any good if you're not familiar with the techniques the shortcuts reference. For example, if you have no idea how or why you might need to change the clock source of protools; knowing the Cmd+NUM2 to bring up the session setup window isn't going to help you at all.

The other problem I had is that they try and make the course universal so that anyone with LE or TDM systems will be able to follow the class...the problem is they skim over TDM only features a little too much. You need to get into the 300 series class (eventually classes) to really start getting into the TDM systems a little more.

As a certified operator, you should be expected to know the TDM systems in and out...but you aren't. I shouldn't have to tell an assistant (with the certification) what a SYNC IO is and what it does, or how the use the hardware setup dialog in HD, or how to configure the IO setup page for different situations. But I find myself repeating these things all too often. It's not that they don't learn them, I sat through the courses and it's definitely in there...it's just that it's because the MBox and 002 have basic hardware setup pages they skim over it very quickly. The same thing also holds true with the IO setup. If you own an MBOX or 002 at home all the TDM stuff will just float right over your head and you won't retain it.

I can understand why Digi does this...in the classes I took, I'd say only about a third of the people were even interested in the TDM systems...everyone kept saying, "so I can do this with my 001 right?" and "It looks that way with on my MBOX too, right?" but still if you're going to call yourself an "operator" I would hope you'd have a good working knowledge of all the systems.