Limited to structure?

[Goo-D-Man]

Are there any other patches or things like structure that you can download and use in Pro Tools Essentials?

[selfextraction]

Yes, you are limited. I was ok with the limitations of Essential as I just wanted to use it as a song writing tool. After I was first pissed about the limitation of instruments, I found out about the A.I.R. users blog and was able to load more Structure instruments. That was good until tonight when I found out that you can only have four instances of Structure open in a session. Let's see: I bought a MIDI controller that can only control four things. That's a bit of a ripoff. I would upgrade but that's a bit deceptive too as it's not really an upgrade but just buying a copy of PT M-Powered for $300. Since I already have a lesser version of this, seems like I should be able to upgrade for around $150.
I'm feeling a bit cheated right now as I was in the middle of the first song that I was composing and found out about the four instance thing.....

I only bought the keystudio because I wanted a new MIDI controller. That part I'm happy with. The software part.........

[Goo-D-Man]

Yea it does kinda stink that you can only use four things of structure, but that is what the "essentials" part stands for.

Does anyone know how to upgrade for relatively cheap and be able to use more structure or different virtual instrumens?

[selfextraction]

Ok, I stand corrected (partially). I had 4 instances of Structure opened which are designated Structure 1, Structure 2 etc. Within each of these you can have 4 different patches running where I only had 1 patch open within each. This gives a much more reasonable 16 midi tracks. Shouldn't get pissed and immediatley post on a forum I guess, although I cannot find any mention of this in the Essentials documentation.

One more update: Essentials only lets you have 8 midi tracks only (it does state this on the box). So that's 8 midi + the original 4 instrument tracks that Structure was loaded on for a total of 12. This is a strange limitation as they limit you to 4 instances of Structure and limit you to 4 channels per instance of Structure and then turn around and make it impossible for you to achieve that total anyway by limiting the number of midi channels. Grrrr..........

Anyway, the biggest thing I learned is that they really want you to upgrade to regular PTMP.

[frantik]

Originally Posted by selfextraction

I would upgrade but that's a bit deceptive too as it's not really an upgrade but just buying a copy of PT M-Powered for $300. Since I already have a lesser version of this, seems like I should be able to upgrade for around $150.

does Essential come with an iLok? thats all you really need to buy and use the PTMP upgrade. The upgrade doesn't check for older versions of PT, and in fact it tells you to remove any previous versions before installing

[selfextraction]

Originally Posted by frantik

does Essential come with an iLok? thats all you really need to buy and use the PTMP upgrade. The upgrade doesn't check for older versions of PT, and in fact it tells you to remove any previous versions before installing

It comes with what they call a USB Micro interface. I suppose it's similar to an Ilok as the software won't run without it. Not sure if it will work with just the PTMP upgrade though.

[frantik]

hmm yeah i dont think that will work.. and actually i'm not sure that interface will work with mpowered (i have no idea).. if so then it's definitely an expensive upgrade.. might as well go with LE, though i'd wait till after NAMM for any announcements (jan 14)

[Jared]

The iLok and USB Micro are separate things. The Micro is a USB Audio Interface that is required to use Pro Tools. Pro Tools M-Powered requires a USB key or dongle called an iLok which stores the Pro Tools software license, as well as any plug-in licenses you may purchase. The Micro and any other interface budled with Pro Tools Essential is compatible with the full version of M-Powered 8.0.1 and above.

[sunburst79]

Originally Posted by selfextraction

Yes, you are limited. I was ok with the limitations of Essential as I just wanted to use it as a song writing tool. After I was first pissed about the limitation of instruments, I found out about the A.I.R. users blog and was able to load more Structure instruments. That was good until tonight when I found out that you can only have four instances of Structure open in a session. Let's see: I bought a MIDI controller that can only control four things. That's a bit of a ripoff. I would upgrade but that's a bit deceptive too as it's not really an upgrade but just buying a copy of PT M-Powered for $300. Since I already have a lesser version of this, seems like I should be able to upgrade for around $150.
I'm feeling a bit cheated right now as I was in the middle of the first song that I was composing and found out about the four instance thing.....

I only bought the keystudio because I wanted a new MIDI controller. That part I'm happy with. The software part.........

From Avid's point of view Essentials is basically a "free" application they bundle with the hardware and as such theres no real upgrade pricing. The idea being that you get to check out Pro Tools to see if it will work for you vs spending 300.00 to find out it wont.

[necjamc]

Guys here is a link to the PT m-Powered upgrade. $150.00. And yes the fasttrack will work with it and i comes with an iLok.
That's all you need.
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