Missing Pieces

[strunz0]

I am pasting your words in to my new group. I am trying to start a revolution. It is time we get what we deserve.

[Jeffrey Percival]

It's ironic that Pro Tools, which is arguably the best DAW available, is lagging behind ALL other companies (including themselves-on the Mac). What I mean by that is that the Mac version of Pro Tools TDM is still very significantly more equipped than the NT version, and the Mac version is still lagging behind other DAWs out there in several significant features. If the price of Pro Tools was 'a little' more than the cost of other setups, I think we could all live with it, but something that costs 2 to 3 times as much as other alternatives ought to out-shine those alternatives in every area. Currently the Mac version doesn't even do this and the PC version, to spite a lot of talk about cross-platform parity, still lags woefully behind the Mac version.
Literally every new feature comes out on the Mac months before it shows up on the NT version, if it shows up. How can the NT version ever gain in market share if Digi charges the same price for it even though it's less equipped. Why are there "no plans" to add QuickTime or any kind of movie support. Not only does the Mac version have this, but so does almost every PC alternative. Talk about a crucial feature. There are clients that I can't even consider until this feature shows up. I'm still waiting for the Direct Connect patch to show up for PC. Again, native instruments for the Mac and just about every other PC alternative are already available. The surround sound mixing availability that the Mac has because of the "Kind of Loud" plug-in is great but Digi needs to either make there own cross-platform plug-in or build this into the program like Nuendo and others are doing. Again, a very significant issue. And, of course, while we're on the subject of plug-ins. If the program is not measuring up in this area then it is up to Digi to do something about it. There are several possibilities. They could give Pro Tools the ability to use RTAS or Direct X and VST plugins. Or, they could provide incentives to companies like Lexicon or Antares or Kind of Loud. It's not up to third parties or consumers to take it upon themselves to make Pro Tools for NT a great product in regard to plugins. It's up to Digidesign, plain and simple. If we don't have the plugins, most of the blame lies in Digi's lap. It's interesting that even though the product doesn't measure up to the make version in all these areas, there are many of us that will still put up the same amount of money to get it. Doesn't this send a loud and clear signal that PC users are NOT, as a general statement, willing to give up their platform? And for good reason, PC's are faster and have a great deal more applications and third party hardware support in almost every area. If all you do is music on your computer, then a Mac is OK, but if you want choices in any other area you'll have a great deal less of them on the Mac. I don't say this to start a Mac/PC war. The Mac is a great box, but the PC market should be getting the attention it warrants from Digidesign. I put up with the "Session 8 for PC" syndrome for years and yet I still came back to Digi. Why? Because they have the best user interface and it is a great product. But, to reiterate, it's currently not the "2 to 3 times better than the competition product" that it's sticker price would seem to indicate.
There are other issues that are way overdue on both platforms. The absence of multiple undo's and an undo/redo history is just plain ridiculous. NO excuses are sufficient on that one. The feature of 96k sample rate is present in even the cheapest of alternatives on the Windows platform.
I've intentionally not even dealt with bug fixes or feature enhancements in this post. These are just the essentials that we need and deserve and can find in the competition. Because of the user interface and other benefits and features, I still think that Pro Tools is the best, but not the best by the 2-3 times mentioned above in regard to it's price. There are many who would even disagree with me that it's the best at all since it leaves out the features discussed above. My concern, however, is not with them but with Digi. I fear that I'll spend the next 5-6 years going through the "Session 8" syndrome all over again with my Mix Plus for NT system. This time though, I’ve shelled out $12,000.00.

[jamerkel]

Amen, brotha!

I love my Pro Tools system dearly. One of the main reasons I was pulled to it was becuase of the high end I/O capabilites. Now others are starting to offer very competetive products. Host based systems are becoming more and more real. The bang for the buck is pretty awesome. It's a lot cheaper and easier to upgrade a PC one component at a time than to replace proprietary DSP cards.

The surround arena is key. Pro Tools should've had this capability long ago. Surround is not a surprise. We've known about it for while. Digi has talented engineers and deep pockets. Where's the support? Kudos to Kind of Loud for a great product, but shame on them for not supporting NT. I was really dissapointed.

I'm still considering defection to Nuendo. I've played with it quite a bit, and am very impressed. Too bad that I'd have to start over with plugins. Way it goes, I guess.

Let's see some surround, Digi.

-=Jeff Merkel=-
Mach 8 Audio

[carbon]

Nuendo is superior for Music Production...
Still missing a few things for doing POST..
I've been beta testing it for 3 months....
It is so amazing!!!
It has some quirks, but it runs way smoother and faster on my PII 450 than P-Tools on a G4 with a D24 mix card.
I still need to use P-Tools for doing SD for film and TV cause it has a few things that Nuendo hasn't included yet....but they will thanks to me.........hehehehehehe

[Justin]

Somebody call 911 - we've got a lunatic loose here. By the way, Nolan, I tried the pig-thing. You're wrong...

And Cakewalk?!??

Justin

[strunz0]

listen Nolan. you are like a little kid, and your comments make me laugh because they are obviously bull. You clearly have nothing better to do if you are in a forum that has nothing to do with you, ranting and raving about something that has no signifigance. Please just find a better place to go, and find something better to do. and like ive said in other forums.... grow up.

[strunz0]

Nolan. in response to your comments about 96khz, and being made for bats. Granted the human hearing goes up to 20 khz...but you are forgetting that in psycho acoustics (which you clearly know nothing about), frequencies we cant hear directly effect the ones we can hear by creating harmonics. These harmonics change the tamber of the sound. So if the 96khz sounds are present they will make sounds more real. The nyquist theory states that a sound must be sampled double its number to be clearly represented. Therefore 44.1 khz can only sample up to 22 khz...thats barely enough for our hearing range...never mind the overtones...96 khz will make it almost 50 khz. Thats a big difference.
Another thing is....digital is still far behind analog in sound quality.... a 24 channel 2 inch tape (studio standard) gets sample rates up to 192 khz when translated out... this means that we are like 4 and a half times below analog right now. If we dont push it analog will be alive forever and us digital gurus wont be able to have what we want....and lets be honest here... Name me 5 'real' studios that actually have hit records that recorded completely with pro tools. Its just isnt done yet because of the quality loss. People complain about analog noise. what about digital noise? at 16 bits there is noise every 16 bites...accross lets say 48 tracks...its starts to add up....that noise is nast and undesirable too. There is a need for 24/96. once again... grow up.