[visionstudios]

Hi Everyone,

I am totally new waters here, in the Pro Tools world. I have been a Cubase user for many years now (currently on Cubase 5) and for a couple of years now I have considered converting over to the Pro Tool platform for several different reasons. This is not the pace to spew off to why I am considering making the switch but I can say that up until now I have not because I hated the fact that you had to use Digidesign hardware with Protools and I would have had to purchase all new hardware. Now that's not the case any longer so I am considering making the switch.

I downloaded the trial version of version 10 and just started to play with it to see if this stood a chance of making me want to switch from Cubase 5. With not too much effort, I was able to get my Presonus Studio Live working as my interface and got music coming into the control room so that was nice.

My immediate thoughts as soon as I launched the program was how much smaller everything on the screen was in Pro Tools and things looked very "busy". Does not seem to be laid out in an "easy on the eyes" sort of way? I think it just takes getting used too.

I playing around and recording a few test tracks I noticed some things that just made no sense to me and things I cant seem to do in Pro Tools or I don't know how to do are easily performed in Cubase. So I thought, "lets not give up" and it's a learning curve I need to go through.

I really think that have some training DVD's or Pro Tools training products would be very helpful and cut way down on learning the basic functions of Pro Tools so I don't waste the entire 30 day trial trying to figure out the simplest things and I can get into compare the power of Pro Tools 10 vs Cubase 5 to see if I am going to make the investment.

For example, It seems that in PT10 you can't open up more than 1 plugin and see it's user interface at a time on the same channel? In other words, I have a EQ as my 1st insert and a compressor as the 2nd insert. You cant have both open at the same time? If you have one open and try to open the 2nd one, the first closes? Is that really the case?

Another example, I cant seem to be able to keep the mixer window open on the screen with the project window. As soon as I click on the project window the mixer window closes?

Little things like that could be me simply not knowing where things are and how to use them. Again, I only played with the program for 30 mins.

So my question is really 2 questions.

1 - has anyone else made the switch from Cubase 5 and how do they compare the two platforms?

2 - Can someone recommend some beginner Protools video trainings so I can take it right from the very start and learn how everyhting is laid out etc..


Thanks in advance and sorry for the long post here.

David