somebody convince me i'm not wasting my time on PT!!!

[Tricky Sam]

I'm a long time Sonar user who's been curious enough about PT to buy PTMP 7 and recently upgrade to PT MP8....i've not completed an album in PT yet..i've just putzed with a few mixes in PT the past couple of years....the sound of PT is great but digi seems to have more annoying little ways than i can list! full OMF support only after you buy the Tool Kit for one .....

right outta the gate i have two systems.... an XP AMD 3000 tower one gig ram - PT MP7

i bought PT 8 for my new laptop - a vista rig with 3 gig ram

i get PT8 nicely installed on the new vista machine and i go to put it on my tower.....the tower actually lists the ram as being a tad under 1024....like 9 something KBs.......so PT 8 will not even make an attempt at installing...it says...."not enough ram"..back to MP7 .....i'm an audio guy...not a soft synth guy...i don't need a TONNE of ram.....any other app would install in spite of min specs and the performance you get is what you get! PT is just anal!

on my new laptop PT 8 runs a full mix at about 60% cpu ....sonar 6 is at 25-30% ......that's night and day man

on top of all this....what is this major stress point that you gotta have a separate firewire drive to record PT projects with? no other DAW in my knowledge pushes or whines about this? what gives? can this company not make their software to work in a few different environments???? usb drives are pretty damn popular as well as audio partitions or hard drives etc..

so....i've spent the money, i own 3 m-audio interefaces as well, i feel DAE sounds great ......please ...those of you who are die hards.....help me get past this....play me the convincing track so to speak!?

[mcgirr]

Whether or not ANY of us likes it or not...
Pro tools lists its minimum specs for ALL to see.

Its not a debate or a multiple choice question!

If you want to run pro tools to its optimal performance ability you must meet or exceed thier specifications....period!

We all have used another DAW at one point or another.
I have 2 copies of Cakewalk pro audio 9 in the basement gathering dust for over 5 years now.( Sonar is the natural extention of this.)

The reason MOST of us came to Pro tools is not to get what WE want.
But... simply to utilize what has become the industry standard. This facilitates many things, including the ability to move our sessions to millions of other PT systems anywhere in the world.

If your computer will not run PT 8 smoothly, we all have 2 options.
#1 Upgrade your system to run smoothly.
#2 Continue to run PT 7.( I still run PT 7.0 and have'nt missed upgrading.)

PT 8 has some cool bells and whistles but... In the end it doesnt record a track any better or worse than PT 7.

In the end no-one here is going to convince you of anything.
You either will conform to pro tools or not.
Its your decision to make. Its a choice all of us had to make.

We all sympathize with the problems and glitches people encounter( we have all been there.) and this forum attempts to help people as best we can.
But as I said Pro tools is not going to change for you.
You will have to change for Pro tools.

Best wishes.

[jojo99]

No argument witht the original poster, nor the reply given here but there are some valid Q's raised.

PT's coding is also suspect to me when it comes to the point of issues raised from members of forums - to engineers I respect.
The processor usage, hiccups and constant issues with certain plugins, sluggishness, and some glaring "features" that, imo, really should not be in PT this day and age (speaking mainly about PT 7.4 here, I don't see a point in moving to PT8 at this point btw).

At some point in a products life it's somewhat necessary to see it fully rebuilt (from the ground up), and that just hasn't been the case when it comes to digi I'm afraid. It's been piecemeal for quite some time.

This is not to say that it isn't what it is - because it certainly is just that.
You will definitley have to succumb to "their ways" ...in many ways.

[Tricky Sam]

points well taken...i posted in frustration as you may be able to tell LOL!


"The reason MOST of us came to Pro tools is not to get what WE want.
But... simply to utilize what has become the industry standard. This facilitates many things, including the ability to move our sessions to millions of other PT systems anywhere in the world."

-this is why i'm here!

[TOM@METRO]

"The reason MOST of us came to Pro tools is not to get what WE want.
But... simply to utilize what has become the industry standard. This facilitates many things, including the ability to move our sessions to millions of other PT systems anywhere in the world."

-this is why i'm here!

Compatibility with other studios is critical.

[Premo]

Pro Tools software doesn't 'require' you to have an external drive per se, but it's highly recommended and needed to have a 'supported' system in Digi eyes.

Many of Digi's suggestions are common among most DAWs and pro audio manufactures. Such as Oxford chipsets and such. I recently saw the same suggestions on RME website. And they try to safeguard against all situations.

I've seen many people record with USB drives just fine, I've used a LaCie d2 Triple interface many times successfully over USB. But it might not work for you, and thats why Firewire is recommend because of it's better bandwidth.

Esp with laptop drives it's going to be difficult for the internal drive to keep up with the amount of audio processing going on. You can try it, but esp with 4200 adn 5400 drives you'll most likely hit a road block.

[TOM@METRO]

Premo makes valid points; I have chosen more than once to “break the rules” and gotten away with it. Lots of times it works out. But if it doesn’t I can’t point the finger at anyone but myself. Digidesign gives a list of what they will support so you can build a successful system backed by tech support. They are not necessarily saying other ideas won’t work, just that if they don’t you are on your own. This forum is a rule breakers paradise. As far as whether or not PT is for you: That depends on you needs, your budget and your fortitude. Welcome to the dilemma.

[Tricky Sam]

thanks for the thoughtful replies guys...i did not want to seem to troll the DUC or anything...just wanted to know if anyone had similar concerns after shelling out $! In all honesty a big part of PT for me is curiousity, keeping up with the "jones'" and studio compatability. I'm thankful that members here don't take the DAW chat like personal insults etc! you guys rock!

[TOM@METRO]

Originally Posted by Tricky Sam

I'm thankful that members here don't take the DAW chat like personal insults etc! you guys rock!

Yet another point for the PT world.

Thanks

[jplanet]

I'm in a very similar boat as the original poster. I have been enjoying composing in Reaper, but got PT8 in order to finish my album, which will require transferring projects between the mixing engineer and the engineer who will track the drums and bass, and yet another who will track the vocals. For me to track all of the guitars and keyboards in another program and constantly have to render and import stems will be more trouble than it is worth.

I was excited when I got my Ilok key and got all excited about getting into PT. Then I found out:

- It is no picnic editing projects with several tempo/time sig changes. In Reaper, Slip Mode allows this to happen effortlessly - you can copy, move, delete all you want, and the "conductor track" will follow just as you would want it to. In PT, I have to select my regions, shift-click the conductor tracks, copy or cut, then move the cursor to the new location, shift-click the conductor tracks again, and then paste. Compared to Reaper, this is a highly frustrating way to compose.

- No programmable key commands - It amazes me that a $50 program like Reaper can implement such a huge feature, and there is nothing like it in PT.

- No track templates - Sure, PT has session templates, but that's a long way from being able to right click the tracks - create new track from template, and select a guitar rack or piano/reverb combination in a single click.

- Dragging MIDI files from the desktop - PT does this, but it creates MIDI tracks - why doesn't it create MIDI tracks? Or why no way to convert a MIDI track to an instrument track?

Anyway, I didn't want to start a whole new thread to air my complaints -- I suppose while I'm tracking I will discover some time-saving features that I am not used to having in other programs...But I'm still waiting for that to happen...