ProTools LE 6.0 : First Impressions

[Muxlow]

I know bitching about PT6 on this board is about as common as a fistfight on Springer, but there were a few things about the PTLE 6 upgrade that immediately jumped out at me that no one's really mentioned yet. So, here's my first thoughts, whether you want them or not:

1) Why an InstallVise installer? Why not a nice, OS X installer that you wouldn't have to pay outrageous licensing fees for? Ahh, at least it's not one of those godawful "do it yourself" java installers...

2) Nice splash screen. The new look in PT6 is a big improvement over the look in PT5 already.

3) What are you doing throwing "Digidesign Database" folders all over my drives? I keep my drives meticulously organized and you go and do that? I don't leave MY crap all over YOUR office, do I? OS X has a place for just about every kind of app/system file you can think of, so put that stuff in ~/Library/Application Support/DigiDesign, or somewhere else that's both appropriate and out of the way. There's no excuse besides ignorance for putting garbage all over people's drives anymore. It's not OS 9!

4) My MIDI seems to be busted. Surprise, surprise...

5) The interface looks really nice, but there are still a lot of PT5-looking elements. Looks like you took the time to tweak the face-plate, and let the rest carry over from the last version. The phrase, "half-baked" comes to mind...

6) There are quite a few widgets with opaque backgrounds. This is a minor quibble, but if someone changes from Aqua to - say - Max Rudberg's amazing Rhapsodized theme, your widgets all have white backgrounds on them. It's a small point, yes, but it's attention to detail that separates the men from the boys, and in this area, DigiDesign is still snapping towels at Quark in the shower room.

7) There are still quite a few OS 9/32-pixel icons laying around. This looks really cheap. The new ones that are there look very nice, but someone did an really un-thorough job on the icon set.

8) OS X has gone to great lengths to create dedicated slots in various menus for certain functions to always reside (ie: Preferences, Help, About, etc.). This helps create a more seemless experience when switching from app to app. PT6 completely ignore this, showing no respect for where things should be in OS X. I understand that some PT5 users wouldn't want to re-learn some things, but by ignoring OS X conventions, you're forcing ***all*** OS X users to re-learn things ***just for your program.***

9) Where's the Help menu? That's the thing I need MOST right now, and it's nowhere to be found!

10) No 'Open Recent Files' item in the file menu? What year is this, 1992?

11) Look at the beautiful, soft, easy-on-the-eyes appearance of the faders in the edit menu. Now, look up at the hard, black-outlined buttons and overall clunky look of the effects/sends area. Like night and day, isn't it? Could you at least tone the black outlines down to a nice, soothing gray? We have to look at those things for hours, you know...

12) Colored indicators for groups in the faders. Very nice.

13) Multi-CPU support. Happy [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

14) I've only opened up one very simple session wiith all audio, no MIDI, no effects, no routing, no third party plug-ins, no bouncing, just playing my session, and it's already crashed twice.

15) Against all good reason, I downloaded the PTLE 6.0.1 update. Neither Safari nor Camino could get through the form. I had to switch back to Explorer. Considering that Safari and Camino are the two most popular browsers on OS X, and this was just a simple file download, this seems like really shoddy web practices.


So, there are my initial thoughts on PTLE6. I feel a bit better now, and hopefully someone somewhere will read what I wrote and take one of those suggestions to a meeting and claim it as their own. Whatever, as long as it keeps improvements coming...

[Slim Shady]

3) What are you doing throwing "Digidesign Database" folders all over my drives? I keep my drives meticulously organized and you go and do that? I don't leave MY crap all over YOUR office, do I? OS X has a place for just about every kind of app/system file you can think of, so put that stuff in ~/Library/Application Support/DigiDesign, or somewhere else that's both appropriate and out of the way. There's no excuse besides ignorance for putting garbage all over people's drives anymore. It's not OS 9!

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">This one has been driving me nuts too. So freakin' annoying digi! What's the purpose behind these folders?

[Soberphobia]

MTC sync let down [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] CHEERS

[archtop]

Help is still there, it's now under the first menu,click pro tools there it is

[ru2b12]

3) What are you doing throwing "Digidesign Database" folders all over my drives? I keep my drives meticulously organized and you go and do that? I don't leave MY crap all over YOUR office, do I? OS X has a place for just about every kind of app/system file you can think of, so put that stuff in ~/Library/Application Support/DigiDesign, or somewhere else that's both appropriate and out of the way. There's no excuse besides ignorance for putting garbage all over people's drives anymore. It's not OS 9!
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I agree, thank you for bringing this up!