My only whine

[wertt]

So....with everything Pro Tools 9 is bringing to the table, it's mildly shocking that they haven't added an offline bounce option yet. I don't want to hate on Digidesign and I think they've made some great changes, but as I've used software like Reaper over the last few years (which is lovely when slaved to Pro Tools, for the record), that's one feature that still drives me away on a lot of projects. I understand the arguments for listening to a bounce, but for projects like the one I'm working on today it makes Pro Tools unusable. The situation:

I recorded a 2 day music festival. There were a total of 26 bands, each of which played a 20 minute set. I was recording 32 channels to my hard disk record (an Alesis HD24), which I then dumped onto my laptop at the venue. In Reaper, I could import all of the files and do a rough mix in my headphones while the next band was setting up and soundchecking. Bands walked away with rough CDs before the next band had even finished their set.

The last couple of days I've been tweaking my mixes at the studio (only one song from each band is going onto the CD, but I generally like to mix down the whole set as it earns me karma points). I did the first couple of bands in Pro Tools, but the bounce time adds almost 9 hours onto a project that I need to have done later this week (on top of my usual sessions). When I switched to Reaper (which I'm not nearly as familiar with) it takes me slightly longer to get a mix up, but since I'm not doing any fine editing it's more than capable. When I finished my mix, Reaper renders it at 8-10x realtime AND I can queue projects to render later so I don't even need to stop right then if I don't want to. There's nothing more satisfying than taking a break to grab a drink and use the bathroom and having an hour worth of music mixed down when you get back.

With all that said, I've tried leaving Pro Tools in the past and I just can't do it. I can get the results I'm after very quickly and some of the editing features are really unparalleled in any of the other software I've tried. It just seems silly that with all of the features that are being added that something this simple would be overlooked again and again.

Oh...and true 64 bit support, please?

[SixChurchStreet]

I'm pretty sure Avid has said this stuff is on their radar. And my gut kind of believes that they are going to be moving relatively quickly to make Pro Tools what everyone wants. PT9 is proof of that.

[theaero]

Originally Posted by SixChurchStreet

I'm pretty sure Avid has said this stuff is on their radar. And my gut kind of believes that they are going to be moving relatively quickly to make Pro Tools what everyone wants. PT9 is proof of that.

I hope so.

[sunburst79]

Originally Posted by SixChurchStreet

I'm pretty sure Avid has said this stuff is on their radar. And my gut kind of believes that they are going to be moving relatively quickly to make Pro Tools what everyone wants. PT9 is proof of that.

They are well aware of the need for offline bounce. Hopefully the coming RTAS overhaul will pave the way for this and some other long requested features.

[evon]

what is offline bounce?

[Meads]

Originally Posted by evon

what is offline bounce?

A bounce that is not in realtime. Significantly faster.

[evon]

oh ok, i understand.

[imi]

Down memory lane... PT 3 had offline bounce, (at least when running native), but was crippled (PT4?) before the split between LE and HD (PT5?)... I imagine the reasoning was that LE couldn't have offline bounce when this is impossible in TDM...

edit: please correct if my memory is not serving me well

[lemonkid]

yeah they USED to have the feature in the past.

But as with all things they did 'improve' their product.........

My only Whine is the iLok key. I hate it.

But then they had to improve........

[wertt]

Originally Posted by imi

Down memory lane... PT 3 had offline bounce, (at least when running native), but was crippled (PT4?) before the split between LE and HD (PT5?)... I imagine the reasoning was that LE couldn't have offline bounce when this is impossible in TDM...

edit: please correct if my memory is not serving me well

Oh really? I started on Pro Tools 4 and it definitely couldn't do it. It was really annoying in college when we were doing a lot of editing of classical recordings that were recorded with a Decca tree and had to do a 2 hour bounce just to cut out the dead space between pieces. Fortunately, I was an hourly employee in those days...