Suggestion for DigiDesign: Tell Users the Basics

[cooks95]

Protools is a great product, no doubt. But I've seen many new users, including myself, get frustrated, leaving quite a few to abandon it for hard disk recorders and other simpler approaches.

An example: Most people are used to working on PCs these days and when you save a file you simply click "save as" for a new file or "save" for a file already in use. Not necessarily so so with Protools. If you use a template, which many people do and which Digidesign suggests you do, doing a "save as" could spill audio files all over the place. No one who uses a PC thinks of having to save supplementary data like that -- data that you don't see. And there are a host of complicated nonsensical steps that one must take to make this work, and it won't necessarily work then, as it didn't for me. In the end something worked for me that was very counterintuitive. It was like driving with a square wheel.

Too complicated. Suggestion:either make it easier to save files, so that people don't have to worry about separate audio files, or explain this as the most fundamental, and basic thing that all Protools users must know THAT IS DIFFERENT FROM SAVING PC FILES. Add it to the toolbar on your web site, for goodness sake, don't relegate it the same level of importance as everything else in your guides.

[JMS40]

"Simplifying" the save file system as you request would take away options for other users.

The problem here is that Pro Tools is not the simple program you obviously expected. It can literaly take years to uncover the full potential. But the layers are there by design.
It is however a well documented program.
If you are used to dealing with simpler programs or are a first time DAW user, there will be a learning curve.
No way around it.

[GothicV]

buy protools now, get a free method one dvd.

if you dont have the dvd then get it or something else to supplement the software - this isn't a text-editor or cd burning program. If that's all it was, there wouldn't be entire schools dedicated to teaching the software.

[davec]

A reason I can think of for not automatically opeing a new "Audio Files" directory is that you may want to use audio files from other sessions as is the case with remixes and such. Protools gives you that option, and they do also give you the option of setting the "Audio Files" directory. I wouldn't knock something (especially in this forum) if you just lack the experience of using PT. Not trying to be harsh on you -- just honest.

Peace...

[EGS]

If you want to use session templates, I suggest you make your template with NO audio files in it. To avoid your "save as" problem, simply duplicate your entire template FOLDER, change the name of the duplicate folder and go!!! Your original template remains ready to be duplicated again next time. If you open a PT session file and hit "Save-as", it will just change the name of the PT session and put it into the same folder, use the same audio files folder, etc. Hang in there, read the PT reference guide, and read this forum!!!