Collaboration with Pro Tools first?

[Dale-c]

I know PT first has been discontinued but I still have a license for it. .


Question is, if I set thst up with someone for remote recording, will that still work? And do I need to pay for a cloud plan? I see there is one for $5 per month which would be fine.

But if I stop paying, do I lose all sessions?

Also, is constant internet required? Some of the remote recording will be in a place without internet aceess

[Darryl Ramm]

Pro Tools First was a steaming pile of garbage. Crippled to the point of being useless, and unreliable largely because it only used Avid cloud storage, it does not use sessions, it used cloud projects--which seemed quite likely to eat your work. DUC was full of complaints about that, which Avid deleted from DUC when they finally did the right thing and killed this mess. I suspect removing the DUC Pro Tools First forum areas was the right move as Avid really wants to signal this product is dead, but it's a pity or otherwise you'd be able to search and see the hundreds and hundreds of threads about folks unable to access projects and in many cases likely losing work.

You want to use this crap? For what? Collaboration is supposedly in other recent versions of Pro Tools as well... but also does not work reliably there. What is very reliable is shuffling good old sessions backwards and forwards, maybe via cloud storage, but downloading to your computer to use.

You've been all over the place on DUC seeming to get going with Pro Tools again, do you actually have a working system yet? You've been buying old iLoks and running old versions of Pro Tools and dealing with old beyond end of support life interfaces and now asking about this. Maybe you need to focused on a simple as possible setup to get going, get on a working version of Pro Tools standard or Studio (maybe you have already) or maybe subscribe to the current Pro Tools Artist version (looks way way better than First on paper, I've never used it) and get going.

[Dale-c]

I agree about PT first. I never considered it a real pro tools program. All I ever used it for was digitizing my vinyl collection. But I tried downloading it again and it seems decent now and from reading recent reviews, it seems like it became a decent project with offline sessions right before it was discontinued.


I really don't need collaboration per se, just a good way to sync sessions remotely. Something like dropbox even. This is all a hobby so I don't mind spending money but not a ton of it.

[Dale-c]

Also, I used to be a regular here. 20 years ago. I am not sure why it says I only have a few posts. I had thousands at one time.

[Darryl Ramm]

So are you running or not? If not and you want Pro Tools I would suggest you get a monthly-to-month subscription to Pro Tools Artist and a 2i2 interface if needed and get going (make sure your macOS version can run a recent release of Artist or you can upgrade it to, see https://avid.secure.force.com/pkb/ar...tibility-Chart).

For ripping old records you can use any DAW (including free Garageband). Depends on if you want to clean up pops and clicks with iZotope etc. and that's going to cost you $$$. Just work locally with a session, you are making stuff way too hard.

[albee1952]

Good advice from Darryl, and here's some more to think about:
For doing any 2-track or small scale stuff, Cakewalk by Bandcamp is free(it used to be known as SONAR) and very capable. For strictly stereo(like for vinyl), take a look at Wavelab Essential(around $99). It may have some cleanup tools included(I don't know), but it certainly can host VST plugins(which Cakewalk can also do).

[Dale-c]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

So are you running or not? If not and you want Pro Tools I would suggest you get a monthly-to-month subscription to Pro Tools Artist and a 2i2 interface if needed and get going (make sure your macOS version can run a recent release of Artist or you can upgrade it to, see https://avid.secure.force.com/pkb/ar...tibility-Chart).

For ripping old records you can use any DAW (including free Garageband). Depends on if you want to clean up pops and clicks with iZotope etc. and that's going to cost you $$$. Just work locally with a session, you are making stuff way too hard.

OH, yes. The iLok I got all checks out. It had both an expired sub and an perpetual that is good through 2018.07. I asked some followup questions and everything checks out. Sounds like he bought it as a freshmen, used it for a year and then gave it up and doesnt remember the info and for the price they don't feel like messing with it.

All I want with PT first is to let someone who lives in a different state add some tracks and all mixing etc with be done on my system.

But I think I may end up going with PT Essential, which I already setup and use Dropbox. I tested that today and it works really well. He isn't going to be using any plugins or anything. Which is good because PT essential, which I had never heard of until recently made First looks good in many ways but the important thing, is it can open and save standard PT sessions, unlike first.

[Dale-c]

Originally Posted by albee1952

Good advice from Darryl, and here's some more to think about:
For doing any 2-track or small scale stuff, Cakewalk by Bandcamp is free(it used to be known as SONAR) and very capable. For strictly stereo(like for vinyl), take a look at Wavelab Essential(around $99). It may have some cleanup tools included(I don't know), but it certainly can host VST plugins(which Cakewalk can also do).

I tried Cakewalk years ago, I think it was the first thing I tried other than Pro Tools. The thing is I don't want to learn anything new.

I had it all figured out but then I realized that PT had collaboration features, so I started looking into that. however it seems like no one has anything good to say abut it. and I had considered dropbox but I had read it didn't work well.

Well, I tried the official collaboration and I couldn't get that to work. So then I tried dropbox and it was flawless.

The only thing left to test is to see if I have any issues going from the relatively new 2018.7 all the way back to 8.0.3.

If we have issues, I will suggest that he just get an artist suscription.

Too bad Avid didn't release Artist as a $249 perpetual like they did with MP back in the day. I would have bought that in a heart beat.

[Dale-c]

I did a little testing this morning using dropbox. It works beautifully. I have used Dropbox for a long time for documents and such.
One bad review suggested not using dropbox for pro tools but that was bad advice. I found another thread on here that even says it is a great way to get an immediate backup.

So, I think this is my solution then.

Thanks for the help

[Darryl Ramm]

What are you doing with Dropbox? As already pointed out you can drag and drop sessions on any cloud storage, what you should not be doing is running session files from that storage, including any cloud sync folders that might look like they are local. Work only locally and drag to the Dropbox folder when done.