DVD tutorials

[tomyco]

I am very new at Pro Tools and I'm looking at purchasing a DVD Tutorial. I'm looking at two different DVD's. One is from Lynda.com which you have to load on to your computer, and the other is Groove 3 which is just a regular DVD you can play on any DVD player.

My question is this, is there a benefit to load the dvd software on your computer? I don't understand this because I'm thinking you can have only the DVD training program up or your PT screen up. So how can you follow the dvd? Am I missing something?

I like the idea of a regular DVD, I have a small DVD player I can put next to my computer and as I'm watching the DVD I can duplicate on my Pro Tools screen.

Can someone help me out with this? Again am I missing something? Thanks!

[albee1952]

Either will likely be fine, and a big help. You can also find a lot of free stuff on youtube. Just search for Pro Tools and see how many videos pop up. Lots may be fairly useless or too advanced for you right now, but there's a lot of great stuff up there

[rus5]

Hi,

Congratulations on starting to learn this stuff. I remember doing just what you'e about to do and it was a blast! I don't think you're missing anything. I wondered exactly the same thing too.

First, I have subscriptions to both Groove3 and Lynda.com and have been through most of the Pro Tools 9 and 10 courses on both. I have some Lynda.com courses on DVD as well and they're identical to the on-line ones. In my opinion, the Lynda.com instructors for this kind of stuff are better and more professional. Groove3 leans pretty heavily on an instructor named Eli Krantzberg. While useful, his courses are rather sloppy, inaccurate and place far too much emphasis on keyboard short cuts rather than the actual material he should be teaching you. (as an aside, his music theory course is downright awful - full of blatant errors. God help anybody trying to actually learn music theory with that course - they'll be digging themselves out of a hole for years). He doesn't even bother to go back and re-do mistakes sometimes and just leaves them in. They can be pretty bad. The instructors in the various Lynda.com courses are much better and the courses themselves are much more professional. Yet I have to say they each cover material the other either doesn't, or doesn't cover as thoroughly.

As for your question, the introductory courses in both cases do not require you to follow along as you go. But its certainly a good idea to play with Pro Tools as you learn and you can watch a course, flip to Pro Tools and play, and go back and forth like that. Using the separate DVD player as you described sounds like a good idea too, but not necessary.

Now, just so you know, a really good guy named Brian White just released two courses on Lynda.com called "Foundations of Audio", one on compression and one on Eq and filters. They are VERY good and he uses something called "In the Mix" in them that actually does utilize Pro Tools (or whatever DAW you're using) as you go. In some of the modules, he talks for a minute or two then sends you to your DAW to open files he provides in the course which include a video which plays IN your running DAW, continuing on with him demonstrating something. That video runs while live examples run in your DAW showing you exactly what he's explaining. It's a great idea and very well done and in that case, you DO need to switch between the course and your DAW. Another really good one he did is "Mixing and Mastering with Pro Tools" and there are several other good ones from other authors. You might want to look into those too..

Anyway, have fun!!!

[chavernac]

puremix.net has some good stuff too.
Mostly free but well advanced.