Adobe and pro tools.. need suggestion

[Johnk]

I'm thinking about finally getting adobe audtion (when the mac version comes out). I would like to hear the highs and lows about it. I've talked to this 61 year old wise engineer by the name of Ed woolferm who has told me that he hates pro tools. saying the converters are horrible which i agree totally .. they are out dated.. anywho.. back to the point... adobe is supriour then pro tools.. said the analog motown engineer.... he records classical music threw adobe and wouldn't even dream of using pro tools. or pro stools as he calls it. my question is.. what do i do?

[Johnk]

Motown Engineers

he told me that i was a mixer... and not a audio engineer. cause i dont build my own equipment... i took his information with me... and gave me a new look at audio... he said that most engineers are knob jockies... which is pretty funny... I took everything he told me into careful consideration

[bitflipper]

I use Audition for wave editing and mastering, and it's great for that. The spectral editor is worth the price of admission alone. But for tracking, it felt awkward and non-intuitive. Now I realize you're a Mac guy so this'll mean little to you, but I'm a big fan of SONAR for ease-of-use. Much better than Audition (or PT for that matter).

[The Teej]

Originally Posted by Johnk

I've talked to this 61 year old wise engineer by the name of Ed woolferm who has told me that he hates pro tools. saying the converters are horrible which i agree totally .. they are out dated.. anywho.. back to the point...

I'm confused...
Converters? In Pro Tools? Outdated? Are you perhaps referring to the mix bus and the downsampling quality?
'Cause the A/D/A is the hardware. And a 192 I/O is in a different league than an MBox 2. To paint all the Digi stuff with the same brush would be incorrect at best.
And ya know...we can always buy better converters!

My point is, you must be referring to something in the software. Unless I'm uninformed, "converter" would not be the best way to describe what's going on in the software.
And if you ARE referring to what's in the software, I say hogwash! I've never subscribed to the opinion that different DAW's have identifiable audio differences. Your hardware will invariably have more to do with the final product than the software, IMHO.

What you should be searching for is ease of use (especially if you're new to this), intuitive workflow and features that would be useful in your situation.
Each DAW is essentially doing the same thing. What makes a person choose one medium over another is highly dependent on what kinds of features the user is looking for...

I believe Adobe has a downloadable demo on their website. Perhaps when the Mac version is released, you can download it and check it out for yourself. I highly encourage you to check out all available software and see what works for you.
One man's junk is another man's treasure.

pardon the rant!

I use Pro Tools and I approved this message.

[bluestarbass]

Bashing pro tools is the cool thing to do. Most of the time the people who bash pro tools dont really know how to use it. Once you learn there are very few programs that can do what it can do. Let say this, ive never walked into a commercial studio that was using adobe audition, a few other programs besides pro tools, but not adobe audition.

[wallawannabe]

Originally Posted by bluestarbass

Bashing pro tools is the cool thing to do. Most of the time the people who bash pro tools dont really know how to use it. Once you learn there are very few programs that can do what it can do. Let say this, ive never walked into a commercial studio that was using adobe audition, a few other programs besides pro tools, but not adobe audition.

I'll agree with that, BlueStar. I don't even consider myself especially ProTools saavy, but I have had the unfortunate opportunity to use the "PC DAW's" (Nuendo, Sonar), and they don't compare in terms of ease of use and efficiency. I have, lately, been looking for another way (hence my curiosity in RADAR, and even going analog), but....PT's the standard for a reason.

[Johnk]

I enjoy my experiance with pro tools and it melts threw my hands when i use it. i'm probably not the worlds fastest but i do use the hotkeys and it feels...very natural IMO. But i am just looking for a DAW that is dedicated threw everything from recording editing and mastering. then i hear that theres these "SPECIAL" daw thats primary use is for mastering. don't get me wrong. in all and all i shouldn't even BE mastering. but i tend to not listen to rules. anywho. i'm just hearing a few stuff. don't know. happy with pro tools. wondering about other stuff.

[kafka]

Originally Posted by Johnk

Motown Engineers

he told me that i was a mixer... and not a audio engineer. cause i dont build my own equipment... i took his information with me... and gave me a new look at audio... he said that most engineers are knob jockies... which is pretty funny... I took everything he told me into careful consideration

Well, I don't know who he is, but it sounds like he's an old guy with a lot of opinions - which probably means he arrived at them through experience. Looking at his resume, he's certainly entitled to them. I'll take a guess that since he's nice enough to talk to you at all, it would be in your interest to learn as much as he's willing to share with you. If he seems to be wrong or outdated about something, just make a note of it, and pay attention to how his ideas fit into his own way of working.

Sorry, but that's not an opinion about Adobe or Pro Tools. Almost all professional studios have Pro Tools, and certainly plenty of pros are turning out top-quality product with it. If you know what you're doing, you can probably do that with Adobe, too. It's only $350, so I'll take a guess it's worth a gamble.

[mejon]

This is funny because I was just working with a client whos original session came from the Adobe Audition program. I had never heard about it before and was especially confused when she kept saying "yes, I'll get the pdf files for you". I was like WTF? Then she brought me the actual session, and there were mp3s inside the folders and I was still thinking WTF!! We ended up not using any of the tracks (they were terribly performed and sounded awful), and re-recorded everything on Pro Tools.

okay bye,

Jon

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by Johnk

I'm thinking about finally getting adobe audtion (when the mac version comes out). I would like to hear the highs and lows about it. I've talked to this 61 year old wise engineer by the name of Ed woolferm who has told me that he hates pro tools. saying the converters are horrible which i agree totally .. they are out dated.. anywho.. back to the point... adobe is supriour then pro tools.. said the analog motown engineer.... he records classical music threw adobe and wouldn't even dream of using pro tools. or pro stools as he calls it. my question is.. what do i do?

Are you talking about hardware or software, there, cowboy?

Pro Tools HD hardware systems have converters, of course.

Pro Tools software -- just like Adobe Audition, Logic, Sonar, Cubase, etc, etc -- is... well... software.

Converters are hardware.



We're down the rabbit hole here...


_________


What should you do?

You should do your remedial audio education homework.

Digital audio - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[1 M.I.C]

Originally Posted by mejon

This is funny because I was just working with a client whos original session came from the Adobe Audition program. I had never heard about it before and was especially confused when she kept saying "yes, I'll get the pdf files for you". I was like WTF? Then she brought me the actual session, and there were mp3s inside the folders and I was still thinking WTF!! We ended up not using any of the tracks (they were terribly performed and sounded awful), and re-recorded everything on Pro Tools.

okay bye,

Jon

pdf files??

I use adobe.. why would a pdf file have anything to do with this? o well..

i doubt the bad sound of her mp3's was by fault of adobe, not that your implying that.... but...

anyways yeah adobe is only 350 and its a perfectly good software. has good features and is pretty simple to use, learning curve isnt any higher then any other product.. i dont activly use anything else so im not gonna say adobe is better then anything, because i dont know but i seriously doubt u could go WRONG with adobe.. its just a matter of maybe u prefer something else for certain reasons

[T. Greig]

I'd agree that people who bash Pro Tools have a tendency to not be completly educated in what it can really do. I've been educated in both and I perfer PT 95% of the time.

As far as A/D converters, it's all in your hardware. The best solution I've found for working with Pro Tools LE based hardware is the Apogee Mini-Me. I use it both for running my A/D, but also as a master clock. A prof. of mine suggested it and my audio has been noticeably improved.

[optix]

Originally Posted by Johnk

I enjoy my experiance with pro tools and it melts threw my hands when i use it. i'm probably not the worlds fastest but i do use the hotkeys and it feels...very natural IMO. But i am just looking for a DAW that is dedicated threw everything from recording editing and mastering. then i hear that theres these "SPECIAL" daw thats primary use is for mastering. don't get me wrong. in all and all i shouldn't even BE mastering. but i tend to not listen to rules. anywho. i'm just hearing a few stuff. don't know. happy with pro tools. wondering about other stuff.

*THROUGH

The "special mastering DAW" might be Sadie? Anyhoo... the guys are right, slagging PT is the fashionable thing to do; but it's still the best. I don't think any program offers you intuitive, high-quality audio editing as well as PT does. Good preamps, mics and converters are going to have more impact on the sonic qualities of your work than your sequencer. And most importantly - money can't buy talent and good ears.

[max cooper]

Originally Posted by Johnk

saying the converters are horrible which i agree totally .. they are out dated..

That's a well-formed opinion for someone who otherwise doesn't seem to have a clue what they're talking about.

What do you think is "outdated" about the Pro Tools "converters"?

Are they "outdated" like the "scanners" in Photoshop?

[1 M.I.C]

so is seems several people in this thread are saying that pro-tools LE is arguably better then any full version of software like adobe 2.0 or a cubase product?

id like some honest answers from someone who's used pro-tools le as well as other programs

if theres an argumant for that i wouldnt mind checking out pro-tools, but im under the impression that pro-tools le wouldnt offer much more then adobe 2.0, at least not enough to make me feel better about having to go buy an mbox just to use it

[theblue1]

I think some people are saying they think Pro Tools is the best DAW environment. (Stay tuned -- that's not what I'm necessarily saying.)


But what most people here are taking issue with is the fact that the initial question reveals a fundamental lack of understanding of the basic issues -- and lack of understanding seemingly so profound that the initial poster (and one or two others) would appear to have no possibility of undertsanding an intelligent answer that did not require long explanations about things that these indivdiuals should have learned the first day they were recording onto a computer.

Now -- I'm all for cutting newbies slack... but at a certain point personal responsiblity comes into play.

There's just a basic modicum of background knowledge, it seems to me, beneath which a person can not be considered to be capable of intelligent discussion...

If someone thinks converters are a part of a software package, they clearly do not have the knowledge to make sense of any reasonable answer to this question.



FWIW, I don't use Pro Tools and I don't think it's the right answer for everyone. When combined with a Digidesign high end hardware platform, I think it clearly offers a very high level of functionality and power. And even with all the many limitations that Digi arbitrarily iposes on PT LE, I think its power keeps it in the running. But I don't think it's necessarily the best for everyone, for all purposes. It is, however, something of a lingua franca in the industry, and if you want portable job skills (not important to everyone) I think it behooves a recordist to have good PT work skills.

[ascottk]

I use Audition 2 exclusively on PC. I do have PT M_Powered 7 installed but I don't use it. I think PT is too proprietary & if you don't have the right interface you can't use it.

I do have experience with PT since I used the free version back in the 90s & LE/M-Powered in college, but I hate using it. The effects/plugins are not that great, especially when you can't afford more plugins, and working with envelopes (volume & panning, etc.) leaves me going back to Audition for tracking.

The spectral tools & vst support in Audition are definitely the main reasons why I use it. I know there's a vst "container" for protools (I think it's Cycling '74's Pluggo or something, but that's for max/msp unless it can do both . . .).

Also Audition seems to more efficient than PT, at least on my PC.

If you could afford it have both because of Audition's spectral editing and you might have clients with protools sessions.

[reactr04]

You know where a lot of people LOVE Audition? In radio.

The ease of use, quick-n-dirty, pound-it-out mentality is well-served by that program. Plus it's always been windows-based, which is a factor when dealing with the corporate mentality at Clear Channel/ABC/Infinity (I've worked for them all). For simpler tasks, Pro Tools can seem like overkill...but no one wants to think of their work (or hobby) as "simple", they want the industry standard with the possibility of all the bells-and-whistles (when they can afford them - someday). I mean, who wants to be limited by their gear? As a voice artist I don't use an RE-20 for the same reason.

But for music on a mac, I don't see Audition being your best choice. IMHO you should stick with Pro Tools.

Personally, I HATE Pro Tools. Not because it's industry standard, I just didn't find it intuitive. Plus I'm not a mac guy, and back when I used to have to use it I didn't find it to run as well on a PC as a mac. SUCH a hassle.

I agree with an earlier post that it's trendy to diss PT. I find people are that way about anything that's industry standard (Neumann is a good example)...because once something achieves that level of excellence people want to poke holes in it.

I only hope to acheive "poke holes in me" level in my field one day

[Tibbon]

What do you know and use currently?

That's what's really important. Learn something, get good at it, and generally (unless there's a huge reason to change) stay with it. Your clients actually are paying you to be fast and efficient, not for your DAW. If you can't make PT sound decent, then get a new job. Sorry to be blunt.

I like PT bashing as much as the next guy, but it does it's job well. I just happen to need decent midi support and flexibility, so I use Logic.

[SctStudio]

Originally Posted by ascottk

I use Audition 2 exclusively on PC. I do have PT M_Powered 7 installed but I don't use it. I think PT is too proprietary & if you don't have the right interface you can't use it.

I do have experience with PT since I used the free version back in the 90s & LE/M-Powered in college, but I hate using it. The effects/plugins are not that great, especially when you can't afford more plugins, and working with envelopes (volume & panning, etc.) leaves me going back to Audition for tracking.

The spectral tools & vst support in Audition are definitely the main reasons why I use it. I know there's a vst "container" for protools (I think it's Cycling '74's Pluggo or something, but that's for max/msp unless it can do both . . .).

Also Audition seems to more efficient than PT, at least on my PC.

If you could afford it have both because of Audition's spectral editing and you might have clients with protools sessions.

You are so wrong about PTLE or PTHD I have both. If your talking about the plugins that come free with PT your right they are not that great, but when you add all of the other's you can buy to add into the mix hands down PT smokes anything out there.

I have PTLE 003 7.3.1 and PTHD 3 Accel 7.3.1 2 192/I/O

[SXSoWhat]

I use both for different applications.

As a recording/mixing app, Pro Tools is second to no one, IMHO.

As a 2-track editor, Audition is amazing for restoration. I have yet to use a better app for voiceover cleanup and automated file marking and exporting, and that's coming from a Sound Forge fanboy who's been a user since it was a 16-bit app.