samplitude or pro tools LE

[spectacular g]

Hello all,

I don't want to start a debate here... but , after lots of consideration it is down to these two.

1, digi 002-r
2, rme + samplitude

I am looking for a reliable system that will let me WORK and not fuss. I plan on using an AMD 64 based PC. This will be my first daw... sold my old basment analog system last month and I am dying to get back to work!!! In fact I bought a small space and am building my first real studio!!!

Sooo...

I know pro tools is the standard... and I consider that it's big advantage and I know the digi 002-r is only LE but if I like it and buisiness is good I plan on upgrading to a hd system down the road.

As for samplitude.... this is where I need a little help. Have you ever just had a good feeling about something... well that is how it is for me with samplitude I love the way it looks and it seems to have some GREAT features... the reverb, pow-r dither looks sweet and redbook burning built in... but what do I really know?

Anyway... samplitude users this is your chance!!! SELL ME!!!

And as for RME... it seems that most everybody loves them... my only question here is, has anyone heard when the new FIREFACE will be out? sooon I hope.

I know this is alot to ask and may have been covered here before but trust me I have been looking...

Any info will be a great help.

Thanks to you all,
jfg
www.jacklord.us

[Roland]

Why not get both?

Samplitude will work with the Digidesign hardware and you would be entitled to get the light software.

Other than that it depends on what work you are doing and what you need to do that work.

Regards



Roland

[manning1]

spectacular G - keep an open mind and follow me here....
before you spend lots of money on software check out the new
magix music studio 2005. i have the earlier version and love it. its based on samp. you wont do better believe me.
i am not affiliated in any way with samp. just a happy user.
magix music studio does 64 audio tracks and unlimited midi tracks
and is only 70 bucks. go to magix.de to check it out.
harmonycentral.com have a write up.
its never crashed once or caused a hiccup. just pure recording joy
every single day.
its all you need to do a great production providing you have a good sound card like an RME.
my other favorite is powertracks at 29 bucks. dont be put off by the low price. this is a superb multitracker. you owe it to yourself to check out as well the internal effects that come with music studio and powertracks. i have both and for a total cost of less than 100 bucks in software ive saved a bunch of money buying plug ins alone. there is nothing i cant do in a song using music studio and powertracks.
peace.

[heinz]

IMO PT LE on PC is KakaPoopie

Samp is the ticket because it makes full use of mouse hardware.

[Ruphus]

I have been on PT LE.

Whatever I´m doing now on Samplitude the more I love it.
It just works. Since I soloed the PC from internet and slimmed the OS you push the buttons and things work. 8 gigabyte session? 96k? Convolution reverb while other plugs on as well? Processing? Makes zzzzzp! - and does not degrade signal.

It just works even with only an Athlon 1800 CPU.

I hear people saying but for PT there were the best plugs out. This in my eyes is only true for BF plugs, the muddy Waves stuff granted. There are indeed very good plugins from what I understand, but those are for HD.

And there a some VST plugins which I am almost sure wouldn´t leave you craving for anything. Not even for the HD plugs.

Ruphus

[fifthcircle]

I'd go Samplitude unless you absolutely for business reason MUST have Pro Tools.

Samplitude has a much more elegant mix and editing interface. You also get a lot more "bells and whistles" with Samp than you'll have with Pro Tools LE. It ranges from time code sync to surround to unlimited tracks to.... The list goes on and on. I hate to bring up the "DAW Sound" issue as well, but my mixes have sounded much better when I've moved them over to Samp/Sequoia. If you go with Samplitude now, you'll also get the free update to Version 8 which is a seriously kick-ass piece of software. Just when you think that Samp and Sequoia can't get better, the next version proves me wrong.

I could go on forever about why Samp is better, but in the end it depends on your business model. If you need to earn money with "pro tools" get that. If you are making music for yourself or only your own clients, get Samp.

--Ben

[Sugarnutz]

I have been running PTLE/001 on an Athlon XP2100 machine with 512 of ram for over a year and a half with but one problem when I went from a generic $6 mouse to a MS scroll mouse (this was really strange, but I did'nt have time to discover why), messed up some IRQs and had to move my 001 card to another slot then all was well. This machine has no net, games or anything installed other than PTLE and some plugs, rock solid runs all day long without a hiccup. If you pay attention to what Digi says about compatability and whats posted on the DUC you'll be fine. As far as the PTLE vs. Samp, I can only say I used Samp on one session and found it not to be as intuitive as PT for me personally. PT tends to work more like a tape machine/console which fits my style better. I have been doing some editing/fixing for some producers in Nashville that are tracking on Alesis HD24 machines and it helped me being able to say I had "ProTools" to get this work. It boils down to people being familiar with the PT name and respecting it to some degree either good or bad. YMMV

[manning1]

with respect sugarnutz i dont see why people spend such large
amounts of money on recording software when the whole recording paradigm of high prices is changeing.
it doesnt make sense to me for a couple of reasons.....
1. constant revisions can cost one big in upgrade charges.
2. there are some superb low cost under 100 buck entrants with legions of fans growing every day for products like ntrack, powertracks,traktion,magix music studio,and many others.
just go to the respective websites and listen to some of the music being done with them like fasoft.com and the pgmusicians web site.
the only thing i can think of is that the bigger studios just have not discovered them. any of the foregoing can be run just like a 36 track (or more) tape machine. some folks are running 80 concurrent tracks.

[spectacular g]

Thanks all,

For me it looks like samplitude + rme... the new fireface

questions... can anyone post links for samplitude forums?
also seems like alot of talk of a samp 8.... anyone know when it will be out?

Thanks again,
jfg
www.jacklord.us

[Fidelis]

What good cheap options do we have on the Mac side? I just know tracktion, Is there any other one?

[Bob Olhsson]

I'd get both unless you never expect to exchange work with anybody else. The track import/export feature of Pro Tools is worth the price of admission alone, a no-brainer. Yesterday I imported a vocal comp along with the 32 takes it was made up from in 6 mouse clicks, less time than it just took me to type this. And yes, I'm talking about Pro Tools LE.

For simple recording, editing and mixing jobs, Samplitude is clearly better in many ways but for anything complex involving lots of tracks, lots of takes and moving projects between multiple studios, Pro Tools is still the one to beat. Most people I know would switch in a heartbeat if something else was really as good.

[Ruphus]

Bob, I found that processing in ProTools would degrade the signal. It goes in direction of blunt ( was EQing tracks after any processing, trying to regain its original fidelity / which naturally wouldn´t entirely balance out though ) and the sonic summing problem also appears to be true to my ears.

Don´t you find anything like that?

I am wondering, because there is no doubt that sonics must be of high priority to you.
( It means in the same time that I could have been wrong with what I think to have perceived - erring is theoretically always possible - . )
Based on my subjective experience I always wonder how well experienced guys like you wouldn´t hear what I believe to have found in PT. ( It was the main reason why I finally left PT aside.)

Greets,

Ruphus

[manning1]

to bob - olhsson.
i realise your significant background in the recording industry and i respect that highly , however ive got a little challenge for you.
try some of the budget packages i listed and shoot me down as to why they arent sufficient to do great songs in.
as to opening up songs fast - i do that in magix music studio all the time. just load project and it displays fast on my amd system ready to record. same in ntrack. same in powertracks.
also bob try a free plug in called SIR reverb sometime running in ntrack. people are ecstatic about the quality.
the reason i mention all this is i point out to newbies all the time
its not the gear but the engineering technique.
now i'll wait to be shot down in flames.....

[Ruphus]

as to opening up songs fast -

I think he meant the opportunity to import tracks ( and at best other items like plugs etc. ) from other sessions into the current one.
Indeed something nice to have as well as a couple of other details Samplitude e.g. is missing. ( For plugs there is a work around like storing plugin sets from the original session and afterwards importing them into the new session. And there is also the nice feature to do the same with mixer settings, still not the complete desirable option, though ) and I hope they will be catching up on that.

Ruphus

[manning1]

ruphus - i can store mixer settings as well.
in magix music studio i can build a custom template
and bring up the same mixer settings etc each time.
for example i have a standard 24 track template i use.
in n track similar idea. just build a standard template
and import it and save it to a new name say if one wishes.
in powertracks tracks/settings etc are stored in *.seq files.
so once again i have a standard say template.seq i can use with 48 tracks in it(but with no audio content - just headers) and the mixer etc set up a certain way.
then when i do a new song or mix or whatever i just bring
in the standard template (and rename it and save it
to whatever i want) then build my new mix or song or edit or whatever i want to do.

[manning1]

just to clarify all settings in magix music studio are saved with the tracks in a *.vip file. in n track its a *.sng file if i remember.
in powertracks *.seq file. these files will either save blank custom templates for recording/mixing that can be reused time and again.
what i do is whenever i start a new project or song or remix i make sure it has its own sub dir. then save the standard template to it under a new name. so if i want to use an old custom template from another project i just call it up.

[spectacular g]

Bob,

thanks for your input.

Been to Detroit lately?

shame about the gun-play last night

all in all though things are getting better.

next time
jfg
www.jacklord.us

[PapillonIrl]

Sorry if it's slightly OT, but is Samp 8 gonna be a free update from 7.x ?

[Sugarnutz]

Remember that this is a business decision that I have made to go with PT. It works and works well. For less than $2K I got a Digi001, a very decent PC and a Tango24 8 channel AD/DA. That gives me 16 line level I/Os, while not the best in the world, they're usable and I have made the money to pay for this system which I could not have made if it where not ProTools. There is a lot of support from many sources and very professional sources at that, such as Mr. Bob Olhsson and Mike Shipley who moderates his own forum this month (thanks guys). We are all "Gearslutz" here and very familiar with different software packages such as Nuendo, Samplitude, Cubase, ect..., but a lot of the musicians and artists who are going to be our potential customers are not. They are very familiar with ProTools though as a lot of the successful artists they want to emulate use ProTools to record thier albums and our potential customers want PT. Remember "If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bull-s#$t" applies here, To some degree, Protools has spent a lot of time and money to accomplish just that. YMMV

[fifthcircle]

Originally posted by PapillonIrl
Sorry if it's slightly OT, but is Samp 8 gonna be a free update from 7.x ?

No, it won't be... Major updates (incremental number updates) are never free. A price hasn't been announced, though. The update from 6 to 7 was a couple hundred bucks FWIW.

--Ben

[Bob Olhsson]

Pro Tools has created one bona-fide revolution in production. It allows you to send or even FTP tracks for somebody else to collaborate with while incurring just about no hassle doing it. I think this is going to become a really big deal in the future. Hopefully this capability will be taken very seriously by other developers.

[Ruphus]

Bob, from your last post somewhere about Samplitude I thought to gather that you havn´t really explored it too deeply yet.

It has direct FTP connection too. It´s right under the main menu. Havn´t tried it myself though, cause separated the DAW from internet and am enjoying XP now as a real workhorse.

BTW, believe it or not, just ~ 2 hours ago while fiddling in Samp and everything being so fast, smooth and stable I thought of you with the words in my mind "No, Bob, you havn´t checked that thing out yet."

Seriously, not fibbing.



Ruphus

[OzNimbus]

Originally posted by Bob Olhsson
projects between multiple studios, Pro Tools is still the one to beat. Most people I know would switch in a heartbeat if something else was really as good.

Respectfully, Mr. Olhsson, you really should check out SawStudio.

-0z-