taken from digis-whoops-alshidads homepage:

must be truly music in your ears (and those of mixerman), eh fletcher (especially the secondlast paragraph)?!

heh

George Massenburg

"By any measure, by meter or by ear, the Pro Tools|HD system is an exceptional piece of software and hardware engineering." George Massenburg, Producer/Mixer/Engineer

Multiple Grammy and TEC Award-winner George Massenburg is an internationally renowned producer, recording engineer and designer of audio equipment…a man in love with music, the art of reproduction and the recording process. He's been responsible for engineering some of the most respected recordings of the modern era, as well as developing and demonstrating that mainstay of the recording process, the parametric equalizer.

Whether he's working on collaborative mixes over the 'Net or on local projects, Massenburg relies on Pro Tools|HD for rapid, world-class results. "I do a lot of extended content for movies and for television, and I use Pro Tools|HD for everything — I use every feature of it and its every capability," Massenburg reports. "The sheer number of ways this is integrated into our workflow is staggering. I can't even begin to talk about the myriad ways it makes my life better than any other solution, and now I've got my MDW Hi-Res EQ plug-in, too."

"I'll bet that quite a few engineers out there couldn't pick the 192 I/O converters out against converters that cost much more," Massenburg continues, referring to Pro Tools|HD's flagship audio interface. "Even at that, it's not clear that whatever differences they perceive would be substantial. Recordists will undoubtedly be challenged by this new system: They'll no longer be able to blame their bad engineering techniques on Digidesign."

George Massenburg's formidable credits include Linda Ronstadt, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Earth, Wind & Fire, Little Feat, Frank Sinatra, The Dixie Chicks, Billy Joel, Emmy Lou Harris, Roy Orbison, Lyle Lovett, Dolly Parton, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, and recently, Amanda Marshall and Aselin Debison.

heh heh grggt

GM has what they call "skills", son. Thus, as he points out, the tools don't matter as much as the person using them.

Looks like you're hoping to bait Fletcher into some flame war.

Lame.

BY NYC AES 2001 I believe he had already been in possession of a Beta HD rig (unconfirmed but educated guess) he seemed pretty 'jolly' about the 'future' of PT when I asked him back then.. (lots of winking and smiling but no NDA breaking type of statements etc just an air of a 'good future ahead')

By all accounts HD seems a quality stride forward from Mix + , so I am not shocked by the promo statements..

It's an opinion.

Personally, I have far more problems with the "tone" of the mix buss than the "192" hardware. It's all relative, "hit" records, Grammy (tm) winning records, even "influential" records have been made on all kinds of things...

The quintessential references still are "Jagged Little Pill" made on adats, or "The Macarena" made on a Tascam 3700, or the new Christina Aguilara (sp?) record that was mostly done through 888's [though some of it was done through Apogee AD-8000's].

It ain't the gear, it's the engineer. It ain't even the engineer, it's the song, the performance by the artist, the mood of the current economic slump.

There are some of us [hopefully more here than in the real world] that break their balls for the love of audio and the love of music. If they find tools that help them achieve those goals, then those are good tools... if the tools don't help them achieve those goals then they're bad tools. Period.

I sure as hell would never presume to second guess George Massenburg. On the same hand, I wouldn't presume to second guess anybody (other than myself... I second guess damn near everything I do, sometimes with disasterous results).

Everybody has their way of doing things, hearing things, achieving things. Some of these things work for me, some do not. It doesn't make them right nor wrong, it makes them a choice each individual should make for themselves.

While George seems to have gone on record as endorsing Mother of Alsihad's product, he has also gone on record as saying that he's not fond of equipment that employs "firebottles"... yet the equipment that bears his name is built in a factory known for it's brilliant work in the "firebottle" field.

At the end of the day it's about the audio that pleases you as an engineer, the tools you feel enhances your work, and the tools you feel impedes your work.

Me... I'm way happy with my RADAR-24 and Neanderthal Yomama desk... George seems pleased with his Alsihad and Oxford. He makes records, I do demos... so who's right and who's wrong? Nobody, that's who.

Fletcher wrote:
Yup that would be me... heh


George seemed pretty fond enough of our Variable Mu® to buy THREE of 'em, for surround. I think he is "warming up" to the idea of these evil firebottles...

Well if he eventually changes his mind, I'll be happy to help him get rid of them pronto!

I agree totally with Fletcher.

cheers
JOhn

I also agree with Fletcher.






(and George) :eek:

That's George's opinon. I have the opposite opinion. I have producer and engineer friends with far more gold wall hardware than George that would agree with me, and guys with allot more gold wall hardare than me, that would agree with him. So I guess that means the wall hardware doesn't make the opinion.

Who's right?

Me. That's who.

Now, if you would like to come up with your own opinion, be my guest, until then, shut the **** up with George's. We have no idea what kind of duress the guy was under at the time.

Enjoy your Christmas Eve.

Mixerman

I agree with MixerMan.

Yeah, it's Xmas, so let's all shut the **** up!

Speaking of which, Santa just flew over Philly a few minutes ago...The thrusters on his sleigh sounded about 6db down at around 50Hz compared to last year.

Whatya think's up with that??

Maybe we all are gearsluts after all? I just realized my family ( kids, wife and folks who I havent seen in a year and a half) are upstairs having eggnog and making merry, and I am down in the basement reading about a third person perspective on a piece of gear I don't even want....

And that's exactly what makes us Gear Slutz!

Basically you have to learn to not believe anything you read on any forum. Debating some of these things is like debating your favorite color. Everything is tiny paint samples-- and its impossible to tell what it will look like on your wall in your den.

Me, i have tested the mix busses of several DAW's (using the same calibrated tracks ) and don't find fatal differences between any two. I'm in the minority, but I don't care. I work, get paid and make clients happy.

Bottom line.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Fletcher

It ain't the gear, it's the engineer. It ain't even the engineer, it's the song, the performance by the artist, the mood of the current economic slump.

fletcher, i am totally agree with you on this one.

"Maybe we all are gearsluts after all? I just realized my family ( kids, wife and folks who I havent seen in a year and a half) are upstairs having eggnog and making merry, and I am down in the basement reading about a third person perspective on a piece of gear I don't even want....
__________________
Steve Smith"

Thats the funniest thing I've read all year on Gearslutz.

Regards,
Wayne Gardner
Producer/ Engineer
GTA
Forestville Sydney Australia
Ph 61 2 9975 6568
Mobile 0412 077748
Email: [email protected]
Internet: http://www.gtamusic.com

steve and wayne wrote:

" "Maybe we all are gearsluts after all? I just realized my family ( kids, wife and folks who I havent seen in a year and a half) are upstairs having eggnog and making merry, and I am down in the basement reading about a third person perspective on a piece of gear I don't even want....
__________________
Steve Smith"

Thats the funniest thing I've read all year on Gearslutz."

and the saddest

sad indeed.. and I said it

the trick was to realize it and go upstairs...

irony rules, ironing sucks

I kinda ruined last Xmas by taking my laptop round my Moms.. had a great one this year without it...

Someday someone should put identical (but identity concealed) mixes done on different platforms onto a CD and see who can pick out which is which based on the sound alone. Listeners would have to post their answers publicly before any of the cuts were identified so it would be completely unbiased.

That might put an end to the "summing wars" debate once and for all.

And digital and analog would become indistinguishable.
And peace would reign over all the earth.


Or not.

You're only in the minority because you're one of the few people to actually test them and draw an informed conclusion.

-R

Lynn, I honestly don't know how that could be done - when I mix in Pro Tools, I approach the whole thing a diferent way than when I mix through the console.

But I guess that you could set up all the outboard gear for your analog mix, and then dump the individual tracks - post outboard gear - into Pro Tools with the levels going in based on the console fader position. Then play them back out of Pro Tools with the channels in Pro Tools at unity gain... Would that count as an identical mix?

I think Lynn was referring to comparing DAWs. The technique for doing that is quite simple. First set up a mix to your liking on your DAW of choice. Now print to disk each track as a stereo track, thus incorporating its pan position. Also do a pass and print the reverb and delays. Now you have a bunch of stereo tracks that you can drag into any DAW, leave the faders on zero and the pans to the extremes and go ahead and sum. The result should be identical to your original mix. I'd be very surprised to find that any one DAW sums any better than any other (but you never know). I tried this with Protools and Digital Performer and found them to be identical, but I didn't use a huge number of tracks.

If you want to test to see if moving faders causes damage, do the above, pull back the faders on the individual tracks, and compensate in the stereo bus.

-R

Rick, when I tested I used mono and stereo tracks with a printed stereo reverb track. I mixed originally in Protools and wrote down the fader dB values for all the tracks and hard panned the tracks- left, right or up the middle. Didn't make for a pretty mix, but it kept pan laws out of the equation. 24 tracks in all...I tested PT, Nuendo, Logic and Sonar.

Rather than gain adjusting the tracks, I felt it better to use the faders. This helped to compare the "fader damage" that is rumored to happen in some DAW's but not others.

I already have the methodology determined. It could include analog consoles as well as DAWs.

But unless it is done with accuracy to the Nth degree, it will be completely meaningless. It would require great source tracks, but it could be done and I think would prove moderately conclusive, especially if no one knew what was what before they had to post their answers.

I did a similar experiment with soundfiles that were "touched" by PT several years ago. It was called the "ProTools Bloodhound CD." It had about 30 soundfiles. Some were analog mixes, some digital mixes, some DAW mixes with various degrees of "PT involvement" including either tuning, mixing, or mastering. Of those who swore they could "hear" PT on anything it touched, the results of the voting were pretty conclusive that no single individual ever "heard" PT in every case, and some even thought they "heard" PT on analog mixes that were mastered analog. By some big names that you would recognize instantly.

It's always interesting to allow people to decide based on pure sonics instead of preconceived notions.

Lynn,

In a conversation with a producer in the PT room at Sigma Sound here in Philly the other day, your name came up...long story short: We are hearing you, taking note, and I can assure you that your generousity of research in this field is not being overlooked. The dispelling of audio myths has had a productive influence on those of us on the front lines who are using these emerging tools. It is useful to know that it is our engineering skills that determine the outcome, unencombered by doubts about our equipment, percieved or otherwise. Using the kit with confidence, not having to second-guess the kit along the way of producing the art, is something that cannot be overvalued.

Cheers, and Happy New Year!

This was a point that Geroge M. made on his board....that the WAY you work with these DAW's makes a difference. He prefers to use his Oxford for the egronomics of working, not because of any thing wrong with PT.