Music of Sound

Wahooo! Xmas comes early!!!! – wonder if DV Toolkit Complete is also shipping?

Just checked the pricing: PT8 HD upgrade US$249.95, PT8 LE upgrade US$149.95, cant find order form for Complete Toolkit

As probably most ProTools users now know, ProTools version 8 was announced at AES today & wowed many a long term user & abuser with changes that reflect the thankful fact that the company have been concentrating on new & and/or updated features rather than maintaining endless changes to OS versions…. As for resolving ongoing bugs (region groups?) only time will tell…

So far the three biggest changes that have become apparent to me for post are:
1. LE now supports 128 tracks AND surround up to 7.1
2. the GUI has been redesigned & is now user-configurable
3. MIDI/Scoring has been overhauled..

No doubt many more subtle & far reaching features & tweaks have been made but until the new version ships I will have to wait to hear from those in attendance at AES.

So whats the impact?

Well, despite having cut FX & Ambience on more than a dozen films in the previous decade using PT LE, I can now say that if you are an FX Editor there is no longer a need to work on (or own) an HD system. THAT is no small observation! I’m not really interested in debating the other options (ie Nuendo) simply because the dub stage I mix at does not have Nuendo, end of story. As a sound designer/supervising sound editor I have to say I ‘could’ cope using only PT LE, but it would be a compromise. But as the current project has illustrated, PT HD is a compromise for what I actually need too, so its a matter of contemplating the scale of the compromise. Quite simply 192 voices is not enough, but even worse is the 256 track limit! When conforming I am potentially manipulating a session with 400+ tracks – I dont need to listen to many of them, but please PROTOOLS 8, please; dont just drop the extra tracks when I exceed the limit! That truly sucks!

So for ProTools LE users who are prepared to fork out the extra dosh (remains to be seen how much for the ‘Complete Production Toolkit’ or more importantly for a lot of applicable users, the upgrade from DV Toolkit) in the end the cost is ‘almost’ irreleveant – as long as it DOES support it, and it now does, then we can argue over the cost… so WAHOOO for what is now possible! So with the new Complete bizo, you will now be able to mix/monitor up to 128 simultaneous audio tracks ie @ 48k up to 128 mono or 64 stereo tracks, or @ 96k 96 mono or 48 stereo. And mix/monitor them in formats up to 7.1. So presumably that includes the pan automation and bus-ing that currently exists in PT HD. In the fine print its interesting that it states supported hardware is: 003®, 003® Rack, 003® Rack+, Digi 002, Digi 002 Rack, or Mbox® 2 Pro required to monitor surround outputs’ – but the ability to manipulate surround material does not intrisincally require monitoring; please DIGI free us from your hardware requirements just a little bit eg I own an MBox that doesnt have enough outputs to monitor 5.1, but eg if I am on the dub stage with my laptop & need to do a conform of 5.1 stems without haulting progress I shuld fairly obviosuly eb able to do it – and I dont need to ‘monitor’ the surround while I do it….

Next, well the GUI at last looks like its from this century! A friend who works for the local Digi distributor & who attended the company previews said it was almost his favourite new feature & as someone who spends 90% of my working day staring at the ProTools interface I well know what he means. Bear in mind its customisable so the waveforms dont HAVE to be pastal, but feast your eyes on these:

God bless Digi for one of their best acquisitions ie Sibelius. And we knew it would have an impact sooner or later! Go watch the demo vids on the digidesign site, but at last people like me who cant read tadpoles on a page, can now generate them:

And what else for post?
It seems Locking regions has had a depth charge – this is a feature I use a lot as a means of identifying whether regions have been edited & are, for now, locked in content & sync or are still work in progress. Seems regions can now be locked to two levels; as they are currently or solely to the timeline.
And the automation view in ProTools can now display (& allow instant access for editing) to multiple ‘lanes’ of automation – this is an excellent development & will hopefully render half a dozen of my Quickeys redundant, and make any erroneous automation instantly apparent.

And the take manager, which appears to have been created primarily for dealing with music overdubs, also looks very useful as a means of managing the inevitable multiple ADR or foley takes…

bring it on!

Anyone know how long we have to wait?

Juts a quick post to make you aware of a new ProTools blog that you should check out & bookmark/rss subscribe – its fantastic the ever-growing community of knowledge thats available & in this case the blog is by Scott Church, software strategist at Digidesign, so methink therein lie some very worthy insights! Check it out here

heh heh, now where is that ProTools wishlist of mine? Oh thats right its here but that one got hijacked by lonely non-PT users so we started another here… Just kidding, Brent is a frequent visitor to the nzsound.net forum so I know he assimilates all our requests & communicates directly with you Scott & Digi… Thanks & welcome!!

Ok, you would have to be a ProTools user to agree with me, but even a year ago if you tried to tell me I could remote control ProTools using my iPod I would have laughed – yeah right… but lo & behold Far Out Labs new product: ProRemote for Ipod touch & iPhone

Methink the idea deserves support… and it begs the question as to why the Dexter doesnt even have this level of ProTools control!?!

via CDM

A new blog well worth a regular visit; ProTools for Audio Pros is the creation of Brent Heber, a very experienced ProTools user who also works for Digidesign in Austraila. Accordingly he gets to gain valuable insight into how different people use ProTools in its many various ways… I often compare ProTools to Photoshop – if all you want to do is crop & tweak a scan, Photoshop seems fairly easy to use, but its real power only becomes apparent once you know how to use its deeper functions. This usually requires experience ie years of use & learning to use new features as they are added in each subsequent update, but Brents aim: “to evangelize the methods, workflows, tips and tricks that enable our pro users to save time” is a very welcome resource, especially for ProTools HD and Icon users… check out his first post: Indiana Mix and the Template of Doom