Comments on: Now Shipping: Pro Tools 8, All Versions

By: David Anthony

David Anthony — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:47:06 +0000

Logic 8,Cubase and Performer offer dithering at the end when your bouncing down your tracks as a stereo mix, but Protools actually has placed the dithering on the master out puts. The dithering is hurd in real time rather than after the bounce. Thats why PT sounds So good. You can place a dither plug in on your Master Fader on any DAW platform but not all dithers sound a like. Waves has a dithering plug and im sure there alot out there i just dont remember them all.

By: David Anthony

David Anthony — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:34:16 +0000

PT8 Looks Like Logic 8. Alot of the New features Can be found in Logic 8, like the vocal comping thats a logic 8 thing. The pitching audio on the fly and similar processing looks like a Ableton Live thing. All in all PT8 has taken Ableton Live , Logic Studio 8 maybe a little Sonar and cubase as well. Looks good but lets see how it works.

Protools out the box sounds better than most other software. the reason for that is that they have inbeded on the mix out a dithering processor. things sound a little tighter when run through PT. No one else has figured out how to do this as well as Digidesign. I write in Logic but i mix on PT Hoping the new PT8 will allow me once and for all use only one platform thats delivers a great writing environment as well as a mix environment.

By: stefanr

stefanr — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 17:10:59 +0000

“Slow Tools” is straight overrated. Logic 8 is where its at.

By: ericdano

ericdano — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 19:26:24 +0000

I’d disagree with DarrylSmith. I too dissed PT before actually using it. I was using Digital Performer 5 (before 6 came out) and Logic Studio. I actually won a PT M-Powered system last October, and started using it. For Audio stuff, it simply is amazing. I don’t know how to explain it, but if you take audio you record in say, Digital Performer, and import it into PT, it seems to sound better. Honest. I don’t get it either. Plus all the rich plugins it comes with, and plugins like McDSP makes.

For Midi stuff, even this new update to PT 8 doesn’t make me want to abandon Digital Performer.

Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I used Logic Studio……..:-/

By: darrylsmith

darrylsmith — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 19:05:54 +0000

As Cubase user since VST 3.0, I think Pro Tools is totally overrated. I’ve also recently used Logic and have found that to be hot also. Other than the fact that they give you an audio interface that works directly with the system, their customer service sucks. With the defect in the power harness on the Digi 002 not being addressed adequately by the company, I would never recommend this company to anyone looking to start studio. Like someone said earlier, for project compatibality, it’s worth it to have at least PT 6.xx. Other than that, DP,Logic, Cubase SX3 with mid to high-end audio interfaces are superior products. Having used all 3, I say this from personbal experience. Just my opinion though.

By: ericdano

ericdano — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 05:54:58 +0000

The ProTools M-Powered 8 download, for me, with all the extras, was 11 1/2 gigabytes. Took the better part of a day to download. Seems to load a little faster. I also noticed if I quit out of it, and go back into it, I don’t need to reboot the computer anymore (7.4.2 would load, but there would be no sound from the Project Mix I/O interface….even if you reset the Project Mix).

Anyhow, the program runs great. The look is a lot more like Logic, though you can tweak it. The additional inserts are nice.

One thing that seems kind of…..not done, would be the Loops. They give you like 6 gigs of loops with PT8, but there is no loop browser or anything. Why? In fact, they don’t even tell you how you are supposed to install the loops. Seems not really thought out, or was included as an after-thought…..or both.

The Plugins I use, McDSP, Ozone, Altiverb, PSP seem to work fine. Though Ozone seems to take a lot more CPU cycles than it used to (RTAS indicator seems way up compared to 7.4.2).

In all, I think it was a worthwhile upgrade…..though for download only, they should have given people a discount. Seriously, 11+ gigs?

By: Chris Conover

Chris Conover — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:10:45 +0000

Hi, I recently installed the update to Pro Tools 8 Mpowered. It took around 12 hours to download the 3.9GB update using the digi download manager.I did not download the additional content which was another 4GB due to time.

After installing the software I opened one of the template sessions. When I tried hitting play it was stuck in pause mode (the stop and play button flashed repeatedly). I tried lowering the buffer size to remedy the problem, but had mixed results. I started a new blank session and added tracks which seemed to go quite a bit smoother. Did anyone else have a problem with flashing stop and play buttons?

I was eager to investigate Digi’s new Boom drum sequencer. It appears to operate a bit like Strike in the way you can either program patterns or use midi notes to select preprogrammed patterns. The sounds are mediocre and to my knowledge you cannot use your own samples.

The new midi editor seems nice although it has a few quirks. When holding option and clicking on a note I expected it to duplicate that note, but instead it erases it. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I always thought option click was a universal way of duplicating regions/layers/plug-ins in many OSX creative apps.

The score feature looks really nice although I have not spent a lot of time inputting notes. I am a big fan of Sibelius though, which makes me miss the quick numpad note duration changes. Visually it looks great and allows you to selectively choose which tracks are shown, which is a big plus and something that is not as easily done in Logic 8.

For the time being I am considering switch back to 7.4 to give Digi a bit more time to fix some of the bugs that may be affecting the experience. Its too bad you cannot have 7.4 and 8 installed at the same time. It would be great to slowly transition over to the new system on projects that are more relaxed.

By: dave ahl

dave ahl — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 19:33:08 +0000

@ Peter — I recently had a MIDI bass part I constructed with a client of mine, indie wonder-child Eight Two ( http://www.myspace.com/eighttwo )

We wanted to recut it with a live bassist but had no way to export the score of the midi part in Protools LE 7.4 !

We exported the MIDI, opened it in Sibelius and it was a total mess (Sibelius was being way too literal w/ note duration etc)

I opened it up in Logic and there it was, perfect! I dragged a bunch of measures around to lay it out properly, re-entered markers (like “chorus”) and then it was good to go. I think it was probably the nicest looking score I’ve ever done — I didn’t have any overlapping notes like sometimes seem to happen in Finale. I haven’t gotten into Logic scoring too deeply but I like what I see so far.

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:31:16 +0000

@Dave:
I’m curious, what did you do with Logic’s score feature? I mean, it is fairly accessible; it just seems to me like it doesn’t have the basic conveniences of actually laying out scores that Finale or Sibelius would. I was never that comfortable with Finale — some people are really quick with it — but I’d choose Sibelius standalone over any of the integrated tools, at least until now when you can have both.

Compatibility, absolutely. Digi usually does that, though, so I’ll check in with them first.

By: Eric Holsten

Eric Holsten — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:08:33 +0000

I’m looking forward to getting my free upgrade so I can try this out before possibly switching to logic.

The Dongle is a killer.