Is ProTools worth it?

I got ProTools as a birthday present last year and pretty much ignored it cos I'm so used to SONAR. But yesterday I started using it. I understand it is mostly only industry standard because it was the first to do a decent job of audio on a digital workstation. My question is, is it worth using ProTools instead of SONAR, because I'm only 15 but I've already spent months talking to many people as music production is the business I want to go into, and I've got the chance to go into a real studio in London for 2 weeks in the summer and they use ProTools. Is it worth learning the industry standard now rather than later?

Sven could you expand on that?

I think you should at least install it and play around with it. If you're going to be working at a Pro Tools-equipped studio in the near future, it certainly wouldn't hurt to investigate it and learn as much as you can about it.

Thanks for the advice. It's just I've been watching videos and reading things about how differnet producers record things and it sort of makes me feel down about the way I record mine, and of course a huge buddy of producers is ProTools. I only have PT M-Powered and it seems pretty good, but from what I've been messing about with I really don't understand why people love it so much - the only thing I love is D-Verb. Anyway, I guess the worst thing is lack of knowledge. You know when you read and read and watch and watch and think you understand something, and then you finally read or see something that makes you think otherwise? For example, I thought I knew a fair bit about mixing, but when it comes to people talking about pre and post and aux inputs I have no clue what they are - any responses that could tell me what they are and what they do would be greatly appreciated.

I just thought it would be interesting to find out if ProTools really was <i>that</i> great after all the amazing words I've heard of it. From what it seems like, the majority of people who start producing and jump on the Pro Tools wagon all have brown noses for DigiDesign.

EDIT: Larry, I've seen your an engineer and I've always wanted to know, what's the best way to dive right into the industry? Obviously I'd love to be a professional musician but in the 99.9999% chance that doesn't happen I want to record music and hopefully record my own to present to record execs who already know of me. My question is how did you get into the industry and how do you make it successfully?

ORIGINAL: MikeTSH

Thanks for the advice. It's just I've been watching videos and reading things about how differnet producers record things and it sort of makes me feel down about the way I record mine, and of course a huge buddy of producers is ProTools. I only have PT M-Powered and it seems pretty good, but from what I've been messing about with I really don't understand why people love it so much - the only thing I love is D-Verb. Anyway, I guess the worst thing is lack of knowledge. You know when you read and read and watch and watch and think you understand something, and then you finally read or see something that makes you think otherwise? For example, I thought I knew a fair bit about mixing, but when it comes to people talking about pre and post and aux inputs I have no clue what they are - any responses that could tell me what they are and what they do would be greatly appreciated.

I just thought it would be interesting to find out if ProTools really was <i>that</i> great after all the amazing words I've heard of it. From what it seems like, the majority of people who start producing and jump on the Pro Tools wagon all have brown noses for DigiDesign.

EDIT: Larry, I've seen your an engineer and I've always wanted to know, what's the best way to dive right into the industry? Obviously I'd love to be a professional musician but in the 99.9999% chance that doesn't happen I want to record music and hopefully record my own to present to record execs who already know of me. My question is how did you get into the industry and how do you make it successfully?

We seem to develop a love/hate relationship with our software programs that goes beyond the same sort of love/hate relationships we have with... oh for example... guitars, drums, bass, keyboards, microphones, cables, girlfriends, cars, toaster ovens, etc. It's always interesting to read some of the heated debates that rage on about whether this program is better than that program, etc. What it all boils down to, after all the smoke has died down, is what works best for you and the way you work. I use Sonar here in my studio for 90% of my recording needs. I also have Samplitude and it's a nice program and has it's strengths but for the bread and butter work I do here Sonar still gets the job done and my clients still leave here impressed and that's fine with me. If I'm losing business because I'm not using Pro Tools it's not been obvious to me. I would probably rather deal with clients who understand that it's the end result that matters, not the specific brand of tool you use to get there. People ask me about Pro Tools all the time. Some even come in here and see Sonar up on the screen and say, "oh look he's using Pro Tools". I don't even bother to correct them any more because it's obvious they don't really know and probably don't care one way or another.

But I'm not a freelance engineer who travels from studio to studio either. I kind of work in a little bubble here. If I was an internationally acclaimed recording engineer I'd most certainly know and use Pro Tools because I know I would come in contact with it and have to use it to get the job done. I'm fairly confident that an A&R person sitting in a office doesn't care if you used Pro Tools or Sonar (or whatever) to record your music. And that goes for the people listening to your music in their cars on the way to work in the morning. Nuff said

To answer your last question there is something on my FAQ section that discusses the issue of jobs in this industry. The quick answer is record anyone who is willing to let you do it and do it all the time. Use whatever tools you have at your disposal because whatever you learn on entry-level gear will apply to the big leagues as well.

Cheers!

PS - I forgot you asked about AUX sends/returns. An AUXiliary send/return is simply a way of taking some of the incoming signal and routing it out (and back into) the mixing board or microphone channel strip. For example, you might want to take some of the signal from your microphone and route it into an outboard effects unit and then bring that effected signal back into the channel strip and mix it in with the original raw signal. DAW's function sort of the same way. You tap some of the incoming or outgoing audio signal and send it off to an effects unit (or whatever) and then bring the effected signal back and mix it in with the raw signal. How you do this and methods behind it vary greatly from board to board or DAW to DAW so you really need to kind of experiment with AUX sends. In a live situation you might use your AUX sends to send some of the vocal mic signal back to the stage floor monitors. There's all sorts of reasons to use an AUX send. Pre/Post refers to whether the signal is taken before the channel fader or after the channel fader. Most of the better mixers will allow you to select either pre or post. Hope this helps.