Ain't that the truth....

Beyond illustrating that succesful productions can be done on any platform I don't really, either. And I definitely don't see how it matters if the drums were tracked live or not.

Hmm. What do you mean? There's a difference between live and programmed drums. Depending on what you're trying to achieve, this can be a profound difference. I'm not sure I grasp your point.

Any accolades I've received for my work has never been attributed to the tools I use. The tools are just that, not an end in itself.

As John says, sometimes an artist might ask what equipment you're using but I've never been asked to work on a project because of the tools I use. They are not an end in themselves. I get work based on my reputation which I acquired on the basis of my results or my willingness to get the results the client wants.

John T
Hmm. What do you mean? There's a difference between live and programmed drums. Depending on what you're trying to achieve, this can be a profound difference. I'm not sure I grasp your point.

I mean that I don't see how there would be a difference in sound quality/handling, which is what this thread started about.

I couldn't help but chime in on this one, since I JUST finished a trial of PT11. Here's my personal take:
 
PT is analogous to Photoshop from Adobe. It's like the Kingpin of the DAW's and very widely used in studios world-wide as well as many thousands of home studios. Adobe products are similar here. However, there's one major, and I mean MAJOR flaw to such a tool. Being one of the first, if not the first full-fledged DAW on the market, and developed on a Mac, it's not easy to evolve it. After the pro's become efficient with its workflow, Avid would be making a huge mistake if they suddenly changed it. Undoubtedly, the code it's written on must be old, because it's not the most efficient use of resources, and you'd be hard-pressed to simply re-write the old engine.
 
I believe, from my trials, PT is one of the most non-intuitive DAW's on the market, but why does it still succeed? It's Grossly key-stroke laden, to the point of multiple maps you can switch to. Users very quick with key-strokes rarely ever need a mouse. They work much faster than a mouse can afford them, using keys, so this provision must remain the norm. ProTools scalability is vast, considering all the hardware it can seamlessly integrate, giving you more than 150 channels with little to no latency. The power is there, but what about the evolution? Seriously, when I see an installer in 2013 that pops open several MS-DOS prompts, I'm holding the software in contempt. That is a red-flag and dead-giveaway that this code has been converted, and not naturally written for Windows.
 
Speaking of mice, PT isn't savvy with Right-click like other DAW's. I believe this was largely because Mac's of the last decade were single-button mice. I also believe that in all Steve Job's wisdom we have a Photoshop that is still, to this day relatively non-intuitive, catering only to professionals who have training.
 
My opinion of PT is that it's trapped and on life-support. It will be so difficult to change it drastically for the times, and the company's HQ as you can see with lack of direct contact are not interested in feedback from everyday users. If you are going into the industry and will absolutely be required to know ProTools, learn it and pay dearly for it. I'm sure it's ROCK SOLID after all these years of working out kinks, but my money is staying with Cakewalk, since it is far easier to use for me, and many studios are apparently providing Producers with their choice of DAW, vs. only supporting PT.
 
One last comment. Avid is on my $**tlist because of RTAS/AAX. I pay WUP to Waves to get the latest updates when they become available. Since PT users demanded AAX from Waves, and Waves had to respond, Avid requires AAX for PT11. They don't offer RTAS support in PT11. Their workaround is the archaic, give them a free license for PT10. I'm sorry but that's an amateur's band-aid for a problem created by themselves---and I had to pay for it through WUP. So, I have a beef with Avid for that one.

Just cause you remarked on scalability - as I said earlier in this thread, my friend was actually asked to come engineer Logic at an event where they ran 192 channels at 96KHz, which ProTools miserably failed at coping with.

Sanderxpander
Just cause you remarked on scalability - as I said earlier in this thread, my friend was actually asked to come engineer Logic at an event where they ran 192 channels at 96KHz, which ProTools miserably failed at coping with.

The only reason this happened is because Pro Tools was not configured properly and did not have the right hardware installed. I have seen PT handle 700 stereo tracks at once. It is actually one area where PT really excels and that is in huge track counts.
 
But sayin that I agree with brconflict for most of his post. To be honest Studio One is far more intuitive than PT will ever be. I agree after doing a PT teaching course too that it relies too heavily on key strokes. Far too many of them to remember. Hold this while you hold that (Powerclaw!) Some of them need three fingers down as modifiers.

I think that's my thing about PT. I find the design of it kind of clunky, and I thus don't have any serious fluency with it. Realistically, I think UI design is the primary point of competition and difference between DAWs.They all process the same raw digital audio through extremely similar processes. An audio track running through plug ins X Y and Z, is measurably the same in all DAWs.
 
Usability-wise, I like Sonar, Studio One and Ableton Live the most. They make complete sense to me, and I can almost always figure out how to do new things quickly. Don't get along with Cubase at all, never have, and find Logic hard to love. ProTools comes somewhere in the middle. This is all very subjective though.

I wasn't there, all I know is they used a big Mac with SSDs and RME based MADI.
I thought 192 was a lot, when would you ever record 700 stereo tracks at once??