WDI


Well it says PT has floating point now anyways. But who cares. I mean just turn down where your clipping so not really a big deal either way. These kind of posts beg trollers to come reek havoc here. Which isn't to hard to get people started around here. 

Yes. What makes the linked vid so hillarious is that the dude intenionally raises the track input gain to make the track go into the red, finds out (ooooh) that >0dB in PT actually (formerly) meant clipping and deduces that there is a flaw in the gain staging of the DAW, not in the "gain staging" he does there. Yeah, right...

YouTube expertise for the win.

frankandfree

WDI


Well it says PT has floating point now anyways. But who cares. I mean just turn down where your clipping so not really a big deal either way. These kind of posts beg trollers to come reek havoc here. Which isn't to hard to get people started around here. 

Yes. What makes the linked vid so hillarious is that the dude intenionally raises the track input gain to make the track go into the red, finds out (ooooh) that >0dB in PT actually (formerly) meant clipping and deduces that there is a flaw in the gain staging of the DAW, not in the "gain staging" he does there. Yeah, right...

YouTube expertise for the win.

I don't want to start an argument, but the vid guy does make a valid point.  If you send 3 tracks at -3db simultaneously into a single bus (in PT, there are no "busses" per say, they are aux tracks without input gain adjustment or input meters for that matter), it is possible that the bus input breaches 0db (ever so subtly) once they're summed and then dropping the output volume of the "buss" to bring the levels back to <0db doesn't resolve the clipping between the in and out (as neither does inserting a trim plug as the first insert in the buss).  I guess Nuendo handles this differently (as does Sonar I believe). 

Granted that the example is a bit over the top, but I think he was exaggerating the problem simply to illustrate that the clipping is there.   Is it a flaw in PT or in the person using PT is debatable, but it is a flaw just the same.
   

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I've mentioned it before but my brother-in-law runs a commercial studio - he's still using Pro Tool TDM 5.x on a 10 years old Mac G4. 

The recordings I've heard coming out of that place are absolutely top notch, as good and often better than some commercial recordings. 

The thing is, Pro Tools is only one of the tools that he uses. He has great live room, an adequate collection of mics and preamps, quality outboard gear, a first class control room w/ high quality monitors.

All of that has a lot more influence on the end product than 32 bit floating point.

Pro Tools is only used to record, edit, process and mix.

More often than not, it's the little guys like myself and I guess many of us here who have to rely extensively on their DAW software and its features that will agonize over what otherwise might not even come into play. 

It also needs to be said that Pro Tools native is something entirely different.

In typical Freddie style that video is confusing and not necessarily correct at all. Problems are all in the user, not the DAW I can assure you.

Firstly if you monitor your track rms levels with something like K system and using VU meters you will never have any clipping on tracks, ever. Same as buses, if you maintain the correct mix on a bus but still maintain the reference rms level using a VU meter you will also never clip a bus either. You will be well clear of 0 dB FS by the amount of headroom built into your chosen reference level. It will sound excellent.

I attended an Avid Pro Tools course (for Instructors as well as Experts etc part of my teacher's training) and we had a whole bunch of tracks feeding to the Masterbus set at 0 dB or unity gain. We then started overloading all the tracks up by major amounts but we also reduced the Masterbus to keep the signal clean. Even when the Masterbus was right down at - 30 dB or so and the tracks were smashing the Masterbus,  the sound was still perfect and clean.

Sorry, nothing like the video. The video guy is not even very clear at what stage the distortion is occurring in the signal flow. That needs to be fully explained, it is not.  Also in Pro Tools Buses can be turned into a Masterbuss so you can have many Masterbuses in PT. When you do this you get the high signal overload capability if you need it. 

There are many excellent things about Pro Tools. The colour coding scheme in the mixer for one. Also clip gain is just great, to be able to alter the amplitude of any clip waveform so easily on your main edit page. Once you have this you will never go back, it is such a time saver. Kills using automation. Luckily Studio One has it too. Xpand is a great sounding instrument. And you stack or layer up the four parts to make killer complex soundscape patches. It sounds huge and the library for it is great. PT is way too expensive though and horribly expensive to upgarde from PT8 to PT10 even, outrageous. 
 
Pro Tools does not sound bad period. It is up the person driving it. If you are making a bad sound from Pro Tools it is your fault, not the DAW. I still prefer Studio One over PT even. I think the workflow is better overall and it handles midi much better. Audio capabilities are the same (as also with most DAW's) now compared to PT. I have used both a lot. 

PT's editing functionailty and smart tools are WAY better than Sonars......

As long as you know the shortcuts..... 

When I watched that video I wasn't thinking how bad PT was rather how idiotic the person was in using it that way.


If he is trying to convince us that PT is a poor DAW he wont get far doing it that way. I am no fan of PT but reason tells me that a lot of people have done a lot of good work using it. All he proved to me was he doesn't know how to use it. 

I have nothing against any DAW. I prefer Sonar. Its my choice to make and that is the one I have chosen. I don't care what the other guy uses at this point. In the same way I don't care what a Sonar user choses for his/her plugins. Or whether they built there DAW had it built or bought it off a shelf. It is not important to me.  

I don't envy another's studio or what they may or may not have in it.

I know my DAW and am happy with it. I know what I can do and how to do it.

Anything else is ridiculous and not worthy of discussion. We can debate the fine points between various DAWs for fun but in the end its meaningless and shouldn't be taken seriously. You choose what you want to choose for your own reasons. No one can tell you that you made the wrong choice. Not even me! 

FWIW, this video illustrates a little of what I was talking about above regarding bussing and buss input levels.  Perhaps the person in the vid posted by the OP doesn't understand this (late in the video talking about master fader attached to submix buss).  Not necessarily a problem with ProTools, but a concept to be aware of to help keep an eye on and prevent buss input clipping.

my initial reaction to first working in Pro Tools was .."wow" this is clunky". and i could not wait to tell everyone here how much it sucked. but after really sitting down for a week getting to know the program i found it to be quite nice and fun to work in. my only gripe with it (which is big) is.. it can be finicky with alot of hardware within your system on Windows. it requires quite a bit of optimizing to get and remain stable. as far as recording, mixing, and editing its still just as good if not better than anything out there.  yeah its short on some cool features, but its short on half-baked ones though too. 

Using PT 10, Sonar X1-2, and Nuendo here at work so I have to say, I hate these kind of videos that provide comparisons based on very misleading context. All DAWS have good and bad points but mostly its what your used to working with or what you first learned on and from that point on, it becomes your reference.

The most common misconception about PT, especial PT10 is the master fader concept. It's not a Master fader at all but rather, the trim input to the DAC of your soundcard and its PRE not POST like the Sonar concept of a Master Fader. Thats why gain staging is so important on all versions of PT prior to 10 and its higher floating point engine. And what the PT world calls AUX sends, everyone else calls BUSSES....big whoop.

Of the three, I think Sonar is by far the most intuitive to work with from a music creation standpoint. Things make more musical sense, less keyboard shortcuts to memorize. Workflow is awesome and you get stuck in the 'Tech" zone less often. Screensets RULE THE WORLD, one big screen LCD to run everything, awesome and most useful feature to date! If they would simply stop adding new Gee Wiz features every fiscal quarter to entice the already ADHD driven market and make the thing more stable, I would be doing backflips.

But in fairness, PT 10 does have some very strong features as well. Elastic Audio simply kicks ass period. No comparison on anything else. Audio snap isn't even in the same universe. Try it once and you'll agree. Its fast, simple, and it actually works. Track a Drummer, lay in a MIDI bass line via soft synth, then track live keys and real vocals and the PA on the project comes in and says its all has to be 7bpm  slower....done and the results dont sound like they are on crack.

Nuendo simply kills for post work...period. It is unbeleivably stable under conditions that would choke both PT and Sonar and it handles Video like a dream. Its Bussing structure is fast, deals well with external hardware and SMPTE like a dream and dosn't try to re-invent the post production world by calling normal mixer related functions something completely different just because it was the first kid on the block.

The point being they all have their strengths and weakness. Its up to you to pick the best tool for the job...your job.  Who cares who is using it...if you cant get what your after with ANY of the big powerful DAWS out there now....your probably not trying very hard.