[Macworld]

Post your comments for Setting up Pro Tools recording gear here

[Aueua]

What you are reporting is really interesting, but... can you please tell us what version of OS X are you using?
According to Digidesign's support pages ProTools LE 7.4/003 Factory are NOT compatible with Leopard yet... they are "hard working" to fix this.
BTW, ProTools HD 7.4.1 is compatible with Mac OS X 10.5.1 (not 10.5.2 or 10.5.0) and 8 core Mac Pro only.
A friend of mine, who needs to set up a small recording studio with 003 Factory and LE is experiencing hard times in finding a refurbished Mac Pro that is able to boot with Mac OS X 10.4.x.
We are in May 2008 now and I think Digidesign should wake up a little... by the way, Quark is doing better with Leopard...
Cheers!
Aueua

[rzzz]

He opened it Logic and then went to Protools?! Why bother, Logic had everything he needed and for a lot less money.

[filmtex]

I'd have to agree with both Aueua and rzzz. I have worked with, or rather-without- ProTools since 10.1 since Digidesign was so far behind the update curve. Their stuff NEVER seems to work as advertised, and they had HUGE problems when they FINALLY ported everything to OS X. I have never been able to get my ProTools rigs to work and have spent an incredible amount of time trying. (Incidently, I do ALSO have an engineer using ProTools 002 at our studio at the other office, and we have been forced to keep both his operating system and ProTools about a year or two behind due to Digidesigns slow update policy.) As for me, I use Logic Studio exclusively and love it, I'd never go back to ProTools, and a soon as I can make the change in our other studio, we'll say goodby to ProTools forever.

[bigpoppa206]

That may be your opinions, but the industry leader is still Pro Tools. I personally love the fact that Digidesign takes their time to release an update. Most studios do not immediately update software when things are working fine anyway. It's been rock solid for me. YMMV.

[Jim Dalrymple]

Aueua, I am using 10.4.11. To be honest, I don't update my music machine for a while after a new OS is released. It's not only about the daw, but plug-ins too.
Everything works for me.

[Jim Dalrymple]

It's not that I don't like Logic, I do. I like Cubase too. Like bigpoppa206 said, Pro Tools is the industry standard.

[rzzz]

Fair enough- we all use what ever we like. But just to qualify, the 'Industry Standard' (for Recording) is based on Pro Tools HD systems, not LE.

have fun

rzzz

[Jim Dalrymple]

rzzz, I understand that. Maybe next time I'll get a Venue :-)

[major7]

Love it. It sounds like a very similar experience and set up to mine. For my project last year I bought the 003 factory with the control surface. I also needed to extend that, so I used the MOTU 8Pre. I also got the Music Production Tool Kit. Good times. Worked fine.
I would love to get a New mac, but I recorded, mixed and mastered the entire project - some songs using all 48 tracks with all sorts of plug-ins - with a PowerPC Dual 1.3 GHz running OS 10.4.11 and 1.25 GB RAM. You just have to get creative and create "stems" of various parts. For example, I had one session that was at least 15 tracks of choir. I mixed down the choir to a two-track multiple-mono file and added it to the main session with the band.
I started using Cubase back in the days of OS 9. I tried to get familiar with Pro Tools via Pro Tools Free, but it was just too intimidating and confusing. When I moved to OS X - that's when I decided to force myself to go to Pro Tools. Thank God, that when I bought the 003, they gave me a 14 day all-access pass to grooveboxmusic.com tutorials. Trust me. That was invaluable. I spent almost my whole time going through each one of those videos - even the ones that I thought I had a grasp on because sometimes you glean a little insight here or there.
Interesting insight about OMF and getting GB files to Pro Tools. I had a session last night where I had to use GB to record. Since it was just audio files, what I did was go to my GB session in Finder, did a control-click on the session and selected "Show Package Contents". It showed my all my audio files, which I just copied to another folder and then imported into PT. I'm sure I could've just dragged and dropped them into PT if my session was on the same computer.
As far as industry standard...why should that make a difference? I would think only if you're going to be interacting with, and therefore sending sessions to, another Pro Tools user. If that's the case, it's still difficult if you don't have all the same plug-ins. The other reason I could see it is that you want to get experience on the industry standard platform to take with you down the road if you want to get more engineering work. That makes sense, provided that PT stays the industry standard. On the other hand, sometimes we take studio gear and software too seriously. Nobody, when they're listening to an mp3 of your music down the road, is going to say, "Man, that sounds like it was recorded using a Blue mic through a Massey Preamp going into a Pro Tools HD system with a Waves compressor. It also sounds like they were monitoring their session with JBL speakers while looking at an Apple 30" cinema display!"
Main thing is just to have fun!

[Aueua]

Quote

Re: Setting up Pro Tools recording gear
Aueua, I am using 10.4.11. To be honest, I don't update my music machine for a while after a new OS is released. It's not > only about the daw, but plug-ins too.

Quote

Everything works for me.

I definitely agree with you, but our problem is: we want to set up a small recording studio now and we would like to use ProTools LE and the 003, because it's the industry standard, as you all correctly point out, but...

... the BIG problem is: If I buy a MacPro now, it runs Leopard ONLY and Digidesign's stuff does not work with Leopard.

In other words, I need a complete DAW solution and I want the Digidesing's one, but I simpy cannot get it!

I'm... out of the game, until Digidesign wakes up!

If they only sold complete solutions, that is computer OS DAW hardware + software, I'd have no complaints at all... a Mac OS 10.3 solution would fit perfectly for our needs...

I guess next month at WWDC Mac OS X 10.6 will be discussed and maybe introduced to developers and as far as I know big software companies have privilege access to this kind of informations...
... they have plenty of time to get ready for the next OS (by the way, they build hardware and software), as they had last year.

Cheers!
Aueua

[Jim Dalrymple]

That is a frustrating situation. You could look for a last generation Intel system that will run Tiger.

[Aueua]

Yeah, well... as far as I know, the only last generation Mac able to run Tiger is... the Mac Mini, nice, sweet and everything but a workstation...

Luckily enough, my colleauge found a refurbished Mac Pro with Mac OS X 10.4, so... an happy ending, but, as you correctly state, a frustrating situation!

Cheers!
Aueua

[lpitts]

I wonder if you do not have Logic, how one would convert from Garageband to ProTools (which I find to be really clunky anyway).