Pro Tools

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crazycatz

Well-known member
Hi everyone,
I am interested in purchasing pro tools and an Mbox, and have been offered an original Mbox and pro tools LE 6.1 together for $200.
first off, is this a reasonable deal? i know the Mboxes go for like $400 or something...
and, if i do buy this, i was planning on upgrading to the latest version of pro tools, 7.3 i think it is... i did hear that version 7.3 doesnt work with the original Mbox, is this true?
and, pro tools LE intergrates with avid so i can just send the timeline from avid over to pro tools to edit the audio for my films?
Let me know,
Thanks!
 
I think you should hold off and do some research. You need the DV toolkit ($1200) to get protools le to integrate with your NLE even Avid.

I have an original mbox and I upgraded to 7.3 and it works fine for recording. My mac pro does not like to use the mbox and the core audio driver to play back from final cut without popping and clicking. I think that $200 is pretty expensive considering you still have to pay to upgrade from 6.9 - 7.3 (there were two upgrade fees for me 6.9-7 then, later 7-7.3)
 
I agree with Mike: $200 does seem a bit steep. Then again, I'm still running PT LE v6.1, and don't expect to be upgrading untill I absolutely have to.

However, I don't think that the latest version of DVToolkit 2 will work with older versions of the PT LE software. I may be mistaken, but I'd look into that before comitting to a specific software route.
 
Hmm, i guess i dont need the dv toolkit, i can just export each audio track from avid as AIF files then import them each seperately on to thier own tracks in pro tools...
How much is a new Mbox and the pro tools software?
200 seemed like a good deal to me...?
 
crazycatz said:
i can just export each audio track from avid as AIF files then import them each seperately on to thier own tracks in pro tools
Click to expand...

You can do this, but I don't reccomend it. Simply bouncing the individual tracks and importing them into Protools will discard any clip handles that you would otherwise use for crossfades and other routine editorial opperations. The only way around that major limitation is to either do all you editing and crossfading on the Avid, or else take the time to checkerboard the audio regions and manually pull out all the region handles. Either way, the time saved by the use of OMF as an interchange format more than pays for the software after a single feature project. Region handles are one of those things that you never realise how much you use them until you're stuck with an OMF in which the editor figured 1 frame was plenty. I'll usually request that the editors provide at least 30 seconds of handle on all OMF regions (its usually more than I need, but extra hard drives are pretty inexpensive).

If you do choose to go the route you've described, be sure that every track you export contains both the 2-beep and the tail pop references. Zero-offset tracks may sound like a good idea, but they leave you open to some serious synch issues. The 2-beep ensures that everything starts in the correct place, and the tail pop will tell you whether you've incurred any synch drift throughout the course of the project. Come to think of it, use 2-beeps and tail pops even when you're exporting OMFs.
 
crazycats.. are you (or were you recently) a student? If so then you may be eligible to purchase digidesign's protools academic version. It's a pretty good deal. It costs $150 and requires you to use some sort of M-Audio interface (there are about a dozen to choose from) and for that price it gives you timecode functionality (not the full dvtoolkit though) as well as the ability to import OMFs with digitranslator. It also comes with a plugin bundle with general stuff like amplitube, bomb factory compressors and also slimmed down versions of reason and ableton live. In my oppinion it's a real bargain for students. Check it out if this applies to you.
 
Go to Digi's site. Also the Digi User Conference has extensive info on ProTools and post.

Specific to your question. No you don't want the original Mbox. I'm not sure if you can even upgrade it to the latest software, if you can figure it's the last upgrade they will put out for it. Mbox2 has been out for awhile and you can get the mini for around $300 new. You don't nec. need DVtoolkit to work on films but you will need Digi Translator to import OMF's. I have worked on features with a mix of editors on TDM and Le flavors of PT. But you should start with a session template from a TDM system with a start mark and the second TC window set to TC. This is pretty easy to get. However PT is not a consumer super easy app to use, especially for video post so figure on a pretty steep learning curve.

And of course I will repeat my mantra, hire a professional. Unless you really want to do sound for a living I would not buy any PT set up. Hire someone who has sunk way too much $ into their's. A reasonable sound post setup is probably $10K minimum. Even if your in a minimal Le system you need storage, monitors (speakers in the non-sound world)(and no those multimedia plastic boxes are not going to give you an honest mix) various other toys and your knocking at 10K. I do a lot of post and am very, a... frugal, but I have over 50K invested and I'm not on the latest greatest what ever. I know editors that have very nice monitors, they run close to 3K a pop. Then there's the recording equipment, microphones, pre's, recorders - you need to build the sound library. Commercial FX etc.....
It's a very expensive proposition unless you want to do it a lot.
 
Noiz2, I'd have to disagree! Sorry. Th original Mbox is still fully supported in the latest versions, and I've seen no indication that it won't continue to be. Digi has phased out support of some earlier PCI-based products for various efficiency reasons, but I doubt this will be the case with USB and FireWire products.... continuing their support does not raise the same kinds of issues as supporting the various flavors of PCI cards as systems and OSs change.

As I've occasionally commented, the original Mbox is a great deal, and IMHO better-sounding than the Mbox 2. For what I do, anyway!

But the workflow issues remain, regarding the need for digitranslator, etc.

If your audio work in Avid is not too extensive, you can get away without the digitranslator, and there are some tricks that can be helpful in this. But it won't be as simple and powerful as using OMF to pull in all the original sources!

Digitranslator by itself goes for about $500. Hanson's Idea about the Academic version is interesting...
 
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My day job is a staff position at a school, so I was able to buy PT Academic, and it's really an fantastic deal. I've got a Delta 66 PCI I/O card on my desktop and a dinky little Transit I/O for my laptop, and all I have to do to use Pro Tools is make sure my iLok dongle is plugged into whichever system I'm using. Both rigs translate OMF files, both are 24/96 capable, and both have other perks that they normally want $1200 for, such as *GASP* being able to scrub through the video file when making a selection! (Those Digi guys, thay're some stingy bastards.)

@Noiz2: I absolutely disagree. A DAW rig is just like anything else: after you pass the financial sweet spot, the law of diminishing returns sets in big time. Unless you're talking about investing a huge chunk of that $50K into modeling and building a Foley studio, a $50K post system is not going to be THAT different from a $10K post system. There is a difference of course, and it's a difference that's worth pursuing if $50K is something you can afford (after all, that's what money is for), but you won't get anywhere close to the return you'd get from bumping up from a dinky $350 system to a $1000 system, even though that is a smaller increase percentage-wise.

I run PT Academic, I do all my DAW work with a keyboard and mouse, I have a dinky little $99 mixing board for routing signal, and I monitor on a $600 pair of Event nearfields. No, my acoustics aren't perfect. No, I can't clearly hear the bottom octave. No, I can't mix surround. No, I can't work at 192HKz. No, I can't record automation with a motorized fader. But, y'know... as far as doing broadcast quality stereo mixes for films, I'm 95% of the way there in terms of tech, and I paid just over a grand for the whole deal. Telling someone to forget it until they can cough up a fortune to get that last 5% of performance is bad advice in my opinion. If they take that advice, they'd be saving up to buy a few hours of a pro's time while I'm busy cutting sound for peoples' films and building relationships with directors.
 
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Hey Factor,
where can i find more information about the acedemic version of pro tools? such as what the difffrence would be between it and a normal LE version of the software? Also, do they offer acedemic prices on M-audio hardware?
this is an interesting proposal...
 
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/ProToolsMPoweredAcademicKit-main.html

PT Academic is basically PT M-Powered but with the following differences:

-Same added features as DV Toolkit 1, but without the noise reduction or ADR sync plugins
-Not compatible with Music Production Toolkit, so you can't upgrade it past its maximum of 32 active voices
-2 versions: a software-only version that requires an included iLok, and a bundled hardware version authorized by the interface

I recommend that you go for the $149 software-only iLok version because it gives you more freedom to change up your hardware, and because an iLok is good to have anyway if you ever plan on buying plugins.

JourneyEd and Academic Superstore both sell it.

To my knowledge there is no educational pricing on M-Audio hardware.
 
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I was NOT telling him to spend that kind of money. I was telling him to hire a professional. The better you are the more you can get out of less, he is new to sound and should not be doing his own sound. What you "need" has a lot to do with what your working on and what your expectations are. If you can deal with 32 voices and "mixing" with a mouse then who knows. If you are willing to use not so great speakers and amps etc you can save a bunch also. But your system as described is over 1K. You are not using "multimedia" speakers. But if one is going to do long form film with any level of complexity then it just costs. To fit your model you would have to be using the cheapest computer around, multimedia speakers, only using production recordings, never do any VO or other "expensive" things requiring mics and such. Be cutting very little audio - can't afford any extra disks. And be monitoring the video on the same med sized monitor that your running the DAW on.
Add up what it really takes and what you have really spent and I think you will find that your closer to 10K than 1K.
I am not using 3+K speakers, mine probably cost less than yours. I am running a TDM system because that really was nec. to work. If the academic version was around and had TC when I was buying???? That might have been a starter system. I need TDM because I have to work with others on TDM systems, I need TC and F+F and I often need more than 32 voices.
PTle with the DV tolkit is a pretty capable system. But that is about $2500 just for the PT side of things. You also need a computer and Drives and speakers, mixer, amp (if the speakers aren't powered), monitors (you can use a TV for one but then you need some kind of converter and/or a way to get the signal out of the computer). Start adding up what it really takes and you will find the number is higher than you thought.
 
Well I did say I wasn't sure on that one. However I have been a Digi customer since PT3.2 and they orphan things on a regular basis so I wouldn't bet on the longevity of the original Mbox. OS 10.5 is probably some time this year and Digi will have to write a new driver for the Mbox so that may be a good test? Mix hardware did get support for quite a while, but Sample cel went soft then dead in a hury so? SMPTE slavedriver and Video Slavedriver were orphaned well before there was any hardware conflict. You just never know with Digi.

So I would agree with you about the bargain part. The mBox is worth about $600 when upgrading to an 002 or TDM system so if you can pick it up for a couple of hundred and it's working with the version of PT you are running then it's a deal.



ullanta said:
Noiz2, I'd have to disagree! Sorry. Th original Mbox is still fully supported in the latest versions, and I've seen no indication that it won't continue to be. Digi has phased out support of some earlier PCI-based products for various efficiency reasons, but I doubt this will be the case with USB and FireWire products.... continuing their support does not raise the same kinds of issues as supporting the various flavors of PCI cards as systems and OSs change.

As I've occasionally commented, the original Mbox is a great deal, and IMHO better-sounding than the Mbox 2. For what I do, anyway!

But the workflow issues remain, regarding the need for digitranslator, etc.

If your audio work in Avid is not too extensive, you can get away without the digitranslator, and there are some tricks that can be helpful in this. But it won't be as simple and powerful as using OMF to pull in all the original sources!

Digitranslator by itself goes for about $500. Hanson's Idea about the Academic version is interesting...
Click to expand...
 
I'm not counting the cost of the computer. I figure that if someone owns a computer (which this guy probably does, since he's posting on here), then odds are he's got a computer that's faster than mine anyway. (I have a MacBook Pro, but I actually do most of my PT work on an 867MHz G4 that is going on 6 years old.)

If I really added up the costs of every element I use as part of my PT rig, at their original cost at the time of purchase (including the $2.2K price of my computer in summer 2001) it would probably come out to about $4-5K.

But that's beside the point. If someone is considering buying an outdated PT rig for $200, that person is not going to be the sort of person who demands TDM and 96 voices and spectacular preamps and all the other things that a few more tens of thousands can buy. Using the computer he already has, he could spend about
$650 and get a very basic TC-capable Pro Tools rig with some entry level bi-amped monitors. It's not enough to mix Lord Of The Rings, but it's almost definitely enough to meet his needs, and the countless hours of practice he could squeeze from that rig are worth so much more than the miniscule amount of pro studio time that $650 would buy him. You have to start somewhere, and outsourcing the work to someone else is not a start to anything.
 
He want's to edit his film. He is not a sound person. He will probably not do his film justice. If he's making home movies fine. If he want's to create something people may see who are not invited over to his house for drinks to see he should get someone who knows what he is doing. It's a little like me asking what under $500 camcorder I should by so I can be a cinematographer. Sure I can shoot something and get an image, but it doesn't mean it was the right way to go. Now if I want to be a cinematographer and that is what I can afford to start out then as a first learning too may be it's justifiable. But if I think I'm going to get a great or even good job out of it I'm delusional.

And actually most film sound editing happens in the day with a team. It's more satisfying that way also.
 
A piece of advice I'd like to give ANYONE out there who is considering getting into audio mixing: Avoid Digidesign at all costs (And believe me those costs are pretty high, so it's worth it)

There is NOTHING that protools LE or M powered is capable of that other DAW's can't do and do better. None of the features that make Protools HD an industry standard are included in the LE version. You are sooooooo much better off with a program like Logic Express or Cubase. They're cheaper, and work alot better.

My suggestion, buy Presonus hardware. Good quality, better preamps than the Digidesign Mbox garbage, and they're firewire based. USB 2 Mbox just sucks.

You can get a Firepod, with 8 preamps with phantom power, firewire based, 8 aux outs, Cubase included and a whole slew of other features for around 400 bucks. You've got your software, a great interface, and some money left over for decent monitors and mics.

Protools and Digidesign at the low end of the market are simply charging for a name. My suggestion, do a little research, you'll see you can get more bang for your buck from alot of other places.

-Steeve
 
Oh Boy.

Look, nobody's knocking Presonus. But ProTools LE is a great and highly capable platform, their tech support is outstanding, their hardware/software is highly reliable. And, perhaps most importantly, interchange with ProTools HD systems is often essential as your projects go through various stages, and ProTools LE makes that a non-issue. On a personal note, for me at least, the ProTools interface (for handling audio - NOT for midi!) is the most powerful and intuitive.

Again, I have no bias against Cubase, DP, Logic, or any other platform, but I don't know of any that "works a lot better"; and the ProTools LE hardware/software packages are great and reliable low-cost setups with a lot of benefits. There's no reason to trash it.
 
I can't disagree with any of the points you've made, Steeve, but you're leaving out one significant consideration:

Beyond a certain point, audio post-production is a neccessarily collabarative proccess, and the vast majority of audio proffessionals in post-production are working on Digidesign platforms. Session data (and metadata) is easily transported between two Protools systems, but not so easily between Protools and other DAW platforms. There are many work-arounds and a number of solid interchange format standards, but the fact remains that mixing DAW platforms is a real headache.

I'll be the first to trash-talk the preamps on the mBox, which is why I don't use it for recording. Most of the work I'm doing is editorial, so what I'm cutting in PT LE is going to be passed onto a re-recording mixer. The workflow and dataflow are made much more efficient by the fact that there is no interchange format needed. The only significant change that has to be made is that PT LE's lack of 5.1 support. That means that before the premix is started, the assistant re-recording mixer has to move my [carefully labelled] "fake 5.1" (1 mono and 2 stereo) groups onto a set of 5.1 track groups (which takes about a minute).

My point is that although you're absolutely correct that any hardware purchase decisions should be preceeded by a significant amount of research, its important to remember that the advantages and disadvantages of a particular platform go well beyond the technical specifications of the hardware and software involved.
 
Yeah, the previous 2 posts are right. Digidesign are absolute masters of the art of highway robbery, and their low-end software is severely underpowered for the price compared to the offerings of Steinberg and the like. Pathetic, really. BUT... Pro Tools is the industry standard. If someone were looking into a DAW for hobbyist music ventures I'd probably recommend Cubase (based on the amazing feature list) or maybe Ableton Live (based on word-of-mouth praise) but for film, compatibility is SO essential. And at the moment, for better or worse, that means Pro Tools.

Hopefully one day things will change, open project formats like AAF will really take off,
and we will actually have a choice.
 
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