Surround Sound?

Pro tools is a big hype and offers nothing more then the other options available except a beefed up price tag. Unless you have a specific need for it like working with avid projects.
Rme Fireface800 is the best sound card that as decent preamps and amazing converters....nothing will beat that in the price range. Check the reviews and do some research. The quality of the converters are quiet important. With the other systems you end up needing to buy hi end converters wich will cost you big bucks.

If you were on pc i would suggest nuendo but on a mac logic is the best. I worked with both extensivly. (personal opinion here)

The acoustics of your room are very important. Like a previous poster said you dont wanna color correct on a black and white screen.

With that kind of investment 5k to 10k why not have a proffesionnal do it on a project per project basis. Like ifownlee41nite said ,unless you have prior experience having good equipment is not enough.
 
One thing I've been looking at is the Apogee Ensemble.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...SEMBLE_Ensemble_FireWire_Audio_Interface.html

They have a bundle that includes Logic Pro as well. Mike at HDForIndies recommended this as one of the main options for 5.1 surround sound in his recent DV magazine article on setting up audio for video. I think you should go to the DV magazine website and check out his article before buying anything, it will help clear up a lot of things.

I think what people are talking about with Pro Tools is the hardware interfaces that go along with it. They have loads of audio I/O connections depending on which package you buy. But yes, it does cost a lot (about $10,000 bare minimum for just the PCIe boards and software, no mixing console or anything else).

By the way, there is another device on its way that looks very attractive for 5.1 mixing. The new MOTU V3HD, I believe, has its own thread in the DVXUser News section. It's an external firewire box with all sorts of video and audio I/O.
 
I disagree on the PT assessment. The two big reasons are that PT plays better with others than anybody else out there, they also have more post specific features and more post specific plugins/ addons that any other platform. The second reason is that the cost is always talked about but not in context. If you buy anything else you essentially have no upgrades but to buy something else new. Nuendo's upgrades are NOT cheap and you won't get any trade in on hardware. Digi is the only company I know that gives you a serious trade in allowance when upgrading. What this means is for the first time buyer the price difference can look big but after one serious upgrade (2-6 years usually) the difference goes to almost nothing and after a second upgrade you ahead. Of course this all depends a bit on where in the scheme of things you are but it hold true pretty much through out the line. So if your just trying it out it can be pricey but if it's your career it's an investment that pays off. In both of my major upgrades I got just about my original purchase price back in trade in allowance.

That said if you don't have to work with other studios your much freer to pick what you like. Nuendo is pretty good (I didn't like it as much as PT but that's opinion).

And I agree with everything else . You skills are a bigger hurdle than any equipment.


Pierre Petit said:
Pro tools is a big hype and offers nothing more then the other options available except a beefed up price tag. Unless you have a specific need for it like working with avid projects.
Rme Fireface800 is the best sound card that as decent preamps and amazing converters....nothing will beat that in the price range. Check the reviews and do some research. The quality of the converters are quiet important. With the other systems you end up needing to buy hi end converters wich will cost you big bucks.

If you were on pc i would suggest nuendo but on a mac logic is the best. I worked with both extensivly. (personal opinion here)

The acoustics of your room are very important. Like a previous poster said you dont wanna color correct on a black and white screen.

With that kind of investment 5k to 10k why not have a proffesionnal do it on a project per project basis. Like ifownlee41nite said ,unless you have prior experience having good equipment is not enough.
Click to expand...
 
^ Very few people buy Nuendo to use Nuendo specific hardware... its compatible with just about any interface out there which means you can upgrade your hardware or add on to it at any time. With PT, you are married to their brand of hardware so there are far fewer options. Not saying their stuff is bad by any means, if anything it is more standard and less likely to have problems due to this. It just costs you more up front and typically their plugins also cost more. That is interesting that they do trade-ins though.

The biggest reason for anyone to go PT is definitely for compatability with other studios which can be important if you want a real pro mixing/mastering job done down the road. Specific features may also help you pick the right software, but for the most part, there is a way to do almost anything on either platform. What it really comes down to is which one is easiest for you to work with and allows you to be the most creative.

Regardless, someone that is even asking this question in the first place might be better off using a cheaper/simpler program to start with and learning the basics. You'll be much better off spending money on decent monitors and doing room treatment first and learning the basics. tigeba's post makes a lot of sense. Most audio sources are still recorded in mono, and rarely more than stereo, so it makes sense to first learn to mix in mono and/or stereo. Then it is easy to move things around over the extra speakers.

As for the original question, if you already have the software, you simply need an audio interface with at least 6 analog outputs and a 5.1 speaker system. There are too many interfaces out there to recommend one, depends on what you need and want to spend. For speakers, you want 5 matching monitors and a sub. They can either be powered individually (usually the best route) or you can go through a seperate amp and wire up non powered speakers if you have to (the home stereo route, not a good idea). If you really plan to get any quality mixing or "mastering", make sure you get speakers that don't have 1/8" mini plug connectors, you want a real set of monitors. I personally love the Bluesky MediaDesk set up. They have much better and more expensive setups, but this one works wonders in a small room and is designed specifically with 5.1 in mind.
 
All very true. I didn't know that Steinberg made hardware? But on the low end for a multitrack editor it's actually hard to beat PT. $300-$400 gets you an Le with an interface. The other options that I know of would be a variety of MIDI apps that also do audio (most of those are a bit dodgy on the audio editing for film features), Nuendo (very full featured but that is $2,500 ($2k street) for the software alone), then there is Deck (could be OK?? ~~$4-500 software only), Mackie and MOTU have software that is designed for music but might be OK for post, but they are much more multitrack recorders than editors and I think that the are limited to their own hardware but??.

So PT at $400 with hardware or $1300 for software and hardware with enough outputs to deal with surround is not a bad deal.

When you start getting into the entry level HD systems then there is enough $ involved that Nuendo can start looking very attractive. Initial investment might be 50% lower depending on a lot of things.

Plugins tend to be pricey in the TDM systems but not so much with Le because most of the Native plugs are RTAS, VST and AU in one package. so while they are not cheap they are the same cost if your on any "native" system, not just PT. TDM plugs can be not so bad or can be ridiculously expensive. It's a Digi only format so ...
However it's not so much Digi as it is the developers. There are TDM plugs for ~~$60 from some folks. Then you get Sony at $1,500.

If Nuendo could open and save PT sessions it would be a real competitor in the pro market but compatibility rules so...

A lot of post folks use Blue Sky and like them very much.

mcsmooth said:
^ Very few people buy Nuendo to use Nuendo specific hardware... its compatible with just about any interface out there which means you can upgrade your hardware or add on to it at any time. With PT, you are married to their brand of hardware so there are far fewer options. Not saying their stuff is bad by any means, if anything it is more standard and less likely to have problems due to this. It just costs you more up front and typically their plugins also cost more. That is interesting that they do trade-ins though.

The biggest reason for anyone to go PT is definitely for compatability with other studios which can be important if you want a real pro mixing/mastering job done down the road. Specific features may also help you pick the right software, but for the most part, there is a way to do almost anything on either platform. What it really comes down to is which one is easiest for you to work with and allows you to be the most creative.

Regardless, someone that is even asking this question in the first place might be better off using a cheaper/simpler program to start with and learning the basics. You'll be much better off spending money on decent monitors and doing room treatment first and learning the basics. tigeba's post makes a lot of sense. Most audio sources are still recorded in mono, and rarely more than stereo, so it makes sense to first learn to mix in mono and/or stereo. Then it is easy to move things around over the extra speakers.

As for the original question, if you already have the software, you simply need an audio interface with at least 6 analog outputs and a 5.1 speaker system. There are too many interfaces out there to recommend one, depends on what you need and want to spend. For speakers, you want 5 matching monitors and a sub. They can either be powered individually (usually the best route) or you can go through a seperate amp and wire up non powered speakers if you have to (the home stereo route, not a good idea). If you really plan to get any quality mixing or "mastering", make sure you get speakers that don't have 1/8" mini plug connectors, you want a real set of monitors. I personally love the Bluesky MediaDesk set up. They have much better and more expensive setups, but this one works wonders in a small room and is designed specifically with 5.1 in mind.
Click to expand...
 
Steinberg's hardware used to be rebranded rme. Sound cards and converters.
But thats a while ago dont know if they still do that.
I remember people coming to the rme forum to get support for there nuendo hardware.
 
If you are just doing the surround sound, MOTU UltraLite audio I/O is good choice and as per my request, MOTU made a switch to assign the main volume knob in the front panel to be the master volume for 5.1 or 7.1 surround mode.
 
I just found out that MOTU V3HD does have the assignable front panel main volume that can be assigned to be any stereo pair main volume, or 4ch, or 6ch, or any combination from total 16 channel stereo pair out puts (which means 8 pairs). So I guess it could even do 7.1 master volume, too.
 
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