Protools--vs--????, lost in the digi jungle----HELP!! Options

[Teiwaz]

anyone have comparisions between those two (digi vs. motu)?

Yes. i have a mate in the UK who bought a Digi001 and it was nothing but a nightmare for him. I told him to get rid of it and buy a MOTU 2408. He reports that the sound quality (freq range, dynamics) are way more transparent on the MOTU. Also, it happens to be reliable with his software (Logic). He does not miss No Tools / Pro Fools software at all.



PS: Hi Damann.

[Teiwaz]

"you can currently buy a 24 track tape machine for under £2000, the hiss comes free!"

The above quote came from Damann a while ago near the beginning of this topic. Spot on, dude!

Mr. T, I know this is an old topic, but I only just read it.



For your information, Damann IS talking from pro experience. He actually used to own an Otari MTR-90 2 inch machine. I know his studio and his gear. When he says the hiss comes free, he's talking from first hand experience, m8tey.



The old notion that you're not a "pro" unless you "work with the professional quality of a 2 inch Studer on a session" is total bo**ocks. We are now in the 21st century, and things have changed somewhat.



The name Apogee springs to mind when people mention Studers now.

[holli]

right on teiwaz, the 2408 is a top piece of kit. One feels that Motu are genuinely 'there' for you as well and this is a refreshing change - solid build, rock solid driver support (I don't miss my sporadic errors during mixdown of 20 minute tracks at all!). Thank god all my ins and outs are now balanced and of the same quality. It's been invaluable in getting my project studio analogue sound sources flexible and available in an efficiant way and seems my little 1604 desk is forming a healthy marriage with it based on mutual trust and understanding (?!).

In the 001's defence, when I put my first studio together it did provide all the things I needed in one box while money was tight. I was able to use the adat ins as a live mix in logic from the S6000, and preamps whilst obvoiusly not the greatest got several jobs done. Anyone doing battle with one at the moment (working solely one soundcard/one mac setup) has probably found that working at 24bit and using something like mic mod (emulation turned off) or similar, tube/analogue sat settings dialled in just a touch, then adding gain within the plugin to make up for the lack of gain at the input, 24bits give the plugin more to work with and dither, can do a passable impression of much better gear. It won't fool a pro, but then the 001 isn't really aimed at this market.

Audio quality aside, what really, really sucks however is the lack of foresite in the design of the drivers and the who's gives a s**t attitude regarding product support. It is not possible to work proffessionally with this hanging over every decision you make during a job or when aquiring new bits/software/computer upgrade etc.

I sold my 001 to a friend just starting out in the world of mac music, having expressed some reservations and problems I had had to overcome (driver conflicts etc) but confident it had run respectably-ish on my dual500. I went round to help him set it up and, oh great, because he was 'unfortunate' enough to own a quicksilver g4 it doesn't work. Dodgy's fix? Replace the motherboard!!!
Ever heard of buying a new mac and it not being compatible with your older SCSI legacy stuff for example? This isn't rocket science, it's just the bussing of data from one device to another and the suitable drivers to interpret it, which should presumably be able to be altered/rewritten to suit the host computer! Dodgy have had your cash and now you're just a target market who may be daft enough to hand over some more when your setup prematurely expires.

Teiwaz has been consistantly accurate in kit recommendations with regards making music on a mac for a long time now and is a chap with his finger firmly on the pulse. Take heed and save yourself alot of hard earned dosh!
Luv to all, Holli x

[Teiwaz]

Thank you, Holli. (By the way, Holli has an awesome Selmer sax, and plays it just as awesomely)...one serious musician.

All the best...

[holli]

Haha, lovingly hand built in 1952 and it's never crashed once!


So, will the new UAD mkII and the very sexy looking a/d converter be the ultimate soundcard option?

Those guys sure seem to know what they're doing. Anyone fancy a natter about this, maybe in a new topic. I haven't read too much about it in the press. Strange that often the classiest and most practical kit goes it's way into studios unnoticed whilst the problamatic kit gets loads of hot air expent on it!! I suppose if it works fine you can just lock up in the studio and get on with the business of creating strange and wonderful noises!

Holli x

[damann]

Haha, lovingly hand built in 1952 and it's never crashed once!  :)


So, will the new UAD mkII and the very sexy looking a/d converter be the ultimate soundcard option?

Those guys sure seem to know what they're doing. Anyone fancy a natter about this, maybe in a new topic.
Holli x

hey, i was lovingly built in 1969. a fine year.
i feel you really should start a thread on this topic, it appears to have longevity, not to mention of course, brevity(and girth).
the uad certainly has the potential to go all the way, and this seems to be a significant stage in it's development.
regarding the imminent "cambridge eq", this is a rare case of my actually looking forward to paying for a plugin!
those guys sure seem to know what they're doing...

[Presto]

I've got a nice Selmer alto sax from the 30's. Please do start a topic.

Coming back to the topic, did I say I like ProTools - great for audio and automation - with my Mbox it does what I want so I have little to add.

Shouldn't have said that, I'll get shouted at

[holli]

Strange that often the classiest and most practical kit goes it's way into studios unnoticed whilst the problamatic kit gets loads of hot air expent on it!! I suppose if it works fine you can just lock up in the studio and get on with the business of creating strange and wonderful noises!
-byme!

They're seems to be unrest in the ranks! At least in some of the other forums about the severe dis-age of the 001. Like I said, you just don't hear motu users venting or even bothering to argue the finer details, it just does exactly what it says on the tin!

I figure if they were just to drop the price it could be seen as a reasonable entry level card in a field without a huge amount of competition (this is why I'm keen to watch UAD, though this is a little higher up the ranking).

I guess I just feel bad as I sold my 001 to a fellow macmusic member and pal and it don't run on his machine . It gave me serious gip half way though a film scoring job of some considerable scale, prompting some very late sessions. After a week of serious stress, it was fine ever more -just like Presto's experience and did as it was required.

In terms of adding positive advice and constructive help, I owned one of the very first dual 500 g4's straight off the production line (the 'holy shit! how many plugins!' days) -with an 001, and with Teiwaz's help was able to solve alot of early bugs. Within several days, word spread and five more of the dual-baby's were in the hands of associates. I remember protools helpline staff being very grateful when I let them know about the trick of adding the 'z' to the digiINIT file and thus fixing the system hangs that occur on many systems. Also the occasional incompatibilty with USB printer drivers and their extension friends (what a pisser for printing orchestral parts from Logic ). Another biggy is that the 001 is very sensitive to upgrades that come from apple, if you have one of these little devils, my experience is always run an OS that comes straight off an installation disk. If you upgrade, by hook or by crook get hold of a complete new installer cd. If all goes horribly wrong, try a fresh system folder. It can be the only way to aleviate damage to system prefs and components that make the 001 function like the walking wounded! (I don't know what caused these errors, only that they don't happen any more )

So, I guess all considered its not too bad!

I don't think anyone's particularly saying 'this is good or bad' etc 'do this or do that', everone works 'different' to the benefit of an enriched musical scene -but I think it's fantastic these forums go some way to preventing the trend of technology industries from isolating the customer and restricting knowledge of product functionality to the end of marketing campaigns (microsoft anyone?). Surely good gear sells itself.

Presto, Selmer are just the same with saxes! Those new horns just don't play and they're sold on the reputation of those fine craftsman working in the early to mid 1900's - bought out by merging Adolf Saxes own company and staff, and some guys from Conn also. They weren't such good business men as the Selmer family but boy could they make a horn! When those chaps retired or passed on, 1960ish I reckon, there was noone left to make the tools and presses. Mark VI became the VII, pphheuughhh. Mines a super action hybrid by the way! It is essentially a VI but three years before production ran. I guess the tools were still being developed so it's pretty unique as much of the mods would have been hand made components, the bore of the body is not a usual S/A, broader like the VI's, so I guess that could be a one off as well! Sorry, I can't find a suitable lust-i-con to express with!

Don't they just record better than newer horns as well, much more solidity and depth but also with lots of touchy-feely metal texture in the high freq's, 10k up.

Are we allowed to talk about saxes by the way?!

Hope it's ok to natter away, i'm just in one of those moods


Damann, if you pick this up -can I ask you some advice on microphones/technique for recording sax? I'd love to learn more about this and share some stuff. Perhaps start a topic like Presto suggests?

Anyways, see you all in the UAD interface forum. Holli x

[droltam]

well this should heat things up......
I work in a Hi tech Music shop in Sydney and sell everthing from prosumer to Professional systems.

Weve sold over 1000 digidesign 001's most of which as a Turnkey Mac system.. Our issues have been literally NIL. If only all products worked this reliably. Yes, cubase running the direct i/o ASIO driver with dual processor macs required the dual processor extension removed, and only now with the dual mirrored macs has there been really any problem at all. The motherboard problem has now been addressed by apple themselves.

As for 001 and logic, many of the systems were also supplied with logic as it supports Direct i/o (not needing ASIO) and allows incredibly low latency,

Now for a answer….

Both products produce incredible results, with reliability and flexibility. No doubt if you run cubase/logic and a laptop you cant go past the sheer ease of interfacing and cost of a 828.
However the Logic/001 mac desktop combination is more flexible as not only does logic support Digidesign hardware with dedicated drivers but also gets you Protools.

Now you may think “ do I really need protools?” but I guarantee if you want to treat this system as a tape machine, (acoustic recording) the Protools/001 package is superior is ease of use and sound quality. Just as Digital clock and the AD/DA’s are important, so is the way the software handles its AUDIO. This is where Protools EXELS.


The best way to make your OWN decision.

First Objective Test
At a shop set up a system with Both an 828 and 001 connected. Get a good recording in OMF format. Load it into Logic and switch between Motu Asio and Direct i/o.

Second Objective Test
This time take the the same audio tracks from the logic song and import them into a Protools session. If the computer has enough ram you will be able to switch between Logic with the 828 and tools with the 001.

I hope this helps in you reaching a decision. Remember its your ears.

[damann]

Damann, if you pick this up -can I ask you some advice on microphones/technique for recording sax? I'd love to learn more about this and share some stuff. Perhaps start a topic like Presto suggests?

Anyways, see you all in the UAD interface forum.  Holli x

hi holli,
in my experience, a u67 or at worst a 414, placed 1/2 feet away, cardioid or hyper-cardioid pattern, just above bell end level, usually does the job rather well. use a pair set hard left and right facing in a bit towards the sources for section work. definitely insert a decent compressor over it, set this at 2:1!
sorry, i'm having trouble concentrating here, i'm sure i can hear some idiot salesman talking absolute cr@p as i try to type this!
i'll catch up with you in the uad interface thread...