Please Help. Logic Or Protools? Options

[lantzn]

Hello All,
My son and some friends have started a small garage band. They recently bought some really nice speakers and a mixing board with something like 8-10 channels/tracks. This things has just about every imaginable connections I ever seen on it. I'm a computer graphics person by profession and really get into cool software, I'm now studying Electric Image Universe 3D app. They came to me and asked if I could setup a MP3 jukebox for them after seeing my tower running iTunes. I sold them my iMac 400 DVSE, we dropped in a 160GB drive and a Gig of memory and have currently loaded all our CD collections onto it. They now plug the iMac into the mixing board and the songs really rock over the new speakers! I thought I was at a concert.

Now they want me to be their "sound man" and find some software that we can use to send some tracks into my G4 tower from the mixing board and eventually burn to CD. Last night I loaded the free Pro Tools LE and OMS package. We played around with some simple voice tracks since we didn't have it near the band's equipment. We used the Mac's little microphone to get the sound in. They got pretty excited about it. Of course I had to bootup into OS9 to run ProTools. I'm currently running 10.2.1, have a Radeon 8500AGP, Radeon 7000PCI, 60 and 80GB drives and 2GB of ram in this G4 400 sawtooth tower.

My question, what software for OS X should I be looking at when a OS X version is released? The LE, light, beginners edition is probably all we would ever need. Pro Tools LE looked like it had plenty of features along with the 8 track limit. What about a LE version of Logic? Does one exist. I know we're just now seeing OS X music software coming our way. I can mess around with Pro Tools LE in OS 9 until something is available but I'm not sure if I want to learn it to much if something else would be better. I'm a pretty fast learner and can jump around different software apps without problems.

Thanks

[Synthetic]

well Logic is the one of the few to release OSX version and there is no LE per say but there are different levels... silver, gold, platinum with silver being the cheapest of course and less features. If you go to www.emagic.de and look it up... you will see the features compared to the other versions. Its not a bad deal for a couple hundred US dollars. It may serve your needs... the OSX version is there but... I would wait to migrate to it until they get the plugins and few other features sorted out. I would just stay in 9 for music recording at this point.

ProTools LE is nice and will be your best choice since it doesn't seem like you will be doing much midi work. PT LE is only offered with the purchase of Digidesign hardware though which it is designed to work with. So if you were to get an Mbox or Digi001 or Digi002... then you would get app. PT is my favorite for quick and easy audio editing I have both PT and Logic and tend to use PT mostly when I want to record and edit something fast with audio but I use Logic if I am going to be working with midi.

[lantzn]

Thanks for the reply. I did go and checkout Logic's site and noticed they do have a similar product to PTLE called MicroLogic av. It appears to have 16 tracks verses PTFree's 8. That digi002 with firewire connections in the demo movie looked really cool. Wish the band had held off buying their mixing board before looking at all the software first. I did notice as you mentioned that the digi software, other then the free version, is tied into their hardware. Does this mean if I purchased any other digi software it will not recognize our mixing board when we plug it into our sound in jack? If so this tends to make me feel like waiting to see if an OS X version of Logic's MicroLogic av is released soon.

http://www.emagic.de/english/products/logic/mlav.html

[Synthetic]

well... see you can't really buy Digidesign ProTools LE without buying the hardware. It's a package deal. You can buy the TDM version of ProTools and associated plugs and such without buying hardware but it will not do much for you without spending lots of cash on DSP cards for your computer.

I would contact Emagic about the MicroLogic av, because I am not sure if it will be going to OSX... at least I never heard mention of it but who knows these days

[deleted]

Now they want me to be their "sound man" and find some software that we can use to send some tracks into my G4 tower from the mixing board and eventually burn to CD.

I'm just wondering, how many separated tracks do you need to record at once? And how many output groups (or eventually aux sends) does the mixing board have?
This will clearly point the possible need for extra audio hardware (analog inputs, i guess), which could be... expensive... depending on your needs. You're entering the multritrack recording's world ;-) Maybe with effects in real-time? Mhh..? :-)

On OS X right now, i know of Logic (really good software IMHO, but still no effect's plugin support) and Deck (from Bias, no MIDI support)... Logic being supported (owned) by Apple.
Pro Tools 6 will be there at the beginning of the year 2003 (as Digital Performer will, nice too), but wait & see. We're kind of stuck in os 9 for "serious" works, at the moment.

We used the Mac's little microphone to get the sound in. They got pretty excited about it.

Hey, they'll simply go mad if you do the recordings through a good audio interface (at least a M-Box for 2 tracks recordings with Pro Tools LE)!

My question, what software for OS X should I be looking at when a OS X version is released?

My answer would be Digital Performer OS X with MOTU or RME or Metric Halo hardware. Then Pro Tools 6 with a Digi002 if you really need it. But all that is totally subjective... Remember DP will work with any Core Audio supported hardware (as Logic or Live or Nuendo or Cubase SX will), at the opposite of Pro Tools (still only supports Digi hardware (ie LE and TDM and HD)). Will Digi support Core Audio with PT6? In a near future? The whole plugin support is a bit scary (Audio Units). Still no Waves plugins, no ChannelStrip, no BombFactory, no GRM Tools, ... etc.
I'll say again: wait & see ;-)

Sorry for all my grammatical mistakes. BTW, do you play in the band? Which instrument? Vibraphone? Or xylophone?

Bye.

[Levon River]

My answer would be Digital Performer OS X with MOTU or RME or Metric Halo hardware.

Ditto, if you can wait for it. (Latest date I heard for DP X is November.) I would add the Event EZBus to the list of possible hardware interfaces to consider. There's a thread about it somewhere in these hallowed forums.

Cubase SX was supposed to have been released yesterday (but it's awful quiet around here about it, huh? ), which might be another, more immediate option. No idea what hardware interfaces it will actually work with under X, though. I recommend you see if you can find out before locking into a "Logic vs. ProTools" only mode, though.

[lantzn]

Here's what I have for hardware.

G4 400MHz "sawtooth" tower
2GB ram
Mac OS X 9.2.2 on a 60GB 5400 rpm ATA Maxtor internal drive
Mac OS X 10.2.1 on a 80GB 7200 rpm ATA Maxtor internal drive
Radeon 8500 AGP running 17" NEC
Radeon 7000 PCI running 17" NEC
QPS Que cdrom burner
Roxio Toast/iTunes
Quicktime 6 Pro edition

Here's what they have.

Mackie Compact Mixer 1202 VLZ Pro
http://www.mackie.com/record/1202vlzpro/index.html

Mackie SA1232 Speakers - two
http://www.mackie.com/sr/sa1232/index.html
Good gawd! After reading these specs, no wonder the little iMac fellow sounded like a concert.

No I don't play in the band, but I've always been a music fan. My singing sounds like the singer from Crash Test Dummies (low, deep and throaty), and we all know how many bands have a singer who sounds like him. My sons says I grew up in the "butt-rocker" music days. Hey I graduated in 1977, what can I say? Over the years I've like just about all types of music except country and rap.

I currently have over 500 music cds, and had a ton of LPs which were all recorded onto a Teac reel-to-reel years ago. I like preserving my investments (LPs) which is why keeping my music in MP3 format on my computer with iTunes is so cool. My G4 tower has over 5600 songs in iTunes and says if I play them all, it'd take over 18 days! Now all my friends keep feeding "the machine" with all their cds when they come over. I think they're seeing if they can bring her down or something, haha.

[deleted]

Mackie Compact Mixer 1202 VLZ Pro
http://www.mackie.com/record/1202vlzpro/index.html

Sorry, but for what i've seen on the MAckie's site, you only have 2 aux sends... No routiung or groups or sub-groups...
Sad, IMHO...

More than 2 simultaneous tracks will not be possible, untill you directly plug in the audio interface...

I currently have over 500 music cds, and had a ton of LPs which were all recorded onto a Teac reel-to-reel years ago. I like preserving my investments (LPs)

Amazing, i'm quite impressed... Is this only private & personal stuff? Did you ever broadcast, in any manner? Where? ;-)
I'm suddenly feeling so lazy... :-)

Bye.

[lantzn]

[Sorry, but for what i've seen on the MAckie's site, you only have 2 aux sends... No routiung or groups or sub-groups...
Sad, IMHO...
More than 2 simultaneous tracks will not be possible, untill you directly plug in the audio interface...]

Do you mean I will need a piece of hardware between the computer and mixer or will Digital Performer solve this issue?

Sorry never posted my music before. At work I have a T1, at home where my music is a 56K (all that's currently available) which sucks royal.

[lantzn]

Hey are are you guys getting those quotes to work? I tried that quote button a number of ways but no go.

[deleted]

Do you mean I will need a piece of hardware between the computer and mixer or will Digital Performer solve this issue?

Does your G4 "sawtooth" has a real audio input (you wrote "We used the Mac's little microphone to get the sound in")? Is it the jack 3.5mm input?... If not, you'll obviously need some kind of audio interface, and as your mixer only has 2 aux sends, a stereo interface will do (have a look to the M-Box for a use with Pro Tools LE in 24/32 tracks.

Bye.

[deleted]

Hey are are you guys getting those quotes to work? I tried that quote button a number of ways but no go.

Just click on the button "quote", in the top right corner of the message you want to quote.

For multiple quotes, just click on the "quote" button (only visible in edit mode), then cut/paste the text in the "quoted message" field, right at the bottom of the main edit field. Then click on the "Close Current Tag" red cross button. Seems complicated, but it's only tags as in html, after all.

Just have a try ;-)

Bye.

[JustEloy]

The first thing you should do in my opinion is look at what you really want to do....

Because the beautifull thing about harddisk recording nowadays is that you can edit the separate channels as much as you'd like. This would not be very handy if every instrument was recorded on one channel, because you'd probably wouldn't want to use the same EQ settings on all the instruments....

So that (almost) leaves 2 simple ways of working:

Do you want to have everybody play at the same time while recording????
In this case you'll want to have a Audio interface that has multiple inputs, one for the bass, one for the singer etc. etc. (maybe even multiple mics for the drummer??)

The other way is to start recording for example the drums, then you have one audio track containing the drums. After that you play the drums (over headphones...) while recording the bass. Then you have another track containing the bass..... You just keep following this process until you have recorded all the individual instruments, now you can apply different EQ setting, different Plug-ins (reverb....) to all the individual audio tracks (with individual audio tracks i refer to the individual instruments..)
In this case you can use a simple audio interface, 2 in 2 out.....

Now you have total control over you mix....!

Just for clearing things out, a computer works with digital information (10011100011100, just to make it easy...). When you play a instrument it will make an analog sound (except for off course some digital synthesizers....).
This analog sound has to be coverted to digital information (this is also where the bits and the kilohertzes of a audio interface come in). The device that does the conversion from analog to digital (and reversed) is the audio interface..... After it has been digitized the computer can work with it, so programs like Digital Performer, Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase etc.

I hope i helped you out on some points....


If you need some more info or somethings are unclear, just let me know, i'll be happy to help you out....

Greetings Eloy.