|
|
Post by Bob Olhsson on Sept 5, 2015 14:20:28 GMT -6
Broadcast, especially broadcast news is Avid's cash cow and the reason they talk so much about "everywhere." For example, the Tour de France coverage used their system for live on-location editing in a truck.
Cable television is the only real area of growth in media production. Big music studios have all they can do financially to just maintain their consoles. I knew it was all over but the shouting when SSL, Harrison and Neve stopped showing up at the AES shows. None of this has anything to do with the musician-owned home studios where Pro Tools replaced the ADAT. Two incarnations of top management ago Avid looked like they were pursuing that market with products like Pro tools 8, the Eleven Rack and the M-Audio line. Everybody's home equity taking a dive underwater in 2010 killed the prosumer market, the board pulled the plug on that idea and replaced Avid's management.
|
|
|
|
Post by lpedrum on Sept 5, 2015 19:04:23 GMT -6
Broadcast, especially broadcast news is Avid's cash cow and the reason they talk so much about "everywhere." For example, the Tour de France coverage used their system for live on-location editing in a truck. Cable television is the only real area of growth in media production. Big music studios have all they can do financially to just maintain their consoles. I knew it was all over but the shouting when SSL, Harrison and Neve stopped showing up at the AES shows. None of this has anything to do with the musician-owned home studios where Pro Tools replaced the ADAT. Two incarnations of top management ago Avid looked like they were pursuing that market with products like Pro tools 8, the Eleven Rack and the M-Audio line. Everybody's home equity taking a dive underwater in 2010 killed the prosumer market, the board pulled the plug on that idea and replaced Avid's management. I agree with a lot of what you're saying Bob. I do think however that many musician-owned studios chose other DAWs over Protools because they preferred them, not just because of the poor economy. Also, conflating "musician-owned studios" with the term "prosumer" implies a hobbyist or part-time status, once again feeding the myth that Protools is the only DAW for pros. |
|
|
|
Post by Bob Olhsson on Sept 5, 2015 20:11:52 GMT -6
For over a decade the vast majority of new "pro audio" gear has in fact been sold to hobbyists which was the market Avid was hoping to tap into. Experienced professionals already own most of what they need. They also primarily buy used because they want to use familiar gear whenever possible. Many virtual instrument folks obviously prefer sequencer-based applications. People who primarily record musicians with microphones moving between multiple studios choose Pro Tools simply because it's there and using it is less of a hassle than doing file conversions or learning a new DAW.
What DAW you use doesn't make anybody more or less professional. It comes down to choosing the most practical workflow which for a great many people is still Pro Tools.
|
|
|
|
Post by Randge on Sept 5, 2015 20:34:29 GMT -6
Steinberg was always so much more feature based and more affordable. They still are. I watched what my favorite engineers were switching to and it was a no brainer for me once I tried it. Playlists....HAHAHAHAHA!Never wanna see that ever again!
|
|
|
|
Post by b1 on Sept 5, 2015 21:06:01 GMT -6
Steinberg has pretty much been the standard PC based app and probably has a very large holding on Mac now. When I think of working with MIDI, I think Cubase because of the graphical representation of note and data manipulation. Reaper is gaining ground and if they focused on MIDI, as many users have been wanting better, they would be catapulted farther along. I do like how they are furthering video usage.
I believe Yamaha and Nuendo has a large share in the broadcasting market. There are many positioned to snatch up disgruntled Avid customers in all sectors. That has been happening for a while. Those who are truly locked in by the large investment in Avid products are the holdouts. I'm sure there are loyalists, but they are becoming fewer by Avid's own practices.
|
|
|
|
Post by lpedrum on Sept 5, 2015 21:28:09 GMT -6
For over a decade the vast majority of new "pro audio" gear has in fact been sold to hobbyists which was the market Avid was hoping to tap into. Experienced professionals already own most of what they need. They also primarily buy used because they want to use familiar gear whenever possible. Many virtual instrument folks obviously prefer sequencer-based applications. People who primarily record musicians with microphones moving between multiple studios choose Pro Tools simply because it's there and using it is less of a hassle than doing file conversions or learning a new DAW. What DAW you use doesn't make anybody more or less professional. It comes down to choosing the most practical workflow which for a great many people is still Pro Tools. I love your posts Bob and learn a lot from them. But in this case I just can't relate. You seem to be putting all audio engineers into two camps: "Experienced professionals who already own most of what they need," and bedroom hobbyists who gobble up gear for their rock and roll dreams. A large third category (the one I'm in) are professional full-time musicians and producers that are increasingly owning and operating the means of production. That could mean anything from a simple set up that allows them to overdub their own instrument, to a full-blown studio. That is where professional, high quality music recording is heading in large part. I agree with you that Protools seems to own the post and video market right now. But there seems to be an awful lot of rumbling out there about the quality and price structure of Protools (that's why I posted the original article of this thread.) I'm honestly curious why you're a staunch defender. |
|
|
|
Post by tonycamphd on Sept 5, 2015 23:45:06 GMT -6
Bob O,
"What DAW you use doesn't make anybody more or less professional. It comes down to choosing the most practical workflow which for a great many people is still Pro Tools."
that doesn't sound like "staunch defending" to me? It sounds like the truth, PT started as an audio recording program that later added midi, Logic started as a midi program that later added audio, of course pro AE's went to PT, it was really the only game in town, and like it or not, PT is still currently, far and away, thee professional AEing standard by a million miles. I personally hate the crap they're pulling, but not as much as I hate the layout and learning curve involved with both cubase and logic, to me they both look and feel like toys by comparison to PT, I think a lot of hobbyist recordist's use reaper, cubase and logic simply because they are cheaper or free, and thats a great reason, but none of those platforms could even come close to competing with PT on serious professional level until the very recent advancements in native based computational power, at this point the playing field is starting to level(though it's still not there).
More than anything else, people just stick with what they know, people who came up on consoles like PT because it's workflow is most like the old school way of working, it's hard for anyone to make a switch after devoting so much time to learn a platform and all it's short cuts. If i started out today, i'd surely pick a different DAW, but i'm a dyed in the wool PT guy, and will be staying put, so will many other PT users, no matter how lame Avid behaves, I think Avid is well aware of the fact that a shit ton more professionals and amateurs alike, use PT than all the other DAW's combined, and they're betting they will continue to do so no matter how F-d up they act, i'd take that bet.
|
|
|
|
Post by Johnkenn on Sept 6, 2015 0:54:02 GMT -6
Steinberg was always so much more feature based and more affordable. They still are. I watched what my favorite engineers were switching to and it was a no brainer for me once I tried it. Playlists....HAHAHAHAHA!Never wanna see that ever again! I'm somewhat/pretty much on your side, but what's wrong with playlists? |
|
|
|
Post by Johnkenn on Sept 6, 2015 1:05:38 GMT -6
Bob O,
"What DAW you use doesn't make anybody more or less professional. It comes down to choosing the most practical workflow which for a great many people is still Pro Tools."
both cubase and logic, to me they both look and feel like toys by comparison to PT, See, I don't agree with you there. And even though you said "personally to me," you still slighted them by calling them "toys." I'm not picking on you - I had a similar (yet less fervered) opinion until I started using Cubase 8. In all honesty - for me - it is becoming more useful than Pro Tools was for me. Since I did the dirty work and dug in, C8 seems like it is a more efficient platform. But that's just my opinion - I'm not trying to diss yours. One of the things that I used to bitch about incessantly was editing and comping takes in Cubase as compared to PT's. Well, now that I dug in, when I go back to PT's (which I do often because I get a lot of PT's files) it seems slow in comparison. I think this is what Bob was trying to say: use what works for you. Most of us can't fairly compare DAWS because we are more familiar with one than the other three. Use the one you're familiar with and make great music. Unless they go to a subscription plan that makes you switch to either Cubase or Logic  |
|
|
|
Post by Johnkenn on Sept 6, 2015 1:07:41 GMT -6
Now - let me say this. I don't have experience with running Cubase or Logic with tracking 24 Channels running at once. Maybe that suck ass with that...but from what I hear from people and knowing that people like Randy do it every day, I don't think it's an issue.
|
|
|
|
Post by Johnkenn on Sept 6, 2015 1:12:45 GMT -6
But PT's is the absolute 98% pro standard here in Nashville
|
|
|
|
Post by jazznoise on Sept 6, 2015 2:30:53 GMT -6
Tracking large track quantities is actually where PT is worst. Having to make different channels, and the amount of tools shut off during tracking. It literally turns into a frozen block of nothing, or it did at least during PT 9 when I last used it. As John said, efficiency can be where post users feel PT falls down. Again it's fine if you can just throw money at the situation to make it go away, but some of us are on tighter budgets!
I remember the day I was done with PT's was when I had to do a 30 minute edit for radio. No offline render? No dice.
I can be recording 16 tracks in Reaper and I can still be changing the processing on the other tracks, I can add Auxs if someone suggests an idea and have ideas going before the band is even finished tracking their parts. PT is still pretty intrusively slow for creative production stuff unless you have a pretty slick/large Hybrid setup, and I don't think many future engineers will be buying large format desks to appease their DAWs anymore. Any DAW should allow you to do some monkey work will the red button is on, this isn't 1992 anymore.
|
|
|
|
Post by Randge on Sept 6, 2015 7:12:47 GMT -6
Now - let me say this. I don't have experience with running Cubase or Logic with tracking 24 Channels running at once. Maybe that suck ass with that...but from what I hear from people and knowing that people like Randy do it every day, I don't think it's an issue. I have typical tracking sessions that have around 27 channels going at once. It is so efficient and with the console sections being able to be split, I have my inputs on a 40" screen ( I have two, one on top of the other) and am able to use it like a meter bridge and still have my output console in front of me and easy to access to my waveform viewer on the left bottom. Works ideally and is a very solid and consistent rig. As for playlists, I find it a royal pain to search through those when you can't see your choices ahead of time like you can with lanes or the stacked Cubase takes. |
|
|
|
Post by Bob Olhsson on Sept 6, 2015 11:02:56 GMT -6
SSL, API, AMS-Neve and a couple of others weren't in New York or San Francisco. LA is the largest, if not the only market for large consoles remaining in the U.S. because of the depth of their post production talent pool. (Pro Tools pretty much destroyed regional post because it made it affordable to have multiple people collaborating in the same neighborhood with directors walking between the editing rooms.)
Every professional musician or songwriter I know has had their own production capability at least since the 1970s and the Tascam 80-8! The hobbyist market I'm talking about is all of those folks who formed bands in college during the late '60s, ended up in another career, paid off their house, put their kids through college and were ready to borrow against their home equity to pursue their dream of recording a Sgt. Pepper's. Just as the boomers had turned guitars and drums into mass produced junk during the '70s, the market for prosumer recording gear exploded 30 years later.
|
|
|
|
Post by M57 on Sept 6, 2015 11:11:05 GMT -6
I'll chime in as a member of the hobbyist-vanity-recording-personal-home-studio demographic.
15 years ago, I was using a Paris rig, hoping the poor man's PT would take off ..but Ensoniq screwed the pooch with that one. Somewhere along the line, I broke down and purchased PT9, which I used up until 2 years ago. I found it staggeringly difficult to use, especially where more advanced features like flex time were concerned, but I don't doubt that was mainly because I wasn't using it enough. Anyway, when PT10 game out I held out as long as I could, and eventually saw the writing on the wall (..er, in forums) ..there was a lot of complaining even back then. Already part of the other dark side (Mac), for less than the PT upgrade ($199) I decided to give Logic a try. I found the transition to be quite a bit less painful than I expected. More importantly, I found stock features like drummer, automatic buss-routing, and 5 compressor emulations in one plug to be a game-changer where my work-flow and engineering abilities were concerned. It may be less flexible for all I know, but there's very little in PT I miss. The stock piano was better, and before Alchemy came out (I just upgraded to 10.2 the other night), a few of the PT synth sounds seemed to be of higher quality, but that's pretty much it. Now that my piano is in the studio I'm not missing PT one bit.
The other day, my nephew (who is in college) was visiting for a few days, and we worked on one of his songs from scratch. He was considering getting ProTools at some point. I didn't say a word. It didn't take long before he asked me how much Logic costs. His jaw dropped. It's staggering to me that a company that has so much name recognition and market share has squandered their credibility with the growing legions of home-studio types. I wondering that Avid didn't have to worry about its corporate structure when it owned the market, so no doubt over time it morphed into a Frankencompany with all kinds of worthless appendages and peccadilloes. It may be impossible to recover from that.
|
|
|
|
Post by Bob Olhsson on Sept 6, 2015 12:07:18 GMT -6
Avid probably just did the math and realized there was little profit to be made from home studios. Apple can afford to lose money as a means of selling people new computers. The Reaper guy can afford to lose money until he cashes in on another IPO. Yamaha can afford to cover Steinberg's losses. The DIY/owner-operator market has really become a race to the bottom.
|
|
|
|
Post by lpedrum on Sept 6, 2015 15:33:33 GMT -6
The DIY/owner-operator market has really become a race to the bottom. Thankfully not my reality. |
|
|
|
Post by Randge on Sept 6, 2015 15:59:02 GMT -6
Mine either.
|
|
|
|
Post by M57 on Sept 6, 2015 16:44:28 GMT -6
Avid probably just did the math and realized there was little profit to be made from home studios. Apple can afford to lose money as a means of selling people new computers. The Reaper guy can afford to lose money until he cashes in on another IPO. Yamaha can afford to cover Steinberg's losses. The DIY/owner-operator market has really become a race to the bottom. Lucky for me, it's my reality. The consumer is winning that race. DAWs are dirt cheap, and the plugin/software companies are falling all over themselves to sell to people like me. But then I suppose the view from the other side makes it not dissimilar to how the writing songs has been a race to the bottom. If one sector wins, there's gotta be losers. Things may shake out over time, but it can't be healthy in the short term. |
|
|
|
Post by Randge on Sept 6, 2015 17:11:01 GMT -6
I think that paying $2-300 for a single plugin is more than fair on our purchaser end. That is a lot to bite off with no guarantee of how long we'll actually get to own it in a digital age, it could be gone in a snap. In turn, if we are doing well, we buy more plugs and the profit cycle continues. Gear and plugin companies have to stay state of the art and be on their A game, just like I feel I have to, or I will quit getting called.
|
|
|
|
Post by lpedrum on Sept 6, 2015 18:45:03 GMT -6
Avid probably just did the math and realized there was little profit to be made from home studios. Apple can afford to lose money as a means of selling people new computers. The Reaper guy can afford to lose money until he cashes in on another IPO. Yamaha can afford to cover Steinberg's losses. The DIY/owner-operator market has really become a race to the bottom. Lucky for me, it's my reality. The consumer is winning that race. DAWs are dirt cheap, and the plugin/software companies are falling all over themselves to sell to people like me. But then I suppose the view from the other side makes it not dissimilar to how the writing songs has been a race to the bottom. If one sector wins, there's gotta be losers. Things may shake out over time, but it can't be healthy in the short term. My reality is that this is not a race to the bottom, but rather a golden age for recording and gear. Whether it's reasonably priced DAWs and software, affordable gear like CAPI, Hairball, Warm Audio, Louder than Liftoff, or high end stuff, it's all out there for every musician and engineer to take advantage of. Beyond that it's just about using your ears and putting in the hours to get better. I'm not cold-hearted about how technology has changed the economic landscape of audio engineering, and affected people's lives--we see that in every corner of the music business. But for me personally the access to affordable gear and instant knowledge has been life-changing. |
|
|
|
Post by b1 on Sept 6, 2015 19:10:20 GMT -6
Never been a time like this in history. For the Independents this is the golden age. This is a climb to the top. Better stuff available at an increasing rate and lower cost. Anyone who couldn't make quality music now will probably never be able to. Project and home studios are the future. The guy in Nairobi or Darfur have gotten on the wagon. It's here to stay at every level!
What's horrible is, those who want to pattern their setup like the current commercial standards and destroying their music in the process by pumping the volume to unnatural inhuman levels. Mortgaging their life to get unnecessarily expensive high end priced gear just to end up defeating the purpose by smashing the daylights out of it. That's unthinkable by anyone's standard; or it should be. Art has become imitation at every twist of the knob. Might as well get some insight from independently thinking all of the processes through. I'll buy the Independent's stuff who enjoys music rather than the established label's over-hyped business-end nonsense. And I'll never support a company who thinks their name alone brings a premium price. They may have a trick or two up their sleeve, but it's plain to see the ones who are dropping the ball.
|
|
|
|
Post by Martin John Butler on Sept 6, 2015 19:39:30 GMT -6
I'm looking forward to working with some writers in Nashville at some point, I guess I'll have to familiarize with Pro Tools, but I'm not looking forward to it. I can see that working pros need it. As a songwriter at home, Logic gives me way more than any other DAW, for way less. I'm grateful files can at least be brought into different DAWS.
|
|
|
|
Post by lpedrum on Sept 6, 2015 19:47:32 GMT -6
I'm looking forward to working with some writers in Nashville at some point, I guess I'll have to familiarize with Pro Tools, but I'm not looking forward to it. I can see that working pros need it. As a songwriter at home, Logic gives me way more than any other DAW, for way less. I'm grateful files can at least be brought into different DAWS. The writers that I know in Nashville flip open their laptops and use Garage band! |
|
|
|
Post by Bob Olhsson on Sept 6, 2015 20:29:57 GMT -6
The only people who need to learn Pro Tools are those who want to work in post locked to picture, work as an employee in a studio or move projects around between different studios. It isn't a composition tool in the same sense as Logic.
|
|
