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Post by drbill on Feb 21, 2023 15:36:52 GMT -6
Rock solid tracking with little to no limitation on tracks. That's what people are using paid studios for these days. No one is doing production and/or mixing in big costly day/hour hire studios anymore. The rest is being done at home or at the producer / engineers place. They can use whatever they want there. In a situation where a reboot / retake can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars, that's one BIG incentive. But how do you monitor through the plugs you're going to use so that you know the tones you are getting are the right ones for the mix? Honestly? I don't know anyone who monitors thru plugins while tracking. I've never seen it happen. I'm sure home guys do it, but I've never been at a big studio and see that happen. A non issue for me.
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Post by drbill on Feb 21, 2023 14:13:47 GMT -6
Walk into a studio that has PT. Cool. Now do they have the plugins you use? No? Will they allow you to spend an hour installing all your plugs and licenses and stuff onto their machines? Also NO? Hmm. Then where is the benefit? Rock solid tracking with little to no limitation on tracks. That's what people are using paid studios for these days. No one is doing production and/or mixing in big costly day/hour hire studios anymore. The rest is being done at home or at the producer / engineers place. They can use whatever they want there. In a situation where a reboot / retake can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars, that's one BIG incentive.
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Post by drbill on Feb 21, 2023 14:08:09 GMT -6
Yeah, I've talked with several companies. The sales guys know zip. Duh.... And they are generally not a service first industry. Plus, re: the hardware - they may quote you one system, and install a different one.
As for batteries and the whole systems - the game is still rigged to make the companies money.
I was quite surprised to see that they can shut your entire system down with the flick of a button - batteries or no batteries. The only way around that is to buy the entire system yourself ($$$$$), go with a huge battery backup for nighttime and cloudy days, disconnect from the grid entirely, and not sell any over production back to them. The bottom financial line is that electricity is still cheap enough that you are mostly breaking even. However, given inflation, etc., they will probably be a good idea in 5-10 years and you WILL be saving money then.
They make sure to sell the scare that electricity is going up 3-6% a year, but the fact is that it isn't. Sometimes it even goes down in price for a few years. It's certainly not keeping up with inflation.
For me, the service aspect is the most important cause I need the studio up and running 24/7/365 - and that's an area that most rate pretty poorly at. Reading the complaints about it taking days to weeks to get problems fixed is horrible, and pretty much a deal killer for me. And they all have problems. It's a baby industry. I'd still love to hear of a studio running 80-100% on solar, what hardware they are using, and how it worked out for them sonically / noise wise.
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Post by drbill on Feb 21, 2023 13:42:05 GMT -6
Thanks for the Luna clarification!
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Post by drbill on Feb 21, 2023 13:02:16 GMT -6
Blackdawg , nobtwiddler or anyone else here....do you guys know how Solar works for getting clean AC for studio use? Sorry for the off topic. The best panels are DC. And you use a solar controller and ideally batteries to store to manage it. It's not cheap to do up front. But, depending on where you live and your local utility provider, you can make it back with net metering. Don't know what Eric is using as he hasn't shown us that in his videos. My dads system though uses a Solark controller/inverter to manage it all. It's expensive but a very cool piece of kit. He has his set to run the house and shop off of batteries during peak metering hours so his bill gets no extra charges. But if you have a good inverter and such, power should be very clean. www.sol-ark.com/sol-ark-15k-all-in-one/I can get solar for "free" - as long as I commit to use a particular company for 20-25 years. But almost NONE of them are using batteries. (Will check out your link - thx!) I can't say "none", cause you can request it at great cost (and at that point it's no longer "free", or they up your monthly charge dramatically). There's precious little about studio's running on Solar that I have been able to find. I wouldn't mind doing it cause we have crazy sun coverage here, and plenty of S/W facing roofline, but I can't seem to get any straight answers other than - "should be fine". Right now, I've got the absolutely best and cleanest AC I've ever had in any studio.
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Post by drbill on Feb 21, 2023 12:56:49 GMT -6
Again, my thoughts were just an observation on why I think PT ended up where it is/was - not why it's "better" or "worse". 1.) They were way out front of everyone, and 2.) they "recreated" an analog studio style workflow in a DAW. Contrary to what some have mentioned, MANY DAW's seemed to be programmed by people who have never set foot in a traditional studio. (Not referring to Reaper which I have never tried.). Don't like it - don't use it. Can't afford it - don't use it. Don't like the AVID BS - don't use it. All the professional "for hire" studio's that are geared towards outside clients that I have ever used have it, and use it as their primary DAW. I would suspect they have other DAWs on their computers, but I have never seen them on a session. Also, the DSP based environment makes tracking ROCK solid when you have 50-80 players on the floor and are recording 100+ tracks, with 100 tracks of pre-lays playing back. That's another reason it's still at (or near) the top. I completely understand why people say these things about PT. I get it and don't necessarily disagree, as to why you see PT everywhere. However, that sort of "it's what we all know" approach is also why the US is one of only three (?) countries in the world that still don't use the metric system. Now to be fair, I'm not trying to say that other DAWs are objectively better than PT in the way that the metric system IS objectively better than the imperial system, and the metric system is, in some ways, a "standard" in its own right, similar to how PT is a standard. However, PT has become a "standard", not because everyone has put their heads together and made a conscious decision to use it because it is objectively the best, but because economic forces such as audio engineering schools teaching it, or PT being packaged with DSP hardware (which was much more necessary in the past), made it that way, irrespective of whether the PT software itself truly is the "best". The problem with a relative monopoly, like PT has enjoyed for a long time, is that it doesn't drive Avid to innovate or be competitive on pricing. Thankfully there is more pressure on Avid now, from other DAWs and market forces, than there ever has been, and they do seem to be "thawing" a little on that front. It's one of the reasons I've been cheering on UA with Luna. Now there is more than one DSP option out there. I don't want to get into all of the pros and cons of Luna vs PT. I known that PT has been around longer and is more fully featured, etc. (Though Luna does have some distinct advantages over PT too, so it's not all one sided). I'm just glad that someone else is offering a DSP solution. Not everyone is doing post production or needs 192 channels of I/O. The competition is good for everyone, and I think it's pretty apparent at this point that now having two players in the DSP arena is forcing both Avid AND UA to innovate in competition with one another. I'm all for it. More broadly, I think a lot of DAWs, including Reaper, should get a seat at the table. Avid's been the big dog for too long. Does Luna use the DSP for mixer and application computing - or just for plugins? Cause if for plugins only (that was my assumption) then the two are very different.
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Post by drbill on Feb 21, 2023 11:32:22 GMT -6
Again, my thoughts were just an observation on why I think PT ended up where it is/was - not why it's "better" or "worse". 1.) They were way out front of everyone, and 2.) they "recreated" an analog studio style workflow in a DAW. Contrary to what some have mentioned, MANY DAW's seemed to be programmed by people who have never set foot in a traditional studio. (Not referring to Reaper which I have never tried.). Don't like it - don't use it. Can't afford it - don't use it. Don't like the AVID BS - don't use it. All the professional "for hire" studio's that are geared towards outside clients that I have ever used have it, and use it as their primary DAW. I would suspect they have other DAWs on their computers, but I have never seen them on a session. Also, the DSP based environment makes tracking ROCK solid when you have 50-80 players on the floor and are recording 100+ tracks, with 100 tracks of pre-lays playing back. That's another reason it's still at (or near) the top.
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Post by drbill on Feb 21, 2023 9:30:13 GMT -6
Congrats!!! I haven't heard a peep....
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Post by drbill on Feb 21, 2023 9:28:29 GMT -6
IMO, PT is the "professional DAW" because it's set up (more of less) like a professional studio was in the 80's / 90's. That and they were way out ahead of most of the competition. The workflow, the look, etc.. It just makes sense to traditional engineers. It made the transition easier for the professionals that had been rocking tape machines and consoles their whole careers. They have also made updates pretty seamless over the years. If you can operate PT v.5.x, you can operate the latest / greatest. It will all be familiar. Some of the DAWs which will remain nameless love to recreate the wheel every few years, and leave users scratching their heads for days after installing the latest version.
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Post by drbill on Feb 21, 2023 9:17:29 GMT -6
Blackdawg, nobtwiddler or anyone else here....do you guys know how Solar works for getting clean AC for studio use? Sorry for the off topic.
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Post by drbill on Feb 20, 2023 16:48:50 GMT -6
Hey guys, so I'm again replanning my desk and I think I might have 3 U's in front but I want it to be 75 cm wide, so I'm thinking, why not to fill it with 500's? Is it possible somehow? Because I think that you buy those 3U racks and fill them with 500's, like 12 of them? But can you have a 75 cm long DIY pseudo rack thing and fill it with 15-20 of those? a 3RU 500 rack with NO onboard power supply taking up a space (like the sweet 10) will not fit 12. Only 11. Like the above mentioned CAPI.
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Post by drbill on Feb 20, 2023 10:33:48 GMT -6
I REALLY was originally going to "riff off that" Silver thang. Chris Here you go Chris - Silver Bullet mk3. WITH the LTL house band..... . Start riffin'......
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Post by drbill on Feb 19, 2023 15:56:50 GMT -6
Right, which gets me back to where I was to begin with. I use delay compensation a ton right now. I guess the alternative would be to just get a plugin to test the RTL and enter it manually? Seems like a lot of work for an average of 12 - 16 instances per project. No. The hw insert delay compensation feature isn't tied to the hardware. It's a software feature. That feature is present in PT Ultimate. The caveat is that if your existing hw had a different latency from that of Avid's, you'll need to manually compensate. FWIW if I were you, and PT was my best option (not sure that's the case for you, but just saying if it were) I'd be looking at scooping up an old PT HD Native rig and an ultimate license. Add a 16x16 avid io and you're up and running for probably under 3k (maybe even less...I haven't checked prices in a while, but since hd native is retired I bet the hw is super cheap). ^^^^^^^^. This. Excellent advice from Benny re: software and system options. In my world, there is only One..... Almost 30 years ago now, PT was my first, and I'm pretty confident it will also be the last DAW I ever boot up when that day comes.....
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Post by drbill on Feb 19, 2023 15:54:34 GMT -6
Ditto. Zero problems in mixing with hardware in PT for me. I've been hardcore hybrid for over a decade now. Zero problems with hardware and delay compensation. And as the OP mentioned, you can "name" your inserts so they are named after your hardware. But again, HD or HDX right? Yes.
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Post by drbill on Feb 19, 2023 15:52:19 GMT -6
Nope. . Old school. In my mind I’m picturing this Jerp wrapped in Silver Bullit Graphics in case Brad is lurking! Actually, serendipitously, it IS Silver! And it does have bullet like styling. And there are a few subtle red accents (Rubicon) throughout. I might have hit on something there. [ Edit : I will post pics of the Silver Bullet mk3 later.... ]
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Post by drbill on Feb 19, 2023 9:52:17 GMT -6
For me ProTools is a non-starter for now (like Luna) because I do so much mixing with hardware in a hybrid format. I've been mixing in pro tools my entire career and for as long as I can remember, my hardware inserts have been delay-compensated. Sometimes the latency is misreported if you're using third-party converters and you need to manually correct this in the I/O setup...is that what you're referring to here? Ditto. Zero problems in mixing with hardware in PT for me. I've been hardcore hybrid for over a decade now. Zero problems with hardware and delay compensation. And as the OP mentioned, you can "name" your inserts so they are named after your hardware.
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Post by drbill on Feb 19, 2023 9:45:10 GMT -6
Is the new ride... A Hybrid? Chris Nope. . Old school.
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Post by drbill on Feb 18, 2023 19:50:03 GMT -6
Haven't bought much in the last 6 months, but I more than made up for it this week.... First, I took a whirl on the SSL UltraViolet 500 EQ. I like dedicated stereo EQ's and it seemed to be a good one. Jury is still out on it, but seems OK so far. Second, I updated my studio business transportation situation with a valentines day combo.... Been with a RAM truck for close to 20 years for my biz but as of late I've been without a vehicle for close to 2 months cause my son totaled his truck in an ice storm and I gave him mine. So I bought a new last years model 2022 Jeep Gladiator that jeep was closing out. Just BECAUSE! Life is too short. I can use it for studio business, transporting my gear around, and client excursions into the great NorAz locale's. Absolutely loving it so far. Best "studio investment" I've made in years - super fun. (unfortunately, one of the most expensive too....lol). Giving new meaning to "gear" and "accessories"...... Next up - (fingers crossed) - an H251 when they get them going!!
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Post by drbill on Feb 18, 2023 10:03:58 GMT -6
I do it all kinds of ways.
- I almost always am printing thru Hardware as I track it in - After initial tracking, I ofter "reamp" thru various pieces during the production process - During Mix I ALWAYS have hardware on various tracks / busses and 2 Mix - During Mastering I'm always using hardware as well.
- As of late I'm trying to adopt a new system that will allow for 100% total recall of all outboard, or the ability to change the analog gear up. It's complicated, and for me requires PTHDX, but I'm pretty excited about this new work flow.
I've got 120 I/o of conversion and more than that in outboard gear. It's the lifeblood of "my sound" and - IMO - much superior to an all digit or all analog setup.
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Post by drbill on Feb 12, 2023 18:59:35 GMT -6
I like marshmallows.
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Post by drbill on Feb 12, 2023 18:58:00 GMT -6
Also, check out the weight tank compressors if looking at non-500 series. Ditto!!!!!!! <<thumbsup>>
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Post by drbill on Feb 12, 2023 9:24:35 GMT -6
Silver Bullet would take out the API and NEve options you are looking for in one foul swoop. SSL too if you get a mk2.
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Post by drbill on Feb 11, 2023 22:35:28 GMT -6
I usually let the vocalist "work" the mic. Pull in close when they want to, and back off when they need to. Depends on the song, vocalist, mic, delivery. It's all variable. But I'm usually around 2-12" -- usually. I consider 12" close as well.
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Post by drbill on Feb 9, 2023 15:08:25 GMT -6
All depends on the base metal under the gold, and the thickness of the gold. Silver plate on a standard XLR will oxidize but it's the same conductivity either way. Wears less than gold. You could debate this endlessly.....but I kinda think gold plate XLR's are an unnecessary extra expenditure for no proven benefit, so gold as a selling point does nothing for me and glosses over more important mechanical considerations. Are normal XLR's silver plated Doug? I always thought (A**umed) they were nickel.
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Post by drbill on Feb 9, 2023 14:42:48 GMT -6
I thought gold for no oxidation ? Yup. Exactly. ericn - yeah, I get the softer metal part. Makes sense. In real world experience, I've never had a problem with that, but I can see that if you plug / unplug something a hundred times a day, over 10 years you might have a problem.
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