Thanks Coursedesign for your quick reply. I have a custom designed "BOXX" computer with dual quad cores of i7 chips, liquid cooled and 8gb of ram; oh yes it also has a terabyte hard drive space and runs on Win XP Pro 64bit platform...it hasn't choked yet.

I understand what you are saying, but I can save all the files as single wave files and everything still lines up!

I have a rack with Avalon gear, tube mic pres and mastering processors. I still do not consider my gear is second to that of Pro Tools. Hence my original question remains.

What am I missing?

Thanks, Michael McGaughey

For most cases, only interoperability.

I thought PT before PT8 was not that great, and there is nothing in 8 that blows the competition away in any way either.

It's not about functionality as much as it is about project file exchange.

We've discussed the sound quality difference here before, as PT has slightly better summation algorithms and can handle higher level audio formats.

In the end, every time I've looked at DAWs, I found PT to not be my first choice.

For the moment, I still prefer working in Vegas and am glad I can do that without having to deal with PT project interoperability.

I'm fairly interested in this discussion as I'm about in the middle of my first feature length mix.
Question, what about the other options. I hear that Protools in not the only kid on the block. There's also Nuendo and I read of one local audio post house thinking to ditch PT in favour of Pyramix.

Agree with the general thrust so far, if you're delivering the final mix there's really no need to use anything other than Vegas and SF, well not that I've found so far. If you're asked to just do a part of the work and then the project will go back to another house for further work that's when the big issues arise.

Aside from that, it'd still be very nice if Vegas would output BWF with TC. I know there's way around this. It's better not having to work around things though because when you're not 100% certain of what you're doing and the wheels fall off it's better to have less variables to consider.

Bob.

As an answer to the original question I would say Vegas doesn't have MIDI, as most DAWs have. So if you are creating music using VST instruments and software synths Vegas can't help you. Vegas is very good when it comes to real audio like vocals, but not virtual audio.
On the other hand you shouldn't only consider Pro Tools if you're looking for a DAW unless you are incorporated in huge projects. PT is also dependent on very specific hardware. I'd say SONAR Producer 8.5 is closer at hand for most audio producers now. With its 64 bit floating point capacity it is equal or better than PT, but cheaper to buy and keep up to date.

Yes, as Martin said, no MIDI in Vegas, but Acid Pro, which is the real "SCS DAW" does MIDI, and it's pretty impressive. Strangely enough, though, it still lacks one or two audio features that have been in Vegas for yonks.

I agree. I presently use Samplitude but am considering changing over to something else. ACID would be natural since I already have Vegas and Sound Forge. But, as mentioned, it lacks a few important features. So I will probably get Sonar shortly...unless a new, better ACID is released very soon.

I had a look at PT a short time ago mostly because I wanted to see what all the hub-bub was about. I was not impressed at all and the one word I would use to describe it is.... OLD.

It's quite hardware specific for starters and in this day and age there is no need for that. In fact quite interesting... PT requires hardware that Avid MC doesn't even support which I find quite strange since they're both Avid products, and MC requires some sort of external audio solution (MC's audio editing section is pretty much comparable to the average consumer level nle) I also found it clunky to work with.

I have Adobe Audition3 and for the most part I found it to be much more flexible and efficient compared to PT. It works with a wide array of hardware, contains a true multitrack interface, opens AC3, DTS (with a free plugin), works with MIDI.... not that expensive either.

Hi farrs, Nuendo is a sensational audio tool. I am a Vegas die-hard, but for anything but a basic audio, I will use Nuendo. PT, Nuendo, Pyramix, etc are specifically for audio use, and I think they have a greater control over all the audio parameters you need to tweek, and you can get to those controls quickly. My background has been in pro audio recording for lotsa years starting back in the days of two tin cans and a bit of string (analogue! - in fact I still have an old 1inch 16 track and 1/4inch MCI mastering machines) I am not a fan of PT - it sounds too brittle - but it is a constant throughout recording studios, so you can easily do different parts of a project in different studios if you have the budget or desire! (Recently a friend who owns a studio in Sydney had a touring act from the USA come in and do some quick overdubs specifically because he had the latest PT system and could open up his existing project without mucking about.) I disagree with the pc's not handling it and choking. I've seen PT choke too - depends how much you ask of them. My thoughts are that if our pc's can run Vegas and manipulate video, then audio should be a doddle. Good luck with your first feature length mix. Cheers, China. {ps:thank you for your welcome to me on my first post the other week on Vegas and 3D - sorry I didn't say thank you to your welcome - the roller coaster went up :-) }

Blow me down, someone else from Sydney!
Thanks for the input. Pretty much in line with what my instincts were telling me.

Bob.

I believe it's quit simple: PT is the industry standard and Vegas (or Sonar, or Cubase, or Studio One, or Reaper, or Nuendo, or Samplitude, etc) are not. Functionality, cost, support, compatibility, etc. are all important issues from your viewpoint, but from a client's viewpoint, there simply aren't many acceptable justifications for using a studio that doesn't use PT. The only ones I've heard go along the lines of "I wanted to use a PT studio, but I couldn't afford it", or "My buddy uses Vegas and he offered to do the project for free". In my experience, when a client asks "Why don't you use PT?", there is no rational explanation that will satisfy the client.

Yamaha NS10's used to be the "industry standard".

...until someone came along and said the Emperors got no clothes.

Won't find many of them about any more.

Cheers Bob. I live in Brissy but spend a bunch of time working in Syd.

Cheers, China

Pro Tools is hardware specific? Are you sure? It's been a long time since i've looked at it, but i did download the demo and run it on a variety of randomly configured vanilla boxen. It seemed like anything that could run Windows or the MacOS would run Pro Tools just fine.

Quite true, and your point is just as valid. However, when it comes to clients these days, the Emperor's clothes don't matter IMHO. As long as clients hear "PT this" and "PT that" in every magazine article, promotional video and interview, they will want PT for themselves.

Pro Tools HD uses very expensive DSP cards.

Pro Tools LE and M-powered work only with specific licensed I/O hardware (and one weasel box :O).

From my recent research PT LE is pretty cheap and you get a reasonable audio A/D box in the deal.
So surely the question becomes if you've got paying clients who want to give you work for a PT system why not buy one and make a dime. The skills you learned from using Vegas work just as well in any DAW, you want to bump a sound up 4.5dB to get it to sit right sure you might have to use the tool differently to accomplish that but so what. The value is in you knowing that's what the mix needs not knowing the keyboard shortcuts to get it done.

Plus of course and as I've said before, NLEs and DAWs are not like wives, you can keep more than one of them and still be considered honest.

Bob.

ProTools has advantages for certain musical things. Take the new liquid audio for instance. You can draw in harmonies or stretch a note that a singer didn't hold long enough. Try doing that with Vegas. Having said that, I normally do this sort of thing in Melodyne because it goes even further than ProTools.

Things must have changed then. When i tried ProTools (i don't recall which variety, but it seems it must have been something LE-esque) it used whatever audio hardware was in the computer, including low ball stuff like Creative Labs and Realtek.

I think you must be remembering ProTools Free (which hasn't been available for a long time). That would indeed run on any audio interface that it found on the PC, but it wasn't a serious application and you couldn't do real work with it. In the words of Digidesign "it was originally meant to be a temporary demonstration tool for Pro Tools". Full details here.

Mark

Thanks everyone for your comments. As the owner of a commercial multimedia production studio, I just purchased from soundsonline the "Complete Composers Suite". I own Acid but am looking at purchasing Sonar to handle the Virtual Instruments and Sample libraries this new Suite offers.

I have seen a big Pro Tools rig in a local studio. It is plugged to a large rack of Digidesign rackmounts so I see how frontend heavy it can be! Like I mentioned in my initial post, I love my Avalon and Anthony DeMaria mic pres coupled with Sony Vegas Pro and Sound Forge via a MOTU 2408.

I still am not entirely convinced Pro Tools is the way to go... I do not see the need to reinvent the wheel when my Studio is still in business! I think this boils down to personal preference; one filled with emotion.

It know how to use the tools I have to build songs/video projects. It is not my tools that build them but how I use them. In the end, when a project is finished, my clients listen and view their projects - they do not ask which tools I used to make them...no, they are most interested in the 'quality' of the final project - instead.

Thanks again for your responses.

Michael

I have seen a big Pro Tools rig in a local studio. It is plugged to a large rack of Digidesign rackmounts so I see how frontend heavy it can be! [...]I love my Avalon and Anthony DeMaria mic pres.

Avid/Digidesign isn't competing with your good micpres. Pro Tools HD talks to any audio I/O, but the software is written to use DSP cards that allow you to use more plug-ins and layers than even an i7 can handle.

Obviously, few have use for that, and imho it is far more important to work with tools that inspire you. For the rest, there's usually workarounds.

The sound team that did Avatar certainly seem to like ProTools.
[url=http://www.avid.com/gb/customer-stories/avatar.aspx?emv_mid=1104856478&emv_rid=8218265854]
Use the "Watch Video" in the upper right corner.

Question is, is Sony Vegas trying to be a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, spanning too many disciplines (Effects, Cut and Audio), and therefore never become truly great at any of them (in the eyes of 'Hollywood' level productions)
Don't get me wrong, I love Vegas for what it is, but is it realistic to pit Vegas against systems that probably cost 10 times as much, or more?

I don't really know what ProTools is, except that it looks to be a bit of a mix between Vegas (sans video) and ACID Pro.