Hi everyone! It's my first post here, although I've been reading through past threads for a couple of weeks now and have learned a ton.

I've been looking into getting a new firewire interface for some time now and am pretty torn between the 002R, a Firepod and the MOTU 8pre. I've been leaning towards the Firepod or the 8pre because they would leave me with some extra cash for a Digimax LT or the like. I run a MacBook Pro and I'm unsure of what software to go with. On my PC I mainly used SONAR 6. I'm essentially wondering if it's worth dishing out the cash for the 002R so I can run Pro Tools, or if I should look at other software to save money on the interface? Also, any suggestions on alternative software will be greatly appreciated.

The short answer is...

Yes. If you are running customer oriented business & you do combined projects with other studios.

No. In any other case.

Nope. And even if you run a commercial studio, just get some m-audio interface to act as a dongle so you can move you tracks to your DAW.

Thank you for the quick responses guys! Though I won't need to any combined projects with other studios immediately, I would like to have the option. I'm curious how it would work if I did use an M-Audio interface as a dongle. What would the hardware setup look like? Would I have to track on the alternate DAW, then move the tracks to PT?

I hear this so much about people using PT so they can go combine projects with other studios. If you record properly you should be able to use your tracks anywhere. It's obviously easier if you have the same software but if the engineer is good he should still be able to line up the tracks. The more tracks you have the harder it can be but then you have to decide how much you will do it home and how much elsewhere. I've done tracks on Cakewalk for a big project that was done on Logic and they worked fine. I've even recorded on a VS1680 and exported those tracks for use with Cubase SLX.

As for Presonus I haven't used the Firepod but I did try the Firebox and the first unit had a broken midi port. The second unit worked fine for about 3 weeks and then one of the mic pres went bad. I now use a Motu 828 which I like but that broke after 9 months and never moved out of my studio. Motu did repair it for a flat $79 but they have a limited warranty. My advice is to check out the warranty period on anything before you buy. The RME stuff is supposed to be good and I think they give a 2 year warranty.

I've got to admit I have an anti-protools agenda, but it's based on the whole 'PT standard' scam, which is perpetuated by digidesign's failure to include digitranslator in their software package. Digitranslater allows PT to open OMF and AAF files, which are generic formats most native daws can save a file in. But digidesign charges an extra $500 for the conversion software! What kind of crap is that? If PT is a standard the way MS Word is a standard, why can't we use 'save as' in our native DAW menu to save as a PT file? And why can't we open PT files in our native DAWs the way we can open MS Word files in our various WP applications? It's because digidesign keeps their file protocol a secret so they can maintain their monopoly.
Too bad for them their whole business model is obsolete, because of the processing power of todays computers. We no longer need digidesign's external hardware to achieve big track counts, so all they have left to keep their DAW alive is their status as a 'standard'.
I work with PT studios, but I use DP. I get a generic wav, aiff, or SD2 file, import it into DP, record, export the new tracks as generic files, and the PT guy imports them. No problem. Plus, most serious mix engineers prefer outside projects to come in without automation or plugins, so what's the point of demanding PT compatibility?
Okay, I realize there is a convenience factor, but you have to weigh that against the cost. Like the guy said, if you have paying customers who demand PT, you have no choice. But more and more studios are incorporating native DAW's into their setups - at least the ones who want to make money are.
As far as interfaces go, I've had great luck with motu stuff. You can send it to Black Lion to get the analog mod, which bumps up the quality to a level that approaches gear costing two or three times the money. Plus, the motu stuff has adat sync, which is cool if you ever have to interface with an Alesis HD24, or, god forbid, an old adat project.

My buddy-partner switched to pro-tools 5 months ago. I gotta tell you I haven't ever heard him complaining about software until the day he started to work with pt. I personally never had a chance to work with it & never felt importance too. However from what he said I can tell you a few things:
32 track limit - I was personally surprised, it turns out pt le has limitation of 32 tracks. WTF is that? Do you think you'll be OK with that?
Digi002 has got no way for direct monitoring with pt le - I'm telling you, I haven't used it myself, but I've worked with the guy for many years. Every monitoring goes through computer processor. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

I'd say get RME or something in that area & you won't be disappointed.

The only bright side I can see of having pt is that you'll be able to learn well proclaimed software, which might come handy somewhere down the road. If it's worth it for you, go for it.

Protools software = magic bullet!! Oops I meant POS. Never mind Ive been drinkin.

quote:

Originally posted by nbarts:
Every monitoring goes through computer processor. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

That's the nice thing about the newer Motu gear. You get no latency monitoring of all your inputs, combined with no latency monitoring of your tracks. It amazes me that PT can't do that. Granted it's LE, but so many people think they're getting PT, but all they're getting is the most incapable DAW on the market today. Any native DAW runs circles around PT LE. Limited track count, no automatic delay compensation for plug ins, no capability to do a faster-than-realtime bounce to disk (mixing ITB has to be realtime. Not a problem unless you're on a deadline....or you're putting together beginnings and endings for an hour long radio show...or you've got a client waiting for a bunch of rough mixes so he can take them home and decide which take he wants to use...)
Thank you for letting me rant. I feel much better now.

One man's hell is another man's heaven...

Personally, I use PT since like forever... version 2 I think, just after it went from Soundtools and Deck to PT.
Right now I am on a HD3 Accel rig, so I cannot comment on the LE thing, but I can understand the frustration.
My take on this: if you have a commercial studio, get PT at least to be able to read PT sessions from clients entering the studio.
Don't expect your clients to bring in just properly rendered wav files. I mean, they come to you for the expertise and th engineering stuff, otherwise they would do it themselves. no?
If you only do your own stuff and take it to other studios, I feel the need to have PT is less urgent.
The M-Audio suggestion is actually not a bad one. Get a FW interface with build in pres. You can still use your regular soft, be it Logic, Cubase or Motu DP (wich I really like btw).
Then you can get a copy of PT M-Powered, basically a PT LE for M-Audio gear. Different color of box, but same soft.
That way you get best of both worlds.

The latency thing... well last week I used a Motu 828 mkii at a friend's place, he runs it together with a HD3 rig, where Logic runs on the Motu, HD runs ProTools HD soft and PT and Logic are opened together and synced through an internal IAC midi buss. Works great.
Now when recording, I was able to compare recording through the Motu soft (forget the name, the icon is an old ribbon mic) and PTHD.
PT HD performed like I am used to, no real latency, and I am able to instantiate plugins and monitoring through them while recording and still not having real latency. Snappy and nice.
Motu performed equally well with the hardware monitoring, but I was of course not able to monitor via Logic and instatiate plugins like e.g. a reverb or delay to put in the cans of the talent. Also, I was not able to do some nifty monitoring routing like I do in PT, i.e. a setup so that I get 8 individual headphone mixes, and where the PT mix window handles all the monitor mixing, so every musician can have a personal mix balance. These are the things I missed.
But you can do it in PT LE, as long as you don't put a plugin on the recording channel. The latency is there, but most of the time not really a factor if you setup your rig cleverly.

Look, the choices nowadays are plenty. Get the soft you feel most comfy with and go from there. Unfortunately Sonar doesn't run on OSX. BUT, since you have a MBPro, why not create a Win XP partition, boot in Windows and run Sonar? I have a MB Pro too, and I run a lot of Windows soft on a XP partition, often faster than on a Dell ... hehe.

Cheers
Arthur

[QUOTE] I'm essentially wondering if it's worth dishing out the cash for the 002R so I can run Pro Tools[/QUOTE

Thought I would put in my 5 cents worth. Whilst I have only been using DAW software for 5 years, I have appreciated the many different and similar ways they all have of achiving the same result. I have used Cakewalk, Logic, Cubase, Music Master (Australian product) and at present LE, I have also watched (in operation) and read many reviews (by sound guys) Logic and DP, and have come to the following, purely subjective conclusions.

I don't like the Cakewalk interface, Logic has a good interface but was the hardest to learn (big program), I didn't spend enough time with Cubase, but to me it had a similar feel to Logic as far as work flow goes, Music Master got me off the ground as my first DAW, was very capable at what it did, but was too limited, and finally, as my present DAW is LE I can categorically state that, given the few short commings already stated, it has the fastest and easiest work flow of any that I have used.

Please understand, I am not trying to bag any DAWs, because with the advances in technology and programming, I don't think that any one of them is better then another. They all are very capable of achieving what they were designed to do - make music, what it comes down to is our own personal likes and dislikes and how we like to work.

Having said that and given the many independant reviews that I have read, I would really like to get my hands on DP for a couple of months for a test run. It appears to be the quite achiever. It is reupted to have an excellent interface, logical and fast workflow and a few little tricks that the others havn't. I was seriously considering buying DP, but as we had an urgent need for a portable interface, we purchased the Mbox 2 Mini which came with LE. (if anyone's interested, mini is a great little interface, good pre(not great), strong build and very portable)

Of course, the above blurb is just "IMO" for what thats worth.
What it comes down to is listen to the experience of those who have replied to your post, read as much independant stuff on DAWs and you can, making a short list of 2 or 3, if you can find others who are using them and live within a reasonable distance, try to check them out. Sitting down in front of a computer and test drive as many lite or promotional versions as you can. Spend a minimum of a week with each one to get a "feel", and decide what suits your needs best.

Lastly, don't rush it. Take all the time you need to make the right decision - your've got to like it for a long time.

Why are you considering the 002R? They just came out with 003R and if it were me I'd get the 003R with the Factory udgrade.

Rade

Thank you all for your advise, it truly helps a lot. I also enjoyed the PT rants. My budget would be quite stretched if I decided on the 002R, so I'm now strongly looking into the MOTU 8pre. There are mods for MOTU's other hardware done by BLA, but they do not yet have mods listed for the 8pre. I'm planning to ask them directly, but does anyone know if they have a mod for it?

Sights, I plan to take your advise on taking my time using various DAW trials.

Rjkool, I've heard that there have not been significant upgrades done to the 003. Although the price is the same, I was planning to find an 002 on eBay and eventually sending it to BLA.

Again, thank you all!

quote:

But you can do it in PT LE, as long as you don't put a plugin on the recording channel. The latency is there, but most of the time not really a factor if you setup your rig cleverly.

Good to see you here again Arthur.

I believe you use plenty of outboard equipment, therefore latency is not a factor for you, but I know it's been pretty frustrating for some musicians to deal with latency on busy projects.

However I'd like to mention that all "my" dislike is to PT LE version, I'm pretty confident HD version has a very fine software to work with.
I'm not trying to crap-out pt in any way, I just want the person to be aware of what he goes for. Apparently those little unwanted parts of LE version are never being mentioned by sales people & a lot of people buy LE having no idea about those few things that can be crucial for their workflow.

Hey nBarts,

Thanks for the welcome... I ran - and still run - into some serious health issues, involving tumors and stuff.. so I had to keep low profile for a while.

I didn't get you wrong you know. I know that LE is pretty crippled compared to HD, hey they want to give you a taste and then have you shell out the big gazoinkas for HD. I know Digi very well , VERY well.

Now, I do use plenty of outboard, but also a lot of plugs, and if you use a lot of hardware, actually latency is a bigger issue (it has to go out the converter, into the external gear, back into the converter, into the software mixer...

Now, what I mean is, through carefull setting and tweaking of your playback engine in PT you can minimize latency and still use reverb plugs on aux inputs, so you can give the talent some verb in the cans.
I have done it several times. Lemme check my buddy's system, I don't remember exactly the values I used, found them by trial and error. But I know I didn't have to engage the low latency function that deactivates the plugins and sends.

Cheers
Arthur

quote:

and if you use a lot of hardware, actually latency is a bigger issue (it has to go out the converter, into the external gear, back into the converter, into the software mixer...

Good info, as usual

I hope you get rid of your health issues soon.

Re: Headphone mixes with Motu hardware - their Cuemix software mixer allows as many different monitor mixes as there are analog output pairs on the interface. In other words, an 828 interface would facilitate 4 seperate headpone mixes. There would probably be a way to include reverb in those mixes by sending pre-fader in DP to the ITB reverb and routing the return to the mix, but I use a digital mixer, so I have no need for that feature and I've never tried it.
I have seen posts by people saying they were in a PT studio doing overdubs and the delay in the headphones was so bad it was hard to do their parts. Perhaps these were studios running LE?

I like PT LE and I think for the price of admission, what you get is fine. Your sessions are completely compatible with many Pro Studios, without having to export contiguous wave files, etc.

If I EVER use all 32 tracks, I guarantee you I will be way overproducing for the country/folk singer/songwriter stuff I write. I don't think I could mix 32 tracks without it turning into midrange mush. So, the track limitation doesn't bother me. You may need 32+ tracks.

Over the last 7 years or so I have tried Cakewalk Pro Audio, Sonar, Cool Edit Pro, Audacity, nTrack and probably some others I can't remember. I actually like the intuitive feel of Cakewalk Pro Audio the best, but I had many more stability issues with it than I have with Pro Tools. For a songwriting sketchpad, I could probably be satisfied with Audacity. I like the clean, uncluttered simplicity of it. Soundforge as a 2 track editor was a great program and simple to use as well.

I guess my biggest beef with Cakewalk and one of the biggest pluses to Pro Tools involves the owner's right to sell and transfer ownership to someone else and have the new owner be recognized by Digidesign. I really resent the "if you give away or sell your older version of our software, you forfeit your rights to the new improved software you just bought from us" Cakewalk mentality. Get real...... I paid for the friggin' software; I ought to be able to do what I want with it instead of having it collect dust.

I think the upgrade path Digi offers is pretty cool too. I will probably get a Digi003 when I pay off my daughter's wedding..... should be able to do that by about 2015 or so......

Someone will post right after me with a rabid anti Pro Tools thread and that's okay. I have never tried DP, Logic or Cubase, lots of aps I haven't tried. I am not saying PT LE is the best. It works great for me though..... and contrary to many opinions out there, I think it IS worth it.

Download demos or go visit friends with different recording setups and see which one allows you to work quickly and intuitively, without it bogging you down in the recording process so much that it keeps you from creating.

bilco

Well, here's my story......I had a mentor that uses PT and that was why I went with it....after seeing other rigs in action, I can state that for the project studio, PT is too unstable in the XP environ if you are using it on a non dedicated pc. Many settings have to be set "differently' so the thing doesn't crash. If I had it to do again, I would look at other options...If you decide on PT, definitly get a Mac....there is a bit of PT snobishness, but there is also the same snobbishness for Les Pauls and pre CBS strats The reason is, they are great products....PT is in use by alot of folks because it is a good product that has gained traction....however, PT 7 is not the same as PT HD.....My advice after many seconds of deliberation and research is to look at other rigs besides PT unless you need to take work between your project studio and a 'real' studio that requires PT....

I left that part out... +1 on the Mac, even if it is an older one. They just work. I work on PCs and babied a variety of them with my various DAW aps over the years and none were completely stable. I am running PT LE 6.4 on a 450 mhz Sawtooth and on a G4 ibook and they are both rock solid. Neither one of them has ever crashed.

bilco