Pro Tools bundle on the way !!

[rmyAddison]

Retirement has opened the door to get back to recording, my old PC with Pro Tools 8 gave up the ghost a few years ago, so I researched a while and found this bundle.

Many companies offer it with Pro Tools 10 (or haven't changed their add copy) but B&H in NYC offers it with version 11 which support Windows 8.1, and also has the best price.

The package has:

Pro Tools 11 (75 plug-ins)
MBox Pro interface
Artist Mix Control interface (real faders! no more mouse clicking)




Probably overkill, but also has some video capability, and will certainly make decent YouTubes.

I've been planning to get back into recording when I retired, already have a nice microphone collection, Adam Audio reference monitors/sub, channel strips, recording workstation, some Martins and "the room" which can be 100% studio now (not 50/50 home office).

I am excited, only been retired a few weeks and now I have a "job". I owe some forum members some Authentic recordings, now I have no excuse.

Gear is arriving Friday and I'll see how far behind I am on the learning curve but it will be fun, and keep me out of trouble.........

[runamuck]

Whew! Bet you're pretty excited.

[rmyAddison]

Originally Posted by runamuck

Whew! Bet you're pretty excited.

Like a little kid, but at 65 I don't learn as quickly as I used to, going to take some hours/days to get up to bare minimum, but it's something I want to do versus the job I left that was completely stressing me out the last few years.

I am excited to get back into recording, thanks !~!

[littlewing6283]

excited for you kind sir

at least you have done it before so it shouldnt be too hard to get started

I'm having a tough time starting out. This forum is full of helpful people which I am really grateful for

[rmyAddison]

Originally Posted by littlewing6283

excited for you kind sir

at least you have done it before so it shouldnt be too hard to get started

I'm having a tough time starting out. This forum is full of helpful people which I am really grateful for

This forum is wonderful for helping folks.

One thing I learned from before and now can do as my home office/studio can now be just a studio, room treatment, step 2 after I get the gear going is proper treatment.

Best of luck in your endeavors, I see you're already getting some great advise/information. Like any hobby it can easily turn into a money pit, at least good experienced advise can help us make wise decisions.

[Mobilemike]

Sounds awesome!

PT 11 is a huge upgrade from 8 - you will be very happy!

-Mike

[Halcyon/Tinker]

Sweet!

....

[KevWind]

Nice.........PT 11 is a very powerful DAW. So to take note of (if you do not already know this) is that PT11 with 64 bit can now access as much RAM as your computer has in it. (where prior versions could only use a max of 4 GB) Of course it depends on your personal usage (number of tracks, plugin's and VI's) but now the conventional wisdom is to have at least 16 GB of RAM or more. Particularly if you are going to utilize any of the Virtual Instruments.
For example If you prefer tracking to a drum beat as opposed to a click you can load Boom into an instrument track set your BPM in the session just hit play on the Boom machine ( plays to the session BPM with out actually recording the beat to session) and track to a perfectly timed drum beat. Also if you ever want to use Boom in the session for drums once you learn how to edit Boom (perhaps something down the road) you can make it a bit more natural and less drum machine sounding.

[rmyAddison]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Nice.........PT 11 is a very powerful DAW. So to take note of (if you do not already know this) is that PT11 with 64 bit can now access as much RAM as your computer has in it. (where prior versions could only use a max of 4 GB) Of course it depends on your personal usage (number of tracks, plugin's and VI's) but now the conventional wisdom is to have at least 16 GB of RAM or more. Particularly if you are going to utilize any of the Virtual Instruments.
For example If you prefer tracking to a drum beat as opposed to a click you can load Boom into an instrument track set your BPM in the session just hit play on the Boom machine ( plays to the session BPM with out actually recording the beat to session) and track to a perfectly timed drum beat. Also if you ever want to use Boom in the session for drums once you learn how to edit Boom (perhaps something down the road) you can make it a bit more natural and less drum machine sounding.

Thanks for the info, I have a lot to catch up !~!

Before when I ran Pro Tools 8 I made a dual boot system with bare bones for the Pro Tools side, just PT8 and antivirus software for when I hit the Net.

I have a recent XPS 8700 (I7 4790 CPU @3.6Ghz, 12GB ram) that I'm hoping I won't have to partition to avoid any latency. I may add a fast drive and load PT11, plug-ins and files only on that drive, will add RAM if I need to.

Appreciate any tips, my knowledge is a few years behind and I was never a power user, just recording my singer/songwriter stuff, but this time I do want to go deeper, being retired I have nothing but time............

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by rmyAddison

Thanks for the info, I have a lot to catch up !~!

Before when I ran Pro Tools 8 I made a dual boot system with bare bones for the Pro Tools side, just PT8 and antivirus software for when I hit the Net.

I have a recent XPS 8700 (I7 4790 CPU @3.6Ghz, 12GB ram) that I'm hoping I won't have to partition to avoid any latency. I may add a fast drive and load PT11, plug-ins and files only on that drive, will add RAM if I need to.

Appreciate any tips, my knowledge is a few years behind and I was never a power user, just recording my singer/songwriter stuff, but this time I do want to go deeper, being retired I have nothing but time............

Partitioning won't help, nor hinder, latency. File distribution and management on modern drives and drive buses simply does't require it. Latency should be (for all intents and purposes) a thing of the past, at least within very small and minuscule parameters.

Likewise a separate drive for audio while still suggestible is not nearly as important as in the past. Probably the most pragmatic reason for a separate audio drive would just be organizational and backup ease, not the age old idea that the internal drive can't handle running the application and stream audio simultaneously. All of that a completely different issue than using a dual both system ostensibly for a safer web search.

[rmyAddison]

Thanks Joseph, I'm old enough to remember who you are !~!

I did add a second drive, 500 GB Samsung Pro SSD, so PT11 and files will have their own drive, maybe overkill but I was an IT geek the past 30 years and retirement hasn't erased that mindset (yet).

Tomorrow is FedEx D-Day...........

[Steve Berger]

Congrats Rich, have fun with your new gear. Looking forward to hearing your new recordings

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by rmyAddison

Thanks Joseph, I'm old enough to remember who you are !~!

I did add a second drive, 500 GB Samsung Pro SSD, so PT11 and files will have their own drive, maybe overkill but I was an IT geek the past 30 years and retirement hasn't erased that mindset (yet).

Tomorrow is FedEx D-Day...........

Actually in that case I think it is still optimal to install the PT (application) on your main HD and then simply save all your session and audio files to the second drive.
I believe that now with regular PT 11 you get the "disc cache" feature (which allows you to actually load the session into RAM) and choose how much RAM to allocate for that
So with 12 GB of RAM you can choose 4 or 5 GB to " Disk Cache " and that should handle most of types of sessions for a singer songwriter . Unless you start using lots if VI's

[rmyAddison]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Actually in that case I think it is still optimal to install the PT (application) on your main HD and then simply save all your session and audio files to the second drive.
I believe that now with regular PT 11 you get the "disc cache" feature (which allows you to actually load the session into RAM) and choose how much RAM to allocate for that
So with 12 GB of RAM you can choose 4 or 5 GB to " Disk Cache " and that should handle most of types of sessions for a singer songwriter . Unless you start using lots if VI's

The second drive is solid state, and having one in my Yoga Pro 2 laptop they are really fast. The difference in boot time between my laptop and PC, which are identical in RAM, processor and apps, except for the SSD on the laptop, and it seems the laptop is twice as fast. Totally sold on SSD drives.

My thoughts are loading PT11 and plug-ins on the smaller partition I created (100GB), and the session and audio files on the larger partition (400GB), so all PT activities are on the faster solid state drive. I can archive back to the 1TB slower drive down the road if necessary. I will certainly check the disc cache feature, thanks.

Again, maybe overkill, but it certainly won't hurt, and my mindset goes back to PT8 where latency was a problem, I need to "update" me............

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by rmyAddison

My thoughts are loading PT11 and plug-ins on the smaller partition I created (100GB), and the session and audio files on the larger partition (400GB), so all PT activities are on the faster solid state drive. I can archive back to the 1TB slower drive down the road if necessary. I will certainly check the disc cache feature, thanks.

Not overkill to be sure. Mis-directed might be a better phrase. Kev is right. Pro Tools, as an application, doesn't gain much (actually anything) by a faster or solid state drive. I not even certain Avid has approved solid state drives? Likewise the plug-ins (at least the old RTAS and newer AXX) use processor speed and ram. Neither (the application and plug-in's) care particularly about drive speeds as long as your at the old 7200 rpm standard. Truth be told you could probably get by with 5400 rpm. The gains in performance at the application level all come from processor capabilities and ram, not drive speed.

Conversely of course and in the old, old ,old days drive speeds were exceedingly critical for effectively streaming audio. In fact separate SCCI accelerator cards were mandatory for the earlier PT systems drives. The way audio was both "spun out" onto the hardrive and retrieved from the hardrive made things much less efficient. That's indeed where most of the web based wives tales arose.

Pro Tools will run fine on a single drive (which is what you're proposing albeit partitioned). As I said earlier it does make some sense to run the audio from a separate drive. It makes file management slightly easier and certainly segregates potential virus and corruption problems. It does become almost essential if in fact you plan to stream video from Pro Tools!