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Opinions on a digital audio workstation?
I am looking for opinions here. I am going to give up my complex Pro-Tools
system (wayyy to powerful and COMPLICATED for my needs) and go to an all-in-one Digital Audio Workstation. I have narrowed it to the Yamaha AW16G, the Yamaha AW4416, or the Roland VS-2400CD. Which of these do you think is best and why if price is no option. I want durability, ease of use - simplicity, and capability. I want simple, yet powerful and effective. By the time I boot up Pro Tools, get everything set, deal with the damn latency issues, upgrade the constantly changing software, and overcome all the little glitches here and there, I am no longer inspired to play!!!! And I am a degreed engineer. When I am an engineer, I want to be an engineer. But when I want to play - damn it I want to play! The Yamahas seem to have effects that are assignable to each individual channel. Nice. I cannot tell if the Roland does that or not. The Yamahas, though, only have two XLR inputs with phantom, the Roland has 8. Big plus when playing/miking a grand piano and recording two singers at once. Opinions, please. Via email or posted here. Thanks, Jimmy Lee www.cdbaby.com/jimmylee |
#2
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Opinions on a digital audio workstation?
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#3
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Opinions on a digital audio workstation?
Carlos,
Pro Tools is complicated. First, you have to get a Mac that is approved. THEN, you have to get a SCSI accelerator card. THEN, you have to replace the stock CD-RW with one that is approved as compatible by Digidesign. THEN, you have to set up all the components you are using in your system (I believe it is the DAI settings). THEN, you have to have Quicktime installed. THEN, you have to set the buffers just right. THEN you have to install the Pro Tools software. THEN, you have to tweak everything to optimize the system. I took mine to a Pro-Tools expert who showed me things that optimize the Mac and software that I otherwise never would have know. THEN, you have to install the Plug-Ins and get them to run correctly. Now you are ready to record, right? NO! THEN, you realize that you only have 2 XLR mic preamps, and they are not very good at that. So you go out and buy 8 mic preamps with Phantom power, and wire everything up. Now you have spaghetti all over the place. Are we ready to make some music yet? No. There are some extremely complicated screens with all kinds of waveforms, and tons of buttons that most never need. And you must change settings when recording and playing back, or you WILL get latency issues. So... THEN, you have to start reading the manual. You will find out that it is crap, so you will then buy an aftermarket book of 350 pages to read through. THEN, you will start to be able to understand the extremely complicated and complex file structure used by Pro Tools. THEN, and maybe then, will you be able to lay down a few tracks. And THEN, you can go through their complicated means of exporting a file to WAV format. And when you want to use it, or move it, you haul the monitor, mouse, keyboard, digi 001 interface, mic preamps, and Mac tower unit. Now compare that to the Roland VS-2400CD. Get it out of the box. All wires go into it. It has 8 preamps. Good ones, all with XLR. The burner is built in. The effects are too. It is all configured. No horsing around with compatibility issues. No worries about using too many effects and eating up computing power. I made more music with my little old analog Tascam 4 track than I ever did the Pro Tools system due to its needless complication. Some call it elegant. I call it cumbersome. "Carlos Alden" wrote in message ... Jimmy: I had a Roland VS-880 for years and really liked it. I could use it pretty much straight out of the box as a tape recorder-like device, but I invested LOTS of time in learning all the editing and effects stuff, too. I would think that either the Yamaha or the Roland would be fine for a starter unit, but for more than that, be prepared to spend lots of time futzing. Having said all that, however, I have since moved to a computer based system. It takes MAYBE a few seconds longer to boot up and be ready to go compared to my VS-880, and I have better sound and more flexible options. If you purchased a dedicated computer with known compatibility with ProTools, you shouldn't be having a mountain of problems, really. For example, why are you having latency issues? Is it a USB input interface? After previewing the Digi 002R I finally bought a MOTU 828 MkII. Comes with MOTU's no-midi recording program, AudioDesk, which is VERY much like ProTools. After about three hours of initial messing around, I have it up and running very easily. ProTools was like that, too. There is no latency to speak of, tons of great effects, and best of all, visual graphical editing, which I really like for my radio productions I do with kids. Sounds like you've made up your mind to move to an all-in-one unit. If so, I don't think you could go wrong with either you have chosen. But I'd look again at your system and figure out what's making it not work right. I'm no engineer, and a computer based DAW isn't hard for ME to figure out. Carlos |
#4
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Opinions on a digital audio workstation?
windows or mac?
If windows, you should give cool edit pro 2 a try. Much simpler and straightforward. l8, 2mb "Jimmy Lee" wrote in message ... I am looking for opinions here. I am going to give up my complex Pro-Tools system (wayyy to powerful and COMPLICATED for my needs) and go to an all-in-one Digital Audio Workstation. I have narrowed it to the Yamaha AW16G, the Yamaha AW4416, or the Roland VS-2400CD. Which of these do you think is best and why if price is no option. I want durability, ease of use - simplicity, and capability. I want simple, yet powerful and effective. By the time I boot up Pro Tools, get everything set, deal with the damn latency issues, upgrade the constantly changing software, and overcome all the little glitches here and there, I am no longer inspired to play!!!! And I am a degreed engineer. When I am an engineer, I want to be an engineer. But when I want to play - damn it I want to play! The Yamahas seem to have effects that are assignable to each individual channel. Nice. I cannot tell if the Roland does that or not. The Yamahas, though, only have two XLR inputs with phantom, the Roland has 8. Big plus when playing/miking a grand piano and recording two singers at once. Opinions, please. Via email or posted here. Thanks, Jimmy Lee www.cdbaby.com/jimmylee |
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