Quandry List

Hmmmm. I've spent dozens if not hundreds of hours reading about and studying about and playing around with Pro Tools. Made some excellent recordings, did a few rough mixes using minimal plug-ins for evaluation purposes. All sounded great. I had my friend and fine engineer Steve Ledet over today to work on getting some drum sounds. The basic PT supplied plugs I had used for the rough mixes gave way to the more characterful and vibey UAD plugins and some of the more latency-heavy plugins from Digi. Once you put the UAD Fairchild or Pultec on something, it's real hard to take it off.

That all sounds great, and it was going along fine...but we could not get a stable mix due to the fact that PT 8 does not automatically account for the latency induced by a plugin, so things quickly get out of line...literally. We tried using the Mellowmuse ATA (Automatic Time Adjuster), but it only worked occasionally. put a few plugs on, it seems OK...add one more and everything freaks out and you can't get back to normal with the undo button.

So, the solution is to take all of the Pro Tools files and import them into Cubase sessions and mix in Cubase 4. Cubase 4 has automatic time adjustment (delay compensation) built-in. There area few plugins I really like that are PT only, including the Massey De-Esser I just bought last week ...but I will have to live without them. I now have to render all of my virtual instruments as well. This takes time.

Oddly enough, Digidesign is having a 50% off sale on PT HD1 systems, which also have ADC. So for a measly $6,000 I can get the pro version of the rig I have now. Hoo boy.

I really like the way Pro Tools records audio and edits audio....but if I can't mix on it, what's the point? Guess I'm gonna have to get a few things together to sell....stay tuned.


UPDATE: Found a used HD1 system with Power Mac G5 for $3500. Hmmmmm.