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Hey,
I need some advice here. Suppose you were setting up a small studio for the use of students who are learning some sound engineering. It's not a sound engineering qualification as such but rather a module (or maybe two modules) within a digital media degree. Course would teach the rudiments of digital audio, capturing sound, mixing and so on.
I am looking for opinions about what software setup is the best to go for. These would be the requirements. It should have an interface that is not too overwhelming for a beginner. It should run on a Mac and also be capable of running in a stand-alone fashion (i.e. outside the studio) on the machines in a room full of Macs (e.g. mixing/editing on headphones). It should not cost the earth. It should be general-purpose (by that I mean suitable for things like making short audio documentaries, working on sound for video pieces, creating podcasts or what have you as well).
Also, it is not critical that it is the "industry-standard". These people will not know enough when they finish to be employed as sound engineers but still should know a reasonable amount about sound engineering. Having said that, using the "industry-standard" is no harm at all if it is the correct choice.
What would you go for?
The options I am looking at are:
ProTools - the obvious choice. I had ruled it out because it can't run in a standalone fashion but then I discovered those M-Box Micro yokes which at 200 quid a pop, will let you run it wherever you want. So, Digi003 + a bunch of them would do the job. My concern about Pro Tools would be that it might be too much of a mountain to climb for a beginner and be full of way too many features which we don't need.
Logic - Advantage of this is (I believe) it will interface nicely with other Apple software like Final Cut. Disadvantage is - I have been told it is a difficult thing to get to grips with for a beginner. I haven't tried it myself though so can't really comment on whether this is true or not.
Reaper - Lot's of advantages. It's cheap. Students can download their own copy and run it wherever they want. It's cross platform. I dicked around with it for a while the other night and it seems pretty straightforward to use. The disadvantage would be that it is far from industry-standard and students who are genuinely interested in this stuff might far prefer to be using pro tools or something. It might be a bit flaky. Unlike pro tools, we would have to put together the studio system by buying a separate audio interface, control surface etc etc - rather than simply buying a pro tools bundle that is more or less guaranteed to work smoothly as a unit.
Opinions?
I need some advice here. Suppose you were setting up a small studio for the use of students who are learning some sound engineering. It's not a sound engineering qualification as such but rather a module (or maybe two modules) within a digital media degree. Course would teach the rudiments of digital audio, capturing sound, mixing and so on.
I am looking for opinions about what software setup is the best to go for. These would be the requirements. It should have an interface that is not too overwhelming for a beginner. It should run on a Mac and also be capable of running in a stand-alone fashion (i.e. outside the studio) on the machines in a room full of Macs (e.g. mixing/editing on headphones). It should not cost the earth. It should be general-purpose (by that I mean suitable for things like making short audio documentaries, working on sound for video pieces, creating podcasts or what have you as well).
Also, it is not critical that it is the "industry-standard". These people will not know enough when they finish to be employed as sound engineers but still should know a reasonable amount about sound engineering. Having said that, using the "industry-standard" is no harm at all if it is the correct choice.
What would you go for?
The options I am looking at are:
ProTools - the obvious choice. I had ruled it out because it can't run in a standalone fashion but then I discovered those M-Box Micro yokes which at 200 quid a pop, will let you run it wherever you want. So, Digi003 + a bunch of them would do the job. My concern about Pro Tools would be that it might be too much of a mountain to climb for a beginner and be full of way too many features which we don't need.
Logic - Advantage of this is (I believe) it will interface nicely with other Apple software like Final Cut. Disadvantage is - I have been told it is a difficult thing to get to grips with for a beginner. I haven't tried it myself though so can't really comment on whether this is true or not.
Reaper - Lot's of advantages. It's cheap. Students can download their own copy and run it wherever they want. It's cross platform. I dicked around with it for a while the other night and it seems pretty straightforward to use. The disadvantage would be that it is far from industry-standard and students who are genuinely interested in this stuff might far prefer to be using pro tools or something. It might be a bit flaky. Unlike pro tools, we would have to put together the studio system by buying a separate audio interface, control surface etc etc - rather than simply buying a pro tools bundle that is more or less guaranteed to work smoothly as a unit.
Opinions?