Learning Sound Engineering (1 Viewer)

[hugh]

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?

 

[Anthony]

Garageband?

 

[worthit]

I find Pro tools to be the best choice for beginners. All the basic controls are there on two screens. It's amazing for editing too. You don't need to get to grips with all the advanced features before getting around basic recording and they'll have the option of looking into it further in their own time if they're interested. If they end up working in digital media they'll eventually come across protools and it's always an advantage to be able to communicate with an engineer using software you're familiar with.

 

[hugh]

Garageband?

I thought about this a bit. My feeling about it is that it is going to have limitations compared to fully-featured software. Having said that though, if you ask me exactly what those limitations are and why they are relevant, I'll find it difficult to answer. For example though .. can you do simultaneous multi-track recording into Garageband by connecting it to some kind of audio interface like a Digi003?

I find Pro tools to be the best choice for beginners. All the basic controls are there on two screens. It's amazing for editing too. You don't need to get to grips with all the advanced features before getting around basic recording and they'll have the option of looking into it further in their own time if they're interested. If they end up working in digital media they'll eventually come across protools and it's always an advantage to be able to communicate with an engineer using software you're familiar with.

Thanks for that. I suppose another thing putting me off ProTools would be having to buy 20 or so M-Box Micro's. This adds up to quite a bit of change and adds the hassle of storing, handing these out and so on whenever someone needs to run Pro Tools outside the studio. But that's not insurmountable ...

 

[worthit]

I thought about this a bit. My feeling about it is that it is going to have limitations compared to fully-featured software. Having said that though, if you ask me exactly what those limitations are and why they are relevant, I'll find it difficult to answer. For example though .. can you do simultaneous multi-track recording into Garageband by connecting it to some kind of audio interface like a Digi003?



Thanks for that. I suppose another thing putting me off ProTools would be having to buy 20 or so M-Box Micro's. This adds up to quite a bit of change and adds the hassle of storing, handing these out and so on whenever someone needs to run Pro Tools outside the studio. But that's not insurmountable ...

Yeah it's not cheap when you're buying lots of them. I guess if you go with another program you'll still need to get some sort of sound card unless they use the built in input of the computer. Remember the mbox micro doesn't have any inputs. It's just for mixing and editing. The mbox mini has two inputs and only costs a little more than the micro. madye 15 euro or so more.

Those mbox micros look like they'd be very easy to lose and I hate the way they just stick out the side of a laptop like that waiting for someone to snap it off. Also, on the new macbooks the block the other usb input which is stupid.

 

[Anthony]

There must be a dongle for Protools no?

 

[worthit]

It wont open without Digidesign or M-Audio hardware being attached to your computer so the mbox or Digi003 or whatever acts as a dongle.

 

[hugh]

Obvious question: suppose I go and buy a ProTools package that contains software + Digi003 + Mackie control surface and buy a Mac to run it on. Suppose then I decide I also want to run reaper either instead of, or as well as, protools. Can I simply replace protools with reaper? i.e. can I use the 003 as the audio interface into reaper and the mackie control surface to control it and bypass protools altogether?

 

[ann post]

i think that should probably work,, though not 100%. i was thinking in the same price range as a big pile of mbox's would be a big pile of zoom h4's possibly. they come bundled with cubase which i dont like, but have possibly got more functionality then an mbox.

 

[ann post]

For example though .. can you do simultaneous multi-track recording into Garageband by connecting it to some kind of audio interface like a Digi003?

i think you can on the newest one.

My feeling about it is that it is going to have limitations compared to fully-featured software.

i'd say the problem that is biggest to me with gband is that it doesnt save your files as individual wavs, and if you wnat to move the project to a new platform you basically have to buy logic. anything that doesnt save things as individual wavs probably aint up to teaching. like if your students want to work on stuff at home later on whatever laptops they have, reaper might actually be best bet.

I suppose another thing putting me off ProTools would be having to buy 20 or so M-Box Micro's.

my mbox horror story comes from somone who was teaching, they got 3 mbox's with nice hard cases to teach small groups (6-7) for a year. i'm pretty sure none of the mbox's lasted the year.

 

[ann post]

was just thinking upstairs, if i was learning sound engineering again, i'd prefer cross platform lessons rather then just being taught on one.

 

[hugh]

was just thinking upstairs, if i was learning sound engineering again, i'd prefer cross platform lessons rather then just being taught on one.

That's interesting. Would you not think people would get confused having to deal with two separate interfaces? It has the advantage though that you can have protools in the studio and they get some exposure to that, and then reaper anywhere else you want .... without dicking about with m-box's of any kind.

 

[ann post]

That's interesting. Would you not think people would get confused having to deal with two separate interfaces?

well in relation to the course your delivering, yes that could be a bad idea.

*though* i think outside of short time constraints you have, sound engineering is initially about making sound go from A-B, and being a sound engineer you need to be able to make that happen regardless of what gear is available, if you use mbox/protools your actually bypassing that stage, possibly, and going straight to DAW training.

 

[Anthony]

It wont open without Digidesign or M-Audio hardware being attached to your computer so the mbox or Digi003 or whatever acts as a dongle.

ah yea I know but do digidesign do a wee dongle for colleges or something for this exact purpose. There must be a special licence for this.

 

[pissypants]

A thought in favour of Reaper: students can easily use it at home too, even with their own bog-standard PC / Laptop soundcard. It can even be installed on a USB key.

 

[hugh]

ah yea I know but do digidesign do a wee dongle for colleges or something for this exact purpose. There must be a special licence for this.

I don't think so. But the m-box micro thing is effectively a dongle. It's small ... plugs into (I think) a USB port and just has a headphone output.

A thought in favour of Reaper: students can easily use it at home too, even with their own bog-standard PC / Laptop soundcard. It can even be installed on a USB key.

Yes - this is a big plus in it's favour.

 

[RED(tape)MENACE]

Pro Tools tbh.
The m-audio stuff is pretty chill.

 

[Cormcolash]

I haven't found Logic particularly difficult to get the hang of. Sure some things aren't quite intuitive, but if you have the manual and look up what you need it's grand.

 

[hugh]

Any other opinions there?

In particular can anyone answer whether I can run a dual reaper/pro tools setup on the same machine? i.e. have it connected to a digi003 and a mackie control surface and use either software as I see fit.

Thanks for the Logic insight Cormo ....

 

[Cormcolash]

In saying that, Logic is fucking stupid when dealing with samples, but even that just takes a bit of patience to figure out.