The New System
Written by JSizzle
Tuesday, 29 June 2010 09:33
Just to warn you, this is a post for gearheads. As you may or may not know, I am obsessed with recording gear, and fairly opinionated about what is good. I used to be the biggest Logic apologist until Apple ruined that application by making it too easy, and then discovered that ProTools actually does sound better. Technically, PT sounding better than Logic cannot be supported by any science. If you look at the specs, Logic should sound better–but ask anyone who has worked on PT HD compared with Logic, if their honest, they’ll probably agree PT is better.
This became most poignant for me when I tried to run Logic 7 as the front end of my PT HD using the ESB in Logic. I think I am one of the 19 people in the world who actually got this to work to immediately discover that it was impossible to work in the two environments because Logic and PT sounded so different. To even slightly mix any of the TDM or RTAS instruments in PT required that you EQ’d the crap out of the whole sound to make it mesh with all the muddy sounding stuff coming from the Logic side. I learned PT, and while its MIDI is still wonky, the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. I have come to the conclusion that many PT haters are simply that, haters.
I have no idea what spawned that rant. However, I am avoiding erasing it because it proves my point.
That said, I have a Mac Pro coming. My studio has been back in Power PC land for some time now, mostly because with HD I never needed the extra power of the Intel Mac towers. Combine that with the fact that the Mac Pro is quite possibly the most overpriced piece of computer equipment in history, there’s a reason why my studio computing has been stuck in 2004. For a new Mac Pro, you are buying a computer that’s about a year behind it’s PC counterpart and paying a few thousand dollars extra for the privilege.
But then Apple dropped support for Power PC, and all the other software vendors followed suit to ruin my little world. I want ProTools 8, and since most of my friends have upgraded as well as most studios, I need to follow suit to maintain compatibility. Don’t get me wrong, PT8 sessions will work in PT7, but going back and forth is not wise. I needed to upgrade my computer. I was honestly looking at PC’s, but then the reality that half of my plugins don’t work very well on Windows and that Windows 7 isn’t fully supported yet by Avid, and I reluctantly ordered a Mac Pro.
I want to be able to stop buying Apple computers. They’re great products which is why I buy them, but I don’t like Apple’s business practices and don’t like closed systems. Bill Gates is dedicating the rest of his life to helping people while Steve Jobs terrorizes those who work for him. What’s more frustrating is Windows 7 is actually a really nice OS–just nothing I need is supported on it yet. I now own four Macintosh’s. A G4, a G5, a Mac Book Pro, and now a Mac Pro. I am a whore.
Then again, much like those who hate ProTools for being ProTools, maybe I have just turned into an Apple hater.
Not likely.
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