Pro Tools MP series and what you need to know.

I would like to review and talk to you about Pro Tools MP8 and the hardware you are forced to use. Last summer I had to upgrade my Pro Tools from 6.4 to 8.0 and did not have the money to upgrade to the full version so I had to compromise and buy the MP version. Bad mistake please do not make this same mistake save the money and buy the full version. Pro Tools 10 it lets you use any interface you choose to use and that's a way better deal. Any way back to the MP version this is a waste of time and money I bought the M-Audio Pro fire 610 interface to run my DAW (digital audio workstation) I did my research and thought this was a good choice for the job. 24/192 kHz ADA conversion, award winning Octane Preamp (2), on board DSP mixing, dual headphone amps, 6in/10out I/O and works as a stand- alone Pre what was not to like. $399.99 and the software sold separately $349.99 retail. The software is limited compare to Pro Tools and HD versions as far as hardware suggestions go.

First of all you can only take advantage of the 24/192 conversion when it's in stand-alone mode other wise it's 24/96 that did not make me very happy considering I was using it as a interface and remember if your using the MP version you are forced to use the M- Audio hardware on with the review. I get it all hook up to my Mac and start to record with it and find out there are some major problems the master volume has to be up all the way, one of the headphone amps did not work so I went to the DSP engine to see if it was turned off. And I can not get it to work no matter what I do. So one headphone amp down and the award winning preamps you have to turn them up between three-quarters and all the way before they start show up on the mixer I mean you really have to push them. Then I find that only two of the ten outs work (all six of the ins worked well) but I did not find this out until months later when I had to do a 5.1 mix and could not so I had to send that work out to another studio and I lost that business!

So I try to get a hold of M-Audio nothing there so I go to their website and follow the procedures on the site for shipping it back for warranty work. The site said it could take up to eight weeks well that's a problem because I have session coming up in a week. So now I'm using it because M-audio made it so hard to send it back that the warranty ran out on it that’s frustrating. So if your looking for a new Pro Tools rig do yourself a favor and buy the real version not the MP version. I have bought several M-Audio products over the years and I'm not going to anymore Avid that's who owns M-Audio needs to step up their QC game and make M-Audio provide the best quality for their studio products like Avid does. Their return policies are ridicules and customer service is very poor I don't know why you can't call a company any more everything is through e-mails and websites it's like they don’t want to talk to you direct if their a manufacturing company. I guess it is disappointing when this was suppose to be one of their top of the line products and it had all these great reviews maybe I just got a lemon but I truly think that their QC dept could use some help. Now this is not a reflection on Avid's Pro Tools software it is the best as being an industry standard 90% of the pro studios use this software so you can do a project in one studio and go to another studio and finish it pretty cool. Now if your just starting out save your money and visit www.musicanddjinstructionalmedia.com / Home Recording Page to start learning easy effective ways of recording. Happy Recording.

The Ever Evolving Studio

Let's talk about how the studio is shrinking. Plain and simple we can do more with less now and it will keep evolving. Our equipment list is shrinking because we use DAW's (now I still own a small four track Teac A-3340 reel to reel) I like to fatten up tracks with it once in awhile and it works great still. But my studio is more open less gear to clutter it up we have all shrunk it down to a laptop, an interface, a couple of mics for vocal and instrument recording, a pair of monitors and an external hard drive and that's about it. The amount of gear does not dictate the quality of the outcome it's the quality of the gear and the skills of the user. The racks of equipment have been replaced with excellent sounding plug-ins a lot of us are using the virtual mixing boards with in the DAW's software and electronic drums take up half the room as an acoustic set does. With all this equipment shrinkage I have had to add more acoustic panels to my three room studio every time you remove something your rooms sound changes because what ever you took out was stopping a certain amount of standing waves and your ears readjust and your noticing fludders and echos.

And I have noticed over the last couple of years we have adapted a new way of recording with smaller devices and online sequencers and beat machines www.musicanddjinstructionalmedia.com also even as I'm writing this article the laptop is being replaced by the i Pad and so the evolving continues. And with the advanced Handheld audio / video recorders that sound pretty amazing you can record on the go with very very good results and you can drag and drop, file transfer and direct to YouTube upload capability your project and start sharing whats not to like. If you've ever tried to incorporate a PDA or an iPod or other device into your work-flow you know that can be quite difficult to integrate and connect properly. There is a device called DIDock and it will allow you to hook up such devices and it even has balanced, transformer-isolated XLR connections and ground lift switches to insure buzz-free hook ups and it will charge your iPod as well and provides a headphone jack. Now if that's not shrinkage I don't know what is! Point being our studios our evolving and that will never change and quite frankly I'm looking forward to the up and coming years technology changes and see how far we progress which brings me to virtual instruments and how well these sampled instruments sound and the very small footprint they leave on your studio I have a really nice B3 organ plug-in and it only takes a forty-nine key keyboard how small is that compared to the real deal and the  sampling is amazing and is being done in some of the best studios in the world. Happy Recording.