Choosing a DAW system, part I

Choosing a DAW is a tricky situation these days. To be honest, most everything on the market does 90% of the functions you need in an everyday situation. What it comes down to is particular features you need, look & feel, and computer system you want to use.

Obviously most of the DAWs available are for Mac and PC systems. I personally have spent the last 20 years working on Mac-based DAWs, so that's where my expertise really lies. However, I'm not a snob about it. A computer is a tool. If I were to find I needed to use a DAW that was PC only, I wouldn't hesitate. Besides, I've been hearing good things regarding Windows 7.

Let's start with the Mac.

Pro Tools On the Mac, the biggest player is Avid/Digidesign's Pro Tools. It is available in three variants, the fully professional TDM systems known as Pro Tools HD, the mid-level systems (which are more than capable for 90% of users) referred to as the LE rigs, and the M-powered systems which run on select M-Audio hardware.

Pro Tools (which is up to version 8.x as of this writing) first hit the scene in late 1991 and was a Macintosh only system consisting of software and matched hardware. The hardware consisted of at least one I/O breakout box and a card (or two, or three...) installed inside the computer. Digidesign developed this method to provide the computer horsepower needed to process the audio and do the internal mixing on computers which, by all rights, shouldn't have been able to do so at that point in time. (My first PT rig, from 1995, ran on an 80MHz computer with 24MB of RAM... Really.)

This methodology came from Digidesign's background. They first provided replacement sample chips for the Linn Drum and other drum machines. Later, they created software called Sound Designer, which allowed you to off-load samples from your Emulator II (or others available at the time) to a Mac where you could do visual editing, looping, and all of those other things that were nigh impossible on the samplers of the day. (For an exercise in masochism, try multi-sampling on an Ensoniq Mirage without a computer.)

In the tradition of cutting out the middleman, Digi realized that what they had could be even more powerful if they removed the sampler from the equation and allowed recording and playback directly from the computer. This required some hardware acceleration and specialized I/O, but was the germ of a successful product they called Sound Tools. Quite simply, it was a rather nifty stereo editor that allowed playlist editing and application of DSP effects. It even allowed for SMPTE/MTC sync so engineers could off-load tracks from tape, edit, and place them back onto the tape for mixing.

Now, what Digi was doing wasn't anything new. Sonic Solutions (as I understand it, a spin off of Lucasfilm's SoundDroid project) was doing the same thing with a Mac at a higher price point. Studer, Waveframe, Fairlight, NED, Otari, and many others were providing proprietary systems that did similar work at substantially higher price points.

What Digi did with Pro Tools was to bring an advanced multitrack editing and mixing platform to the Mac for a comparably lower price point. It took until version 3 to truly be successful (or indeed, really usable) but they solidified their market position by adding 3rd party developed plug-in effects. This allowed developers to create plug-ins for the Pro Tools system that users could use to create a customized system just how they needed it to be! Once the Antares Auto-Tune plug-in hit the market, Digidesign had established their dominance in the market, which they have managed to maintain to this day.

Today's Pro Tools systems range from the high end HD (TDM) rigs which still feature DSP-accelerated effects as well as cpu-based computer hosted effects processing to small one or two input systems utilizing only cpu-based effects. As you can guess, the price points vary dramatically from $200ish on the low end, to systems running above $50,000 for a full-blown professional rig.

Pro Tools, being the industry juggernaut, has taken a lot of flak, regarding their usage of proprietary hardware and interfacing. Some of this is deserved, but in their defense, this has reduced the variables in setting up a system and typically leads to stable Pro Tools systems. As of late, a number of companies have been offering Pro Tools interfacing directly on their converters (Apogee, Lynx, Digital Audio Denmark, and others - although it is typically a pricy option) and SSL has even created a Pro Tools to MADI box for studios with large digital consoles.

At the last minute, it occurs to me that Pro Tools is available for the PC as well. I don't believe I've ever actually put my hands on a PC-based Pro Tools system. I'd be interested to know the differences.

We'll continue with the Mac DAWs in a future post.

Another film project nearing completion

Can't say too much at this time, other than I've been finishing a film score on a short for American Blackguard. Great folks to work with!

How Times Have Changed

When I first started working in studios, digital was a bit of a pipe dream. Most professional rooms were based around a console, a 2" 24 track, and a selection of outboard gear. Shortly thereafter, the ADAT burst onto the scene and began the whirlwind transition to digital. And why not? The ADAT sounded pretty good, the tape was cheap, and the price was amazing, especially after the price dropped after the initial run.

Of course, they weren't without drawbacks. I need not go into those here.

ADAT (and the other small digital tape multitracks) were a transitory technology. Random access systems quickly felled the beast and took over, causing a whole generation of studio rats and performers to have to become simultaneous left & right brain types as IT issues became constants in this new method of music making. Whether using dedicated hardware (i.e. RADAR) or off-the-shelf computer-based systems, dealing with the foibles of computer tech just became part of the equation.

I've been seeing some transitions of my own in recent days. Being from the days of tape, I'm also used to real instruments. Plug-in virtual instruments seem, well, disposable when compared to a physical keyboard. Yet I find myself using them more and more. I guess I've really had to sell myself on this because I've come up with a bit of a philosophy regarding real vs. plug-in instruments.

Plug-in instruments are time savers. They are great for quick sketches while composing. Plug-in samplers really cannot be beat in the real world. Yes, I have a bit of a soft spot for my Emu E5000 (upgraded and modded out the wazoo), but ESX24 in Logic, MOTU's Mach5, and NI's Kontakt are superior tools. Visual editing of samples, easy looping, access to huge libraries of sounds without paging through small windows, use of 24-bit samples... I could go on and on. For that matter, all of the digital synthesizers are really better in the software realm.

What physical keyboards am I finding myself using? The electro-mechanical ones, the Rhodes, Hammond organ and Clavinet. I have great software emulations of all of these. Why do I still use the real ones? They all have that near-imperceptible "something", perhaps it's the inherent flaws, the feel of the keyboard... I can't completely place it, other than they are comfortable for me to play, and I play differently on each of these keyboards than I would on my MIDI controller.

Analog synths, or digital ones with a lot of hardware control (sliders, knobs) are also seeing a lot of use. I have yet to match the "bigness" of a Moog sawtooth bass in software. I still hold onto keyboards with nostalgic value as well (my DX7) even though software emulations are definitely superior.

So I'm seeing a hybrid system evolving. Yes, life would be easier if I'd let myself go entirely into the computer, but I feel I'd be missing something. Maybe I'm a somewhat of a keyboard luddite, but it still feels right.

Using Logic Pro for Theatrical Sound Design

I was recently hired to do sound work for a play and, of course, they asked if I could provide some sound effects and music playback.  Of course, I agreed to do it, as I have built up a considerable sound effects library over the years.  Not to mention that sound design is one of those things that I do.

I took a look at my available tools.  In the past, I've brought in hardware samplers for playback of music & effects, but setup on my old E5000 is a bit cumbersome.  I started thinking that a software sampler would do better.  This, of course, led me to look at Logic's ESX24.

Laying out samples on the ESX24 is simple.  I really just needed one-shot sample playback for the most part.  It was just a matter of dragging the samples into Logic, opening the samples in the sample editor, and cleaning up the beginnings and ends.

Simple right?

It turned out that the spooky wind sample I used was shorter than what was needed for the particular scene.  I had never actually done any looping in ESX (I had yet to build any sampled instruments) so I was less than thrilled with what I initially saw as the method for setting loops.  In the edit window, it looked like the method was to set sample numbers for the start and end of the loop and gave rudimentary tools for editing crossfades.  I started doing trial and error.  Painful to say the least.

Now Logic has a fine sample editor window.  I thought, wouldn't it be nice if I could open the samples in the sample editor.  Lo and behold, a method was in there and it worked great!

Turns out there's a little drop-down menu for each sample.  It is accessed by the drop-down arrow just to the right of the sample name.  All I had to do was select the Open in Sample Editor menu item and Voila!  There it was, ready for graphic editing!

Tools were in place for setting loops easily.  I easily selected the area I wanted looped, made certain that search zero crossings was ticked in the edit menu to help avoid pops, and selected selection -> sample loop.  After that I selected Write sample loop to audio file.

So I went back to the ESX editor and it didn't work.  Once again a bit of user error.  You have to turn the loop on in the ESX editor to have your new loop take effect.

It worked beautifully.

By the way, I decided to just place the music for playback in the arrange window sequentially.  This way, I could set markers and skip between markers with a self set key command.

Works great!

I'm almost looking forward to trying to loop something musical!

The Return of Bent 6!

I'm happy to report that Bent 6 Audio is returning to service, better than ever!  Bent 6 is my own studio where I have been set up to do mixing and editing.  Bent 6 also houses my keyboards and guitars and is set up as happening little control room.

Now, Bent 6 has two decent sized recording booths coming up, a tech shop, and a comfortably-sized control room configured for 5.1 and stereo mixing.  Audio for picture work is one of Bent 6's new focuses and the rooms are being configured for ADR and foley work as well as traditional recording.

Pics coming soon!