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Pro-Tools Investment Question... and Audition tip for recording...

jamesburlander

jamesburlander

I'm 20... work for WFLZ part-time and such...

I've been using Adobe Audition 1.5 & 3.0 at home for audio editing and such... Everyone always says learn Pro-Tools... and most of the time at work - I rarely have a moment to actually since down in a Production Studio and take the time to grasp PTs.

I was wondering if it'd be a good investment to purchase an MBox 2 Mini (around $300-350)... to just get a hands on feel for the program (and a better sounding Mic feed)?

Currently, I have a Shure mic hooked up to a DJ mixer... hooked into an Audigy 4... of course the noise floor is around -55 to -60db... then processed through Audition...


ALSO:
Here's a tip for those who hate Audition 3.0's recording but like it's real-time processing... I process in 3.0, but still use 1.5 to record it all...

If you open up a multitrack session in 3.0... set the processing to whatever you'd like.... and have a channels record button enabled. Minimize it...

Then open up Audition 1.5.. change Windows Recording Mixer to record the WAV channel (which is what 3.0 will send as it's monitoring output)... and you should be set... 1.5 should now record the processed feed of your input to 3.0. Works alright for me... may be slightly different depending on your audio card.

I find this easier to get the processing I need.. and recording at 44100 instead of downsampling it later when I save things.
 
jamesburlander said:
I was wondering if it'd be a good investment to purchase an MBox 2 Mini (around $300-350)... to just get a hands on feel for the program (and a better sounding Mic feed)?

Currently, I have a Shure mic hooked up to a DJ mixer... hooked into an Audigy 4
Click to expand...

Yeah, if you have the bucks, go for it. You might even find a used one cheaper. It's really good to know PT, and there are lots of tutorials on Digidesign's site to make it relatively painless.

I think you'll like the Mbox's pres better than the DJ mixer. If you find you just can't live without your Mbox at some point in the future, you could send it to Black Lion Audio in Chicago to have the pres (and the clock and converters, if you want) upgraded at a really fair price.
 
ProTools is definitely a good program to know your way around. But I doubt not knowing it will keep you from getting a full-time gig somewhere when you're ready. My last gig was imaging at a station that had ProTools. I didn't know PT when I was hired but was proficient in Vegas (my program of choice) and Audition so the learning curve wasn't that steep. I would think your best bet would be to completely master Audition and production in general... IMO, learning the intricacies of EQ and compression and mixing is more important than knowing one particular piece of software, especially one that a lot of radio people seem to be getting away from. Especially if you're on a PC, as ProTools still doesn't always play nice with PCs.

If your main concern is the quality of your input, you can always get a firewire interface to use as your soundcard... I love my Focusrite Saffire (which has good pre's too), and there are a ton of other great affordable suggestions in older threads here.

Personally, I think ProTools is complete overkill for 99% of what radio does, unless you're recording multi-track live performances. But I am glad that I have experience with it.
 
You could always get an M-Audio interface (which will play nicely with Audition too) and get Pro Tools M-Powered for $250 or so. If you had a proper card, you might not hate the way Audition 3 records. Plus you could add PT to your rig. IMO, a much better use of cash.

Emmett
 
I do some more price digging, lowest I've found so far for the M Box 2 Mini (w/ PT 7.4 LE included) was $249...

I'll do some more research on different audio cards and such...

I'm not into doing Voice Over ... yet. I'm interested though.

I have a non-broadcast hobby station at home, and I do my own imaging and such.. lol.

Your true radio geek.. right here. haha

Thank you all for your responses! I'm sure I'll have PT questions later on in life... ;D
 
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