REVIEW: Pro Tools 8 – the conclusion
Sometimes you just need to get on with your life. This is one of those moments. I can’t very well review Pro Tools 8 until version 9 comes out when there are so many other things that deserves a review as well. Here’s the conclusion.
The great
Pro Tools 8 has got to be the biggest upgrade I’ve seen so far. There are of course many great things to mention, but let’s start with the most striking feature – the looks. You could say it’s too Cubase-esque for your Pro Tools-savvy eyes, or that it looks a little toyish, isn’t minimalistic enough or whatever. But I dare you, I double-dare you, work with it for a week and then try to go back. It’s easier on the eyes, some things are more accessible and it just gives you a better overview. None of those things I mentioned above that could be bad holds any water for me. The updated interface is only good.
Finally, I don’t have to work in that horrible piano roll. Finally, we got a separate MIDI editor. Finally, the MIDI is alright. Unfortunately this occurred at a time when I use as little software instruments as possible and when I prefer to record synths as audio right away. But I’m happy for you who don’t work like I do.
The takes management is of course a very welcomed addition. I was never satisfied with the old LE solution, the HD one was decent, but not good enough in this day and age. There are some things that could’ve been better, but it’s easily one of the better solutions out there. The fact that it integrates with what we Pro Tools users have been a little spoiled with – playlists – is of course a plus. In the same breath I think we should mention the lanes. It’s really a pleasing way to work, especially with automation.
Plug-in mapping is something that makes a world of difference to someone like me who almost won’t use a plug-in if it doesn’t map to a control surface, and does so well. Now I can map those only three parameters I’ll use to the first three knobs. Great.
Finally I would like to mention something that you might not expect – the startup dialog. Being faced by the option to load a recent session, open a template, and many other things, is simply so much better than the old blank screen. It might seem like a small thing, but it’s one of those little things that makes the whole experience better.
The not-at-all-great
Pro Tools 8 is far from trouble free, as can be seen here and here for instance.
Since the install I’ve also had a number of crashes without any real error message. It happens often under no real stress at all. I can, for instance, be moving a slider and it can quit, I can be out for a cup of coffee and it will have quit when I come back. This makes it very hard to troubleshoot.
While Pro Tools 8 might not be the bug orgy some of us feared it could have been, I’m still very unimpressed by Digidesigns capabilities to make it stable. Yes, I’m sure there are people who runs Pro Tools trouble free, yes, I’m sure most issues can be traced back to some minor thing that can be fixed, but this doesn’t stop me from saying that Pro Tools is simply too fragile. I’m very glad we got the great MIDI, the take management, the plug-ins, the what-not’s, but pray tell, oh oracle of Digidesign, when will you deliver a system that doesn’t fall into pieces just because you happen to sneeze at the wrong time?
It needs to be stated, I’ve only run Pro Tools 8 LE so far. The HD versions I’ve used (6.x and 7.x) have indeed seemed far more reliable than the LE’s I’ve been using (5.x and forward). But I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a version of Pro Tools – HD or LE – that doesn’t try to choke you to death with buffersize errors. Again, I’m sure there are people who don’t have them, but I do, and have had on several computers and configuration… And by the gods, I’m not alone.
My proposal: next update – no new features, stability über alles!
The inbetween
There are a couple of things that leave me something in between ecstatic joy and horrible agony.
All the AIR effects are among these things. Some of them will stay in the plug-in folder, probably the more esoteric ones, and some will go to the unused folder. That’s fine, every effect can’t be made specifically for me. The main problems I had with most of them was that they were
- A little limited.
- Some needed some character.
- The generic interface, while pretty good looking, is not my cup of tea for the simple reason it’s generic.
The instruments are, again, somewhat interesting, but they leave me with the feeling of wanting more. If they had been lightweight versions of other plug-ins I could upgrade and be without the feeling of wanting more. Unfortunately these instruments doesn’t have any more advanced counterparts.
Elastic pitch was a big anti-climax for me. I guess it does what it promises, I think it was just my expectations after the great implementation of elastic time that had my hopes up for something more graphical and functional. Cutting out regions and pitching them individually was definitely not what I had in mind. For me, this makes it basically a feature I not only never use, but not even think about as existing.
This is not all
Even if I divided my review of Pro Tools 8 into several posts, there are still many things that I haven’t included. Such as:
- There are templates available.
- You can save your sessions as templates.
- Waveforms can be viewed in different ways (peak and power, rectified and outlined)
- “Insertion follows playback” is now a button.
- The track list has been enhanced.
- Pro Tools now checks for common HD plug-ins when switching session.
- You can rate your (audio) regions. My old poor mans fix was to color code them.
- You can startup without loading any plug-ins for troubleshooting.
And yeah, there’s more than that as well. These are just a few minor things that didn’t really make it into the review (but it did!).
If you’ve missed the rest of the review, you can find them by looking at all posts tagged Pro Tools 8.
That’s my hairy-bottom opinion. What’s yours?
Thats what I was hoping 8 would do. Fix the core. Its the most finicky program I’ve ever used and yet its so well laid out. definitely a love hate relationship. There really is some terrible programming behind that software. and also some brilliant programming.
By dominic ~ March 19, 2009 kl 4:52 pm
Great conclusion Stiff!
“Pro Tools is simply too fragile.” – Agreed.
“But I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a version of Pro Tools – HD or LE – that doesn’t try to choke you to death with buffersize errors.” – Agreed
“You can startup without loading any plug-ins for troubleshooting.” – I didn’t know this!
Thanks Stiff
By Mox ~ March 19, 2009 kl 5:12 pm
How do you start up with no plug ins stiff?. I did not know you could do that either.
By Russell Butterfield ~ March 19, 2009 kl 11:21 pm
Thank you so much for all your articles, its nice to read an actual users opinions of the new features and interface! Just a quick note about plugin mapping: When I bought my 003 console, it was roughly stated that the surface could be used to automate “any parameter” of any plugin. I was rather upset to say the least when I found out this wasnt the case. I tried rallying people on the DUC to the cause (hehe) but everyone just said “use a midi controller” but that’s not the point! anyway, for a first time poster, long time reader, I’m rambling a bit
I was just happily surprised to see someone else who welcomes with open arms, the ability to now access “ANY” parameter via a digidesign control surface…. Hooray!
By Safjuan ~ March 20, 2009 kl 12:17 am
great review and i agree with everything you say stiff!
i’ve been posting on the duc that PT is way to fragile for a while now. especially with todays modern cutting edge rtas vi’s. running hd 5 here on pc.
midi editor window sure id great but some are reporting problems with it,myself included (Double clicking midi region causes access errors)there is a workaround though.
seems that my machine is sorting itself out little by little (tweaking involved)
lets hope for a more robust version of this software
pt 8 could be a great program.hopefully its on its way
By x9blade ~ March 20, 2009 kl 1:29 am
Safjuan: People can get very defensive when you propose such thing. Last years has really shownn the direction in controllers IMO (at least cheaper ones) with intelligent automapping and such. I think it was a no-brainer by Digidesign to implement the learn command.
By stiff ~ March 20, 2009 kl 3:54 am
Re: fragile.
Like dominic, I’ve been in favor of fixing the core as well. Since I’m not a great coder myself and certainly haven’t looked at the Pro Tools code I can only debate from what I’ve heard others say. The thing with the old codebase is that people at Digidesign have actually said this too! Which of course makes think there’s truth to it.
All my computers the last years have been more or less optimized for audio, and I even made the move to Mac for this reason. Also remember that my session is rarely very intense, especially not as of late, as I try to minimize tracks, plug-ins and everything. STILL getting error messages really puts me in a bad mood.
By stiff ~ March 20, 2009 kl 3:58 am
I realized the starting without plug-ins might have been a little misleading. Let me clarify, you can load a session with all plug-ins disabled (still very useful!)-
Starting with plug-ins disabled:
Just hold shift when you load the session.
By stiff ~ March 20, 2009 kl 4:00 am
Hey Stiff,
Great conclusion. I am in both camps now: my apple system runs flawlessly but the PC one is crap! Indeed unstable. So I agree with you on that.However I would like to say that protools is still one of the most stable programs around. Nuendo and Cubase can’t touch that. Sonar is in about the smae league and Logic…well I don’t know actually.:)
But again: great review….
By J~P ~ March 20, 2009 kl 6:15 am
Thanks. And indeed, many DAWs need to get their shit straight. There are some that are by far more stable than the others:
I never had a problem with Reason but I haven’t used it in a long time so I don’t know how the current version is. The little I’ve used the latest FL Studio, it was rock solid even on a crappy computer. Ableton Live hiccuped on me one time (and by that I mean it gave up a high pitched noise basically but continued playing) when I had 5-6 instances of Omniphere and worked on three songs in one session at the same time.. Personally I feel Live should be the yardstick here. If Ableton can make something that stable, I think the rest should be able to do the same.
By stiff ~ March 20, 2009 kl 6:28 am
One OS, one set of rules, one set of qualified computers — clean, simple, neat. Hopefully that would mean (less) trouble-free operation for all users.
By Mox ~ March 22, 2009 kl 8:12 pm
just went back and used logic for the first time since 8 came out and realized that its 100 times more stable and can handle way more. I’m decided to go back to that. I can get more done. Ill wait for protools 8.1 and hope that one is more stable.
By dominic ~ March 23, 2009 kl 11:51 pm
dominic, it most likely will be. Most DAW’s crap out during the very first version of a major release. The safest bet is usually to wait for the x.1 update!
By stiff ~ March 24, 2009 kl 2:49 am
stiff.
I wish I could agree with you. Ive hhad protools since 7.0 on multiple PCs and my new mac pro and as of yet it has never been stable enough to handle even close to what logic can handle. Other people say otherwise. I dont know why this happens to me but either way protools is just garbage (for me) when I have more then 1 or 2 synths, superior 2 and a few amp modelers running. logic handles it just fine….except logic can handle a lot more then that and do it without crapping out all the time.
By dominic ~ March 24, 2009 kl 11:17 am
Well… To be fair, Logic are amongst the most CPU-efficient DAWs out there!
By stiff ~ March 25, 2009 kl 12:18 pm
I couldn’t agree more with ALL OF YOU on the Protools Fragility. I had moved to Live for a few albums just to get things running smoothly (was fed up with Pro Tools Buffer related errors)
I have a new quad core mac pro now and generally speaking I am only using about 25% of my CPU and Pro Tools constantly craps out (with errors) while tracking.
I used to Have an HD system on version 6x and it’s really was no where near flawless either. To me Logoc and Ableton and way more stable.
IF ONLY THEY COULD COMPARE TO PRO TOOLS IN TERMS OF PRO AUDIO FROM A MIXING WORKFLOW AND ENGINEERING STANDPOINT!
Even if pro tools added track freeze that would make all of our lives easier.
Digidesign Do you ever listen?
- Track Freeze
- Auto Delay Compensatiion (for LE)
- Offline bouncing
We have been asking for these features since version 5!
By Mr. Strauss ~ July 2, 2009 kl 3:49 pm
Hello,
First I just discover this blog. It’s really cool.
I have a lot of bugs…I run an PT8 HD2Pcie
Just want to add my proposal:
A totally new workspace: With multisearch criterias, Favorites,
tracks memories (not the “shift alt i” thing, annoying).
Workspace is really to much wasted time as you compare to logic.
Hey DIGI !!! What’s going on??
By bjkalahann ~ October 8, 2009 kl 9:46 pm
PROTOOLS 8 STILL can not sync a Doepfer MAQ16/3 in LOOP PLAYBACK mode !!!!! The MIDI BEAT CLOCK needs more option ( to be able to desactivate the End /start continue midi message at loop point)!!!
In loopplayback mode : PT8 can’t sync perfectly a TR909 !!!!
By ALX002 ~ November 30, 2009 kl 12:40 pm