Chris Conlee
Forum Replies Created
-
Hello Milo,
I’m not trying to be snooty, so please don’t take it that way, but ProTools is the de facto industry standard when it comes to audio post production for motion pictures and television, so yes, it has more features and functionality than Garage Band, which is an entry level system for recording enthusiasts.
Having said that, GB might be exactly what you need, because many of the functions and features of ProTools are way beyond the needs of most. Before springing for it, I humbly suggest you give it a try; there’s a downloadable trial available now. No sense spending big money on something that may be way more tool than you need.
Chris
-
[David Roth Weiss] “Just to give you a little perspective, a 1-gigabyte hard drive was $2000 when I first began using NLEs”
I remember buying a 16MB SIMM for my Amiga which was $1000. Nobody could even DREAM of a gigabyte of RAM. Unfathomable. Can you imagine!?
Chris
-
I agree with the idea of putting dspMixFx_UR28M on the Dock, ’cause you won’t remember what the heck it’s called the next time you look for it. But yes, I love this interface. Have been using it for a few weeks now with Pro Tools 10 for sound to picture, and it sounds great.
Chris
-
Yeah, I was looking a that. Kinda spendy for what amounts to a hobby at this point. But it would be interesting to play with, so I could see what my own mixes are doing.
Chris
-
[Peter Groom] “TV programmes I have more dynamic, but be aware that the listening environment and speakers of the tv audience are much worse than theatres to mix or check your mix on small speakers.”
Yes, very helpful.
This all amounts to a pretty expensive hobby for me right now, but I’m finding it quite fascinating. I’ve actually started listening to the mixes on TV shows and movies more than watching the pictures. On big pictures, do they do two mixes? One for theatrical and one for DVD/TV? I’ve noticed my own work sounds fine in the cutting room, but my DVDs often sound quieter than the commercial DVDs I play at home. That’s what made me wonder if the mixes were being squashed somewhat.
In my own work, I’ve started putting a very mild compression on my dialog tracks: perhaps a 2.5:1 ratio at -18dB with a dB or 2 of gain compensation and I mix my peaks to about -10dB or so. Right away the dialog seems punchier.
Then at the end of the mix, once everything is leveled out, eq’d and sounding pretty good, I’ve started putting a Waves L2 limiter/maximizer on the output with the peaks limited to -3dB and a very slight lowering of the threshold to boost the loudness just a tad without taking all the life out of it.
My DVDs are sounding closer, at least in terms of loudness, to commercial tv and DVDs. But I wasn’t sure if that was cheating or not? And if something akin would be highly frowned upon by the professional guys.
Chris
-
[Dennis Radeke] “There is a much larger reason why some broadcasters would think twice about Avid, but I will not speak it here as it would be classless…”
I think you would have had to have hour head in the sand for the past 6 years to not notice Avid’s deteriorating bottom line. I too have been wondering how Hollywood will deal with it should Avid cease to be a going concern. For that market alone, I suspect somebody (Adobe?) would step in and scoop up the Media Composer and Pro-Tools product lines, but who knows?
Having come from the Amiga oh so many years ago, then Adobe, then Speed Razor, then Incite, then D/Vision, then, then, then…, I’ll always be able to find some tool to get the job done I think.
Chris
-
[Herb Sevush] “This BM HyperDeck Studio is joined by the Ki Pro Mini and the Sound Devices Pix 240 in offering DNxHD recording at a great price”
And don’t forget Arri’s Alexa camera, although the “great price” is subjective…
Chris
-
[Herb Sevush] “So for me, the idea of using different NLE’s for different projects would be a nightmare.”
I’m sort of with you on that, Herb. Although I do it to some extent, I too find it better to just stick with a single editor as much as possible. I’ve been messing with Pro Tools, and when I spend a few days with that, I’m constantly pressing the wrong damn keys in Avid at work. Totally screws up my flow, as you said.
Chris
-
[Lance Bachelder] “I was hopeful for MC6 but again a total dud – Avid did nothing to improve audio performance and track count and I hate cutting in it.”
As somebody else mentioned, I think this is a bit of a stretch. Of course the last section of your statement is the total truth — you simply don’t like to use it, and that’s subjective, and totally legit.
But Avid is the king of long-form narrative and shared workflows for a reason: it’ll deal with tonnage of footage from now until the cows (no pun intended) come home without so much as a hiccup, and share it all quite happily amongst dozens of users and round-trip audio and video with all manner of vendors and artists, etc. Far from being a “dud,” I’d say.
Personally, I LOVE the interface and find it to be completely transparent and it gets out of my way. It’s based on a film cutting paradigm, and I find that very intuitive. I recognize others don’t. Yes, I wish they’re remove the stupid 16 playable audio track limit. I don’t run into that wall too often, but when I do, it IS frustrating.
Chris
-