Oh, cripes! I got my first RNC from him, ages ago. One of a kind.
Chewy
I was sad to see what happened to Mercenary Audio. Bought a few things from them, even used them as money holders for a U47.
I suspect the reasons PT is the industry standard to be this: intuitive user interface…it’s no secret PT get’s you going very quickly, than Nuendo/Cubase. Nuendo is very deep, with a lot of hierarchical and dispersed functionalities that lend to its capabilities. It took me one year to get a hang on Cubase, but one month with PT (I’m not joking). Maybe, it’s the reason many engineers whack PT and think it’s superficial and artificial. But in competitive market strategy, what makes a product an industry standard is not it’s dense, superior, and technical design, but its adoption by the market, intuitiveness (ease of use and flat learning curve), integration and interoperability with many other systems. Everyone wants to get creative as fast as possible and not waste so much time learning the intricacies of a DAW. Ford Model T caught on as the defacto industry standard in the 1900s (despite many rival and superior models and designs) due to its stripped down, bare and easily replicable design and working details. That same design is what we have today in almost all front wheel drive vehicles. It’s the same with PT.
Nuendo is very superior in terms of design, ruggedness, and depth of engineering, but it’s learning curve is steep, its folder, relational, and functional hierarchies deep, unnerving sometimes, and to the newcomer very exasperating and intimidating. I almost gave up with Cubase (i use Cubase and Nuendo interchangeably cos i came to Nuendo from Cubase 10.5 most recently and the essential difference lies in the post-production capabilities of Nuendo). So my submission is that PT is a barefaced, stripped down and very functional tool. Not very good with Midi (an after-thought for Avid by the way, although it’s getting better at it), and I understand the flack it gets from serious engineers because it looks like a toy compared to Nuendo (and I do believe most engineers in the USA have Nuendo in their backroom to get the job done when the push comes to shove, and use PT for marketing antics). Having said that, I also think the driving factor behind the antipathy to PT is “mindset” “psychology”, “the human mental model that anything so easy is not rugged”, also the underdog syndrome, where popular things get a lot of scrutiny , and not that PT cannot get the job done even better than most other tools. I do think no other tool has gotten more scrutiny than PT.
I have a take on this, which maybe people will at least find interesting because I’m in the reverse position as you (somewhat).
I’m actually a cross over from editorial and color.
I started on Pro Tools when I was about 14 with friends and music and moved to media composer for work as an assistant editor and then color, so on.
Came back to audio post because I actually enjoy it more, and at the ripe young age of 32, I have enough time left in my career, plus a plethora of experience from other aspects of post to lend into the fray.
I’ve been formally trained by Avid. and not just PT/MC. I have ISIS(NEXIS) certifications, Interplay (Production Management) administration certs, and so on. at 32 years I have about 14 years solid on Avid and even know a couple of “the boys in Burlington” by face and name that I talk to regularly, still.
But I’m over it. Not PT per say, but Avid as a company, and when I make life decisions such as the above, I base them on a slew of factors.
I can’t stand the UI. The stock plugs look like 1997 and the interface is so horrid it’s not even funny.
The core system is bloated as hell, inefficient, and has new code piled on top of stuff that was written in 1999. Updates to the tool set come years after other DAWS (folder tracks in 2020, for one), and due to the market, they have to make things backwards compatible for certain clients. It’s a mess. From PT to MC and so on. Not to mention, it’s 2020 and they are still “requiring” almost $5,000 in hardware accessories for track counts when I have a 16 core processor and enough memory to run 2 DAWs and After Effects at the same time. Get real.
Adobe for instance has almost 5X the amount of money in R&D than Avid does in net revenue. BmD makes the I/O boxes now, and they just signed on with Adobe for Media Central colab.
I think these ladies and gentleman make a good point, you should know PT. I do, we all do. Especially for post. But more importantly, you should learn the tools. Editing is editing, EQ’ing is EQ’ing, and mixing is mixing. I can EQ dialogue (I cut dialogue mostly) on Avid stock, fab filter, Neutron, waves etc etc etc… Focus on that. Not the DAW, the tools and technique.
You know why Pro Tools is the “Industry Standard”? Because houses have to make ROI on HDX systems, and a lot of older (and wiser for sure) engineers refuse to use anything else Channels inner Bob Zelin. Yeah Yeah, some other reasons as well, but let’s be honest, you can mix a show on Reaper or 100% ITB if you wanted.
I’m choosing to learn Nuendo, because I want to. Because I’m sick of Avid, and because the only way to change the standard is to be the first couple of people to step forward with their left foot and make the change to do it. It’s how Pr grabbed so much landscape in the editorial market, because younger kids WANTED to learn on Premiere.
Be your own standard.
But seriously, at least learn Pro Tools. You do have too, at least for now.
Switching isn’t hard, it just takes a couple days to switch your mindset and as someone said above, don’t force your way into a new workflow, accept it and move with it. Be like water. Adapt to the hammer, don’t force the hammer in your hand.
I’m still young (or I like to think I am), and that attitude has made it so I can pick up any software. My kit is unreasonably large, but it allows me to stay employed. When I don’t have sound work, I’m coloring. When I’m out of both, I’m editing. and when life sucks or Covid19 happens… I’m cutting packages for cable news.
Baselight - Resolve - Mistika
Media Composer - Premiere - Lighworks ← lol, right?
Pro Tools - Reaper
and now Nuendo.
Anything can be done.
Amen to @Alden East’s posting above, with the small exception that ProTools’ seemingly “old” and contained GUI is actually one of its main strongholds. Compared to Nuendo’s undetermined graphical mish-mash (broken remains of some great ideas from former days, clashing with the clicky-dicky twinkles of the iPhone-generation, about twenty different fonts and about as many window styles) PT is balsam for sore eyes.
Not on Windows it ain’t… On Windows PT looks like a decroded piece of crap compared to Nuendo.
Thanks Alden for your great insight. Really helpful. It’s good to learn from someone who has used the tool itself for such a long time. I am keeping both DAWs, and learning PT. I’m getting better everyday, but I spend more time with Nuendo, as I have no such pressures to learn or use PT beyond class work. I don’t live in the US, where it is a required tool for most studios. I got it because Berklee teaches on it…but I’m hooked to Nuendo and once I leave Berklee, I can’t see myself doing so much with PT except use some of the fine VST instruments bundled with it, such as Falcon 2, Structure Free, and the Plugsounds, and the loops in the window browser…quite some virtual instruments that I really like…I major in music production, so am always looking for good virtual and analog instruments that could give me that edge,…am also taking classes for mixing and mastering, so really the DAW doesn’t matter much for me as much as the tools in the DAW for getting the job done. I’ve learnt Nuendo to a very good degree of competence and am at home with its features and functionalities…I like PT too, for some of the things it can do, but because it doesn’t handle vocal editing (pitch correction) except with external plugins like melodyne, I won’t use it that much, except produce soundtracks on it, and move over to Nuendo to capture and edit vocals, and then mix. For pitch correcting BGVs, I ostensibly use Variaudio, and only use Melodyne for lead vocals. PT would force me to slap melodyne on every vocal channel for pitch correction. I would have none of that. Thanks for all the insight…I hope your journey with Nuendo works out well for you.
“decroded piece of crap”
Didn’t know you were such a discerning student of fine cinema!
There is definitely truth to that. I can’t stand the MC 2020 interface.
But, those things keep people away from subscriptions and purchases.
When people stop buying the software, the cash flow dries up more and more.
I don’t want Avid to do a MC2020 to PT… But it needs some 21st century, a little bit at least.
Unfortunately, due to Apple’s hardware decisions and $999 monitor stands… I have become a victim of such eye candy.
or lack thereof… LOL