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Pro Tools Expert Podcast Episode 282

Mike Thornton

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Pro Tools Expert Podcast Episode 282

Russ, James and Dan chat through issues and highlights from the week's news as well as the usual Pro Tools tips, tricks and community questions answered.

Podcast Sponsor - Kii Audio

Whether you work in a major facility, independent recording studio, or from your home studio, you’re always looking for ways to raise the bar of sonic performance to give a clear, reliable and consistent advantage over your competition and The Kii THREE system is that advantage. A good monitoring situation enables you to work faster, easier and achieve better results everyday that take the guesswork out of any decision during a production. 

Kii Audio designed the Kii THREE with the acoustical challenges of today's studio setups in mind. It fits everywhere and can be the one and only monitor solution you need for every task. It really is the first Mini Main monitor system available. To learn more, check out the interview in which Russ chatted with Kii Speaker Inventor Bruno Putzeys about speaker design, room acoustics and why he ended up designed the Kii THREE Active Monitors.  

Deals

Talking Points Kindly Sponsored By Universal Audio

Offer extended until 31st August 2017 -  Buy any award-winning Apollo rackmount audio interface and get an analog dream studio filled with up to $3,500 of genuine UAD plug-ins from Studer, Lexicon, AKG, Pultec, Fairchild, Teletronix, and more! Buy an Apollo Duo or Apollo Firewire and get a plugin bundle worth $1200, buy an Apollo 8P, Apollo 8 Quad, or Apollo 16 and get a plugin bundle worth $2000, or buy any 2 Apollo rack mounted interfaces, and get a plugin bundle worth $3500. For more details please visit the Universal Audio website.

Competitions

Community Feedback Kindly Sponsored by RSPE Audio Solutions

“Let’s Talk Avid”, from our friends at RSPE, is an opportunity for customers old and new to call them on the phone as they have some great prices that they cannot publish on-line. So if you are looking for a deal on pro audio gear and you live in the US, especially the west coast, then call RSPE on their toll-free number 855.632.1032 and see what they can offer you. You can also check out a special page to see some of the product ranges but to get the discount you will need to talk to the RSPE team on the phone.  

  • Jason Plumb is a large studio owner/operator in Saskatchewan Canada - 1700 Sq feet, Neve Genesys 64 console etc...and has been engineering/producing and mixing since the 90's… On the shitty listening sources topic in podcast 284…  He wanted to chime in on the conversation about referencing audio on different playback sources. He has many ways of monitoring, from Custom, Bryston powered large studio speakers to NS10s and Auratones. He will even listen to bleed on loose studio cans (when left on), on a wireless Bose mobile and HiFi at home and of course his car, which he bought largely because of the stock stereo it came with. We talked about ear buds too. Jason will always listen to mixes on buds... as he believes that the chances are his my clients may be giving notes back to him having listened on buds as well, not to mention millions of others. He does agree with Julian that buds tend to make mixes a bit wide, but a valid listening reference nonetheless. You guys have all said it before and it's really true. It's all about knowing what your systems are reproducing. Know it, trust it, and own it. 

This Week’s Featured Pro Tools Expert Interview

In this Pro Tools Expert Interview Pro Tools Expert team member Julian Rodgers talks to Chris Pawlusek. Chris graduated from LIPA and talks about his experiences of formal training and his thoughts on the value of education versus experience.

Questions From The Community

  • Marco Niccolai has a 2015 MacBook Pro with 16 Gb Ram, 512 HD and i7 processors running OSX El Capitan and Pro Tools 12.7.  But... as soon as Pro Tools starts, no tracks, nothing loaded, the MBP fans start spinning fast around 4000-4500 rpm. As soon as he loads the test song they went over 5000rpm. This makes it almost impossible to use because I cannot record any instrument in the room without the fan noise in the background. So far he has done a Hardware test, SMC reset and nothing changed. After a lot of testing, he has found a workaround. He reinstalled the older Pro Tools 12.4 which is a little less resource hungry. He also has got the gfxCardStatus app installed. Since starting Pro Tools automatically starts the second Graphics card which tends to heat up the laptop much more, you can configure the app to use only the Integrated card (with some glitches sometimes, but it works). Pro Tools doesn't need all that graphic power to run. He also has got the Fan Control app which helps to control the fan status and maximum speed. He has just ordered a laptop cooler, which some say is quite useless, but he wants to try that as well. This configuration now enables him to run 10-15 tracks with some plugins and some software instruments and have the MacBook Pro fans spinning in a way that they are not so loud and disturbing (max 3500-3800 rpm). He knows he could get an external DSP card for some plugins and relieve some power from the CPU but that would be a less portable solution. He also has Ableton Live 9, and doesn't get this annoying problem. Do we have any other ideas or suggestions, please?  
  • J.D. Andrew has a question for Dan because his video was a big reason for his purchase of the Softube Console 1 a couple of months back. JD really loves the Console 1 and how much easier it has made things come together while mixing. He is running a new MacBook Pro, Apollo Twin, Console 1, 3 UAD cards in a Sonnet Echo enclosure, PT HD 12.8 and the latest version of Sierra.  He has decided to go mobile especially as his old Mac Pro was really starting to give him trouble with error -9105 that he whittled down to being a conflict with the Console 1. In the menu bar, there is a little app for Console 1 and there is an option to "reset OSD window" which he does before opening every session. About half of the time when he tries to open a session on his Mac Pro he gets the -9105 error which requires a full trash of prefs, restart and finger crossing hoping that it will work that time. He has cut down his plug-ins list to only the plugs he uses so loading goes a bit quicker. He would like to know if anyone else has run into this problem? 
  • Larry Alexander has just bought a Trinnov room optimiser. So far he is loving it but his question to James is "do you run it flat, or do you run it with some sort of target curve?"

Source Connect Now

As you may know, we are spread out around the UK & Europe when we record the podcast. In the past, we have used a variety of internet based solutions so we could hear each other.  We have settled on Source Connect Now which gives us ISDN equivalent quality audio using a Chrome browser, no software to install. You can get a free account from Source Elements.

Find Of The Week

  • Russ - Syntronik Free - Check out Russ' review on our sister site Synth Expert.
  • Dan - I can’t tell you - I’ve been sworn to secrecy…. but you’ll see on Pro Tools Expert, later on, today, it might just be your find of the week as well!
  • James - AudioFuse by Arturia. Amazing bang for buck in every way. Watch James' interview with Rebecca from Arturia recorded at NAMM 2015, and watch out for his review coming soon here on Pro Tools Expert.

Listen on to the Pro Tools Expert Podcast on iTunes

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