Filed under: Audio, Windows, Macintosh, Commercial
Pro Tools Vocal Studio mini review
by Brad Linder Oct 1st 2009 at 2:00PM
The pro audio software is available for Mac or Windows, and has always required users to purchase a computer audio interface from DigiDesign (a subsidiary of Avid). The new versions are available under the company's consumer brand, Pinnacle. You still need to purchase some hardware, and it needs to be plugged in or the software won't run. But for $100 you can get either a USB mic or a guitar input or for $130 you can pick up a 49-key keyboard. The hardware alone is almost worth the price, which makes the Pro Tools software almost a value-added feature.
But it turns out that value is a relative term. I've been testing Pro Tools Vocal Studio (with an M-Audio USB mic) for the last few days. I'm using it with a Windows XP laptop with a dual core processor, and I've found that the software is resource hog, audio playback is choppy, and you have to deal with a limited feature set.
One thing to note is that Pro Tools has long been reported to run better on Macs than PCs. Unfortunately my primary computer is a PC, so that's what I used to test this software. Your results may vary.
For $60, you could pick up a personal copy of Reaper, an audio editor which offers better stability and more features. But you wouldn't get the USB mic, keyboard, or guitar input or the experience of using the industry standard Pro Tools software. If those things don't matter to you, then you might want to skip the rest of this post and go check out Reaper. If you're still curious, I'll meet you after the page break.
The Pro Tools M-Powered Essential software takes up 2.7GB of disk space. If you've got a 1TB hard drive, that might not be a big deal, but it's still a huge footprint for an audio editing program. Your results may vary when it comes to RAM and CPU usage, but the program typically uses 300MB or more of RAM and a fair number of my CPU cycles.
It takes about 60 seconds on my system to launch the software. And you'd better make sure your USB audio interface (the mic, keyboard, or guitar input) are plugged in because Pro Tools won't notice they're missing until near the end of the sequence and then it will shut down meaning you'll have to wait another 60 seconds to load the software.
Once Pro Tools M-Powered Essential is up and running, it should lok familiar to anyone who's ever used the full version of Pro Tools. You can arrange audio clips on a timeline, arrange audio files in the regions menu, and record new audio using the transport controls.
But when you start to perform slightly more advance functions, such as clicking on Shuffle or Spot mode, you're greeted with a friendly note suggesting you upgrade to a fuller-featured version of Pro Tools:
That means you're limited to Slip and Grid modes for manipulating audio.
Another feature that almost made me give up on Pro Tools M-Powered Essential altogether is called "Dynamic Transport." In theory, this is a neat tool that lets you select a portion of a song or audio file that you want to work with and limit your new recordings to the 7 seconds or so of that portion. But it's enabled by default. So the first time you try to record a track, the recording stops after 7 seconds. It took a fair amount of checking and unchecking menu options before I figured out that the problem was that Dynamic Transport was enabled.
The primary thing I use digital audio editing software for is creating and editing radio news reports and podcasts, so I don't tend to spend a lot of time looking at digital effects. But Pro Tools M-Powered Essential does come with a 1 band and 7 band equalizer, a compressor/limiter, de-esser, and expander. These are all tools that are useful for editing vocals. There are also chorus, reverb, flanger, and reverse effects.
You can also transpose audio from one key to another, and adjust audio speed. And of course, you can reposition audio, cut, paste, fade, and adjust the volume and pan settings.
Overall, the software is fairly powerful, and if you're looking for a cheap way to teach yourself Pro Tools, this is about as cheap as it gets. While the full version supports more features, everything you learn to do in Pro Tools M-Powered Essential should translate to the higher end versions.
But I still couldn't find much that Pro Tools M-Powered Essential could do that Reaper, or even the free and open source Audacity digital audio editing suite couldn't. And while my computer isn't exactly a powerhouse, it can handle audio playback using Reaper, Audacity, or an old copy of Cool Edit (which is now Adobe Audition) with ease. But I occasionally encountered digital glitches while recording and listening to audio using Pro Tools. I can't say for certain whether this was due to the software or the USB mic though.
When it's working properly, the microphone does sound excellent. It's a studio style condenser microphone with a built-in headphone jack that let's you avoid the latency often associated with USB microphones. The mic actually acts like an external sound card for your computer, allowing you to hear not just the audio coming into the mic, but also any sounds coming from your computer.
For $100, the Pro Tools Vocal Studio is a pretty good bargain if you're looking for a stripped down version of software that usually costs 3 times as much. But if you're just looking for a reliable and easy to use audio editing application that won't bog down your system, you can probably do better.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Eric J. said 3:11PM on 10-01-2009
I have a related question - is there a video equivalent of Audacity? An open source, free or inexpensive video editing tool?
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Dan said 4:02PM on 10-01-2009
Windows Movie Maker. :P
Ryan said 11:12PM on 10-01-2009
Eric - try VirtualDub
I personally use Sony Vegas (not free) for all my video and audio editing needs - works great, is easy to use, and has plenty of effects.
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dave said 7:57AM on 10-02-2009
This is not a "good bargain" for anyone. Steinberg's Wavelab Essential 6 only costs $100 retail and includes way more in-depth mono/stereo editing capabilities than Pro Tools. I have worked with almost every different recording software out there and there really is nothing super special about Pro Tools right now other than the fact that everyone not actively in the recording business thinks its the only thing used ever. The original idea behind Pro Tools was to make the switch from using analog tape to digital media as easy as possible. Now that most everyone recording is somewhat computer literate, Pro Tools seems to always play catch up with its competitors in the features department. (huge flags recently went up when their newest release featured a gui very close to that of Apple's Logic Studio) There are plenty other audio recording/editing software out there (wavelab, cubase, logic, record, sonar, digital performer, ableton live) that let you use almost any interface you buy off the shelf! If you really want to use a profession recording, editing, and mixing program...try to find one with automatic delay compensation. (Pro Tools does not have this very important feature)
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