Clients ask me about Pro Tools all the time so I thought I'd share a few personal observations about it for the benefit of the uninitiated. Pro Tools is a PC/MAC-based multi-track recording program developed by a company called DigiDesign. ProTools has become somewhat of an industry standard mainly due to the fact that almost every major professional studio in the world uses some form of it. If you go to school for audio engineering, you'll most likely be trained to use Pro Tools.

Pro Tools basically comes in two different flavors: the relatively affordable LE version and the insanely expensive HD version. The basic LE version, depending on how you buy it, can cost you anywhere from $300 up to around $3,000. The basic LE package is limited to 32 tracks of audio and runs under native desktop processing power which means you are limited to the amount of RAM memory you have installed and the speed of the host processor. There is an optional plug-in package which you can buy that will increase the track count to 48 tracks. The professional HD version is bundled with Accel DSP soundcards and starts at around $10K. You can spend $20K on an HD system without even working up a sweat and that doesn't even include any of the outboard gear you'd need. The main benefits of owning Pro Tools are compatibility with all the other major studios in the world and access to a wide variety of 3rd-party plug-ins. You can read more about Pro Tools here.

So why am I not using Pro Tools? That's usually the next question. I don't feel that the LE version is suitable for running a commercial recording studio. I need more than 32 tracks of audio. It's not uncommon to record over a hundred tracks of audio here depending on the project and the artist. I would need the HD system (which supports up to 192 tracks if I remember correctly) and the main problem there is the cost of ownership. Studios that invest in Pro Tools HD are usually charging between $50 - $100 an hour or more. It's just not a cost effective solution for people who want to record demos and such. I feel that I have the best of both worlds here with the Sonic Core Scope system and Sonar/Samplitude. Scope is similar to the Pro Tools HD DSP cards but at a fraction of the price. Sonar was the first product to take advantage of 64 bit processing power offered up by the latest generation of Intel/AMD processors and Windows Vista operating systems. The devil is in the details though and if you're trying to decide what to buy, you really need to look closely and compare all the aspects and features of the different products on the market and decide what's best for you.

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