Can anyone let me know if they know of any pro recording studios not using Protools, but still using a computer based solution. Maybe MOTU/Logic, MOTU/Cubase, don't know what else is available that is "pro grade", but I'm really interested to know, if any of you guys know.
Thanks

There are loads of alternatives - quite a few people are using Nuendo while others use Logic or Digital Performer. Personally I use Adobe Audition. Some people are also using stand-alone systems like Radar, Sadie or Pyramix. Go to the manufacturer's websites if you want information about specific users.

Cheers

James.

Protools is (rather unfortunately) the market leader where either interchangeability or "the name" is important but, as jamesperrett says there are are a great many alternatives. Like James, I'm personally an Adobe Audition user and prefer that hands down to Protools (which I used to have to use when I worked for a large production company). However, at the top end, I'm getting the impression that Pyramix is making substantial inroads; for example, I read in an article that the BBC used Pyramix for all it's multitracking of the Live8 coverage last year. At the same time, BBC is also one of the world's largest users of Cooledit/Audition, with literally thousands of licences for it's radio side.

RADAR is a market leader in studios specialising in restoration, and SaDIE has a large market share in other other areas.

In short, there are numerous products out there that are fully capable of professional results, and which is best for you will depend on a mixture of the feature set you need and your taste in how the UI works. Fortunately, free, limited-time trials are available for many solutions, so you can have some fun playing!

Bob

I used to quite like Adobe Audition in it's earlier disguise (as in stereo editing). I've got an adobe package that includes audition, but as I use Sound forge almost daily, although I'd installed it, I'd never used it. It was a shock to see it was multitrack - I tried to use it to edit a mono track, and decided to forget it - no time to learn - so dit the job on soundforge.

Very few items of professional software are poor any longer. They all have decent feature sets, but what sets off a professional studio (in my view) is the speed that they can work. I don't know Audition any longer, I do know Soundforge and SX3 - so use them. They may not be the best, I don't know - but the combination works amazingly well for me.

Quality hardware to capture the sound, and quality hardware to get it into the machines is the key.
Paul

Think you might be getting your gear ending in 'dar' a bit mixed up. Cedar is the leader in restoration while Radar is a hard disc recorder that very closely emulates a tape multitrack. It was originally marketed by Otari but, when they dropped it, the makers iZ Technology started to sell it direct under their own name. It doesn't have all the fancy editing features that Protools has but it is easy to learn and extremely reliable.

Cheers

James.

Entirely right James...Cedar is the restoration product while Radar is largely a hard disk recorder. My addled mind must have been coasting with the euphoria of having net access again for the first time in six weeks!

Paulears makes a very good point: the hardware being used along with any of the software-based solutions makes a huge difference to the quality and reliability of any product. Pretty well all the major players are capable of fully professional results but the input/output systems are hugely variable, particularly on software (like Audition for example) which is designed to be hardware-independent. Both a strength and weakness of Protools is their control of the hardware side of the process as well as the software.

Bob

My system, that I use all the time is based around a Carillon chassis with (perhaps a bit oddly) a couple of soundscape converters, giving me enough ins and frankly far too many outs. The snag is that when people come into the studio, there are always comments about how their friend has cubase in their bedroom! This then translates into "how come you are so expensive". So when I rebuilt the studio - splitting one 40' room into 3 smaller ones with glass between, I put back all the old rack mount kit I'd bought over the years (even though much is now replaced by software versions), plus a nice larger format mixer, that serves as a means of switching sources and outputs - very rarely fader adjusted. People see all this kit, with it's flashing lights and meters and nobody has ever commented on the computer (that does all the work) anymore - or moaned about the cost.

The critical factor is quality - finding the weakest link in your system from source to destination, and sorting it is the only worthwhile thing you can do.

I do have an Alesis HD 24track - Very rarely used anymore!

Cheers Paul. What interfaces do you use? Soundscape? (Didn't get when you said convertors whether you just meant A/D/A or interface as well).

I have a few good friends with Protools HD/TDM, and just have been trying to find out what I can do on their systems that can't be done with MOTU->Cubase (for example MOTU PCI 424 with 4 2408 mk3 gives 96 I/O, more than enough, and put whatever Preamps/Converters I want on the front of that, and the resulting sound will be just as good as Protools). For DSP a UAD-1/Powercore/Liquid Mix or some such thing could be used right?

having spent the last year working in one of the few remaining major studios in london 95% of the tracking we did was to protools. It's timecode, playlisting, overdubbing and video options are superior to anything else around at the moment.

The remaining sessions used

pyramix : good for classical editing, single audio file for take aids file management although can be difficult for complex overdubs
sadie: only used this once, more than just a stereo editor now - location kit looks interesting and used widely by the bbc.
sequioa : again favoured by some classical producers as it can be run on a laptop and is easy to edit
Logic : favoured by composers as the midi options are better than tools (although tools version 7 closes the gap) not as easy session management for multitrack recording though.
Digital performer: had a nightmare with this, probably because it was an old system and the operator didn't know how to work it but it isn't widely used

It is very much a case of choosing the right tool for the job (no pun intended) For anything involving picture or lots of overdubs pro-tools seems to be the most suitable but lack of non real time bouncing means that for some broadcast situations this is not suitable.

Pro Tools is a wonderful program for mastering, but in a huge amount of pro recording studios they always lay the multitrack down in either Logic or some Steinberg creation (Cubase SX3, Nuendo etc), then they master it in pro tools because of the immense stability when running with lots of plug-ins, much more stable than Cubase, and Logic only being available on Apple gump is rather annoying.
But on the Motu side, yes motu is a very popular multi channel A/D-D/A converter, but lots of studios multitrack through something like the Alesis HD24, and usually slave this so this records all the multitrack signals as well, as a backup incase the computer goes down. The HD24 simultaneously records the tracks and sends them down 3 ADAT optical Lightpipes (8 channels per optical cable) to the computer which will have sufficient optical inputs to recieve the data, record it into the chosen program blah blah yackety schmackety.
Obviously the biggest of Pro Studios still widely use 2" 24 track analogue tape, but you know, us mere mortals cant afford the tape let alone the maintenance cost on the machines!!
Laterz

There are may alternatives to pro-tools for pro studios, as mentioned, steinber varients, logic, soundscape.. It mainly dpend on what the studio owner likes or has spent his years learning on or working with. There are many pro grade studios who do have high end computer based recording tools but still use the monster 2" tape machines for their so said organicness.

You could spend 10,000's on a pro grade system but depending on what you want to do you could probably get the same results with a decent mac, a few good microphone's and a really good interface. That seems to be the future, its been heading that way for years.

Andy
Work: www.andy-coates.com
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I think that loyalty to protools is waning as whole. The reason I didn't use it was the fact that it locked down a lot of my equpiment choices. A bit like choosing a mac over a pc, macs do what they do wonderfully but I can make a pc do anything...
Currently the studio here is based around cubase sx3 and it works great for the stuff I do. As this is a school its understandable enough for all the kids to use (even year 7s come up with some great stuff) and powerful enough to do professional work. Ok.. not mastering grade here but that can always be farmed out to a studio built for it!
The rest of the kit is
Yamaha 01v96 with a 16i/o a/d firewire addon card.
motu24/96 via adat

You know.. as far as important stuff goes... thats about it. I have lots of outboard, that I almost never use.
I have a tape 4 track, that never gets used.
Various midi outboard and keyboards, that sometimes get used.
So apart from a decent set of mics and some bad*** cableing thats all you need really... anyways.. OT somewhat, this wasn't list my kit day! What was the question... oh yeah....

Yes, there are alternatives to protools and these days when everything is 24/96 at least then the differences are very quickly becoming academic. As I often say if only 0.0004% of the listeners are going to notice any difference, why the hell did I just spend £20k and 400hrs installing my new flashwhizz2000?
Oh and if you want a great argument, try the logic vs anything else with a mac user