HFU HF Underground

Technical Topics => Software => Topic started by: Max Chill on July 11, 2015, 1850 UTC

Title: Pro Tools
Post by: Max Chill on July 11, 2015, 1850 UTC
Anyone here using Pro Tools or Adobe Audition?  I have a copy of both.  I run audio into the PC via USB interface, use multi plugins and mix, voice-over and tailor audio 1000's of different ways.  Lots of fun and a great waste of time.  Mostly SSB audio on HF amateur bands.  Getting the fidelity  and having enough punch to drive an amplifier is a task in its self.  Maybe someone else can share some tips.  Just starting to play around with AM.
Title: Re:
Post by: aquabat on July 12, 2015, 1633 UTC
I used to use a bit of reverb to add depth to real-time audio captures, but as my lab stands now, the Linux distro I use doesn't seem to want to allow me to intercept audio at the soundcard for processing.
I sure would like to pipe through a built in parametric EQ and not an outboard device.
Title: Re: Pro Tools
Post by: Zoidberg on July 29, 2015, 0648 UTC
Anyone here using Pro Tools or Adobe Audition?

I'm still using my ancient copy of Cool Edit Pro, the last version before it became Adobe Audition.  Does what I need, although since I haven't used any newer audio tools I don't know what I'm missing.  It's mostly a step up from Audacity, although the latter had a somewhat better envelope tool than CEP.  I mentioned this to a podcast editor who's using Pro Tools and confirmed it's a huge step up from Audacity, which he also used to use.  That podcast does very complex audio editing, weaving in lots of background stuff, quick cuts to seamlessly weave together narrative and interviews.  It could be done in something like Audition, but Pro Tools is probably better for that.

CEP has been the best all around tool I've found for PC to record off-air from the receiver's direct out port.  Pretty decent noise reduction filters too for making off-air shortwave recordings a bit less painful when QRN and RFI are a problem.  I've tried many other narrow purpose tools but none did everything CEP does, and CEP is remarkably low resource even on an older Windows PC.  Several years ago I was able to run CEP on a Windows ME Pentium III with only 512MB RAM and still run multiple browser windows, an IRC client, MMSSTV and a few other things without crashing.  Meanwhile Audiograbber, which was much less versatile, routinely crashed my PC.  mp3DirectCut was okay for off-air recording and stable, but not nearly as versatile as CEP.

It's also been good for editing and mixing other audio for personal playlists for mixtapes.  CEP has better dynamic range controls than anything I've found for WinAmp.  Thought about using it to create podcasts but that project has been on the back burner for awhile.
Title: Re: Pro Tools
Post by: redhat on August 04, 2015, 0857 UTC
I've been using CoolEdit/Adobe Audition for years for production, making mix cd's, et al.  There are free alternative out there, Audacity for both Linux and windows, but I find it has quite a few limitations that the previous two do not.  I will use Audacity for chopping up board feed recordings and the like, but the multitrack facilities on CEP/Adobe work much better for what I need.

Just my two cents...

+-RH
Title: Re: Pro Tools
Post by: ff on August 10, 2015, 1605 UTC
I think I got my first copy of pre-Adobe CEP way back before my first Internet connection  :o  Buh bye splicing block!  So long grease pencil!  Hello Easy!  About ten years ago I tried a free download of Audacity.  Although I still use both, I find that Audacity scratches my itch about 95% of the time.  It just serves my needs better.  YMMV...
Title: Re: Pro Tools
Post by: Zoidberg on August 10, 2015, 2109 UTC
I see a free version of Pro Tools now, but projects can be saved only to the cloud.  Might be worth experimenting with just to see if it offers any significant advantages over Cool Edit Pro, Audition or Audacity.

I need to revisit Audacity.  I remember it offered a somewhat better envelope tool than CEP, although CEP had really good tools for adjusting dynamic range, compression, volume, etc.  But the last time I tried Audacity there were no decent plugins for adjusting dynamic range.  Maybe that's been improved.