wich software do you prefer?
1.Do you use midi more, any audio editing?

2. Do you want powered plug ins?

3. Do you want software that supports mp macs and has no feature limitations.

4.Are you prepared to get some extra converters for an excellent front end?

1a. People who edit audio all day swear by pro tools. People who are all about the midi dont use pro tools for midi, but some do for audio editing and mixing. But dp 3.0 should be sufficient for most of that but pro tools is the standard.

2a. well, pro tools has powered plug ins its called the mix plus, but if you want to use the affordable powercore card then dont go with pro tools le.

3a. Motu supports mp macs, pro tools does not.

4a. I dont know about the 828, but the 001 definately benifits from a better front end as its converters are kind of weak. I'd think unless your into mobile recording something like motu's 2408 or 1296 is worth considering as they are more expandable.

Hey,

I like BOTH programs. That's the problem :) ! I have used pro tools LE quite a bit and really like the way it handles, but I like the feature set in DP better (i.e. more plugins, better midi support, the ability to spot to smpte time rulers) I plan on using it as a project studio kind of thing. Largely my own music, but some other bands and possibly a little bit of audio for video (hence the smpte) I recently got to play with DP3, and I must say it is quite nice. The only thing I don't like is that you have to go into a seperate window to edit waveforms. I suppose its just because I've used PT previously for audio and have gotten used to it. I am leaning towards DP3, particuarly if the 450mhz G4 cube I'm looking at is still around when I'm ready to buy (it's an openbox model... store display only... $900 is hard to beat!). Thanks for your advice!

-Chris

Here are some odds and ends of "food for thought":

Just remember that DP 3.0 is supposed to be much more of a CPU hog than 2.7. It will also use dual CPUs well.

Personally, I wouldn't even consider a 450Mhz model at this point in time (I have a G4/400). 733Mhz models are now $1700. You WILL use the power; trust me.

My biggest beef with the PTLE is the stupid 24-track limitation: done ONLY to protect Digi's markup on the TDM stuff. 8 more tracks costs about $7000 or so: around $900 a track.

It would be SO nice to be able to have a few extra tracks around (even if just muted) to a/b different effects settings, keep old takes handy, etc. PT's playlists are not very handy for that without some extra work consolidating regions, etc.

I have also heard that DP does NOT sound as good as PT (the mixing bus in particular). Since I have no personal experience with this, I can't verify it. I've been trying to get MOTU to offer a DP demo version, but to no avail, so I haven't really played with it. Note that Cubase and Logic both require a separate edit window for audio, also. I don't know about DP, but Cubase can only do destructive fades, unlike PTLE, which does it non-destructively at the region level.

I dont know your budget, but if I was in your shoes I'd buy things maybe with a 2-3 year life span in mind. That is, I wouldnt want to spend $2000 on a computer and 001 to finditd not quite right, or that my computer is obsolete.

I think in a year or so you may regret getting the cube. Its barely powerful enough today for plug ins, and with os 10 plus beefier apps that will change for the worse without much haste.As well, it lacks pci slots. Now today that may be fine but once that money is spent and you realise you may want more its cheaper to buy a nice upgradable G4 or PC than a little cube box with no pci slots that you'll regret buying.

My advice is if you can only spend $900 get a PC. for that much you can have a pc that in general will outpoerform apples $1,700 and even $2,500 models so you can work in real time crafting your mixes. Now, if you can afford a mac that is not obsolete then things have changed. Personally if I have $3,000 sitting in my pocket for a cpu as well as much more where that came from then its mac time. However if I'm slaving away just getting up $900 for a computer then its PC time:-)
Actually if you want a mac look on ebay for a dual g4/450 or g4/500 and go motu so you can use the second cpu:-) You'll still lag in performance vs similarly priced new pc's even, but if you need a mac you need a mac.

To recap: g4/450 cube: no pci slots= shit.

Forget the cube... If you want a small footpring computer, get an iBook... it would be faster than the cube if you could use PT LE on it... because PT doesn't take advantage of Altivec not even dual processors. I have a 001 and I started using DP 3. I can say, DP is the way to go. If you need serious editing, then get PT Free or even look for the Powermix 4.3.2 and keep it in your machine.