Digidesign Pro Tools M-Powered 8

The Digidesign Pro Tools M Powered 8 version of Pro Tools is perfect for your home studio set up. It will have you making great recordings and a very clean mix in no time. It will take some practice and some patience especially if you are use to the flow of the Pro Tools interface. But you can use the manual for that, I don’t suggest this program to beginners though. But if you aren’t a beginner this is great! I ran this on my PC with an M Box and it worked perfectly. This program is a very large program though, and it will eat up space on your pc. So make sure you have a lot of storage and RAM on your PC before loading this up or your will receive a lot of lag even if you are using the ASIO drivers.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

But using the Pro Tools M Powered 8 version is not as complex as the regular version of Pro Tools. But it still packs a punch. You can still use all of the main plug ins that you can on the regular version of Pro Tools. The Pro Tools software is a high quality recording software that is an industry standard and is used in all major studios worldwide. You can save your session and open it on a different version of pro tools in a different studio.

OVERALL OPINION

Overall Pro Tools M Powered 8 is great because it allows someone with a smaller budget to have something that the industry uses in the privacy of their own home or personal set up, and still transfer the files over to any pro tools version here is on the market. The price of this product isn’t bad at all, you will need to know how to use pro tools if you are going to be serious in this industry. Pro Tools M Powered 8 makes it possible no matter what your budget is.

Digidesign's Pro Tools M-Powered 8 is software aimed at small project studio owners just looking to have Pro Tools on their systems. Before M-Powered Pro Tools, you could only run Pro Tools with a Digidesign (now Avid) hardware interface, but with M-Powered it was the first time that you could use another brand's audio interface, and in this case it was M-Audio gear. However, while M-Powered Pro Tools is still around, it's getting a bit obsolete since it's now possible to run Pro Tools 9 with any interface of your choosing, or even as a stand alone application with your iLok. I personally never owned Pro Tools M-Powered since I've always had LE, so I've never been involved with installing it. I do have a few friends who have Pro Tools M-Powered however and I've used it a bit at their home studios. The interface of Pro Tools M-Powered is pretty similar to Pro Tools LE, but you're just more limited in the features that you get. For smaller project studios where you're only working with a limited number of tracks anyway, it will definitely do the job, but it's not really suitable for larger projects since it can really only take you so far. If you're new to Pro Tools in general and just got M-Powered, it's probably a good call to have the manual handy.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

The good thing about Digidesign Pro Tools M-Powered 8 is that can be handled better on lesser systems since it's a slightly less complex software. I don't know what the minimum requirements would be for running this, but as always with Pro Tools you're probably going to want a Mac, although it will run on both. Since I've never had M-Powered Pro Tools I can't say what an adequate system to run it on would be, but I do know that the friend who I've used this with has a regular Mac Book and it seems to work fine, although he doesn't run big sessions. It all just depends on the nature of your use of the software. If you think you might be on the fence, I'd recommend going with Pro Tools LE instead of M-Powered.

OVERALL OPINION

While not as relevant with the advent of Pro Tools 9, Digidesign's (Avid) Pro Tools M-Powered 8 is a beautiful thing if you were to have an M-Audio audio interface and want to learn how to use Pro Tools. I really see this best as a learning tool and stepping stone to Pro Tools LE and HD, as I wouldn't recommend using M-Powered for anything other than small project and demo sessions. It's simply not designed to handle as much as an LE system could and doesn't have the features to work with to boot. In most cases I'd recommend springing for Pro Tools 9 now, but for those just getting started it's still worth checking out M-Powered Pro Tools.

The compatibility was fine, all you had to do was buy the Pro Tools for your computer. The manual was kind of confusing with the whole M-Audio story and iLok. I had to look for other resources in the Internet to find out that you had to buy a M-Audio Fast Track or other similar items. The configuration was complicated too and the typical functions were hard to use at first. Overall, to start off Pro Tools, it was very complicated but that's what a very professional program has but the program is full of tools that help you be the greatest at what you are or want to be.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

After setting up Pro Tools, it works perfectly. It brings you optimum performance and sound to your music. Pro Tools is very stable with any system (Windows, Mac OS, etc.) and it never breaks down or fails. The only time it might lag is when your computer has a lot of programs working at the same time, but if you have an extra hard drive, then this problem doesn't exist. I've been using Pro Tools for about a year and it's great and works as well as it did when I bought it new.

OVERALL OPINION

What I like most about it is the tools and instruments it has. It has a great amount of amazing sounds you can use for different types of music. The problem of other programs is that the sounds are very weak and the are very little of them, Pro Tools changes this completely bringing you over 1,000 sounds with different instruments as well as Tools like Compression, EQ, etc to change the sound of your instruments and mix vocals. It's also very easy to mix vocals with all the tools it offers you. What might be a little bit annoying about Pro Tools is how everything is so professionally designed that it might not be very beginner friendly, but if you understand everything about it, it's excellent. The price of the program might be a little bit expensive, but it is the best program out there right now to make music in my opinion, so I'm surprised the program isn't over 600 dollars. The quality of the sound is optimum and very precise. It offers you frequencies of any range and it allows you to be very precise with the count. After, exporting your work to your hard drive as an .mp3 or.aiff, the sound is the best possible, that's why professionals use it. Before buying Pro Tools, I tried GarageBand, which was very, very weak compared to Pro Tools, which changed my whole music experience. You should make the same choice I did and buy Pro Tools for the best performance out there and make your music live.

- Installation is it done without problem? Yes but will not help me much ...
- Have you encountered the incompatibilits? No ... Not normally after the Digidesign website and yet it does not work.
Digidesign dictates its law imposing a ridiculous list of compatible hardware even in runissant all hardware requirements several forum users encounter a CPU overload that makes using Pro Tools impossible. For example: 60% of CPU load on a blank session. No need to explain what happens when loading plugins 1 or 2
- Is Gnrale configuration is easy? Yes but made me look good
- The manual is clear and sufficient? ... For now I do not feel like even leaf through?.

ADQUATION / PERFORMANCE

- What is the configuration of your computer? (Map mother / CPU / RAM / Disk / sound card ..) P4 3GHz / 2GB DDRII / 2 SATA drives I (Including one ddi Pro Tools recording, CG Ddi PCIe, M-Audio Profire 610 (Compatible only Pro Tools 8 ... not the opportunity to work on the 7 esprer use my "new" squenceur)
- The software works he correctly on this configuration? Not
- What performance? (If quantifiable) HELP (60% on a blank session)
- Is this matrielle + software configuration stability? For everything except the Pro Tools 8 ... Yes.

NOTICE GLOBAL

- How long have you use it? We can not really speak of "use"
- What is the particular feature you like best and least? The squenceur yet has allchant air but does not work. One point that seems impractical is not being able rgler the buffer size in the squenceur directly.
- Have you tried many other models before acqurir? No ... I should have.
- How do you report qualitprix? Price is one of the most interesting but if you CONSIDERED that it is unusable is theft.
- With the exprience, you do again this choice? ... No?

This bug is being Digidesign for 6 months.
Message (34 pages) o the forum users speak:
http://duc.digidesign.com/showthread.php?t=236239
Besides apologizing is not really feel they are working on it.
May be on the pretext that it concerns only a small part of the community?
It tells us nothing, and I feel that it will always returned the same
Some users do not use it for nearly 6 months ... from purchase. I expected more srieux and reliability from Digidesign and it's probably under the impression that I chose Pro Tools rather than another.
What I find appalling is that other sequencers are not as demanding on the configuration matrielle and walk much better. Or do not put 6 months correct such problems.

So okay I'm a small% of the Pro Tools community encounter this bug. You decide if you want to take the risk or not because it will be impossible to get a refund once the product dball.