So today I went and kicked it with a friend of mine who has gotten (recently) into production who lives with his parents but his parents gave the garage to him to set up a studio. He actually has a really sick setup and they (him and few of his friends who rap) have been cranking out some pretty banging tunes.
So he told me to come over and chill with him and discuss / produce (or attempt to in my case) with him.
We got to chatting and he said extremely convincingly that everyone who wants to be taken seriously needs a copy of Pro Tools which is industry standard. He said even though he actually uses Cubase but he said that whenever anyone ever like high up in the industry asks for you to send your track + the files (i forgot what you call them lol) for the track if you don’t send it in Pro Tools they won’t take you seriously.
Is this true? I am looking for strictly facts - as in “Yes it is, because I have done it” or like “No it’s not, because I sent Dre my last few productions and he used it and won a grammy.”
Not true. Because of all the gear-whoring the latest years everybody thinks they NEED to have all the the latest and greatest software. All you need is software that is able to export WAV, which is any software basically. All most commonly used DAWs, which are Logic, Ableton, Pro Tools, Cubase, Reason, FL Studio etc. , have the ability to deliver outstanding mixdowns in high quality WAV format. The most important thing is to really get to know your software package inside out
“We got to chatting and he said extremely convincingly that everyone who wants to be taken seriously needs a copy of Pro Tools which is industry standard. He said even though he actually uses Cubase but he said that whenever anyone ever like high up in the industry asks for you to send your track + the files (i forgot what you call them lol) for the track if you don’t send it in Pro Tools they won’t take you seriously.”
When you send your work to a “real” producer, will he always asks for the stems or whatever? Or just the song itself?
Hmm, depends a bit on how the work gets done. Most producers finish tracks themselves and then send the mixdown product to a mastering house or let the label do that. I do it that way myself as well. Mixdown gets done in Logic, Ableton or Reason. Depends on which DAW I used for the track obviously. Then I send the finished mixdown to the label which takes care of mastering, unless I do that myself. This applies to all forms of EDM though. Hip-hop might be a different story, but the principle still applies that the most important thing is the creativity and the sound of the track, not which software was used to produce it
Tell him to stop reading stupid youtube comments, to ignore the trolls and make some music. If you send someone a file that was made in one software, but mixed down in another in an attempt to make it look like you use that one instead is like lying. If they find out they’ll question his reasoning and more than likely decide they don’t have time for such childish crap. if it’s good, it’s good.
Only time you really need a file in a “X” specific format is when you will be taking it to another studio and continue to work on it there, and they use the same software you use. It makes things much easier. But if you are sending a track to get mastered or remixed all you need are wave files that can be exported and imported to pretty much any DAW out there. I would say learn protools if your goal is to work at one of these studios. If you go to one just to record, they ussually have a studio engineer that knows protools inside out so I wouldn’t bother.
use whatever DAW you like. give the stems to a pro because you’ll hardly ever have an opportunity to do more than an okay-sounding downmix at home. there are many affordable mastering services out there…
Pro Tools is the industry standard in most professional studio’s these days, the reason being they made it really simple to integrate all the existing studio hard ware with Pro Tools already.
You’re looking at anywhere between 9,000 to 20,000 dollars for the HD Core plus Accel cards and the interface. But it allows you to still you all that vintage external gear like your original $2,000 LA2A compressors, your $5,000 Manley Vacuum Tube EQs and so on. Ane we can’t forget that 92 channel SSL mixing console that cost you 900,000 to get.
In all honesty, Pro Tools is an over glorified tape machine. Period. But it works and delivers the goods. It’s not really for “Producing” (even though DigiDesign is trying to make some head way in that direction), it’s for recording in the studio.
Plus the work flow and audio routing capabilities are very similar to those found in an actual recording studio so engineers where able to adapt to it very quickly.
Don’t let what your friend is saying get to you. Pro Tools is the industry standard in the recording world, but it’s far from the standard in the producing world.
