Pro Tools|HD at Student Discount

[fermentor666]

Anyone who knows where I can get Pro Tools|HD at an academic discount price, lemme know. All I can find is the M-Audio version or Pro Tools|LE which is crap. I'm talking about the real deal.

 

And don't say warez, because Pro Tools|HD comes with hardware and you can't download hardware.

[Blood Feast Island Man]

I know 2 places.

in england.

if you're in north america, ask somone else.

oh and you can run pro tools without the hardware, so it is warez-able.

[fermentor666]

Yeah, I'm in North America, but I'm looking for the hardware version cause I'm looking to get a new computer built. As far as running it without the hardware version, I'm pretty sure it has a dongle and those things are a bitch to crack, I had Cubase cracked with a dongle crack and the thing was unusable. I'd rather go legit for Pro Tools if I can get the academic discount, cause those discounts are extreme.

 

I found a bunch selling Avid Xpress Studio Essentials which has all sorts of cool shit in it, like their video editor, DVD creator, and Pro Tools LE but I'm really just looking for the real version, not the light version or the m-audio version since m-audio is crap.

[Mauler5150]

I have had no problems using Cubase with the Dongle crack at all.

It took me a couple of minutes to figure out how to run it, but since then I have had no dramas.

[Mississippi Mud]

War on little dongley things!!!!1

 

No one will get that joke...

 

Anyway, you can actually buy the hardware and then steal the software. I know cause I had done been done that shit...

[ViolentByDesign]

I have no idea about that one but I use Digidesign hardware with Pro Tools and it works pretty damn good to me. Lots of plugins on the warez tip too.

 

If you can't find it I recommend the Digidesign joint cus the other ones not worth the money unless your on some next level shit.

[26SidedCube]

What exactly do you do, Fermentor? I've noticed you talking about video/music production equipment quite a bit on here. Beats? Video editing? Production? Got anything to share?

 

I figure if you're looking into a protools setup you must be pretty decent at whatever it is you do.

[Mauler5150]

That si a good question, what are you looking for fermentor? Are you some crazy ass muso, or just looking to score a movie soundtrack??

[Spike]

Hmm... Do you really need HD? Because the hardware investment is huge - unlike LE, where the hardware acts as a "dongle" of sorts, HD/TDM systems actually handle most of the processing and I/O on the Core and I/O cards themselves. You'd need Core HD1 as a bare minimum which runs at about $8000 street, and since academic discounts are between 15-25% off retail you'd probably still be looking at $5000 minimum... and this is assuming you already have good converters (Apogee etc.) since having a poor frontend would defeat the point of moving up to HD. If you didn't, you'd then have to pay around $1000-3000 for either Digidesign I/O units or something equivalent, plus pre-amps... If you're needing the SMPTE ruler for film work, you can get it as an add-on for LE, but unless you're building a serious studio HD is total overkill

 

Out of curiousity, what will this be for?

[MAR]

i dont know what a dongle is but im going to say

 

/no homo.

[Blood Feast Island Man]

from wikipedia:

 

A dongle is a small hardware device that connects to a computer to authenticate some piece of software. This was its primary meaning in the computer industry in the 1980s and 1990s. When the dongle is not present, the software runs in a restricted mode or refuses to run. Dongles are used by some proprietary vendors as a form of copy prevention or digital rights management because it is much harder to copy the dongle than to copy the software it authenticates.

 

Software protection dongles are typically used with very expensive packages (starting with about USD 500 and up) and vertical market software, such as CAD/CAM software, Digital Audio Workstation applications and some translation memory packages. Efforts to introduce dongle copy prevention in the mainstream software market were generally met with stiff resistance from users. Despite being hardware, dongles are not a complete solution to the trusted client problem.

 

Vendors of software protection dongles (and dongle-controlled software) often use terms such as hardware key, hardware token, or security device in their written literature. In day-to-day use however, the jargon word "dongle" is much more commonly used.

 

Well-known software protection dongle manufacturers include SafeNet,[1] Aladdin[2] and WIBU-SYSTEMS.

[Qawee]

haha dongle

[fermentor666]

About academic discounts: They are up to 85% off, I can get ridiculous prices on some stuff. Adobe Studio packages that go for $1700 are $500.

 

About the music I do: I was doing a lot of electronic music, and have a fairly ridiculous amount of gear. Now I'm playing some music with a buddy, he's playing drums and I'm playing bass. We're looking to do home recording and need to be able to hook up about 4-5 drum mics, an overhead, and one for the amp as well as the direct output of the amp. I also happen to know someone who is putting together a for-real home studio so if it happens to be just impracticable in cost then I could at least get the discount for them. What we need to do is be able to multi-track simultaneously at least 5 tracks at a time and get quality recording out of it, as well as a real-time software gate to go over the tracks for the drums, to get rid of bleeding.

 

Right now, I need to get a new motherboard, RAM, and video card since my stuff has been outpaced. My sound card is an EMU 1820m, but I've grown unhappy with it now that we're trying to use more than 5 inputs at a time, plus it only has two XLR inputs. I'm using Adobe Audition to multi-track and while I love it's sample-editing abilities, live music tracking is not it's best feature. It's alright if you're doing one track at a time but 5 is a little too much.

 

I couldn't run Cubase worth a damn with the crack, and I also thought the interface was aggravating. I dunno about Pro Tools LE, I can get a great discount on it with the Avid Express Studio Essentials package but that comes with a lot of software that I don't really NEED (but it'd be cool to have) so the overall price is high.

[Mississippi Mud]

I don't like getting in these convos but you don't need HD.

[fermentor666]

I don't need coffee either but I like it. I won't buy HD at it's retail price, but if I can get an 85% discount on it, it's mine. You can't just say that I don't need it without providing a reason. It's like saying "you don't need a sandwich". You gotta add something on there, like "you don't need a sandwich because you're fat, just have some yogurt."

[Mississippi Mud]

You don't need HD cause you're fat man...

 

I just think it's a lot more than you'll need for you and your buddies band.

 

Also I don't think you'll be able to find a student discount on it... And if you did, it wouldn't be for 85% I can pretty much guarantee that.

 

If you do find it with that discount let me know. I'll pick one up and flip it to some wanna be bay rapper with drug money backing.

[fermentor666]

Yeah, well like I said, there's someone else I know who is putting together a studio. The discounts for students are pretty extreme, I could pick up Adobe Production Studio Premium for $650 while it sells for $1699.

 

Although I just checked out the actual price on HD, nevermind. Even with an 85% discount it'd be $1200 and on a product like that the discount wouldn't be that high. Don't think that's in the cards. I thought that a student could get a discount on any piece of software as long as it wasn't a game, but it seems like the options are actually quite limited. There's one site that hands out flyers at my school. I can get programs like Reason or Acid or Ableton Live for half-off but that's not what I'm looking for at all. I need something hardware that has at least 5-8 XLR inputs. The EMU card I have is great for electronic production but not for having a full drum mic kit running. I could always get a merger box but then I'd lose the ability to track the individual drums.

 

Basically it comes down to being more affordable than studio time. If we can get something going in here that we can record with for less than it would cost to pay for studio time, it would be worth it. I don't know why I want to move away from Audition for multi-tracking, but something makes me feel like I'm not getting the best of the sound when I multi-track live. As a post-production tracker it's great, but I'm not so sure about on-the-fly recording. Anyone know whether Pro Tools|LE is a waste of time? I can get a decent discount on Nuendo 3, also, but I don't know much about that other than it's a Steinberg product and I didn't like the Cubase interface. I'm pretty psyched about this discount thing, put down that as another reason to go to school for everyone else who's been putting it off. I could get some Adobe stuff and make about $600 bucks selling it on Craigslist or e-Bay.

 

But then there's this whole "academic version" business and I don't know whether that means the license is extremely limited or it's a scaled down version or there's a time-cap on usage before I'd have to pay the full price or what.

[Mississippi Mud]

Adobe is kind of different. They cater to students, where as that ProTools you were looking at kind of caters to professionals. My uncle runs it in his studio...

 

I think you're better off using LE then you would be using others, but then again I know nothing about Nuendo either...

 

You should be able to get a student discount on LE though, I'm almost positive my friend did.

[Mauler5150]

Yeah the Cubase interface is pretty hard to understand, but it works fine. I read Nuendo is just like Cubase, but I don't know.

 

Do some more research man, and find out what you need. I used a Protools with the HD before, and we had 2 linked monitors running 64 tracks or something. But that was for my mate recording some fag-hop basslines for some wannabe scamartist rapper.

[fermentor666]

I'm sure I could get the discount on LE, somewhere. I can get a discount on an Avid bundle that comes with LE, like I mentioned, but that bundle is a thousand bucks. And I think that if I got the bundle, I wouldn't be able to sell any of the other programs independantly because of the license they'd set up. I'm not sure, but I figure they'd know that kids would just buy software to sell it back for profit and they've found a way to prevent that. There's also this:

 

M-Audio MP Tools & Firewire 410 Bundle $439.98

 

 

That's Digi's "M-Powered" special Pro Tools that comes with a double XLR firewire interface, but it sounds somewhat fishy, since it's designed "specifically to work with M-Audio products" and I have an E-MU soundcard. Plus, I don't really need the breakout box since the E-MU sound card comes with the breakout box in the first place. They've also got Sonar, Cakewalk, and some other crap for decent prices. I hear Sonar/Cakewalk is good, too.

 

I just need to go talk to someone who works in the technology office at school and see what my options are, I doubt that website (efollett.com) is the only one available because their selection sort of sucks.

[fermentor666]

Yeah the Cubase interface is pretty hard to understand, but it works fine. I read Nuendo is just like Cubase, but I don't know.

 

Do some more research man, and find out what you need. I used a Protools with the HD before, and we had 2 linked monitors running 64 tracks or something. But that was for my mate recording some fag-hop basslines for some wannabe scamartist rapper.

 

 

I can get Nuendo, but at $1300 it's a little too pricey for me to just go for it when I don't know if I'd ever get comfortable with the interface. Cubase 4 goes for $360 there.

 

 

Thinking about Pro Tools|HD is silly, I got all excited about the student discount thing is all. There's no reason for me to need 64 simultanious tracks. I've got a shit-ton of gear but I don't use it all at once and I completely forgot how high the price is for the retail version.

 

I'd really love to just do analog recording, and skip the whole digital thing. I dunno, maybe I should just go for a good 16-track or something. I don't know much about analog recording gear.

[Mississippi Mud]

It'd be fun to learn.

 

I had a friend who is fairly large in the bay area scene who was totally a backpack rapper at an early point in his life, so much so that he would carry around a backpack full of blank tapes, some beats, a mic, and a 4-track, in case 'inspiration' hit him...

 

That's irrelevant but it still makes me laugh.

[ViolentByDesign]

Shit like Nuendo you can just download for free...

 

Pro Tools LE I recommend just make sure your computer can run it because it uses a lot of resources and will crash if you don't have enough.

[Spike]

Hmm.. from what you're describing, a Pro Tools LE setup with an 002R as your frontend would be about right... although, if you're not using a Mac then maybe an Apogee Ensemble into Nuendo

 

I would advise finding out a lot more before buying anything, because it kinda seems to me that while you're enthusiastic and have a lot of hookups, you don't quite have the knowledge to make an informed choice... for example, Pro Tools LE cannot run without the relevant Digidesign hardware (so that Avid bundle is a bit of a scam), you need to start thinking about preamps, most recording interfaces run through Firewire so your soundcard is irrelevant... etc. etc. I guess at the end of the day, a lot rests on how far you're planning to take it, if you want more professional results then the mics, rooms and monitoring system play as huge a role as your analog to digital interface... And, unless you have really fucking great ears, it's gonna be costly. I could probably write a couple thousand words on this, but I'll just say a couple things:

 

1. Avoid M-Audio like the plague. The pre-amps and DA converters are horrible. Either go for Apogee or older Digidesign (002R, the old mBox, 001) if you're really planning on taking this somewhere

 

2. Studio time, when you understand what you're actually paying for, is actually excellent value for money (assuming you've got access to a decent studio). There really is no comparison in terms of sound quality - what you're paying for is all the acoustic treatment, range of mics, good quality desk, their Pro Tools HD rig, etc. While being able to record stuff at home is nice and useful, it's unlikely that any mixes made in your room will translate well to, well, anything

 

3. Pro Tools is industry standard - if you master it, it's extremely powerful (even the LE version) and to be honest for any kind of serious use, nothing out there compares. A lot of people disagree, but the fact that I could probably walk into most major studios in the world (who all, funnily enough, use Pro Tools), sit down and start working straight away is a pretty good sign that I'm on to something here. The only problem is the hardware tie-in, but the old stuff is really, really good - there are actually a lot of smaller professional studios that run 002R rigs, and considering that you can pick one up for about $500 used, it's a good starting point

 

4. Although you can get good results with analog, to be honest, in terms of value for money, digital wins out (especially if you pirate your plugins). It's great for learning the basics, but with a 16track you're pretty much confined to whatever is in that box, unless you have the patience to import everything track by track into your computer to continue there. And you'll still need good AD converters, so you might as well have started by recording straight into the computer

 

Anyway... I realised I'm kinda rambling without purpose here, no idea how much info you're interested in. Hope this was some sort of help

[26SidedCube]

^Awesome post.

 

Fermentor- I think you've gotten way ahead of yourself.

[fermentor666]

^^ Actually, I'd be way ahead of myself if I went out and bought all that shit without asking and looking around first. Definitely not just "screwing around" or a backpack rapper. I am both thinking ahead and for someone else.

 

 

Spike: Thanks, that's a lot of good info. M-Audio doesn't even come into real consideration for me, they are passive-consumer quality, if that makes sense. The E-MU breakout-box/card has a pre-amp already but there are only two XLRs, and with 4+ drum mics that is useless. For the person who is building their own small studio, the Pro-Tools LE + hardware sounds good, since he is a sworn Apple user. I wasn't aware that one absolutely must use Digidesign hardware for LE, though. I figured that the "light" version wouldn't require that. You say that it's around $500 for this 002R you're talking about, and according to people around here "$250 ain't shit", so that's not so bad and cheaper than I was expecting, though it's more than I spent on the E-MU card. The E-MU is pretty much top-of-the-line, and then that line switches over to professional equipment, hence the relatively modest amount of inputs. So it's basically top of the line for middle-grade sound cards. Plus the XLRs for some reason bleed like fucking crazy when the snare and kick drum are mic'd, to the point where with all the levels turned all the way down, I'm still clipping.

 

I don't use a Mac, however, and this Apogee/Nuendo business would be like pissing into the wind since I'm completely turned off by Cubase's GUI. Pro Tools and the Digi cards are compatible with the PC, is there any particular reason you don't favor that set-up? If it's because the system requirements are heavy, that's not an issue since I am due an upgrade and I go all out on those.

 

The deal on Avid Xpress Studio Essentials DOES include a Digidesigns mBox (of which I know little), so it does indeed come with a bit of hardware, but not a sound card, unless that is the sound card. The E-MU is actually internal hardware and the external box runs through the card's firewire like a physical GUI of sorts. The Avid bundle would cost a thousand dollars, which is a third of the selling price and almost a fourth of the retail. Plus, I figure might actually make a profit if I can sell the rest of the software.

 

I know all about the physical limitations of home-recording, I'm working on a way to handle those as best I can. Vocal booth, almost definitly out of the question. Maybe I could build a budget one in the basement, but there's a shitload of bugs down there. One of those plastic drum shields? Trip to Home Depo. Acoustics, not positive yet. Getting the padding from Guitar Center is a lot of cash. That stuff seems like it's more or less foam cut up very neatly. If so, another trip to Home Depo. There's the egg-carton myth, but I've heard that isn't quite true.

 

I do have enough reasons to at least weigh out the options, it's worth it enough. And I've got plenty of actual gear. I appreciate the help.

[SayOne]

man id like to know too, we only get discounts on PT LE and M-powered , not the HD

[Some1]

LOW BUDGET SOUND PROOFING IS MY SPECIALTY!

 

I have built numerous home studios pretty much because we moved our pro-tools set up that IS on a pc 4 times. one time we built one from the ground up putting up walls and everythigng

 

basement? cement floor I am guessing? carpet with thick padding on the floor is good.

 

as for one of the drum shields fuck those they suck they dont absorb sound they just throw it right back at you. Grab some moving blankets (usually you can steal them from a moving place or a trucking company) they are thick and heavy and when put on boom mic stands in that are in a T they make perfect sound barriers that rival the ones that you see at guitar center.

 

As for that foam shit. Hit up your local recycling center they may have a foam section seriously some rich towns that separate everything do. Look for this thick foam eggcrate looking shit. Not the cardboard shit it doesnt work as well. When I say thick I mean like 6"

for the corners

 

then you can do spots of this stuff on the wall to catch excess and control how much reverb the room has...

just putting this on your shit wont do as much in my opinion

 

insulation is key... uhhh i'll think of somemore...

[Spike]

Spike: Thanks, that's a lot of good info. M-Audio doesn't even come into real consideration for me, they are passive-consumer quality, if that makes sense. The E-MU breakout-box/card has a pre-amp already but there are only two XLRs, and with 4+ drum mics that is useless. For the person who is building their own small studio, the Pro-Tools LE + hardware sounds good, since he is a sworn Apple user. I wasn't aware that one absolutely must use Digidesign hardware for LE, though. I figured that the "light" version wouldn't require that.

 

As far as I remember there is one obsolete version that can be used independent of hardware, but like I said - it's obsolete. And is full of limitations, as far as I know. The good thing about Digi insisting on their hardware is that in general, it's high quality (OK, like I said, new MBoxes and the M-Audio stuff is a joke - but just about usable, especially at "pro-sumer" level). For your friend, if he's building his own small studio, the odds are that as time goes on he'll be using something like an 002 purely as an interface - because there are better (but obviously more expensive) DA converters and preamps.

 

You say that it's around $500 for this 002R you're talking about, and according to people around here "$250 ain't shit", so that's not so bad and cheaper than I was expecting, though it's more than I spent on the E-MU card. The E-MU is pretty much top-of-the-line, and then that line switches over to professional equipment, hence the relatively modest amount of inputs. So it's basically top of the line for middle-grade sound cards. Plus the XLRs for some reason bleed like fucking crazy when the snare and kick drum are mic'd, to the point where with all the levels turned all the way down, I'm still clipping.

 

Yeah, at the end of the day, the analog to digital conversion should never take place within a computer - so much electronic and magnetic noise from the internals, plus the odds are that since the E-MU is a computer soundcare, the XLRs aren't properly isolated so you're getting a bunch of crosstalk. Lastly, do the XLR inputs have a virtually controlled gain trim? Or do the mics have -10dB/-20dB pad? If you don't have either of those options, then you might have to make them operate at -10dBv instead of +4dBu (should be a switch to change that on the XLRs). It's not a great compromise, as your signal to noise ratio will shoot up, but it might tame the clipping. Maybe. Getting the gain structure right is generally the most annoyingly difficult thing to get right, especially when not working with stuff that's designed for high quality recording

 

I don't use a Mac, however, and this Apogee/Nuendo business would be like pissing into the wind since I'm completely turned off by Cubase's GUI. Pro Tools and the Digi cards are compatible with the PC, is there any particular reason you don't favor that set-up? If it's because the system requirements are heavy, that's not an issue since I am due an upgrade and I go all out on those.

 

Hah, actually, it's just because I wasn't thinking.. On a Mac and a PC with similar specs, PT on the Mac slays the PC because Digi and Apple work very closely together on a lot and have done a shitload of optimisation, but, with a beefed up PC it should work fine. Just know that you'll have to have a separate HFS+ formatted drive to hold your audio and work on. And go for the quickest drive speed you possibly can!

 

The deal on Avid Xpress Studio Essentials DOES include a Digidesigns mBox (of which I know little), so it does indeed come with a bit of hardware, but not a sound card, unless that is the sound card. The E-MU is actually internal hardware and the external box runs through the card's firewire like a physical GUI of sorts. The Avid bundle would cost a thousand dollars, which is a third of the selling price and almost a fourth of the retail. Plus, I figure might actually make a profit if I can sell the rest of the software.

 

I completely forgot that Avid acquired Digidesign, which would explain it. The odds are it's a new mBox with the inferior converters and preamps, so if you were to buy it I would recommend flipping the whole package and using the profits to grab an older MBox, or, if you make enough, an 002R. As for the soundcard, the Mbox/002R would become the sound input and output for Pro Tools - system sound would still run through your computer soundcard.

 

I know all about the physical limitations of home-recording, I'm working on a way to handle those as best I can. Vocal booth, almost definitly out of the question. Maybe I could build a budget one in the basement, but there's a shitload of bugs down there. One of those plastic drum shields? Trip to Home Depo. Acoustics, not positive yet. Getting the padding from Guitar Center is a lot of cash. That stuff seems like it's more or less foam cut up very neatly. If so, another trip to Home Depo. There's the egg-carton myth, but I've heard that isn't quite true.

 

Egg cartons are total bullshit. As for the foam... heh, there's a lot more to acoustics than the eye can see. Getting the bubbles, reflective/absorbant characteristic and other acoustic properties of foam right costs a shitload, which means more cost for you. You can deaden a room with normal foam... but at the end of the day it's just deadening, you're not taking care of any of the frequency problems and mixing and tracking in a dead room will sound horrible. A little bit of acoustic foam can go a very long way though, so you shouldn't have to spend too much. However, unless you want to really go into the heavy mathematics, you'd probably be better off spending your money on drapes (or heavy curtain), the best diffuser you can afford, and finding someone who can tell you what to do with them. And some wood to build new walls, because you'll be wanting to get rid of as many parallel surfaces as you can afford. Acoustics is fucking crazy, you suddenly learn that you will never be able to get a pro-level mix in a home studio unless you mix on exactly the same equipment, in exactly the same room for decades, learn every intricacy and constantly check your mix on every single system you can. It really is crazy

 

Of course, I realise that I'm talking about professional level stuff, because that's where I have work at. For your purposes you can get a very, very long way at home and get some great sounding stuff

[fermentor666]

Thanks for the help. With the electronic gear it's easy since that stuff can just run straight into the computer. Now I'm working with real drums up here in the attic and a couple of tube-amps and the old method is not very backwards-compatible. The room I'm in is also fairly irregular, with, if you can picure it, a house-like shape. So two opposing walls are flat, while two are cut about a third of the way up and then slope upwards. Plus there's a big column right in the middle where the chimney runs through the house. Plus a skylight on one of the slanted walls. The ceiling is about 7 1/2 to 8 feet. It's a great practice space but I don't how much of a future it has as a non-direct input recording space.

 

The acoustics are unique, though. Recording amps doesn't even sound all that bad, it's just the drums and presumably vocals that get blown to shit. But you know, I read all these stories and see video of bands that recorded albums in what looks like a regular room (complete with windows and hardwood floors) with some temporary barriers set up and some heavy drapes, like you said, and figure I can do something up here.

 

 

On sound-proofing, there's not much I can do there. The room isn't big enough to build in the walls 6 inches, plus it's an attic so all the bass just goes throughout the whole structure of the house. Basically, we just play when the neighbors are not home.