After six months of summer my brain finally seems to be coming out of hibernation, and a good thing too. New software, new hardware, the sound department has been spoilt with a multitude of new gear to wrap out heads around.
First up was the switch from Soundtrack Pro to Avid Pro Tools, a much superior piece of sound editing software. Repeating an exercise from last year, spotting in sound effects to a silent clip, familiarised us with some of the basic shortcuts and I can see in future it will be a much more efficient way to edit, however my reflexes are still currently wired to the apple edit suite controls. I did find the music capabilities interesting, with the option of layering up to three instruments together to form a single sound, however ultimately I think I'll stick with Logic for all of my beat-making requirements as it offers a greater range of plug-ins and ways to manipulate existing instruments.
I did find the news of apple suite's obsolescence a little frustrating at first as I'd spent the summer assembling a home-studio to work from the comfort of my bedroom, but learning Pro-Tools will have long term benefits as it is industry standard and will be worth investing in in the near future.
The news of of several edit booths rigged to master in 5.1 surround sound is also an exciting prospect I look forward to testing out. Also out our disposal is an array of new mixers and recorders. A likely candidate to replace the Marantz is the more compact handy Zoom H4N, with built in stereo X/Y condenser mics adjustable to 90° and 120° making it ideal for recording on the fly. It also features an SD card slot as well as the option to input jacks along with the XLRs. There are also some slightly intimidating Tascam Rercorder/mixer kits that will take a little longer to get to grips with, but I look forward to using this professional gear.
