I'm looking to professionaly record a few metal bands; I have knowledge of recording, mixing, mastering etc., but I want the BEST software available. What do you guys recommend?

In my opinion, no, I've had nothing but problems and annoyances with ProTools.

What i've used of it when I did my first ep for my grind band... it was shitty. i've never bothered with it since.

But it's all up to you if you want to learn how to use that mess.

If you are looking to get into a career in audio production and work with high-end studio gear, ProTools is good. It's probably the best flow-of-audio software and it has a vast expanse of plugins and tools that can do pretty much anything. If you're working professionally, they also have excellent support for ProTools HD. The downside is that it is really expensive - with lower budgets and less-involved productions, it isn't really necessary and other products compete and exceed it at for the same amount of money (plus free VST instruments as opposed to pricey RTAS plugins). Some great polished albums have been made with Reaper, like Alas Tyranny's DLP album (search mattp's posts for production notes on that). You can do a lot with that, including professional productions, and the pricing is best suited if you're self-producing rather than running a business. If you're looking to make it a profession, then ProTools is preferable.

pro tools is definitely not a bad choice if you're trying to do stuff professionally. everything Zodijackyl said was spot on, but another benefit to using pro tools is that a good deal of other professionals in studios all over the place use it. this can give you some extra versatility when working with others, i.e. sending stuff out to be mastered, sending the project stems to someone else to be mixed if you aren't, and other stuff like that.

i'm partial to cubase myself (mostly because i don't feel like learning my way around another DAW). it has a bit of a learning curve, but once you learn your way around it works well. reaper is also an excellent program, especially with how it handles punch-ins.

Pro Tools has a really great mix window. If you've already got tracks recorded and edited, and just need to mix and apply effects, it's great.

Editing audio is a fucking nightmare. The MIDI programming is one of the worst things I have ever had the misfortune of using. Cubase has far, far better editing. Programming MIDI drums in Cubase is easy as fuck.

I just got Ableton, and from what I've heard from guys working in studios daily, it's much better than ProTools. But, I've not had the opportunity to use them side-by-side and I'm still feeling my way around Ableton.

That's very true, but I have never heard of anyone actually programming MIDI in ProTools itself - there are plugins for those things, some drum programming is done in SuperiorDrummer/EZdrummer, a lot of low-budgeters use GuitarPro. For extensive MIDI scoring, something like Sibelius is used. All of that stuff is great, but of course, expensive.

Not just drum programming. When I play in MIDI keyboard parts, I usually end up editing the shit out of them 'cause I can't play keys very well. And it's just so fucking difficult to quantise notes, extend/shorten notes, add in ones that may have been missed... In Cubase, it's pretty much impossible to get wrong.

Thank you, that what extremely helpful; I'll definitely be looking further into Reaper!

Avoid ProTools. Go with Cubase and Reaper.

Tried Cubase once and hated it. I've played around with ProTools software and it seems very professional, but all the plugins and compatible hardware is expensive. Reaper seems to be a good program and I've read/received some good review about it; so, that's most likely what I'll be heading towards. If Reaper doesn't work out then I'm most likely going to go with ProTools since it's not foreign to me and many of my favorite producers and musicians use it.

Your favourite producers and musicians using it shouldn't have anything to do with your personal preferences, and I bet that most of them use Cubase as well anyway.

A lot of this has to do with taste. Cubase and ProTools are different but neither are better than the other. And for the record, it is possible to get both programs(and nearly all their plugins) completely free. Arrr! (although certain cracks and stuff have to be gotten along with that for it to run smoothly).

And 9/10 producers(meaning music producers rather than musicians who produce their own music) use ProTools as the industry standard.

I think a lot of this has to do with marketing and people wanting to follow the old footsteps of their idols.


Source please?

Good luck cracking Pro Tools. Especially a recent version.

The strength of ProTools is the expanse of plugins/expansions for it, and the support for the program. It's bound to hardware too, and while that has been broken, it's not as reliable as you would want the tools handling a large effort like recording an album. It's pointless anyway, because if you aren't looking to exchange a lot of money for stability/support/updates and a stable of plugins, going with ProTools isn't a good choice. If you want a cheap/free DAW that works really well, go with Reaper.

I'm not "cracking" anything; I pay for what I use, like I pay for ALL of my downloaded music.

I'm in contact with a lot of my idols, and they all use Protools for the final recordins/mixing, but all seem to use different ones for personal use.

i'm using acoustica mixcraft, it seems to work better than protools in my opinion.

I've used Mixcraft before, good program. Right now though i'm using Presonus Studio One Artist. I got a license for it for free from an internship where some of mixes were done from home. It's a great, easy to use DAW, and it'll probably be my go-to for awhile. When i was in school for Audio Production we used Pro Tools, and the only issue is how it was sort of crammed down our throats as the be all end all of production software, plus its cost is way out of my range. I agree it is versatile, and it'd be easy to send mixes back and forth since its so widespread, but i'll stick with my Studio One. It can still make for a great recording and end mix product

My vocalist(who also produces our own stuff and others as well) uses ProTools and his own take on it is that it's easy to exchange mixes(since practically everyone uses it) and has a vast expanse of plugins. When we sit down to listen to mixes and tweak stuff, the whole process is very smooth and it's simple enough for people who aren't schooled in audio tech(like myself) to understand.

its entirely down to taste, as was mentioned earlier, i personally prefer pro tools to everything, my day job is an audio engineer, im just faster and better with it than any other DAW i've tried out, the bonus of eing able to use protools is that you can then walk into the majority of professional recording studios in the world and know what you are doing, Logic and cubase are common and widely used, but not as common as pro tools