[SSLtech]

I don't know that the 002's mic pres "suck" particularly... They're not very "characterful", but they work plenty well for my purposes. (Spot mics in 'B+' format recordings).

It's so fashionable to just say that Digidesign stuff 'sucks', when what people often mean is that they much prefer the charateristics of other stuff.

The only difference I see between the 002 and 003 on the back panel is the inclusion of word-clock BNC connectors.

Other than that, I've little doubt that the 002 and 003 are both very good, and the mic pres are quite usable on both. People will ***** that they're not APIs, but APIs don't always co it for me either. Nor do SSL 9k's, nor do Neve 10xx's, nor do any other preamp. If all I had was APIs, I'd probably hate it from time to time. I do a lot of classical stuff, and like I said; the 002 preamps are plenty good enough most of the time.

Keith

[trancedental]

I seriously doubt the 003 is just an upgraded 002 due to new stricter EU electronics regulations.  That in itself would not warrant a new model number.

According to some posters on the DUC thats the difference, apart from slightly less noisy pres it's virtually the same :roll:

Not worth upgrading from the 002 for the extra features is the majority opinion on the DUC

[redear]

Nicely put Keith.
Personaly I will be purchasing a 002R factory and a Comand 8 as it is much much cheaper but whatever floats the boat eh?

[SSLtech]

I have a 002R as it happens, and I've access to a command-8, I've wondered about trying it out for some editing & mixing which I have coming up soon... However,the curator of sacred choral music at the local college is going to be on the session, and his time is notoriously tightly-scheduled, so I don't want to be fumbling with a new control surface, I need to be 'slick-n-quick' so next time, perhaps...

Keith

[Tillmann]

I don't know that the 002's mic pres "suck" particularly... They're not very "characterful"....

Yes, that's much more articulately and fairly stated.  I would agree with that.  They are pretty quiet but have no character at all.  If you only need quiet gain, they do that well.  That said, if I do anything where tone and/or accurate detail are critical, I avoid them at all costs.  Bascially, I never use them unless I have nothing else around.  All that said, what should one expect for $1200 or less? For what it does, the 002R is a great deal IMO and if you could not tell already, I do indeed own one.


T

[Tillmann]

I was an early PT adopter.  And I left the platform because of the annoying way the company ties the HW in with the SW and makes you  pay to keep up with both.  PT stands for PayTools.  

Interesting that you mention that... I was working for a studio many years ago that purchased three mix-plus systems in a deal with Digidesign where the studio was going to have a space to be a certified Pro Tools instructional facility.  I went through the classes and other formalities to be an instructor and after doing a few classes, we were very close to beginning to advertise our service throughout the region.  In total, we had had the Mix-Plus systems all of three or four months and had barely used two of them, when Digidesign released the HD system and very shortly thereafter told us that if we wanted to be a certified facility, we would have to upgrade our systems and pay for it to boot.  How much do 3 HD systems cost?  You do the math.  

Now they knew full well when they sold us the Mix-Plus systems that they had a new format basically ready to go, and they knew full well that we were buying them to help instruct THEIR product, thereby "spreading the gospel of Digidesign around the land", and they said nothing to us about it.  They could have said, "Eehem... I would suggest waiting a couple months before you buy a system", or something of the sort.  In the end, the studio told them more or less to f**k off and we dropped the whole idea of teaching Pro Tools.

How's that for treating your customers?

[tommypiper]

If I ever return to PT it will probably be with an LE system on one of their cheaper fire wire boxes.  Keep the investment light and nimble.

[SSLtech]

No doubt about it. Digidesign are awful for screwing customers along the upgrade path... I got that message in 1992, and it's been repeated many times along the way.

Mercifully, where I am right now, there's not much need to stay at teh cutting edge, so I can watch a few others take the money hit for a while...

But yes Tillmann, I totally agree, and I sort of knew what you meant. I just felt the need to suggest a rephrase before this turne into a gearslutz-like digi-kicking session. I agree that they screw you on hardware upgrades, but what they make works generally rather well.

-And you can exchange files with the 'big-boys'; no muss, no fuss.

Keith

[tommypiper]

A bit OT, but I'll be curious to see what Apple releases in Logic 8, which is rumored to be coming this summer... there are rumors it may incorporate touch screen technology similar to the new iPhone technology.  I would expect that might take a while tho...

[Jazz]

Speaking of formats... CJ and I were sitting in the front row of Roger Nichols' AES Convention talk on mixing.  He spent a lot of time going over how you need to get good quality, clean tracks.  He played a variety of things, like James Taylor with Tower of Power, and soloed tracks to show how drum leakage helped...  Then he was playing a session recorded in Mexico.  It sounded like the others, stunning.  He soloed tracks again, stunning sound.  "By the way," he says, "these were recorded on two black face ADATs."  Several guys in the audience nearly crapped their pants, including CJ.  Then he added that the error correction notice was on full time and the heads had over 10,000 hours and he couldn't read the time displays because of all the error messages...  Impressive.  We couldn't believe how good it sounded.

I bring it up, because I still track to ADATs at times.  It's not to be scoffed at.  It's absolutely the fastest workflow (tracking, not locking up sync back and forth) and beats all the DAW BS you have to deal with.  It's just like tracking to analog.  Everyone can hear everything without annoying monitor issues, no latency, plenty of tracks, plenty of I/O, etc.  And the converters were a breakthrough in their day and still sound good, no matter what anyone says.  

It's an overlooked option, especially on a budget, and especially when you need a lot of tracks like me, 8 tracks for the kit, 3 for the organ, 3 for the guitar, 2 for the bass... when all the guys are playing at the same time you need an assistant to keep up on a DAW, there's so much clicking and routing and screen time.  Man, the ADATs have saved me in many sessions.  With the ubiquitous optical I/O on everything, even Macs now, it's a cynch to fly ADAT tracks into your favorite DAW.  But no one uses 'em now.  It's old fashioned.

I was an early PT adopter.  And I left the platform because of the annoying way the company ties the HW in with the SW and makes you  pay to keep up with both.  PT stands for PayTools.  

Man, that was a good salad.  Now for the pale ale.  Wife and kids are outa the house and I'm remembering how much fun it is to be in a quiet environment again.  :grin:

My first CD I started on my SONY APR-24 ... a 2" analog 24 trk machine in case you have not seen one. Anyway the rest of the CD got tracked to ADAT becasuse I sold my 24trak to buy a house.  

When I listen to the CD, the ADAT stuff sounds as fat and clean as the 24 trck 2" machine. I thought I was crazy. Thats very interesting what you said about Nicholes.

002 mic pre's, I've recorded drums many times thru the first (4) pre's on the 002   KIK, Snare OH  Ihave had good results numerous times.

[tommypiper]

Yeah.  I should mention it wasn't Roger Nichol's choice to use the ADATs.  As he told the story, he said the clients promised him a fancy DASH machine.  When he got there it wasn't available, and all they had in town were the totally beat up ADATs.  He used them as a last resort.  Despite the permanent error messaging in the time displays, the tapes recorded fine.  He was pleased with the sound.  It was one of his many stories as he went along in his talk and playing tracks.

[Jazz]

I am surprised that the 003 has not upgraded the IEEE 1994 Firewire Bus
to the new version IEEE 1394B. I understand the first version (IEEE 1394) to have a max speed of 400 Mbit / sec and the newer verison (IEEE 1394B) a max speed of 3200 M bit / sec.

The fire wire appears to be the bottlle neck in the system.

With the Windows XP OS, I have made fairly good improvements reducing the overhead of the CPU via elimination of many background process's running on windows that a DAW has no need for what so ever.

Windows will waste many CPU slices because of priority and non priority interrupts. The CPU / OS is constantly getting flagged with these interrupts and they begin to get stacked up and Windows can be dealing with them in FIFO (first in first out) response as opposed to dealing with all these interrupts with a priority that is wise to Protools. Windows is a sh*tty operating system when it comes time to multitasking.

It's too bad that a UNIX or Linex version of protools is not available. UNIX is far superior when handleing multitasking events. In the old days when I was a UNIX system cat I remember changing drives on a huge system and not even having to shut the system down. I was amazed knowing some of these computers have not been turned off for great lengths of time, months years even.

Windows? the wind blows and you have to reboot.

 :green:

[tommypiper]

If you want to run PT on UNIX, Mac is your dream.  The modern Mac OS runs on a UNIX foundation, basically UNIX with Mac interface.  You can get in and adjust UNIX code directly like any UNIX system.

ProTools loves Macs.  They do their AES demos on Macs.  No malware, no Windows pollution.  

A whole new generation of new Mac hardware are about to be released this spring...

and... you can run Windows on them.  They will run native Windows, native LINUX, and native Mac OS.

Sorry if I sound like a booster, but most people still don't know.

[redear]

Yeah, Mac is nice. I use both and I realy do like the mac better.

[Jazz]

If you want to run PT on UNIX, Mac is your dream.  The modern Mac OS runs on a UNIX foundation, basically UNIX with Mac interface.  You can get in and adjust UNIX code directly like any UNIX system.

ProTools loves Macs.  They do their AES demos on Macs.  No malware, no Windows pollution.  

A whole new generation of new Mac hardware are about to be released this spring...

and... you can run Windows on them.  They will run native Windows, native LINUX, and native Mac OS.

Sorry if I sound like a booster, but most people still don't know.

Thats's great news, I started out on MACS somehow ended up on PC's
(which stands for piece of crap) I guess many folks end up there because you can go to 7-11 buy parts and build a computer cheap that works somewhat.

One of my studios highest priority's ......ditch Windows.

 :thumb:

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