Somebody tell me if FCP is good for editing surround please

[Laurence Maher]

Hi,

I'm about to get a mac with FCP HD and want to know how it fairs for creating surround sound. Easy of use, quality, toys, etc.

Never used FCP before

Thanks!

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Not in the least. In the Apple world, ProTools is the surround tool of choice, Logic 6 next in line.Bias Deck is also very good for this. In the PC world, Vegas or Nuendo.

[Laurence Maher]

Cool

Thanks,

I've got ProTools LE from about 4 years ago, and never used it. (Actually, to my shame, I've got 1 gig pc with digi001, pro tools, le and a Roland VX-5080 attached (total of abour 5k) . . . and have yet to compose a thing becasue I'm busy doing video . . . now that's hard to admit.

Can the ProTools LE do the surround? I assume not with a Mac, which is what I'm upgrading to as a NLE soon. And I would like to be able to interface what I already bought with it. I assume if I ditch the PC and then Upgrade the ProTools LE to current, I'll be savvy, yes? For surround I mean?

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

With the right plugs, yes, LE can mix surround. Personally, I don't care for it. In the Mac world, I like Deck better, it's weighted correctly and ProTools sort of assumes you know how to do that. PT has more options, but that also means many more opportunities to screw up.
Mac or PC, both offer great options for mixing surround.

[Jacques Mersereau]

Don't forget about MOTU on Mac. www.motu.com

These guys make cool firewire interfaces that are CHEAP and have
excellent sound quality. Digital Performer rocks IMO and
you can get an 8 channel firewire 896 or 896HD interface that
does what protools does for about 1/10th the money.

I am finishing up a nature documentary using an 896, Duel 2gig G5,
and DP 4.11.

I've got 40 tracks of 24b/96k audio running in perfect sync
with a full resolution DV movie (on the other computer monitor)
and am able to easily manipulate audio in all kinds of ways.

I have been extremely pleased, but I wouldn't try this kind of
project on anything but a duel 2gig G5.

DP also has surround capability, but I have not as yet gone there. I
probably will soon however.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Yeah, for the Mac, MOTU is fine. I used to endorse their products, now I'm kinda the anti-MOTU guy. The 896 was latent as hell, I hear they've improved it with the new model. Their tech support is for crap, and their customer service the same. They used to be proud that they didn't do Windows. In fact, because of them, I started looking at Windows, simply because they made such a big deal about how bad Windows 98 was.
They also don't use the Cirrus chips, which most of the DAC companies do, so while they sound 'good', they don't sound 'great.' I hear the HD version uses the Cirrus chips, so it's gonna be pretty good, I'm sure. Latency is the next issue, but if you're mixing and not recording, it won't matter.

Performer has ALWAYS been good software though.

For the Mac, it's hard to beat MOTU because of how well the drivers are written. For the PC, they still suck. Add the bad customer service....I don't ever recommend them any longer.

[Jacques Mersereau]

I agree with you Spot that the 896 is latent as hell. No doubt, and
from what I heard on the MOTU list, the 896HD has been tested by
a third party who doesn't care a stitch about MOTU. His findings were,
in short, that the output is as good as interfaces that cost 10X more.

The stuff is cheap for what it does and that's a good thing.

[Laurence Maher]

Cool!

Thanks guys!

Keep'em comming!