Pro Tools is my main DAW for most jobs, as it's the software I've used the most. I feel comfortable undertaking a wide variety jobs on it, however I will concede that it can be difficult to use on occasions. It's excellent for accidentally setting yourself up with schoolboy errors, like hitting 'N' and enabling/disabling the 'Timeline Insertion Follows Playback' option. Other times an inexplainable issue can be fixed by restarting the system.
In November 2010 I purchased an MBox 2 Mini which came with Pro Tools 8 LE for £195. Several weeks later Pro Tools 9 was released along with the new series of MBox's. I was pretty happy with my purchase, especially when I saw the inflated prices for the new Pro Tools bundles. Almost a year on and not much has changed. Pro Tools 9 and an Mbox Mini RRP for around £442 (DV247.com), and can as much as £525 (Absolutemusic.co.uk).
The main new feature of Pro Tools 9 is the compatibility with 3rd party hardware, which I believe was an integral move for Avid to make to ensure the survival of Pro Tools within the home enthusiast market. However they have not made it more appealing or accessible to home users with the price, compared to competitors such as Logic or Cubase.
This therefore begs the question: If you're looking to buy a Pro Tools setup, which one do you go for?? Why would you spend £500 for 1 XLR preamp and software that's compatible with 3rd party hardware, only to then replace the Mbox with 3rd party hardware that has more Preamps. The software alone is around £389, and an Mbox with 2 XLRs is about £575 (DV247.com). There just doesn't seem to be an affordable solution to Pro Tools 9.
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