Today was backup day ... retrospect 5 running steady in the background on OSX and decided to go retouch some mixes at first but didn't feel much like it. Ended up taking a closer look at some of the new features in PT 6 and ended up fiddeling around with the digibase all day.

I had allready opened the browser windows on several occasions during sessions to import files but found myself going back to my old PT5 way of doing it ... through the regions list menu or through the file menu. It all seemed too much of a hassle and not worth it at the time. Boy was I wrong. I took the effort picking up the manual and started reading it. By the time I had reached page 12 I had allready understood that this feature would change my way of ProTools life for ever. I have no words for it other then it is freakin fantastic. Once you get the hang of it you are hooked. File management / browsing session audio files / sample banks all makes sence now. EVERY Protools user should spend some time looking into the digibase possibilities.

Digibase is more then just file management. It can be in so many ways a creativity booster. The feature list with tips and tricks is endless. Awesome find file functionallity. Well thought of / simple and very handy keyboard shortcuts so you hardly have to reach for the mouse or trackball. AMAZING speed once your disks are indexed. Custom catalogues keep track of files spread over as many disks you like through aliases. Even offline media can be indexed and browsed through. copy / drag / arrange / re-arrange everything at will. Importing files by dragging them either into the region list or imediately onto the track at the exact spot you want them etc etc ... I could go on and on and on .... listening / previewing audio files with small waveform displays has never been easier ... you hardly have to touch the mouse/trackball to do it.

Whatever kind of music your into or post / radio / TV whatever you have your PT system hooked up for ... digibase is going to change your way of working in it. without a doubt.

Last but definately not least ... the background processing REALY works .... and I do mean WORKS in real life situations. it performs its tasks in complete background and you hardly notice ANY delay or slowing down of your system ... even as you continue working on your mix / edit or whatever your doing ...

I LOVE it.


PT people who are looking for upgrade reasons should look into this in depth .... it might pull you over to the other side.

PS: I was running retrospect / backing up 70 gig of data on 4 seperate HD's during the whole day while experimenting and pushing digibase to its limits. at one point I decided to import like 850 samples and do sample and bit rate conversion with them while continuing to perform tasks in the edit window and mix window .... inserting plugins on 32 tracks at the same time holding the alt button ... creating 50 tracks ... draging files in all directions ... deleting tracks plugins etc etc ... all one could think of .... I was actually trying to crash the application. NOT ONE single error during the whole day. Don't tell me it isn't stable ..... puleez ........

Great news Chris!

That's the carrot at the end of the (slightly) cracked stick.

When it works it's frikkin awesome. That's why I get so fraustrated with the crashes I do get.

Don't upgrade to 10.2.5 though. You have been warned.

thanks ... I won't

Chris

Which Mac are you running? ram etc? FW or scsi?

Also Chris, while everything is working unbelievably super duper, use Carbon Copy CLoner to duplicate an exact working copy of your system onto a seperate drive that you can ALWAYS come back to should things become corrupt or third party wierdness happens.

Do it now. It's much harder to get back where you were than OS 9.

You WON'T regret it.

Also see my thread on apps that are useful if you haven't already.

dual 800 ... so definately lot the latest top model.

Ram ... a lot ... would have to check at the studio ... dunno that by heart ... just know that it is a lot

bot FW and UW/SCSI. In total 8 disks (2 startup's partitioned into each 2 partitions)

thanks ... good idea indeed ... will definately do so. I have even put it into my nokia comunicator as a daily recall alarm to do thingy.

Nokia Communicator?

Sounds complicated...