O.K. ; so yeh i downloaded Pro Tools® FREE 5.0.1.471 R2. & as you may guess i'm a little confused. I've got Win98 s.e. and a 350 Mhz Pentium 2, & 128 / RAM which is about the lowest system requirments for running "IT".( Yeh otan I can hear you laughing all the way over here in Australia ) I dunno whether to put in the hours and see if i can get it happening; being a glutton for punishment and desperate to have a recording program i'll probably give it a go. My initial response is probably an over reaction at the crappy looking interface, i just hope i don't drive myself crazy. I've got a very nice sound coming out of my sound system with my guitar plugged into the line in on a YAMAHA DS-XG Legacy sound card and running out into a heavy duty stereo monitor. Should i perservere ! Do you think i'm pissing into the wind. Any advice People ?

I think you'll find the limitations hitting you when you're trying to record your audio. If you don't have enough RAM to store the audio all at once, it'll put it on the hard drive in chunks, which sometimes results in skips.

But I've never used Pro Tools. maybe they do it differently.

I'm going back to my 8-track cassette for awhile. Getting away from digital for awhile. It's pissing me off.

otan said:

I think it always reads directly from the hard drive.
That is why they also limit a FW hard drive drive to 32 channels.

It's a teaser version. but if you don't need much (8 audio channels) it can be good enough.

Yes, downloading Pro Tools online is a TEAZER. You won't get full benefit from it unless you go out and BUY Pro Tools officially.

We'll see what happens, i've got nothing to lose.Thanks guy's

As an alternative, you guys can try this:

http://www.kreatives.org/.../index.php

This program is completely free, no catches, no bulls___, it's fairly easy to use (then again, I'm a 'real' audio engineer by occupation, so I find anything easy to use). You have 16 tracks to record on and instead of spending $$$ on software you could use it to upgrade your computer's RAM / hard disk space / sound card. Only snag is this software doesn't have midi support. Otherwise it's a really cool tool if you don't want to spend any money.

Let me know what you guys think

Otherwise, if you are RICH, get Sonic Solutions HD.

Fudgeface

fudgeface said:

Thankyou,fudgeface! will check this out and get back with a report.It's not easy being a musician with a family that sucks your dollars faster than you can make 'em! The more freebies the better. Good point about upgrading hardware, i always feel ripped off with paying big bucks for software. (And Hardware) ,when it's only for Demo quality sound, which is all i'm into at the moment, a sketch pad for storing ideas.Thanks all.

Back when i was using windows,
I used protools free (to get out of buying digi hardware)
and i thought it was cool
16 tracks is more than enough of room unless your trying to make sophisticatedtracks
Multiple vocal lines etc...
But teh constant freezing because of lack of ram was seriously pissing me off
so a frined of mines got a digi and got a new protools( i have no idea, don['tcare)
But you can see the difference...
the interface is smooth and it runs smoothly because theirs no need for ram
I miss it sometimes
but now since im on my own im Using Logic 7
and its wayyyyy better than protools

Luv4oneanotha said:

Your right.I've tried it on this system,not enough RAM.Stage 1 complete. Fail.
Next i will try Kristal 1.0.1, as suggested by fudgeface [http://www.kreatives.org/.../index.php]
;on a 2.6 Ghz machine,with XP which is sweet, but i think from having a quick overview that 256 Meg / Ram aint enough.(If looks attractive got an empty slot, and buy another 256 of Ram and sneek it in.The Ex.won't notice as she only plays tetris on the thing, and does a bit of word processing, and surfing!)
I think i'll check Cakewalk and see if they've got any freebies also.
Last resort i've dug up a VCR with stereo mic inputs.
The mission continues

I also downloaded the free Pro Tools. I never new what the big deal was but then again, I'm not a mac user. This version is fun and I'm learning a bit about an older trimmed down version of the product. One thing though, it says to set the sample rate of your soundcard at 48000 to avoid the audio stutters and skips. Everything seems to be running smooth and I recorded a number of audio and midi tracks just to see if I could make the software lockup. Memory does help so before you get serious with this version, get at least 512 megs to be safe. I guess it's up to your taste. However, mac based products do have much more cooler plug-ins than windows.