[geezer]

....As you know, I also have a Nuendo setup, which I haven't really used with the DM2000 yet, but which is supposed to work well with it.


As far as the digital multitrack thing, I would recommend heavily that you get a dedicated hard disk recorder for recording. It just seems so much simpler and more transparent to me. My brother just spent a month tracking his album into Nuendo and Samplitude, and I think he would have saved himself a lot of grief by using a dedicated hard disk recorder.....I just tracked an album in an analog studio using my MXs and everybody was raving about how the tracks sounded....This studio has RADAR, too, by the way, which is another very popular option. Everyone in Nashville has gone to RADAR.....RADAR, again, does not seem to have the file transfer thing as together as the MX.

Once you've done the tracking, you can slap the drive into the native DAW and work on things if you want, then either mix internally using the DM2000 as a controller, or externally to the DM2000, or pop the drive back into the hd recorder and mix on the DM2000. ....You'll have to see what you like based on your addiction to plug-ins and editing tools. Both the Mackie and MX have decent editing capabilities internally, though the MX requires an external computer, sort of....You do have to be careful about maintaining file formats and bit depth going in and out of these native DAW programs, and they can alter the sound with their intenal math.

There are a lot of options. I made my choices (MX for tracking, Nuendo for some fixes and post work, mixing all music stuff from the MX to the DM2000, CD and radio and some fix and post work with Krystal) based on some heavy personal bias on how I like to work and the need for file and EDL transfer capability. I am sure I will add more to the hardware and software rig later, but I feel like I have all the bases covered at the moment.

The only real advantage to Pro Tools that I can see is that it is hardware-based, so you never have any latency or setup issues like with the native systems. My feeling is that it is not really easier to use than Nuendo, but I have always had a bias against Digidesign, even though they seem to have solved most of their early quality problems. It is certainly MASSIVELY more expensive to get a ProTools system together with the quality of one of the native systems available......The support from Nuendo is not good, but the forum is helpful. The support from Samplitude is supposed to be awesome, and Samplitude apparently sounds better than any other native system, but is not as flexible or intuitive as Nuendo. ...I am not much of a midi guy, so any midi needs will have to be researched on your own.....Cubase is supposed to be better for that than Nuendo, I know....The support/forum for the MX is consistently very good.