It’s been many months in the planning, building and implementation, but Tesco Productions is officially transitioning to a new recording system. It’s a big change – and challenges of learning and implementation will not be few.

Among those changes is the big step of our main production computer leaving the world of (dare I say it) Mac OS and moving to Windows. We have been solidly running in the Mac world since our first DAW (Digidesign Session 8) in 1994. Watching the myriad of changes both in the Apple OS and hardware infrastructure has been dizzying in the past few years. Even software and hardware developers in the audio/visual world have been frustrated to varying degrees trying to keep up with the pace. A close friend whose DAW is on a much newer Mac OS than I’ve ever run has had more than one complaint along the lines of “my system isn’t working again because of another update or change”. The other factor for me is that I’ve been building a repertoire of audio plugins and software for years that are all Windows based and it only makes sense to be able to utilize those. This transition is not really a big one for me since I’ve been operating a secondary production system on Windows for a number of years.

The other major switch is (again dare I say it) the abandonment of Pro Tools as our main DAW. In looking at all the viable options available now, the cost/feature factors, and Pro Tools compatibility with various hardware/plugin options (or lack thereof) caused me to make this decision. I’m moving to Cockos Reaper, and so far have been quite impressed with its flexibility as well as it being quite a powerful DAW. In contrast to some other more mainline DAWs, Reaper is constantly implementing customer input upgrades and making improvements to an already agile software. The fact that it can be years before they actually charge you for a major upgrade is also appealing.

And now so as to not panic or create major concern for a rather large company of clients that have created projects on Pro Tools, let me state that the existing system is remaining in place. The newer technologies require much less space and so I’m able to leave the existing items in their locations. I won’t miss the heat that system generates (nice in the winter sometimes) or the multiple fans running that attempt to keep that system cooler, however. I will not likely start any new projects (certainly not large ones) on the old system, but older projects can be exported into Reaper if extensive rework or additions are being made. And for those who really need and prefer to work in the Pro Tools environment, I’ve been looking into adding a newer version of Pro Tools with an adequate interface for basic sessions.

There’s still a lot of work to do with rewiring (with the removal of many wires no longer needed), installing new hardware (which includes a 500 series rack loaded with preamps), and the integration of a blend of our prior headphone monitoring system with the new Behringer P16-M units. It’s going to take a while yet, but I think we’ll all benefit greatly when it’s completed.