Pro Tools is the industry standard for a reason!
people who say that Cubase SX or Ableton are just as good as Pro Tools have probably never seen a Pro Tools HD Accel system or never really understood the way in which larger, more complex Pro Tools systems work! Theyre mates Probably just have an M-Box or Pro Tools M-Powered, which at a basic, out the box level, really are no different to Cubase SX or Abelton!
But its the HD & the TDM systems which really are the big cats in the audio industry, basically becuase of a couple of reasons! one would be the DSP flexability (the ability to run a large number of very high quality, CPU intensive plugins on a single Pro Tools TDM system with no affect on the performance!) that they offer!
Another would probably be the integration of high quality consoles and controllers specifically designed for Pro Tools such as the Control 24, the Digi 002, Command 8, the Icon etc etc. Also the fact that Pro Tools can be integrated with alot of ease with high quality analouge consoles such as the SSL AWS! offering you the best of both worlds really! Digital Editing and flexability, high quality analouge recording an mixing!
Another reason may be that Pro Tools RTAS (Real Time Audio Suite) and TDM (Time Division Multi-complex) are the highest quality plugins money can buy!! Focusrite, URS, etc all make and design plugins that a specifically designed to run in Pro Tools and Pro Tools only! meaning the Plugins that Pro Tools users have access to are of a very high quality!
There are other features such as the ease of the Key Commands that Pro Tools uses for Editing, the ability to share Pro Tools session files between Home and Professional users etc!
Granted, i'am a home Pro Tools M-Powered user, and in all honestly i probably dont have any more or any less power at my finger tips than those on this forum using Cubase, or Sonar at home etc, but i have learned alot about Pro Tools, its functions, the way you edit which can be applied to the larger HD and TDM systems which i now regularly use at college! So when the day comes that i will own a Pro Tools HD system, ill be ready! and believe me, thos Pro Tools HD and TDM systems really are powerfull!
i cant list everything!!! buy a f*cking book if you really want to know why Pro Tools is the industry standard!!
and in answer to the initial question, buy a Mac!
My Pro Tools cats know who they are! they, like me, understand why they are using the most powerful, flexible audio editing software the industry has to offer!
All those cats using Cubase, Ableton, Acid etc, thats all fair enough, you gotta start somewhere, but sooner or later youll realise, if you wonna be a Pro you gotta have the right Tools!
RoB
"It takes a bigger man to squash a fight than to set one off, knowledge, i let some off"
-Guru