Hi Chris, Welcome to the list. Pro Tools is, in many ways, totally accessible but there are still areas that need improvement, some more urgent than others. I'll try to give an overview. Virtually all areas of audio recording and editing are accessible. Creating tracks, routing input & output, soloing, muting, etc., all of the things one needs to record multi-channel audio is very straight-forward and rock solid. There is no better platform on the planet to edit audio and it can all be done with keyboard shortcuts. In fact, Pro Tools has an plethora of key commands for all kinds of things.
One thing that is quite helpful, though, is a control surface of some kind. Now, it's certainly possible to use PT without a surface but there's nothing like having physical controls in front of you when changing track levels, muting, record-enabling, etc. That brings me to automation. Automation is fantastic in Pro Tools but, since it's a real-time process for blind users, changing volume within a track as an automation pass needs to be done with a physical fader on a control surface. A sighted user can draw an automation curve. That's not feasible for a blind user. So, again, a control surface is pretty much indispensible. there's one more reason why a control surface is practically required and that's for plug-in manipulation. Now, it's easy to instantiate a plug-in and it's possible to access parameters and change values but it's far more efficient to use a control surface to do that. again, it's possible to live without it but, in all honesty, I think for a blind user, it's a requirement. MIDI recording is possible and basic editing is also. But true editing within an event list is not yet accessible. It's something that didn't get into the initial release for several reasons. I'm confident that there will be progress made on that front in a future release. There are a number of things that need to be addressed like naming of I/O paths, Elastic Audio, the Task Manager window, among others. Regarding your teacher's unwillingness to upgrade, well, that's kind of silly. If the school is already on version 8, they should at least upgrade to version 8.0.4 which is a free update and it's the first version that includes accessibility enhancements that would allow a blind user to access Pro Tools through VoiceOver. Hopefully, that answers some of your questions. Feel free to ask more. This list includes people who have used Pro tools for as long as 15 years but the majority are new to it and some questions might help others on the list as well. best, Slau On Nov 24, 2010, at 5:15 PM, Chris Harrington wrote: > Hi, > My name is Chris Harrington, and I'm brand new to the list, and to protools. > I've never actually used it before, so I have some questions about it... > How much can you do with protools? Can you do automation, audio, midi, > different plugins, things like that? Also, I'm doing a career center > program for audio production, and they're using PT8. I've been trying > to get them to use 8.1, but my teacher doesn't seem to want to go > through the process of updating. I feel that is unfair to me, because > it feels like all I'm there for is to give people musical substance > for their projects if that makes any sense... I play all the music, while > they're doing everything in Protools. > It's really aggravating and I'm considering dropping the course... I > don't want to take it out on my teacher, he's tried working with me to > make sure I get some of the substance, but it's just really pissing me > off that all I can do is pretty much sit their when the music's done, > and wait for them to edit. Then if they do something wrong, then I want to > fix it but can't... > lol. > OK, I'm done ranting, any insights you all can give would be great!!! > Thank you!!! > Chris Harrington > > > http://www.c-harrington.com > > >
