Great story. My first recording was on a 2-track in the basement of a local guy's home. He eventually went to 16 track and a custom-built board. All my recording was done on tape in those early years, including a TEAC 2340. For various reasons, I got away from music and recording for almost 20 years (life intruded). when I eventually git back to it, ProTools was the standard, but I jumped back in with a $100 program that I can no longer find -- it disappeared in a hard disc crash. It was very much like PT in that it had cut and paste visual editing and plug-ins and allowed virtual instruments. I also experimented with Studio One and Band in a Box, but decided to just go all in on PT.
But I never really learned PT to the max. I have ideas and have learned enough that I can do a decent demo, but I allow the pros to make the final product. I do think that having such flexibility in PT and so many tracks sometimes tricks producers and artists into putting too much on a recording. I mean, 128 tracks of little snippets all glued together? It's hard even for the producer to find things. The only drawback I've seen in using ADAT is that it's harder to just grab a snippet of, say, a sound effect and just drop it in. At least I didn't explore that with my current producer, but he's been using ADAT or 40+ years and can probably so it. It's lucky, too, that he is a keyboardist and had excellent sample-based keys. Again, I make suggestions and let him find a way to do them. We think alike and have almost identical influences, so it's a great relationship. But I'm has he has to do the editing!
