The term 'industry standard' must really be put into perspective. Because of the many wide possibilities of sound design and technique, there are no standards, only guidelines. When the shift in the recording engineer's role changed with George Martin and the Beatles, they began creating their own unique techniques during the creative process that schools later coined as standards, created definitions and derived music courses from.

Technology and the internet has changed everything. It is up to each artist, producer and engineer to create their own standards within their use of equipment, budget, goals and time.

ProTools is not the industry standard. Moreover, its what a lot of people in the industry are using.

ProTools LE is what most people are familiar with these days. It offers only 32 tracks with limited track capability, EQ is not on every track, and midi editing & capabilities have been considered poor in comparision to others in the market with the track limitations. Some people use ProTools and another sequencer which adds additional expenses of time and money.

We highly suggest don't invest in ProTools because you heard that everyone is using it. We recommend doing the research. It is very important to weigh the feature list and pricing as with any investment decision before deciding if it is right for you.