Thread: Pro Tools 9, paired with new Pro Tools|HD Native Hype

I'll be at the show here in Vancouver on Thursday. If I feel like it, I may lug my laptop and take notes.

right on Hue, can't wait to here this one. I like how they are doing the slow drip, or easy does it as they basically prepare for the bomb lol.

I keep waiting for the blowout on HD systems but it just never seems to come. Milk it for what it's worth I guess. They count on people making incremental upgrades. What they don't seem to realize is that people can't afford to make incremental upgrades anymore. You either go budget or full bore. We'll see. It's very likely that they are coming out with an HD system based around Apple's Thunderbolt technology. I doubt, they will announce that during this session though. They're going to push it as long as possible. Maybe get rid of some more HD systems at nearly 25% off! LOL. Then once they've ditched the remaining core cards, given the rest to generally uninterested family members (Grandma look! I got you an HD Accel card! This was worth a lot of money when it came out.), then they will bring out the new system and all those people who paid a premium for last decades technology will realize that they could have bought the new technology along with a nice laptop for around the same price.

But, that's the cynic in me and I'm just trash talking for the fun of it. I'm sure there will be a skilled engineer demonstrating some cool features. As, there is with any promotions tour.

I think you just nailed it.

So, I went to the presentation at the H.R. MacMillan Space Center here in Vancouver. Met some nice people and was glad to see some familiar faces. There was beer and pizza and they offered a free t-shirt, pen and several promotional leaflets/cards. This was of course a sales pitch.

The intent here was that, now that HD Native has been released, the world of HD has been opened up to a user base that has largely been missing out. Missing out? On what? Well, that was the question in my head.

The presentation was given by Luke Smith. Formerly of Euphonix which of course was absorbed by Avid. so Luke kind of became an Avid representative by default. You may have seen him on some SoundPure videos. This guy:



A talented guy no doubt. He knows his Ephonix and Pro Tools inside and out.

Here are the specs for the system he was using.

Portable! HD Native.On a Macbook Pro.



Cross platform PCIe
Up to 64 channels of I/O
Up to 4 HD series I/o units.
Support for Legacy I/O
Supports most other DAWs


Portable using a Magma PCIe expander chassis via expressbus.
HD omni interface.

The first feature that he talked about was latency. This is a big factor for a lot of us. Here's the info he gave.

Latency @96k 64 sampl buffer 1.8ms. DAE

He then butress the benefits by comparing to other factors namely:

Core Audio adds another layer of latency. Firewire adds an additional layer of latency.

Explaining and comparing the resulting latencies using other PCIe interfaces it all seemed quite impressive. For example stating that using an Apogee Symphony with ProTools would result in a doubling of latency. Other similar PCIe interfaces resulting in equally large increases of latency. Well, there's a selling point. Of course there was no comparison to say, the Symphony with any other DAW like Cubase or Logic. At first it seemed impressive but after some thought, it was not thorough enough to really give merit in comparison to other systems.

The features of the Omni I/O were better. Some cool features I thought:

Omni I/O 8 “paths” Supports Fold down of 5.1/7.1 sessions.

The HD Madi seemed also pretty cool:

HD Madi. Onboard hardware samplerate conversion. 64 channels of 24/48k audio through coax.

Luke then brought up a session clip. Some cool features of the Omni I/O and Eucon integration:

Sample file from “The Pacific” Multi video Eucon control
152 channels , Multiple 5.1 stems
45% sys usage.
Omni I/O has built in master bus limiter.
Fold Down controllable from the front panel of Omni I/O

He then demonstrated Destructive Punch. Only available in Pro Tools HD. Essentially this allows you to punch in and overwrite a file instead of creating a new audio file. Well, it all seemed really cool but I'm pretty sure I was able to do this in Cubase VST 5.1. That's not to say Cubase 5 but Cubase VST which is probably 12 years old or more by now. This was supposed to be a selling point. I'm not sure that's how it came out.

Another selling point were the many features only available to HD users.

• Track input mode
• AFL/PFL
• Destructive punch
• Satellite link
• Video satellite MC
• Sync HD
• 9 pin machine control
• I/O expansion up to 64 channels

One HD feature that did seem very cool was the ability to create VCA faders. Essentially VCA faders allows control of volume without affecting automation on channels or groups.

For the last demonstration he brought up a session entirely tracked on a Portable HD system with comparable specs to the one he had running.

Session tracked entirely on HD Native


Rochelle Forel


17 tracks @ 96k 52% sys usage.

One thing I found giggle worthy was the demonstration of ADC. As if this was a new thing. This is what we've been missing as LE users! There was an audible groan when he mentioned it to begin with. The demonstration just reiterated what many of us have been complaining about for the past 5 years or more. ADC should have been standard a long time ago.

All in all it seemed an impressive presentation. What I got out of it though was this: Hear What You've Been Missing is directed toward ProTools LE users. The rest of the DAW world may not have been missing much of this at all. With the exception of VCA faders but correct me if I'm wrong on this.

There is no doubt that Avid has most of the audio world by the cohones. Is that because ProTools is the absolute most feature rich DAW system available? Maybe.

There is also no doubt that ProTools HD Native is a very powerful system. More than capable enough to run a full session of A/V post having 152 audio channels, HD video and multiple 5.1 stems all from a Glyph external hard drive. This was last years MacBook Pro without thunderbolt.

Finally what I was expecting to hear:

They offered hardware upgrades from an LE system like an 001-003, Mbox and HD or Mix sytems.

That's right. They were offering "upgrades" from HD Accel systems to HD Native. So, what are we to assume from this? First question that pops into my head is, what is going to happen to TDM? Something is on the rise. What, I can't say. Is it a surprise? Not really.

Would I want an HD Native system? Sure. Am I willing to take the leap? At $6000 for a base HD Native system, highly unlikely. I can think of better things to spend six grand on.

Awesome post Hueseph. Thank you for taking all the time to put this down. Now I'm going to go through it all.

Cheers!

Latency @96k 64 sampl buffer 1.8ms. DAE

1.8ms too much.

Originally Posted by hueseph

One HD feature that did seem very cool was the ability to create VCA faders. Essentially VCA faders allows control of volume without affecting automation on channels or groups.

Sony Vegas 6 (9 is the current version) does this by default. The channel fader is a gain stage independent of the volume automation (though that may be switchable to let you write automation with the fader). PT's channel fader/automation behavior seems clunky to me.

Thanks for the excellent post Hueseph.