I'm updating to Sequoia 14. I just can't justify relearning a new platform. I feel you pain though, I remember that happening to you.
$1000 for an upgrade is expensive indeed.

I have been looking at Merging Technologies for years. I would love to have a Pyramix system.
http://www.merging.com/

What would you replace Sequoia with? Lets discuss that.

Their PC boxes look pretty nice:
http://www.merging.com/products/pyramix/turnkey

Merging Technologies’ iconic Quintessence Chassis provides the Swiss-precision of the Merging brand in a turnkey computer system designed for the most intense of production DSP and storage needs. Boasting a possible 6TB of internal storage and optional, in-built RAID solutions, along with redundant power supply options and a host of other top-in-class features, Quintessence is the ultimate workstation PC solution for any workflow.

Silence
When you need to get close to the performance for your recording, or if you need a critical listening environment with no sonic distractions, then you need the new Merging Silence Turnkey Chassis from Merging Technologies. Built with no moving parts at all but still able to provide enough horse-power to run even the largest of sessions, Merging Silence provides without compromise.

I'm thinking potentially to keep my v13 - primarily for editing - and to pick up the Pyramid Native package. It only supports 48 tracks of source material at 96 kHz, but that is likely enough for me. I would use a laptop with windows 10 - just picked up a Dell precision workstation 7510 that should keep me going for a good four years. I'm liking the thought of using Ravenna with the ASIO driver. And all of this to use along with Sequoia v13 which should work perfectly. I'll be testing with the demo version before I take any plunges, and of course I will wait and see what v14 brings to the table. Of course another possibility is to go with Samplitude Pro X3...

Merging does make some great looking hardware, I must admit. The HAPI has me drooling... I would love to get one with two of the ADA8 cards to give me 16 channels of io with mic pre's... but I think that will have to wait. I am moving house and will finally get a dedicated mixing space, and most of my (other) spare cash will be going towards room treatment for the foreseeable future.
-Richard

I just contacted MT for more info. There is a lot to read on their website! Wow. I'm trying to get my head around all their products. It looks like they have something similar to Avid, meaning DSP card, a PC and interfacing then various DAW systems .

Do you understand their DAW system well?
How does your workflow go? If you were to add Merging Technologies to your workflow, would you multi-track with them and Master with Sequoia?

I can't claim to know it well, only what I have gleaned from my research over about the last month or so. I believe that many consider Sequoia to have the superior editing toolset, and so will edit their takes in Sequoia and then mix in Pyramix. I would certainly multitrack and mix with Pyramix - the bussing and routing layout looks very very clean and flexible, and feels more like a console in that the signal flow feels more explicit. I still have trouble keeping track of my aux send assignments in Sequoia. Whether mastering to Sequoia would be better; I don't know - I don't do any real mastering, only pseudo-mastering for client reference. For the time being I will hold fire and keep my powder dry - Sequoia 13 is perfectly adequate (or more than) to my needs. It's just that for the price of the upgrade, perhaps I would be happier with both Pyramix and Sequoia 13, assuming that Sequoia 14 doesn't bring anything compelling to the table that Pro X hasn't also got. For you, though, the cost of Pyramix would be higher as you would need higher track counts (or Maxcore) and hence an up level edition.

I am also very much drawn to their hardware, and in particular the use of ethernet with Ravenna, but that can be used equally well with Sequoia.

- Richard

rjuly
Richard, have you tried the panNoir?
http://recording.org/threads/pannoir-advanced-panning-plugin-from-merging-technologies.59843/

Hey Guys, I'm looking at going exactly the other direction. I'm currently a very heavy Pyramix MassCore user, and would love to chat about your Sequoia experience.

I have frustrations with the Merging DAW.

Jesse

jessesbakery, post: 450647, member: 50614 wrote: Hey Guys, I'm looking at going exactly the other direction. I'm currently a very heavy Pyramix MassCore user, and would love to chat about your Sequoia experience.

I have frustrations with the Merging DAW.

Jesse

Sure thing - I would love to get your perspective on Pyramix, and this is certainly a good place to discuss Sequoia(maybe the only place).

So, what are the frustrations? Sequoia is certainly the 'other' pro/audiophile grade DAW along with Pyramix, but my impression from the little time I spent with the Pyramix demo, is that they are quite differerent. Sequoia has a great deal to offer, but like every other DAW it is has its own gestalt and the devil is in the details. What are you hoping for from Sequoia?
- Richard

I'm Seriously Following this thread...

Just Lurking and reading for now.

I have been with Pyramix since v4.3, 2006. Use for DSD/DXD and high rate PCM. It is a great DAW.

I don't know if there is better in Sequoia, but I am looking.

'Classical' productions are now somewhat a hybrid for me - always pure acoustic elements, but also some MIDI, overdubs on a second complete layer (all mics, recorded a second or third time), or fully isolated sources for punch-ins. Also video. It's complex, and fun :)

Is anyone using Sequoia/Samplitude for:
- MIDI and VSTi
- high channel count post-production, >100 tracks
- video post
- high sample rate productions, 192k or 352.8k?

Some other lingering questions:

How is VST support? Stable? (Pyramix is good, much better in the last 18mos)
How is source-destination editing/ripple with complex sets of destination track groups? (Pyramix does this AMAZINGLY)
Does source-destination work well with MIDI tracks as well?
How do you get around the lack of multichannel strips? (Pyramix supports massive numbers of channels per strip)
How is general system stability? Good? (Pyramix by and large is solid - especially in MassCore for recording)
How is ASIO support? Anything odd, incompatible?

I can speak in troves about Pyramix, but having been with it for so long, my perspective may be a little skew'd. My workflow is tied to Pyramix in the best ways - I'm sure Sequoiatude peeps relying on object-oriented editing can relate.

Pyramix:
1) does not support multithreaded CPUs in Native (though MassCore is great, but requires extremely specific computer hardware)
2) does not support MIDI or VSTi
3) is unwieldy tracking and editing complex sets of acoustically isolated track groups - Pro Tools is king there, but does not do Source-Destination which is the deal breaker for me.

What details cause you trouble in Sequoia? Are there two or three you could share? I would like to climb the learning curve here on the forum before trying on a full production on Sequoia...

Many thanks to you all,
Jesse

Hi Jesse,

jessesbakery, post: 450662, member: 50614 wrote: Is anyone using Sequoia/Samplitude for:
- MIDI and VSTi

Yes, works good for me

jessesbakery, post: 450662, member: 50614 wrote: - high channel count post-production, >100 tracks

I've had around 64 tracks going and I'm told it will do 1000 but for the most part, I try and keep track counts down

jessesbakery, post: 450662, member: 50614 wrote: - high sample rate productions, 192k or 352.8k?

I prefer good converters and 96k for most project so I can't tell you above that. I have tracked at 192k but only to compare.

jessesbakery, post: 450662, member: 50614 wrote: How is VST support? Stable? (Pyramix is good, much better in the last 18mos)

Other than a few special plugs, I don't have much desire for 3 party plugins. Fabfilter works well.

jessesbakery, post: 450662, member: 50614 wrote: How is source-destination editing/ripple with complex sets of destination track groups? (Pyramix does this AMAZINGLY)

I don't understand this terminology but Sequoia is awesome for editing groups or individual tracks, objects.

jessesbakery, post: 450662, member: 50614 wrote: Does source-destination work well with MIDI tracks as well?

Midi works great and I believe Sequoia "14" improves upon midi > and midi to audio and more.

jessesbakery, post: 450662, member: 50614 wrote: How do you get around the lack of multichannel strips? (Pyramix supports massive numbers of channels per strip)

The stock channel strip is all I need. It does exactly what it is supposed too do. Works like an analog console per-say.

jessesbakery, post: 450662, member: 50614 wrote: How is general system stability? Good? (Pyramix by and large is solid - especially in MassCore for recording)

Great. Object editing helps improve that, as well as using a good interface.

jessesbakery, post: 450662, member: 50614 wrote: How is ASIO support? Anything odd, incompatible?

Again, its all about the interface imho.

jessesbakery, post: 450662, member: 50614 wrote: What details cause you trouble in Sequoia? Are there two or three you could share? I would like to climb the learning curve here on the forum before trying on a full production on Sequoia...

Utra high sample rates, track processing complexity, excessive use of plugins, poor computing, poor interfacing, poor power all contribute to the breakdown of smooth performance. I find having a good PCIe interface and it preferably MADI, is a critical component. I think the wrong interface fools us into thinking something else is wrong more times than not. RME PCIe interfacing works great.

On that note... I've been using Sequoia for about 10 years. Download Samplitude ProX 3 demo and try it out for the month. It will give you a solid view of what Sequoia is all about. If you like Sam, you will love Sequoia.

Hope that helps.

Demo is the way to go - sounds like a pretty ideal system in many ways, and worth a try.

Anyone with Pyramix questions, feel free to direct them my way.

Jesse

For giggles, I ran Samplitude pro x3 on a Windows tablet (model: digiland dl808w- Intel atom quad 1.8ghz,bay trail) that I grabbed at the local electronics big box recently. I've reliably run steroe mastering style stuff with 3 instances of Pro L from fabfilter, and about 10 instances of ozone stuff, on spectate test sessions. All this while connected to the Internet, streaming to a Bluetooth speaker, and using the built in audio drivers, and aiso4all.

I've done this on a dozen spectate times and Samplitude has not crashed, or even glitched until pushed past the limit.

For comparison the same tablet barely ran one instance of BFD standalone, and did handled basic level adjustments, but anything much more it was too much. Some days the BFD wouldn't run.

Having not been able to dig deep, I can report surprising efficiency and reliability for Samplitude pro x3, on a machine that is touchscreen, and is really low powered as far as computing goes. It honestly handles the daw better than web browsing/pandora, which is a bit sluggish.

This really is a testament to the reliability of Samplitude to me.

As far as comparing to pyramix I haven't used pyramix, but am certainly interested in your findings about it relative to sequoia.

kmetal, post: 450673, member: 37533 wrote: As far as comparing to pyramix I haven't used pyramix, but am certainly interested in your findings about it relative to sequoia.

Yes, me too.

Ok - Sequoia installed. I'm looking for some resources to get up to speed fast. Using my instincts and the manual, I have not figured some things. I am trying to import a project into Sequoia for post, recorded in Pyramix:

• 37 tracks, 96k
• recorded film-style in sync with a ref track and click.
• I have mono waves of all takes, AAF of each 'playlist' if needed
• I have a midi ref for the click grid
• I have the ref audio track :)

class="xf-ul">
Could anyone guide me to some resources on:

• importing lots of tracks in sync, then choosing takes from those tracks
• grabbing an alternate take of only a subset of tracks, or group of tracks
• creating a second or third layer of all of those tracks, and choosing from the same takes for them too

class="xf-ul">
This is something Pyramix does very easily, and from what I can tell, Sequoia does also... I just haven't sorted it out yet.

Thanks so much!
Jesse

right on.

Here are most of kraznet tutorials. Keep in mind the skins may be different and some changes to how things appear from older versions to now can be confusing. Samplitude and Sequoia are basically the same. Once you understand Samplitude, the extra's Sequoia offers will fall into place.

https://recording.org/media/categories/kraznet-samplitude.20/
http://support2.magix.net/boards/samplitude/index.php?act=idx

This is SO great. Thank you.

I would like to use this comping method (https://recording.org/media/samplitude-pro-x-multitrack-comping-youtube.275/) with audio imported from another DAW. Do you know how I can import audio such that it shows up in the take list?

Jesse

Report #1: Pyramix user trying Sequoia

I must say that I find the mixing and bussing in Sequoia VERY intuitive. In Pyramix, 1) busses cannot be rearranged 2) and there is no elegant solution to side-chains. Sequoia solves those two issues for me elegantly.

Side-chaining in Pyramix must be done by converting a bus into a multichannel (either a 1-ch bus into a 2-ch bus, or a 2-ch into a 4-ch) to accept the routing on the latter channels. WHEN this conversion is made, ALL routing in and out of the bus is removed, as are all of the plugins - one must foresee all side-chain needs ahead of time or else much work has to redone. Side-chaining must be done with busses, and is not possible from one strip to another.

Multichannel strips: I am missing already Pyramix's multichannel strips and busses. I often run bussing/panning in 3-ch LCR to maintain surround compatibility. I heard Sequoia might implement this, and that others are hoping for it too.

My Pyramix MassCore supports 128 tracks of 192k record - and I often record 30-40 tracks, sometimes as many as 80-90 tracks at that samp rate. I don't have an ASIO interface which will feed so many tracks to Sequoia. Trying to import those wave files to Sequoia in a way that facilitates fast editing has evaded me so far. Pyramix editing is winning at the moment, but there's much more learning curve to the Sequoia editing world yet for me.

Jesse

Hey, good to read all this and thanks for reporting back. The reporting back is what we want! When you are stumped, check out the support forum. There are guys in there that have been on Samplitude for a decade or more that can likely solve the majority of all questions.

jessesbakery, post: 450949, member: 50614 wrote: Multichannel strips: I am missing already Pyramix's multichannel strips and busses. I often run bussing/panning in 3-ch LCR to maintain surround compatibility. I heard Sequoia might implement this, and that others are hoping for it too.

jessesbakery, post: 450949, member: 50614 wrote: My Pyramix MassCore supports 128 tracks of 192k record - and I often record 30-40 tracks, sometimes as many as 80-90 tracks at that samp rate. I don't have an ASIO interface which will feed so many tracks to Sequoia. Trying to import those wave files to Sequoia in a way that facilitates fast editing has evaded me so far. Pyramix editing is winning at the moment, but there's much more learning curve to the Sequoia editing world yet for me.

Definitely ask here: http://support2.magix.net/boards/samplitude/index.php?act=idx

The Samp forum is a very good resource. One of the most knowledgeable cats over there is Kraznet (Martin) ... who also has some incredibly well-done instructional videos for Samp and Sequoia on YT. I think it's perhaps even possible that he knows more about some of the workings of those platforms than some of the people who actually work at Magix.
I'd love for him to be a member here.
When I was first starting out with Samplitude, after Chris (audiokid) and Tim Dolbear (TimDolbear) suggested it to me, I kind of made the mistake of switching to it right in the middle of an album project (side note to self.... don't ever do this again. LOL) but once I had made the decision to do that, and had committed to it, his videos were absolutely "mission-critical". I couldn't have ever done it without his instructional vids. Samp and Sequoia are so feature-rich, and so powerful, that it's not really a platform you just step into and get to know right away.
(Object Based Editing was a game-changer for me).
His vids are clear, concise, right to the heart of the subject and laid out in a step by step fashion.
Martin doesn't know it, but he saved my bacon (and my sanity) more times than I can count. ;)
FWIW
-d

DonnyThompson, post: 450954, member: 46114 wrote: I kind of made the mistake of switching to it right in the middle of an album project (side note to self.... don't ever do this again. LOL)

Oh Man, you were brave but ready to do a big switch. I could tell you were hearing stuff I heard in Sonar that didn't sit well with you either. I experienced the same as you with Pro Tools and Sonar. I downloaded Samplitude and instantly heard the difference, saw how intuitive it was as well. It wasn't until about 12 months into using it did I start really digging into object based editing. It takes a while to re-curve how you use plugins.
example: Pro Tools marketing is all about support of purchase, instilling their user-base to be all jacked up on how many plugins you can run in a session. Its a game they created. The more plugs you can run, the more you think you have a "pro " setup.

Samplitude is the opposite. Pro Tools users need to be deprogrammed lol. Stacking plugs on plug is about the worst thing to do imho. The less the better. Which is why Object Based Editing makes so much sense.

Object Editibg was a game-changer for me. It seemed difficult to grasp st first but once I did it seemed so intuitive. I work with it Now without really even having to think about it, it's become a second nature thing.
It was just very new to me at the time, and not having had any previous experience with that as part of my mix flow, it took a little time to get to know it - and to see how incredibly useful it was.
Funny thing about Sonar - beyond the audible difference - it was one of their newer layouts that sent me into a tail spin. At that time I had just gone 64 bit with windows 8, and I had been working with Sonar PE, which I had grown very accustomed to layout wise ... I tried their new X platform and it wasn't anywhere near the same. Everything had changed; so I figured if I was going to have to learn a new platform anyway, I might as well learn one that was more powerful and intuitive. I knew I wasn't going back to PT - the main reason was because Avid had gained quite the sour reputation for customer support.
So I caved to Chris's continual suggestions about Samp, and I've been a Samp user ever since.
I do think that there are some good platforms out there now... S1 is one, and Harrison Mixbus has its own cool vibe too (for mixing) but those hadn't come into their own yet at the time I made the switch.
In any regard, I wouldn't ever recommend switching platforms in the middle of a big project. ;)

If I didn't use Samplitude I'd use sequoia (one day, one day). Otherwise reaper is probably better the most or all of the others. Supports any sample rate your hardware will, does surround, is open source. Reaper can actually run off a flash stick. It's got extremely efficient coding from the get go. I believe this Samplitude is also very well coded and streamlined. Very stable.

Okay, its official. I have Samplitude Pro X3 to give away!

I'm not sure how this is going to go as we've never used this software for a contest but I'm going to give it a try. Here is the platform and where it begins.
https://recording.org/referral-contests/