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mberry593 12 April 2012

. .just in case you missed it, 10.1.2 is (finally) available.

connection diagram.

Comments

mberry593 Thu, 04/12/2012 - 19:45

Probably the biggest consideration is the (hopeful) improvement in the 'audio suddenly stopping' bug. That alone made it very important.

Yeah there are a great number of people complaining that the windows users didn't get the AAX plugs. I don't see that as a big problem yet for the natives (that's me) but I understand why the HD people were anxious.

Really, I'm happy now. I never do anything big enough to need 64 bits. I intend to stay with 10 for a long time as the way I understand it, it will be the only way to run AAX & all my RTAS which I don't want to pay to upgrade.

EDIT: Perhaps I should explain this some more for people who may not have followed the issue. There is a painful thread over at the DUC that is 37 pages long with 362 posts from people who have had PT 10 stop playing in the middle of a session. Some have had the embarrassment of having clients walk out. Hopefully this maintenance update will address that problem. Please read issue PTSW-157510 on page 2 of the update notes.

http://akmedia.digidesign.com/support/docs/Pro_Tools_10_1_2_Read_Me_Win_76152.pdf

This looks like it may be the fix.

hueseph Fri, 04/13/2012 - 05:08

mberry593, post: 388032 wrote: Yeah there are a great number of people complaining that the windows users didn't get the AAX plugs. I don't see that as a big problem yet for the natives (that's me) but I understand why the HD people were anxious.

That's great! ....wait a minute....

HDX hardware is not supported on Windows at this time.

But all can't be lost can it?

Windows Users

Please note that some core plug-ins were updated to AAX versions with the Pro Tools HD 10.1 Mac release. Since there was no corresponding Windows release of 10.1, the Windows versions of these plug-ins are still in development and should be available in a subsequent release.

[h=4][/h]

RemyRAD Fri, 04/13/2012 - 08:38

I am the Pro Fool who really doesn't Pro Tool. I'm still utilizing version 7 when I utilize it at all. I mean it's cool and all that but I really never liked their hardware and still don't. I don't believe any so-called professionals that don't include proper documentation of their product material for maintenance purposes. Proprietary microphone preamps my ass.

And I've got a big one.
Mx. Remy Ann David

mberry593 Fri, 04/13/2012 - 09:21

RemyRAD, post: 388055 wrote: I really never liked their hardware and still don't.

You do realize that since ver 9, you no longer are required to use Avid hardware.

+1 on the documentation issue.

BTW, A thought came to me about the gain structure of the Mbox 3 Pro. (Here I go off topic again. Mods: please forgive me) There is one application for which it comes close. If you use a console just for the preamps when tracking and take the signals from the insert points it can come out close to ok. Many consoles run their insert points at -2. If you take that into the line input of a Mbox 3 Pro, it comes out in PT at -16 dBFS. That's still a little on the hot side but now we are getting close to something usable. In any case, if that is what Avid had in mind........WHY DIDN"T THEY LABEL THE JACKS THAT WAY?!?!? (My apologies for yelling. I know it is bad etiquette, but this bugs me.)

EDIT: Remember the old Avid Newscutters? O = -14 I remember the first one I saw. KING had it at their Washington bureau. This must have been about 1993. Even back then that hit me as a really bad idea.

TheJackAttack Fri, 04/13/2012 - 15:55

The analog of the MBox is garbage and that includes the internally padded "line" input. There is no advantage to PT over any other DAW when one takes away the HD hardware so no real reason to upgrade unless PT is already one's preferred program OR if one's market area demands having PT visible whether utilized or not.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2

hueseph Sat, 04/14/2012 - 19:44

The worst thing about this is that I have a feeling the next major update will be an upgrade and that will be the release of 10.2 or PT 11 which will finally support the HDX cards. So there are users out there who paid big money for their HDX cards and can't use them.

HDX hardware is not supported on Windows at this time.

Is this some sort of cruel joke?

So they won't be able to use their hardware's full potential until the next major upgrade which will be paid if they didn't buy into the Avid Advantage. And if their Advantage service has expired, they will be paying full price for the upgrade, in which case they will have paid nearly twice the retail value of the upgrade(if you factor in the price of the Advantage service). The shareholders love this. It's a huge advantage for Avid(pardon the pun). It's fleecing the users though. I find it quite offensive.

mberry593 Mon, 04/16/2012 - 14:45

The HDX situation is so bad that I believe that I must be misunderstanding something. Someone please tell me what I have wrong.

As I understand it, HDX can not use TDM plug-ins. Yes, it is a good thing to get beyond TDM as in many cases it was inferior to RTAS even though the plugs cost more. But how does Avid expect anyone to convert all of their TDM to AAX? Even if you consider cost-no-object, many of them are not available at all. Please understand that there will be 2 flavors of AAX....one for the natives and one for the HDX people. Here is the real kicker...Although they have committed to native AAX, Waves has not even announced that they will do HDX AAX plug-ins at all!

Listen to this brief interview...

[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.pro-tool…"]NAMM 2012: Waves Respond To AAX Concerns  - Pro Tools Tips, Tricks & More... - Pro Tools Expert Blog[/]="http://www.pro-tool…"]NAMM 2012: Waves Respond To AAX Concerns  - Pro Tools Tips, Tricks & More... - Pro Tools Expert Blog[/]

Like them or not, you have got to admit that Waves plugs are in use at a vast number of studios and most can not continue to work if they convert to HDX. That's just one of many problems.

I'm a native and therefore I don't care but this has got to be wrong. I have other problems. I'll put them in a different post just to make them clear.

OK. Please, tell me what I misunderstand. Please!

mberry593 Mon, 04/16/2012 - 15:16

OK, for the natives, I believe we are sort of being forced into PT 10. Here is why. Again, I believe that I must be misunderstanding something. Please correct me.

AAX is the Avid 64 bit plug-in format of the future. Some third-party plug-in companies have already coded new versions of their products and many more have announced their intentions to do so in the near future. We can expect to see no more development of 'obsolete' RTAS plugs. There will come a day when in order to purchase a new plug-in for PT, it will be necessary to be able to do AAX. At that point, PT 9 and older will not be adequate.

Whenever Avid does go 64 bit (I assume that will be version 11), the understanding is that RTAS will no longer work.

"The RTAS and TDM formats will continue to be supported in the 32-bit versions of Pro Tools but will not be supported once Pro Tools is released as a 64-bit application." source= [[url=http://[/URL]="http://createdigita…"]A New Plug-in Format, Really? Avid Answers Our Questions About AAX and Pro Tools[/]="http://createdigita…"]A New Plug-in Format, Really? Avid Answers Our Questions About AAX and Pro Tools[/] (note: TDM already has problems!!! See above post.

So in order to use your old RTAS plugs & be able to use any new plugs, you must have the transitional PT 10. 9 or earlier won't work. 11 or later won't work. If you don't buy PT 10 now before 11 is released, you will be reduced to finding a copy of 10 on ebay if you want to continue to play. In that way, we are being forced to buy 10.

Someone tell me what I misunderstand.

audiokid Mon, 04/16/2012 - 15:18

Well I'm looking forward to this thread.

I'll start by saying I don't think Avid has a choice if they are to keep tight in the hardware business. We all know DAW's sound the same, right? They have got to get better, or pretend to get better, or there is no reason for the new DAW generation questioning all this hype, to spend hard to come by money on anything that smells like BS or trouble. And if it will convert TDM/ 32bit then what is it really. I bet there will be a lot of noise over that.

I don't think its going to roll out that clean and simple.

And this all being said, why are we trying to get better sound when the majority of the music buying generation is not even listening to the sound. Its really quite ironic. I have no need to go beyond 88.2 and I love how audio sounds through high end analog so this is going to get interesting.

hueseph Mon, 04/16/2012 - 15:54

mberry593: I don't think you are misreading anything. I've been to a couple of Avid presentations and they push a lot of hype but when you start asking questions, they get defensive real quick. It's funny how they revel at the fact that you can now have more than one plugin open at one time! More than one! Of course the way they presented it was " finally after ten years of requests, you can have more than one plugin open at one time!". As if this was some sort of revelation.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to have an HDX system with all the bells and whistles but I think for the price, I could have a pretty smokin analog console with digital capabilities, a nice interface, a new set of monitors and still have some change left over for a mic or two. That and I would bet it would run a lot smoother with Cubase,Sonar or just about any other DAW. I love the workflow in PT but the DAE errors get annoying. 24 tracks at about 20% cpu and I'm running out of power? Don't waste my time Avid.

RemyRAD Mon, 04/16/2012 - 20:16

That and they were so proud that you could now do fades and dissolves without the program creating tons of little files. DUH, wow like Sony Vegas and others haven't been doing that for years already. I laughed when I heard that at their presentation this past October at the AES. I don't think that's anything to be proud of? It's like telling people at age 56, I no longer piss in my pants anymore.

I'm not saying anything about take two.
Mx. Remy Ann David

audiokid Mon, 05/21/2012 - 12:20

I really want to invest in the basic Pro Tools again, for importing purposes, but I just can't bend over that hard yet. WTF are they doing to us. I think this company is way too top heavy. Hueseph, I always have a chuckle with you on these. I'm sure we are not the most favorite tag team when it comes to PT here. ROTF.

I'm trying to accept this all. Maybe I should buy a few good bottles of 18 year old scotch to help push me into PT 10. What do you think?

hueseph Mon, 05/21/2012 - 12:39

I can tell you that I'm in the good books with Brian Carter :tongue:. Yup. Asked one too many pertinent questions at the HDX presentation. I asked two questions. 1: Will PT support RTAS when it is 64 bit? 2: What will happen with all the current plugins that we've already paid for? Will we get AAX versions or have to pay for them? He was not happy with me.

I really want to like Pro Tools but I can't get over the DAE errors. It's a bit of a joke. I shouldn't be having issues at under 24 tracks. Maybe it's because of the UAD card but it works fine in Sonar.

BobRogers Wed, 05/23/2012 - 02:44

audiokid, post: 389822 wrote: I really want to invest in the basic Pro Tools again, for importing purposes, but I just can't bend over that hard yet. WTF are they doing to us. I think this company is way too top heavy. Hueseph, I always have a chuckle with you on these. I'm sure we are not the most favorite tag team when it comes to PT here. ROTF.

I'm trying to accept this all. Maybe I should buy a few good bottles of 18 year old scotch to help push me into PT 10. What do you think?

I'm thinking that the big shakeout will come with PT11 and 64 bit. Everything they have been doing for the past ten months seems like bridges and band-aids. They are trying to prepare their legacy customers for a big change - a break from the past. My guess is that it is a matter of months. The rollouts of PT9 and PT10 don't give me a lot of confidence, but if PT11 comes out relatively error free I'll probably pay up and walk away happy. (Like Hueseph, my situation is complicated by the fact that I've invested in UAD. I'm assuming that UA and Avid will roll out 64 bit more or less simultaneously. I've not had the DAE errors with UAD and PT10 that Hueseph has had - knock wood,)

RemyRAD Wed, 05/23/2012 - 09:21

You guys are talking like it's necessary to buy a new car every year. We now have commercial companies that will fly into space without NASA's help. Does that mean we should utilize their services to go from New York to California? What is necessary? That's the question. 64-bit floating-point? What will this do to improve recorded sound? I'm still waiting for a real practical usable true digital microphone. I was at MIX Nashville (I'm still in Nashville) and was speaking to Neumann/Sennheiser. They actually do have a true digital microphone much like I conceived 10 years ago. They said their problem was noise. They said it was not usable for audio purposes but for scientific and industrial measurement purposes. And I still don't like PCM recording. It's segmented and I can hear that/perceive that. It's the analogy to fluorescent lighting which looks continuous but is not. Our eyes generally perceive it as a continuous flow of light. But some of our brains actually perceive the 60/50 Hz flutter. I can't stand that. I can't work under that. It drives me crazy as if I am not crazy enough already. Of course there are fools born every second. Or maybe even every 44,100 times per second and even faster. That's way too foolish for me. 5000+ DB of dynamic range processing would be analogous to everyone owning Lamborghinis and driving at 200+ miles per hour on the highways. It's a cool thought but where is the practicality? Of course technology marches on and is continuous. But computers as compared to electrons will never be fast enough until we get analog computers moving at the speed of light. So maybe we should wait on our purchases for another 100 years or so?

Beam me up Scotty
Mx. Remy Ann David

audiokid Wed, 05/23/2012 - 12:44

BobRogers, post: 389888 wrote: I'm thinking that the big shakeout will come with PT11 and 64 bit. Everything they have been doing for the past ten months seems like bridges and band-aids. They are trying to prepare their legacy customers for a big change - a break from the past. My guess is that it is a matter of months. The rollouts of PT9 and PT10 don't give me a lot of confidence, but if PT11 comes out relatively error free I'll probably pay up and walk away happy. (Like Hueseph, my situation is complicated by the fact that I've invested in UAD. I'm assuming that UA and Avid will roll out 64 bit more or less simultaneously. I've not had the DAE errors with UAD and PT10 that Hueseph has had - knock wood,)

Bob or others,

Do you think Avid is working with UA or threatened by their popularity?

Remy, for me at least, its not a matter of getting the latest thing, its a matter of having the standard DAWs in my studio for importing purposes. But, if PT actually worked for me in a hybrid set-up, I may consider using it. Its been 8 years since I produced a song on PT. I don't miss it one bit but I'm always ready to merge the direction that helps me.

IMO, its the plug-ins that are the money makers, not the DAW or hardware. But the hardware is what really locks the user in so they are committed to continue supporting the plug-ins they make. I would love to be a fly on the wall when UA is being discussed.

BobRogers Wed, 05/23/2012 - 13:26

RemyRAD, post: 389902 wrote: You guys are talking like it's necessary to buy a new car every year...

It may sound like that, But I basically agree with what you are saying. I've skipped several generations of PT upgrades - and really TRY to upgrade only when it makes a difference in the way I do business. PT9 freed me from Digi hardware. PT10 was a closer thing. I did it for the ADC extension.

As far as PT11 goes, we will see. I'm hoping (but not really expecting) that they've taken the opportunity to create a more stable program. They enjoy the advantage of having been first in the market, but that means the code has been tweaked, added to, and modified forever to be all things to all people. Right now it's clearly a bit of a hairball. Every upgrade gets off to a bumpy start. They've taken their time to release 64 bits, but maybe that means they are doing it right and having someone go over all those nasty bits of undocumented crap that the programmer who left two years ago wrote. (Maybe those things don't happen at Avid, but their software act like they happen.)

BobRogers Wed, 05/23/2012 - 13:32

audiokid, post: 389919 wrote: Do you think Avid is working with UA or threatened by their popularity?

I have no real feel for this. On the surface they seem to be working together. I'm not sure that Avid is hoping to bet its future on the low-end hardware market or the plugin market. I think in the past the hardware has been basically dongles for the software. Seems that now they think the iLok is a sufficient dongle.

RemyRAD Wed, 05/23/2012 - 14:51

If our computers where fast and efficient enough to all be utilizing 1 bit, DSD, I'd be in happy land. And I'm not talking about anything converted from PCM but originating as single bit DSD. THAT is the closest digital I have heard to analog. That Korg device has virtually vanished from the face of the planet. One of the reasons for that I believe is that the software is completely impractical, expensive and lacks the effects support that everybody wants. Even SA CD's have vanished. To me, PCM is like recording a master mix down for your client on a roll of already used spliced up tape. That's almost as funny as trying to save your client money on their 2 inch analog tape by running the machine at 7.5 IPS. LOL, something Billy Mueller did at Flite Three when they first hired him on after having been only a PA guy. I once goofed around with my Ampex MM 1200 with an oscillator to get it to run at 60 IPS. A roll of 2 inch was good enough for a single song of short duration LMAO. And with that, you really didn't need any NAB/CCIR/AES pre-emphasis/de-emphasis. Though of course I did not bother to modify the EQ cards for that joke purpose. I really wigged the band out when they thought they were going to get 1/2 hour per roll. It was really rather thin sounding since the head bump moved up to 120 Hz. LOL

Everybody knows I'm a smartass
Mx. Remy Ann David

hueseph Wed, 05/23/2012 - 17:14

The problem with Pro Tools is instead of revising the engine, they just try and patch it. I sincerely hope that PT11 will put an end to this. They really need to do a rewrite. Just start from scratch because the old engine is faulty. I know they told us that 9 was a complete rewrite but it seems as though, it's still based on the old software. To say that it's because PT is trying to please everyone isn't really seeing the forest for the trees either. Cubase, Live, Reaper, these guys are all multi platform and seem to have stability under control for the most part. Sonar is Windows only but supports a plethora of hardware and seems to be very stable. Well, it has been very stable for me.

As far as UAD and Pro Tools are concerned, I think they were good and buddy buddy up until Apollo was announced. If you remember the Avid video, this one:

it seems like Avid were showing off what they might have felt to be a breakthrough device. If there was no contract that prevented UA from releasing the Apollo, they must have seriously ruffled some feathers. That was supposed to be Avid's leading edge. An HD box that was self contained with built in DSP.

If Avid makes that available. I don't know. I might be willing to invest in it. As it is, PT9 is a dog anytime I use a UA plug. I can use them if I increase my buffers to 1024. That's ok. I can do that but it only works for a while then I get errors. I try not to use the UA plugins in PT unless I feel it is the absolute best tool and not using it will make or break the track. Other than that, I'm happy to use Sonar. It works well. It's still a bit more cumbersome to use but I can do it and hey, the results are pretty nice.

Anyway, enough of my bellyaching.

mberry593 Thu, 05/24/2012 - 09:53

I'm still not looking forward to PT11 at all. I'm happy with 10.2.0. The next step IMO is not Avid's. it is the 3rd party people's. It doesn't matter if 11 is available tomorrow, it is free, it is 100% bug free, & 64 bits.....I can't use it until the third party guys port the plugins to AAX. I'm really talking about Waves & Antares here. Both have said they are going to but haven't set a date. I'm not sure how Apollo fits into this.....I guess I need to research it a bit. Does it work AAX style now, is it just AAX ready, or is that a irrelevant question?

mberry593 Thu, 05/24/2012 - 19:45

audiokid, post: 389964 wrote: Hey guys, what is AAX?

AAX is Avid Audio Extensions. It is a new format for plug-ins that will replace TDM & RTAS. Here is the situation.

Pro Tools at this point (versions 10 and earlier) is 32 bit. That doesn't have anything to do with audio encoding. It is just how much memory the program can address. It comes out to be a little under 4 gig. For many of us, this isn't any problem at all. However the people who work on movies and large post-production projects are limited in how many channels they can run. Avid promises that the next version (11) will be 64 bits and therefore be able to address much more memory to allow larger sessions. Please, please understand this has nothing to do with audio quality, it is just session size.

The problem is that the traditional TDM & RTAS plug-ins will not be compatible with Pro Tools 11. Pro Tools 11 will only work with the new AAX plug ins. Avid has already ported many of their bundled plug-ins to AAX but third party people have been slower. You can follow the process on this database that Russ maintains....

[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.pro-tool…"]AAX Database - Pro Tools Expert Blog[/]="http://www.pro-tool…"]AAX Database - Pro Tools Expert Blog[/]

The current version, Pro Tools 10 is a transitional version that will run both the old and the new plug-ins.

Now, lets talk quality. RTAS users should not experience any quality change when moving to AAX. The story is different, however for TDM. TDM used 48 bit fixed point to move audio to and from the plug ins. AAX will use 32 bit floating point. Please note that this is not necessarily what the plug in will use to do internal math....it is just the data path. The internal math is up to the coder and may be much higher. The actual internal mix engine of Pro Tools 11 is unknown at this time. Actually the mix engine of Pro Tools 10 is up to debate but it is definitely at least 32 bit floating point. We know that it is floating point because it can recover from digital clipping.

So, to sum it all up. If you have a large investment in TDM and/or RTAS plug-ins, the future is unknown. The Avid plug-ins were updated to AAX at no charge. I'm not so sure that all third party software people will port for free.

IHTH

audiokid Thu, 05/24/2012 - 22:55

Thanks for explaining AAX!

Yes, compatibility is why I am so turned off of it all. I hate that feeling of worrying if your DAW is going to crash or choke . I hate it when I update my software, to fix stuff and find out something else is dead. So then you invest in more and it just keeps going.

I think its going to be a roller coaster for a few years with 64bit compatibility.

I can see myself buying PT 11 and not using any third party stuff. Just using the basic plugs and going hybrid with it. Thats what I'm thinking. I hope for everyone sake, it works great.

When is 11 expected to roll out?

hueseph Thu, 05/24/2012 - 23:01

As far as Audio is concerned, most of the Pro Tools users are hybrid users. That's really where most of the stability comes from. Most HD/HDX users process out of the box. That's why the ultra low latency is so crucial. When you're mixing in the box, the only latency you're really concerned about is the latency going in. When you're hybrid, you also have to worry about the latency going to your processors and back in.

I would expect 11 to roll out just after those Avid Advantage support programs expire. :rolleyes:

I'm thinking it will be either end of October/beginning of November or late February/early March. Don't ask me why I think that. It's just a hunch.

hueseph Thu, 05/24/2012 - 23:08

Avid's way or the highway

Of course there will be several entry points for purchase:

  1. Pro Tools 11 $699
  2. Upgrade from PT 8/9 $450
  3. Upgrade from PT10 $250
  4. HDX 11 only with HDX cards $6000
  5. HDX 11 Upgrade from 9 $1500
  6. HDX 11 Upgrade from 10 $ 1000
    class="xf-ul">

    Yes. I am making this all up. smoke

audiokid Thu, 05/24/2012 - 23:16

Hue, the key to avoid all the latency and goofy DA AD issues is to mix into something like the MixDream or DM 2-Bus ( one time OTB and stay there until you master or premaster it). Insert gear OTB via stems. I don't send any hardware back ITB like aux. I mix everything OTB and track > AD the 2-bus to a second DAW (now) to avoid unnecessary SRC. I don't see the advantage of inserting analog gear ITB, like a hybrid mixer set-up. I don't get that at all. duh

I want it all out and away from the DAW 2-bus as soon as its recorded or MIDI'd. Its so simple and so clean that way. Tons of headroom. No latency at all and no big worry about AD DA conversion degrading the sound.

Lets mark the date, I think you are most likely close. Avid is so predictable. The last few we've been close. :) thumb

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