Pro Tools 11

[obutcher]

Well, Pro Tools 11 is here:
http://apps.avid.com/protools11/#?intcmp=AV-HP-S1

Looks like a nice step forward. Hopefully the plugin manufacturers can catch up. No doubt the announcement is going to evoke a range of responses from people...

This video is a good look at the new features:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6-rDi7t348

[Sammas]

Its a rather reassuring, isn't it.

The additional metering looks pretty handy. It will hardly sway the protools hate-brigade... but then again, what will?

[smash]

OFFLINE BOUNCE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


And just once more...



OFFLINE BOUNCE !!!!!!!!!!!!!


(sorry rick - my ! button seems to be broken)

Simon "Smash" Ashby

[rick]

make your audio listening tasks 150 times faster !!!!!!!!!!

[waitup]

But if the bounce is really fast, when will I browse the Turtlerock forum?!

[tony]

150x bounce means I can get the stems out of the computer and listern to them on theatre systems I design for almost straight away. That will make a big difference with long soundscapes. It puts Protools back in the game for that part of my work.

[smash]

See... I don't mind listening to audio when I'm being paid to do it...

But when you are exporting an entire long form project out, for the 5th version of the mix, after your second all night-er in a row... and the only reason your going into tools is because mix number 5 is 0.5 frames out of sync with mix number 1...

That's when you swear at the lack of offline bounce.

Simon "Smash" Ashby.

[The Tasmanian]

Ive got a mate that uses protools 5
he does great work...

[Manning]

I read this article which claimed that once upon a time, people would record directly to tape - no cut and paste, no digital fixing, nothing.

I didn't believe it of course.

[Paul Maybury]

Once upon a time you could take a reel of tape off a machine, take it to another studio with a different model of machine, line it up and play the tape. All the audio tracks would line up.
Digital still can't do this.

[rick]

you had to listen to the masters in those days manning , because sometimes for no reason at all there was audio missing on the tapes after you recorded .. known as "dropouts"

I always found it curious when I looked around the room at who was listening to the tapes for drop outs .. and how many of us where highly educated .. with degrees and stuff.. ( err none )

Dropouts listening for dropouts ..

pretty much summs up the entire history of recorded music .

but now we dont need to worry bout nothin cause everything works every time 150 x real time
so there are lots of highly educated degree types making music for none money
.. nobody wants to be involved with dropouts takes too long



onwards and up wards

[Paul Maybury]

Well, imagine that you had to take your multitracks off the tape machine one track at a time, and could only do this by playing the tape all the way through for each track. Then you had to re assemble the tape before using it on another machine, then check for drop outs. That's what Pro Tools makes you do.
Of course audio is checked after rendering and again when opened in another daw. That's just Q.C.
Bouncing offline for me is much the same as being able to just take a reel of tape off a machine and put it on another one. Absolutely essential for getting any work done. Unless of course you can guarantee everyone who will work on the project has the same version of the same daw.
I am sticking to Logic for studio work.
YMMV
Cheers,
Paul

[Alastair Reynolds]

Yeah, seen it, looks OK a fair bit of interest in it at the Launch.
I'm over in Vegas at NAB ..a bit bigger than our SMPTE or integrate shows 1600 exhibitors.Also new out here Orban live 5.1 encoder from stereo on 128k AAC stream and Dolby 3D TV without glasses heaps of amazing toys.Big Calrec and SSL stands
http://www.nabshow.com

[audioio]

Will 192's be rendered obsolete with the update? We are are not disabling 192's with PT11. They will no longer be tested and qualified from PT11 forward.

Thanks Angus for summarising the transcript.

Has anyone here tried connecting an older HD interface to HDx cards?

[Manning]

I just read this on the AVID website, talking about PT10:

"Because these older hardware systems will not support 64-bit, it was important for us to do one final Pro Tools release at 32-bit and deliver the highly requested features and performance enhancements to everyone."

I'm calling bollocks on this. The bus width of the software and OS has no relationship to the bus width (or bit depth) of the audio interface.

The computer (and Pro Tools) don't communicate with the interface, they communicate with the driver. There is no technical reason why the old boxes can't be supported with rewritten (64 bit compliant) drivers.

Hence the only reason I can see for HDX not supporting the old interfaces is that AVID just don't want to.

[Sammas]

I just read this on the AVID website, talking about PT10:

"Because these older hardware systems will not support 64-bit, it was important for us to do one final Pro Tools release at 32-bit and deliver the highly requested features and performance enhancements to everyone."

I'm calling bollocks on this. The bus width of the software and OS has no relationship to the bus width (or bit depth) of the audio interface.

The computer (and Pro Tools) don't communicate with the interface, they communicate with the driver. There is no technical reason why the old boxes can't be supported with rewritten (64 bit compliant) drivers.

Hence the only reason I can see for HDX not supporting the old interfaces is that AVID just don't want to.

Hey manning!
The quote refers to TDM systems where bus width is limited to the capabilities of the DSP chips in HD systems. The mix engine in TDM runs on DSP that functions at 100% capacity 100% of the time, which made anything beyond realtime bouncing impossible.

As you have suggested 192 interfaces are not supported ("don't call us with problems, they are 12 years old, we wont help you"). The HD DSP cards on the other hand are totally incompatible ("don't bother... We made sure they don't work"). Fair enough really. HD is an aging system, and HDx gets around some of the big issues it has.

I still love my HD system though

[Sammas]

Here is avid's "go, no-go, and maybe" list.

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_U ... popup=true

[jkhuri44]

i wonder how long people can still use Avid "because its the industry standard"...what do those guys have to do to piss someone off??

[Sammas]

i wonder how long people can still use Avid "because its the industry standard"...what do those guys have to do to piss someone off??

I can only speak from my experience... HD was a breath of fresh air for me. Suddenly everything worked. Hardware inserts, headphone mixes, next to no latency, no futzing with sample buffers, no need for workarounds, no additional drivers/applications/sub mixers for audio interfaces. The lack of offline bounce is a small price to pay for what has been the most incredibly stable system I have ever used.

Have you noticed how for the last 2 or 3 years the anti-protools crowd has been jumping up and down about the lack of 64bit and offline bounce... Now only to be jumping up and down complaining about only getting 64bit and offline bounce?

I guess an equally valid question would be "what do avid have to do to not piss off some people?"

[waitup]

I really like Pro Tools. I reckon if I disliked it I'd use something else...

[The Tasmanian]

Im staying with my old HD rig - 32 in out - no problems - rock solid for nearly 10 years now.
The way I get around all of this "i'm missing out" stuff - is to run a laptop with newer versions of tools, so I can record the session on HD - where I dont need anything but no latency and stability.
Then use the laptop for doing any fancy "new" intel plug in stuff, and then consolidate.
Then mix back off HD. The lappy sits beside me with separate Mytek convertors, so I can process through it live if needs be.

2 systems really gets me around the whole upgrade debacle, and all I need to update is the cheaper lappy set-up.
The whole upgrade on HD set-ups I avoid like the plague.
So many better choices can be made with the money. (like going on a holiday)

[audioio]

I had the opportunity this week to borrow an HDx card. I can confirm that, with a Digilink adaptor cable, it works perfectly with the original HD audio interfaces. This is good news for those who might upgrade to HDx and one interface on a trade-in deal, but can't afford to replace everything at once.

[audioio]

Oh, and the original SYNC IO doesn't work at all. If your system is configured to use one, PT throws an error on startup saying that a sync interface can't be found.

[Sammas]

Has anyone else noticed the growing dissonance regarding the platform and its lack of plugins?

A bunch of plugin manufacturers that have stated they won't be creating AAX DSP versions of their TDM & AAX plugins seem to be shifting the heat onto Avid... Essentially saying "We told them not to implement HDx the way they did because it would make porting and coding AAX DSP plugins difficult and very time consuming. But they still did it."

In Waves case, 72 man years worth of work to port their full range of plugins to AAX DSP. Hopefully the release of 11 will see some plugin creators taking the plunge to AAX DSP.

[The Tasmanian]

Why go there?

[Sammas]

Why go there?

To HDx? Or into the growing dissonance?

[DarkSky]

If by "why go there" you mean why would Waves bother to implement AAX DSP versions of their plugins, then the answer is because by not doing so they risk rendering themselves obsolete (because even if a majority of users won't need the DSP versions, many of the trend setting producers and studios will, and in choosing other tools will draw the rest of the market in their wake).

If by "why go there" you mean why would Waves go to the sidelines and sit AAX DSP out, I guess it would be because they hope they can avoid the expense and still retain much of their current user base. Only time will tell if they've made the right call on this, but personally, for the present, I'm inclined to doubt it.

On the other hand, you probably meant something else entirely...

[Sammas]

If by "why go there" you mean why would Waves bother to implement AAX DSP versions of their plugins, then the answer is because by not doing so they risk rendering themselves obsolete (because even if a majority of users won't need the DSP versions, many of the trend setting producers and studios will, and in choosing other tools will draw the rest of the market in their wake).

If by "why go there" you mean why would Waves go to the sidelines and sit AAX DSP out, I guess it would be because they hope they can avoid the expense and still retain much of their current user base. Only time will tell if they've made the right call on this, but personally, for the present, I'm inclined to doubt it.

On the other hand, you probably meant something else entirely...

Or perhaps Chris has hit the nail on the head and is referring to HDx.

"Why go there? There aren't any plugins?".

Which then leads to: "Why go there?" said Mr Waves. "Avid have sold very few HDx systems at present, so the likelihood of us recouping the 72 man years of labour spent creating AAX DSP is pretty much zilch".

And the merry-go-round spins forever... some people stuck on the ride from hell... others glad they never bought a ticket.

[DarkSky]

Hi Nath,
TBH, I think it's more likely that Chris' "why go there" referred to 'why bother getting an HDX card and then sticking with the old 192 converters'.

If so, to some extent I'd agree with that. As a short term measure until scraping together the cash for new I/O,it might make a sort of sense, but not long term, given that the step up in conversion quality from the 192s is more than slight.

OTOH, we should expect significant benefits from the move to 64-bit, which will leave the HD/TDM platform behind, so some folk may weigh things up differently when it becomes apparent how things fall out with PT11HD once it ships.

Meanwhile, I wouldn't call HDX a "ride from hell" by any stretch. Missing some familiar TDM plugins (for which, in most cases, there are native versions or capable alternatives - sometimes superior ones at that!) is a fair way short of my definition of "hell". YMMV.

[Sammas]

Argh yes, you are quite right. It was more tongue in cheek ramblings than anything. I know its how some HDx users are currently feeling, but its still very early days anyway. Things will only move forward starting with the release of HD11.

It seems kind of odd to blast the money for a HDx system though if you are just using native plugins.