Advice on getting into Pro Tools HDX

Avid is dominant in most upper end post, but I have to say every single audio post house I have dealt with that didn’t have a principle who wasn’t already experienced in post and video has failed. Someone has to understand the local market. Video can be very, very political. In smaller markets the most successful post houses usually have a longstanding relationship with a local network affiliate. If you get into the video side of post you will find that in many markets your going to need to invest in at least a couple of legacy formats to import. Atmos is great and Dolby really has brought the cost down, but the room and all the speakers add up quickly! The other thing is you have to have a tech to keep things running, corporate and broadcast clients don’t like delays. While it’s not like in the old days where that meant someone who could rebuild a VTR today your looking for a very specialized IT guy.
Right now the money is in Political ads, but you will learn very quickly that if you pic the wrong guys to align with it disappears. Good luck, but before you spend a penny on any gear find the people first.

HDX in Post work is not important. The important thing is to be running ProTools Ulitmate to get all the features and voices. Depending on the film you mix you can have Hundreds of tracks and even more busses. IF you do it right you are using dense templates with internal routing for each bus. Dx, Fx, Mx, Mix, Mix-Mx, ext. Plus pending what you're doing you are doing 5.1 and stereo at the same time. Atmos usutally get's it's own thing due to being objected based.

I'm not sure what kind of video work your dad is getting interested in. But either way, HDX isn't really needed. HDX is about low latency while using hardware/recording live. Otherwise, in post, you need horse power. And in post you'll be using LOTs of plugins to polish all kinds of things to make it fit the needs of the film. You will also want to know a lot of in's and out's of Protools and how to do automation quickly. Which that can take a while to learn and master.

Rerecording mixing is no joke. BUT it also depends on what you're making. If you're one man banding it all though(Sound design, Dialog editing, Music mixing, Music editing, Foley, ADR, VO, mixing) it's a ton of work. Not to mention if you aren't working with a video team/crew that knows what they are doing, you are in for a WORLD of pain. NOTHING fucks you over and costs you more time then video not doing their job right.



I do post work on a few films a year, but by no means a full time post guy. I love it. Would do more of it if I could. It is super fun and very challenging.



So first things first. What kind of videos "my dad was talking to me about getting into video stuff" does that mean? Or are you just wanting to dip your toes into post work??

Okay so you are wanting to try and break into film post work? 

Alright, yeah that's not super easy especially working in lower tier productions. And honestly HDX isn't going to give you a massive "edge" into over just running ProTools Ultimate with your current hardware. Save your money. AAX-DSP has limits. You can only run so many plugins before you are out of DSP power, that goes for native ones too. Because technically in HDX you have to port it out form the DSP to the CPU then back. Which costs you mixer lanes in the back end of the HDX DSP. So you can run out of plugins. Which is why big stuiod have 3 card HDX systems. Which is a LOT of money. 

Also hardware in Post work is rarely used. Why? Revisions, revisions, revisions....revisions. Most of the time ones that you aren't even expecting, like if the video crew sends you picture lock...only for it not to be and they tweaked it. now you have to swap your session to the new on and make your adjustments and then reprint your mix and stems. Which doesn't sound like a big deal until you are working on a film that is 20-120minutes long. You'd have to print that LIVE with hardware. Which I have done, it sucks. Stay ITB as much as possible. 


Post work is all about working FAST with the client having no budget. ha Seriously..Hardware will only make you more expensive purely just based on rendering your deliverables. 


Plus, and this is experience speaking, if you are starting out. You're going to be working with a LOT of people that have never used a or rarely use a dedicated post audio mixer. Why? because they are used to just doing it themselves. Which to them is easier and gets them what they need. Now they have to do a lot of extra work(rendering AAFs, they can't make adjustments after sent off to sound and color which they don't like, and they might not feel as in control if you don't get to mix it live with them to make tweaks in the studio and it'll take longer then they are used to). So the cost to benefit ratio for them as a client is very small. And you have to work very very efficiently to make it worth it for them to come back. 

On top of that most the projects you'll get, because they also likely didn't use a production audio person/crew, the audio will not be good. And it'll take a lot of time to polish the turds you are sent. So get to know RX and other denoising software VERY well as it'll be your life blood and also be one of the ways you can make a huge impact on the film sound that the client will notice. 




So basically, no you do not need HDX. You do need Protools Ultimate software though IMO, which will run with your Apollo no problem. Start learning the advanced automation of Protools very well, importing session data types, and lots of internal routing. Then go to town. I'd study up on film production in general and all the major video editing softwares(Davinci, Adobe, Final cut) so you know how to communicate with filmmakers to make sure you get what you need. 


Either way, film is cool to work in. But very fast paced, it's rare to work with a director that totally wants the audio to be perfect or has the budge left for it. And you know lots of low production films don't have a lot going on. But if you invest in some sound libraries so that you can expand the sound of the film and learn to push and pull FX and Music with the Dialog and connect with the director to get the message they want across. Then it's awesome. 

You don't need more than just software and sound libraries(maybe a library manager) to do great work. 

Way back when I first got a loan to start a studio I was figuring post would be a nice secondary way to subsidize the stuff I bought. What a hilarious joke! It took a few weeks to realize only the top film budgets are going to even acknowledge sound quality matters, and they have their *teams*- because that’s what it takes to compete at the Oscar level. Or you’ll get the zero budget students with high brow Oscar expectations and no money.

You’ll learn that if someone can operate a camera and do run final cut or iMovie, they can also do the sound, they don’t need help. They can charge a weekend party $5k, do the sound themselves, clip the master bus since louder is better everyone happy vs spending their profits for a helper .

I think there is still a market for a nice side business on the camera side of things. Weddings, events, etc can make thousands per gig— however the post side will be time consuming.

Also consider these days that so many People have zoom tricks down, it’s gonna be a little harder to impress with fades and remote cameras. Basically.. got to do it because you love it.



A story it reminds me of, my friend’s dad was a camera operator at NBC news LA. He told me how they used to have a team of production crew, multiple camera operators, someone calling shots, the whole show was tight and thrilling! As the years went by they replaced everyone until it was just him running all the cameras, and the whole show, sound and video from his remote. Just him! All those jobs gone.

If you are starting out with doing videos in the park with a drone and some handhelds, you can use other DAWs such as Logic to make the audio edits. Not nearly the depth that Avid Pro Tools or Steinberg Nuendo have in the post production industry. But you can get your feet wet and do professional work, just to see if you like it.

Nuendo isn't cheap, but it will more affordable in the long run compared to paying up yearly for PT Ultimate. I also have a friend that does audio work for local film makers and she works solely with Digital Performer. I've never really worked with it myself, but watching someone using it in a video it seems to have some nice features.

Nuendo is designed specifically for post production work, but if you get into ADR stuff you can use things like Revoice Pro, and DAWs like Logic are getting more into Atmos mixing.

I've done a fair bit of production sound as well as post (also have HDX, a Silver Bullet, Bricasti, and 1176's to give you a reference to what you said you'd like to get). I use none of it during most post jobs tho HDX does help with the bigger sessions. I do use my Pro Tools Ultimate license and RX9 Advanced (a lot!). Like others mentioned you're basically going to be turd polishing and pulling a thousand or so sonic miracles per project. I think it was Izotope themselves that put out some great how-to videos on their post products, you'll want to know those inside out. You may also want to start collecting a vast and properly named/metadata encoded SFX library as even if you think you're not going to be doing sound design it'll make your life easier when you have production audio with generators and crew noises all though a delicate scene with whispering actors. To be fair to production sound, most of the time it's a battle on set with the low budget and or less experienced crews as it's usually one guy doing everything in tough conditions.

The avid I/O units do. Plus can add db25 AES to it. 

But worth pointing out that the built in XLR AES ports mirror ch 1&2.

I like the Bricasti hooked up to the AES/EBU port, not sure what you mean by add? I can add that to the Carbon? or my Apogee system?  I use the other AES/EBU port for my dedicated D/A for my monitoring.  It sounds as if the conversion is so good on the Carbon I might not need my dedicated D/A anymore.  Trying to downsize my setup and get more power in a smaller footprint.