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Post by guitfiddler on Aug 29, 2023 22:27:18 GMT -6
The news of STG buying Avid really bummed me out as I was getting ready to buy a Carbon PRE8 and expand. Still might do it, what are your thoughts as an Avid Carbon owner?
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Post by subspace on Aug 30, 2023 9:13:29 GMT -6
I just added a second Carbon to run a Carbon expanded rig. Didn't even know this was possible until earlier this month when somebody mentioned it on the Avid forum, hold the input button while booting and Carbon will function identically to a Pre. $1,900 later for a B-stock with no software from Alto and the expanded rig works great. The only concern I have is the Carbon Central app not being updated should support be dropped down the road. I've got a ProFire Lightbridge that only works with a 2006 MacBook frozen at Snow Leopard, an Avid C400 that only works with some 2010 Macs frozen at High Sierra, so it hardly requires a corporate take-over to orphan PT hardware. I am glad it's an AVB driverless install for a single Carbon, as my other assorted class compliant devices just keep on working.
I'm wading into 7.1.2 room design based around the Carbon's new Atmos monitor control as I've got the additional unit now to handle hardware inserts. I just updated all my Plugin Alliance AAX DSP plug-ins to their newest versions and tested them out on the Carbon DSP last night, the native to DSP switching is seamless and quick on all of them. Tracking on Carbon is the best experience I've had using a DAW, using a second monitoring app was really hammering my own hand and it felt so much better when I stopped.
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Aug 30, 2023 9:56:13 GMT -6
Not a Carbon owner but I am in tech industry [dodges rotten fruit] and I can give you my two cents on your situation here. This assumes that Carbon is the best option for you today which I don't know (and can't really speak to as a non-user) but let's just take that as our base assumption.
This is a head and heart thing. It's easy for me to suggest the "smart" move because it's not my money and it's not my studio. Here it is.
HEAD says that the chances of Carbon support being totally dropped seem pretty low to me. The hardware/software ecosystem that ProTools/AVID has built is so massive that it's not likely to go away instantly. It is likely that ProTools will be flipped to a new buyer but that buyer will be, in large part, buying ProTools users. Could that buyer drop support for Carbon? Sure. They could.
My guess is you'd be fine with Carbon well into the the period of time when you'd be looking to consider changing systems anyway to keep up with current tech. 7 years? Who knows. It's all speculation.
HEART says this whole thing is a total mess and if I'm not involved, why get involved?
You'd probably be totally fine, but the regret you'd experience by jumping in knowing full well that there is a risk that your investment is wasted will be much higher than the regret you would experience if you went with a different system only to find out that you could have been safe with Carbon.
So it all depends on your personality and risk tolerance.
For me? I'd probably stay away and see which way the wind is blowing. But if you dove into Carbon now I would bet good money that you would be just fine in terms of support. I'd be more worried about expansion supply and manufacturing. I'd anticipate availability issues going on for a while.
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Post by ericn on Aug 30, 2023 9:56:45 GMT -6
OH how I understand your fears, but maybe just maybe someone at AVID’s new masters will look at the strategic plan and say “ you know why don’t we extend the life of old hardware and respect our customers investment.” I doubt it will happen but I’m hoping.
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Aug 30, 2023 9:58:40 GMT -6
OH how I understand your fears, but maybe just maybe someone at AVID’s new masters will look at the strategic plan and say “ you know why don’t we extend the life of old hardware and respect our customers investment.” I doubt it will happen but I’m hoping. I don't think you even need to count on them being ethical. Better hope is "won't the profit motive of the buyer likely push them to want to sell more endless upgrades and subscriptions and expansions to people like me?" So in this case... maybe Gordon Gecko is right! |
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Post by guitfiddler on Aug 30, 2023 10:02:17 GMT -6
This is the best experience I’ve ever had with an interface. The Carbon works great and sounds wonderful. I even like the aesthetics of the box. Inserting hardware is a breeze and it just works like it should. The only thing that irks me, is that Avid sold out!
My head is saying, go for it!
My heart is saying,damn you, you’re going to go for it!
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Post by ericn on Aug 30, 2023 10:12:28 GMT -6
This is the best experience I’ve ever had with an interface. The Carbon works great and sounds wonderful. I even like the aesthetics of the box. Inserting hardware is a breeze and it just works like it should. The only thing that irks me, is that Avid sold out! My head is saying, go for it! My heart is saying,damn you, you’re going to go for it! Remember even if you do expand, you don’t need to follow AVIDs upgrade plan. If you do a deep dive into the equipment lists of decent mid sized studios you will see a lot are still running HD. |
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Post by maldenfilms on Aug 30, 2023 11:10:35 GMT -6
I just received my (first) Carbon yesterday and I've gotta say I'm impressed. Like guitfiddler was saying above, it's amazing to have it just work in Pro Tools without a second software layer. The latency is totally undetectable to me and it sounds incredible. I say go for the second unit! I'd love to add another one at some point if needed.
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Post by sirthought on Aug 30, 2023 13:41:52 GMT -6
Technology, cheap or expensive, is always a crapshoot. Knowing that, I bet this system would last you for a number of years.
They are interested in continuing as many PT software subscriptions as humanly possible. This hardware provides a greater likelihood that users would be tied into PT. Electronics devices like this are easier to produce than ever before, and they've got the sauce that a lot of people like.
Support if it breaks seems to be a bigger risk than them abandoning it for sales. But that's always the case with pro audio.
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Post by Blackdawg on Aug 30, 2023 15:16:14 GMT -6
I'd buy with confidence.
1) Seems highly unlikely they would axe the device they made to compete with all the people that have been banging their heads agaisnt the wall with 3rd party mixer app layers like UAD/Metric/Antelope to poach users from that pool and get them into the Avid ecosystem.
2)It shares the same software and tech as HDX users. Their flag ship product. So doubt that's going away.
I think you'll find that you'll actually have less PT issues and actually just use it like it should be instead of having to think about a lot of stuff. (i'm not a carbon user, I'm an HDX user and I love it because it just...works. Every time).
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Post by ericn on Aug 30, 2023 16:02:21 GMT -6
I'd buy with confidence. 1) Seems highly unlikely they would axe the device they made to compete with all the people that have been banging their heads agaisnt the wall with 3rd party mixer app layers like UAD/Metric/Antelope to poach users from that pool and get them into the Avid ecosystem. 2)It shares the same software and tech as HDX users. Their flag ship product. So doubt that's going away. I think you'll find that you'll actually have less PT issues and actually just use it like it should be instead of having to think about a lot of stuff. (i'm not a carbon user, I'm an HDX user and I love it because it just...works. Every time). I do hope you’re right, but it’s AVID. Personally if anyone in the c-suite would listen to me I would tell them what they really need to sink their resources into is a killer release that takes advantage of how Apples new chips work so they can kill off Intel mac support without to much hurt. If they can develop some new features around how arm works they can say “ we couldn’t do it on Intel Mac’s”. |
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Post by ragan on Aug 30, 2023 16:03:25 GMT -6
The idea of ditching the separate mixer is very attractive to me (Symphony MKII user). I’ve certainly considered Carbon. I’m with the others here: I don’t think they’ll be dropping this anytime soon.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2023 16:10:50 GMT -6
The idea of ditching the separate mixer is very attractive to me (Symphony MKII user). I’ve certainly considered Carbon. I’m with the others here: I don’t think they’ll be dropping this anytime soon. the round trip latency is higher than your symphony should anything in your playback be native. Cpu use will be higher than almost any usb interface driver then too. AVB and Dante interfaces used without an Ethernet accelerator pci-e card aren’t going to be low latency anytime soon. |
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Post by guitfiddler on Aug 30, 2023 16:56:48 GMT -6
The idea of ditching the separate mixer is very attractive to me (Symphony MKII user). I’ve certainly considered Carbon. I’m with the others here: I don’t think they’ll be dropping this anytime soon. That was another reason I jumped on it. I always hated navigating another software in between my interface and DAW. I had my Apogee symphony rig connected directly to my daw without using the software, but that was on the Thunderbridge 64 on Thunderbolt and I just bypassed it with 16X’s. Not sure about the newer Symphony software. Even on the old Symphony software the latency really couldn’t be heard, however when I plugged in Carbon and tracked, it was a different experience, and I could really tell right away from using any other interface and really liked it right away. It works for me and I’m really enjoying writing and recording again. I’m using Studio One 6 as well because I had some old projects that needed to be pulled up. It really works great even with Studio One 6. I haven’t tried to track anything yet in Studio One 6 though, just might have to give it a go though. I haven’t tried Logic X yet. I’m reacquainting myself with Protools because I took hiatus from Avid because they drove me crazy there for a while. This is a solid product and I’m completely happy for now. I’m hoping things stay steady for a while with STG and they don’t ruin it. |
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Post by ragan on Aug 30, 2023 17:09:36 GMT -6
I’m super sensitive to latency. Not for like staying ‘in time’ but for enjoying the process. I hate that phasey, non-immediate experience of tracking through a DAW buffer. I haven’t seriously considered this or shopped around at all, not seriously in the market. But it would be something I’d need to suss out if I were going to actually think about it.
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Post by notneeson on Aug 30, 2023 17:41:53 GMT -6
Seeing these discounted Carbons that don’t include an Ultimate license and wondering how it would perform with Studio (aka Pro Tools Vanilla).
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Post by maldenfilms on Aug 30, 2023 18:46:07 GMT -6
Seeing these discounted Carbons that don’t include an Ultimate license and wondering how it would perform with Studio (aka Pro Tools Vanilla). I’m on Pro Tools Studio and it’s perfectly fine! And ragan I’ve never experienced such low latency while tracking (obviously outside of analog). It really feels that immediate. It’s cool. |
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Post by ericn on Aug 30, 2023 19:42:51 GMT -6
Seeing these discounted Carbons that don’t include an Ultimate license and wondering how it would perform with Studio (aka Pro Tools Vanilla). I don’t know, I’ll do a dive into the doc’s tomorrow because I’m a geek and want to know and if I can’t find anything I’ll give Jeff a call. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2023 19:51:02 GMT -6
Seeing these discounted Carbons that don’t include an Ultimate license and wondering how it would perform with Studio (aka Pro Tools Vanilla). I don’t know, I’ll do a dive into the doc’s tomorrow because I’m a geek and want to know and if I can’t find anything I’ll give Jeff a call. I had an Avid Mbox Pro and that was compensated so I'd assume Carbon is. I think the general theme is if it's Avid HW then you're okay.. Unfortunately Avid always reminds me of Keith Lemon though. |
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Post by ericn on Aug 30, 2023 19:59:14 GMT -6
I don’t know, I’ll do a dive into the doc’s tomorrow because I’m a geek and want to know and if I can’t find anything I’ll give Jeff a call. I had an Avid Mbox Pro and that was compensated so I'd assume Carbon is. I think the general theme is if it's Avid HW then you're okay.. Unfortunately Avid always reminds me of Keith Lemon though. They have a very strange history of locking certain hardware to certain interfaces, unless you want some features locked out. In other words it might be set up so that if you don’t use the ultimate a carbon may act like that old Mbox😁 Oh Avid how I don’t miss having to remember all your weird requirements. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2023 20:05:56 GMT -6
I had an Avid Mbox Pro and that was compensated so I'd assume Carbon is. I think the general theme is if it's Avid HW then you're okay.. Unfortunately Avid always reminds me of Keith Lemon though. They have a very strange history of locking certain hardware to certain interfaces, unless you want some features locked out. In other words it might be set up so that if you don’t use the ultimate a carbon may act like that old Mbox😁 Oh Avid how I don’t miss having to remember all your weird requirements. HW inserts actually worked with the Mbox Pro (which isn't digi, although my mate leant me that one too (the white upright one)) in Pro Tools 11, also the interface sounded pretty good too TBH.. Try that with a third party interface, you've no chance. This is the one I had..
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2023 20:56:45 GMT -6
the round trip latency is higher than your symphony should anything in your playback be native. Cpu use will be higher than almost any usb interface driver then too. AVB and Dante interfaces used without an Ethernet accelerator pci-e card aren’t going to be low latency anytime soon. You mean besides the 0.625ms MOTU AVB and the auto corrected sub ms RTT Avid Carbon yeah? When I get my custom desk from Matt @iaa, I will be going Carbon.. Screw support I just won't update. The moment anything has to run native, you're subjected to much higher latencies if connecting the interface to your computer over ethernet to a normal mobo or ethernet card. Avid runs part of Pro Tools on the Carbon. When you use a native plug, it has to go into and out of the computer. MOTU has an on interface mixer but then a higher round trip latency through the interface, into the native daw, and back out of the interface. If you connect a MOTU AVB rig to a Mac using the ethernet cable and not thunderbolt or USB, you have higher latency and cpu use than using usb or thunderbolt. An RME USB interface has lower round trip latency than a direct AVB hookup to your motherboard on Mac or Dante Virtual Sound Card on both Mac and Windows. RME Digiface Dante and Digiface AVB exist for this where the computer cannot easily use a Dante pcie card or need a direct AVB hookup to something on Windows or lower latency than the Mac can provide. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2023 21:09:12 GMT -6
You mean besides the 0.625ms MOTU AVB and the auto corrected sub ms RTT Avid Carbon yeah? When I get my custom desk from Matt @iaa, I will be going Carbon.. Screw support I just won't update. The moment anything has to run native, you're subjected to much higher latencies if connecting the interface to your computer over ethernet to a normal mobo or ethernet card. Avid runs part of Pro Tools on the Carbon. When you use a native plug, it has to go into and out of the computer. MOTU has an on interface mixer but then a higher round trip latency through the interface, into the native daw, and back out of the interface. If you connect a MOTU AVB rig to a Mac using the ethernet cable and not thunderbolt or USB, you have higher latency and cpu use than using usb or thunderbolt. An RME USB interface has lower round trip latency than a direct AVB hookup to your motherboard on Mac or Dante Virtual Sound Card on both Mac and Windows. RME Digiface Dante and Digiface AVB exist for this where the computer cannot easily use a Dante pcie card or need a direct AVB hookup to something on Windows or lower latency than the Mac can provide. I have used these Dan and run ping tests. The MOTU over TB for me is 1.8ms + 0.625 for AVB but here's the issue.. If you don't run it through the AVB mixer? Phase and have you ever used their matrix? Hmm.
IME CPU overhead isn't all that much in the grand scheme. Anything's better than Core Audio like my SSL  .. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2023 21:27:12 GMT -6
The moment anything has to run native, you're subjected to much higher latencies if connecting the interface to your computer over ethernet to a normal mobo or ethernet card. Avid runs part of Pro Tools on the Carbon. When you use a native plug, it has to go into and out of the computer. MOTU has an on interface mixer but then a higher round trip latency through the interface, into the native daw, and back out of the interface. If you connect a MOTU AVB rig to a Mac using the ethernet cable and not thunderbolt or USB, you have higher latency and cpu use than using usb or thunderbolt. An RME USB interface has lower round trip latency than a direct AVB hookup to your motherboard on Mac or Dante Virtual Sound Card on both Mac and Windows. RME Digiface Dante and Digiface AVB exist for this where the computer cannot easily use a Dante pcie card or need a direct AVB hookup to something on Windows or lower latency than the Mac can provide. I have used these Dan and run ping tests. The MOTU over TB for me is 1.8ms + 0.625 for AVB but here's the issue.. If you don't run it through the AVB mixer? Phase and have you ever used their matrix? Hmm.
IME CPU overhead isn't all that much in the grand scheme. Anything's better than Core Audio like my SSL .. Yeah that's a very usable 44.1 khz round trip latency for something with good anti-alias filters. USB is higher than that and AVB was higher than that on a Mac the last time I bothered to check. motu.com/techsupport/technotes/direct-avb-limitations |
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Post by ericn on Aug 30, 2023 21:58:49 GMT -6
You mean besides the 0.625ms MOTU AVB and the auto corrected sub ms RTT Avid Carbon yeah? When I get my custom desk from Matt @iaa, I will be going Carbon.. Screw support I just won't update. The moment anything has to run native, you're subjected to much higher latencies if connecting the interface to your computer over ethernet to a normal mobo or ethernet card. Avid runs part of Pro Tools on the Carbon. When you use a native plug, it has to go into and out of the computer. MOTU has an on interface mixer but then a higher round trip latency through the interface, into the native daw, and back out of the interface. If you connect a MOTU AVB rig to a Mac using the ethernet cable and not thunderbolt or USB, you have higher latency and cpu use than using usb or thunderbolt. An RME USB interface has lower round trip latency than a direct AVB hookup to your motherboard on Mac or Dante Virtual Sound Card on both Mac and Windows. RME Digiface Dante and Digiface AVB exist for this where the computer cannot easily use a Dante pcie card or need a direct AVB hookup to something on Windows or lower latency than the Mac can provide. Dan you touched on one of the things about GS that just pissed me off to no end, the guys who were all about “ native” except they all had interfaces with low latency monitoring. None of them could grasp the simple concept that they had DSP in the interface! One thing to remember when talking about Dante is the fact that it is not just a transmission protocol but also a control protocol ( think a combination of EUCON and MADI in one) so it isn’t as efficient as others. The biggest hiccup in Dante is that for best performance you really do need an approved Ethernet card/ Dongle. Dante also has an unusual feature in that you can run proprietary protocols at the same time (example BSS Bluenet). |
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