|
Post by Quint on Mar 10, 2024 16:11:03 GMT -6
I think the time domain stuff is the best stuff Trinnov does. Dirac does time/ Phase correction as well, the Trinnov just has more horse power processing wise along with better conversion so it seams a little better, but Dirac is pretty hard to beat for the coin. I think I'd be using the digital I/O on the Dirac, plus my own converters, so as not to have to worry about any conversion concerns.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 10, 2024 8:52:44 GMT -6
That's where we differ. Carbon doesn't really do much of anything for me, unfortunately. I wanted it to though. I'd either be keeping my Apollo system with Luna, or moving to an HDX system with Lynx Aurora. Carbon is kind of a weird middle ground for me. As for John's situation, he seems to have other reasons beyond latency why the Carbon isn't working out for him. And he does use other DAWs than just PT, so there's that. Cool, you're not going to buy it so there's no issue. Carbon fits a certain niche and that's a bit obvious, I don't want a full HDX rig because not only is it expensive but it's also getting a bit long in the tooth and on top of that I'd have no use for it anyway due to the amount of HW I have, even from an effects standpoint. What I require is something that integrates deeply with Pro Tools, has miminal latency, can offload a few bits to DSP if required and let's me get on with recording no fuss. It does all of those things and after discounts a Carbon + Carbon Pre is a thousand more than an Aurora 16 TB3 in my local currency, for me it's like why not?
I do agree though, it is a "weird middle ground" but it's one that in this niche situation is the best choice. Obviously that may not work for a lot of people.. As for John, well unfortunately the Trinnov Nova supports ADAT and the D-Mon doesn't. If you need digital, yeah the Carbon really doesn't have many options and that does suck a bit.
It seems like a huge oversight to not include a spdif or AES mirror for the main outs. So many interfaces have that now, so I'm not sure why Avid chose to not include that. I remember when the Lynx Hilo came out. I "think" it was the first interface to offer a dedicated monitor out. I remember, at the time, thinking how that was a great idea. Sure enough, over the years, a lot of other companies have adopted that approach. Seems like a no brainer these days.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 10, 2024 7:33:58 GMT -6
I'd have to go back and watch that video again, but I do trust Matt with latency measurements. He knows what he's doing with that stuff. I think one of the biggest take home messages from that video was that IF Pro Tools is going to be your ONLY DAW, that might be a reason to go with Carbon but, IF Pro Tools is NOT going to be your only DAW, then you might want to consider the Apollo instead. Also, I'm not 100% sure, but I want to say that that video was released before Luna was updated to include automatic DSP to native switching for plugins, which also moves the needle a bit. Subspace posted the latencies already, just be smart with it and it will be far quicker than Native. If the plan is to stack then yeah, it can be far worse.
Oh if Pro Tools wasn't my main DAW and I didn't have some outboard HW I wouldn't touch Carbon with someone else's barge pole. Then again I wouldn't be interested in an Apollo either, I'd go Metric Halo or something..
That's where we differ. Carbon doesn't really do much of anything for me, unfortunately. I wanted it to though. I'd either be keeping my Apollo system with Luna, or moving to an HDX system with Lynx Aurora. Carbon is kind of a weird middle ground for me. As for John's situation, he seems to have other reasons beyond latency why the Carbon isn't working out for him. And he does use other DAWs than just PT, so there's that.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 9, 2024 19:28:51 GMT -6
Yeah - why the hell would they put a limitation on it like that? Very Avid. Obviously, you can listen through the analog outs of the Carbon, but it won't send spdif optical out unless you're in PT. Thats insane. Two thoughts: 1. I wonder if it works, but it's just not "supported"? Knowwhatimean? 2. This is *exactly* the kind of bullshit that made me leave Digidesign 20+ yrs ago: they were unwilling to play nice with everybody else. If that still hasn't changed, I'm not going to switch back. I feel like trying to do things in an "unsupported" manner in Pro Tools is way riskier than doing "unsupported" things in other DAWs. PT is the king of walled gardens, which has its pros and cons, but I wouldn't be interested in NEEDING to depend on anything with PT that is unsupported. Seems like it would be a recipe for disappointment.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 9, 2024 10:32:52 GMT -6
That review of Carbon did not make me feel good about my purchase. The review was interesting. There's definitely some really subjective takes on things, which is what a review generally has (to be fair), but I wouldn't worry so much about it unless some of the more objective points are ones that really make you reconsider your purchase.
What I'm really surprised about is specifically the report of AVID plugins causing that much latency on Carbon (as mentioned in the video). Is that actually the case? How is EQ3 (my glorified trim and polarity flipper) adding 10 samples of latency in AAX DSP when there's none in Pro Tools Studio? Do AAX DSP plugins all add significant delays?
Does VI/Midi instrument latency bother your ability to mix/overdub? If you're doing lots of critical midi controller overdubs, this may be a bigger issue here, but I'd personally load up your favorite piano VI and give it a test run before packing it back up. If you're already dealing with latency running Pianoteq on your past interface, the comparison here to Carbon may be negligible. The reviewer also mentions doing their monitoring through ADAT -- I'm not sure if they're factoring that into their review here, but running adat will likely add more latency into the equation.
Just to note, I'm sure I have Pro Tools bias showing, but I don't think my bias extends towards the Carbon. Not for the reasons listed - I originally was really tempted, I just don't want to pay for the extra preamps and I'd rather have AES/SPDIF over ADAT. (Also, Windows compatibility -- at some point I'm going back to PC-land)
I'd have to go back and watch that video again, but I do trust Matt with latency measurements. He knows what he's doing with that stuff. I think one of the biggest take home messages from that video was that IF Pro Tools is going to be your ONLY DAW, that might be a reason to go with Carbon but, IF Pro Tools is NOT going to be your only DAW, then you might want to consider the Apollo instead. Also, I'm not 100% sure, but I want to say that that video was released before Luna was updated to include automatic DSP to native switching for plugins, which also moves the needle a bit.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 9, 2024 7:17:59 GMT -6
Maybe you should just do the $599 subscription? Or maybe it’s $699. It’s so freaking confusing. I JUST paid for a $599 Pro Tools Studio subscription because o didn’t realize I had converted my old perp license to subscription somewhere along the way. Like - if you were to get the subscription at $699, I think you would then have to pay $599 per year to keep it running. If you buy the $1499 perpetual license, you would then have to pay $399 per year to get updates and support. If you didn’t want to update and are a perpetual license owner, you can just stay there and not pay. Right now, I'm thinking I'll use PT Intro for a bit and see what I think. It's apparently the same except for track limitations (and bus limitations) and some other things I wouldn't need to test-drive. Ultimately, if I were to make the jump, I'd be doing it for the integrated DSP mixer within the DAW. Otherwise, I'm perfectly happy with Logic. I should probably give Luna a spin, too - since it also can do the integrated DSP mixer if you have an Apollo. No hardware inserts, though. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Yeah, I’m kind of holding off any significant moves until I get a better sense of whether LUNA is going to grow into a fully mature DAW (HW inserts being the big thing right now). Part of me is drawn to someone doing a new DAW from the ground up. Good software dev is so expensive and I’m certain all of these legacy DAWs have a lot of janky workarounds and fixes and things stacked on top of decades old code because DAW needs have changed dramatically over time and it’s short term cheaper/easier to mod and patch existing code bases rather than tear it up and start over. So if LUNA continues to develop, part of me thinks it could end up being less buggy and more streamlined for modern users, compared to something that’s been around for a couple decades and patched a million times. That’s a lot of speculation though, obvs. I do think hardware inserts for Luna are coming, but the question is when? If/when hardware inserts for Luna come, I think I'm golden at that point. But if not, it seems like a HDX system with Lynx Aurora (n) would be my alternative move, because Carbon is limited on expandability, and I need more I/O for hardware inserts (and tracking, for that matter) than what Carbon would allow. So neither Luna nor Carbon are currently getting it done for me, as far as hardware inserts are concerned. I'm not sure how much I/O you need for your hardware inserts? I suppose the difference here though is that, while I do think that Luna will ultimately get hardware inserts, I kind of doubt Carbon will ever be allowed to expand beyond what it currently does. Avid's gotta create a differentiator of some kind to get people into HDX systems. And not that this matters to everyone, but the ability to track with plugins (that I actually want to use) is worth something. There's not much on the AAX platform that I want to use, or that I wouldn't feel the need to replace with something better during mixing. In Luna, I can basically start mixing during tracking because I don't feel a need to replace the API Vision plugin, for example. I can use it during tracking, and then it's already there for mixing (and is therefore probably already kind of mixed anyway). With Carbon or HDX, I'd almost certainly be replacing most or all of those AAX plugins used during tracking, once I got to mixing, which isn't great because I'm trying to get away from the whole "placeholder" mentality. In Luna, I like that tracking and mixing are basically one in the same, at least how I use it anyway. All of that said, none of this stuff (Luna or PT) has everything I want. Which sucks. If it ever looks like hardware inserts aren't going to come to Luna, I guess HDX it is (if I want to stay with DSP, and I do).... Which is ugh...
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 9, 2024 7:02:22 GMT -6
Yes. You will get hundreds of Black Sabbath and Candlemass rip offs if you search for doom metal. You will get thousands of Metallica rip offs if you search for thrash metal. Death metal and black metal are more popular so there's more to rip off but they of course rip off just as bad as the rethrash bands. Off topic. But if a quick walk through the halls of any rehearsal space in Austin is an indication, death metal bands have got to be the best rehearsed genre of any music. I swear 75% of rooms are hard-core technical metal bands. But weirdly there's like no venues for that type of music around here. I've noticed similar about metal bands rehearsing. As for metal venues around here, Austin seems to like to keep its metal underground, for the most part, The Sword being the exception. Windsor Park, where I live, has apparently had a history of underground metal shows at various houses in the neighborhood. There's one house I drive by, in particular, that regularly is hosting metal shows. Also, not that it's metal, but the drummer from Butthole Surfers lives in my neighborhood. I've always enjoyed that piece of info about my neighborhood. That guy even won yard of the month a few years back.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 8, 2024 9:17:07 GMT -6
Quint You might find this useful video. Also that is a great channel for protools users to follow and check out. I'll check it out. Thanks
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 6, 2024 15:21:48 GMT -6
I just wanted to know what the bus latency in PT was, and how many busses Bill had in series. I'm not quite sure why this thread turned into a defense/promotion of PT thread. And I told you what it was even with the exceptions y'know cause I was trying to help, how is this turning into a defense / promotion of Avid? Whatever.. Don't care. That wasn't meant as a dig at you, by the way. Sorry if you took it that way. It was not my intention. I was just musing at the general flow of this thread.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 6, 2024 15:09:37 GMT -6
Which is why I'm asking questions about how busses and latency work in PT. I don't trust any of these companies to get this stuff right. I'm certainly not just going to assume that it all "just works". I agree, although we've only got first hand experience and again and as I said I've had no issues thus far. I've never gone to the extent Bill has, probably max is 250 tracks including busses and this was years ago. For general recording purposes I might us 15 - 40 or so (tops) tracks including busses so there's no issues at all even with Carbon. It works and does it well..
Avid support has actually been pretty great, I submitted a support case and had an answer in less than five hours. Here's the thing, there's always something and I'm not saying that HDX / Ultimate hasn't had its buggy less than ideal versions but with Ultimate / Avid HW you're always a priority client and things get fixed quickly IME. IMO the HD / native / studio / artist crowd has always been an afterthought (at best) for Avid, that's where a lot of my frustations came from. Even today you can tell what their priorities are as there's no I/O ping tool with sample correction for third party HW. You're either in it or you're out when it comes to Avid and even then it's not perfect..
That being said, HDX is a console replacement eco-system and it actually does what it says on the tin. I've been using Pro Tools on and off for decades, even had a digi Mbox on LE and I know exactly where I stand with them for better or worse. Pick your poison..
I just wanted to know what the bus latency in PT was, and how many busses Bill had in series. I'm not quite sure why this thread turned into a defense/promotion of PT thread. And it originally was, and still kind of is, a thread about hardware versus software mixing. But threads go to interesting places sometimes.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 6, 2024 14:30:07 GMT -6
Good lord. I've avoided Pro Tools most of my life out of principle, but if what you're all saying regarding buss latency is true, I'll eat my shoe. As I mentioned in the Carbon thread the amount of whacked out instances I've come across when bussing, using DSP based mixers, certain plugins, PDC not working right across several DAW's (whether that's an instance, gradual etc.). I mean, don't wax those shoes and get that knife and fork out..
I'm not sure at this stage if I'm just unlucky or I subcontiously find ways to screw it up, I used to have a TDM / HDX setup and then went native around the Pro Tools 9 era. I switched to Samplitude because things like delay compensation actually worked, sidechaining wasn't a "HDX feature" etc. now they've fixed that a few years back in Studio, plus there's Carbon so I decided to jump back in. Crossing my fingers till they ache there's been zero issues thus far..
It has gotten to the stage where I really don't trust audio equipment as far as I can throw it..
Which is why I'm asking questions about how busses and latency work in PT. I don't trust any of these companies to get this stuff right. I'm certainly not just going to assume that it all "just works".
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 6, 2024 14:23:35 GMT -6
I'm not saying that the delay compensation is broken or not doing what it's supposed to do, but if you delayed one track by one second, and then everything else on all other tracks accordingly was delay compensated, you'd still be in a situation where the entire song is now delayed by one full second. One second is not an indiscernible amount of time, if it were to cause issues with things like automation. I'll go more in depth when I can make a longer post, but in relation specifically to automation... with a caveat being that I'm a mouse/pencil man myself... on native, you'll do with the incurred latency no matter what, to my knowledge. If I'm writing automation on any fader when dealing with one second of delay, it's to my understanding that you could drop the fader down abruptly and not hear that impact your mix for one whole second. Now, whether that gets corrected with delay compensation and moves that automation point back one second afterwards? Not totally sure. On an HD system, I believe it's more nuanced. If the track your automating, say, a vocal, has no or minimal latency against several different tracks that have varying degrees of latency induced from plugs or inserts, I believe as long as they're not summing and going through processes itself, your fader movements on the vocal would be closer to real-time. Basically whatever the the delay incurred on that targeted track is? Because, I think it's effectively being buffered on playback. Again, could be absolutely wrong, as I'm not doing much automation on HD or HDX. I'll go in more detail later though. I'll be working on some IRs tonight so I'll see what Native has for buss latency. It'll be native, so my guess is my numbers might be higher. Ok. Thanks
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 6, 2024 14:17:27 GMT -6
as you apparently don't know. Blissfully ignorant, and just working. Continue on with the science!! <<thumbsup>>
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 6, 2024 13:33:22 GMT -6
You're incorrect. They are not assumptions. Digital processes incur latency. They just do. Add enough of them together, and at some point it could be a problem. I'm not saying it's necessarily a problem for you in your use case, but it's also not a zero added latency situation either. Not a hard concept. Seawell himself similarly mentioned being curious about how such a high number of busses might affect latency. If you are fine with not knowing, that's obviously up to you, but there's nothing wrong with wanting to know more about how something works, as opposed to just assuming that it always will, especially when using it at its extremes. "It just works" doesn't really address the question. In any case, I'm gonna go and look to see if I can find the latency numbers for HDX busses, as you apparently don't know. Pro Tools delay compensation definitely has a limit and it is dependent on the sample rate of your session. I can't remember the numbers off the top of my head but I'll try to take a look later this evening. A session at 44.1 kHz can hit that limit quicker than 96kHz for example. So, if you use a bunch of plug-ins on a track or something with a long look-ahead setting you can definitely hit the limit. When that happens, the track will turn red and you'll probably start to notice some things sounding out of sync. It very rarely happens, but when it does, the easiest solution is to just commit the plug-ins to that track and you're back in sync. I should also mention, I spent a lot of time working in both Logic and Studio One, even sold my Pro Tools rig when I went Logic for a while so I found lots of Pros and Cons with all of them(Pro Tools included). The main reason I came back to Pro Tools is I've done a lot of high demand tracking(full band tracking at the same time, full drum kit, etc..) and hybrid mixing. I guess, if your DAW doesn't have delay compensation for hardware inserts, you could write down the delay times for each sample rate and just reference that as needed? I'm not sure, I've never done it that way. Having said all that, I made the transition from TDM to HDX but if the whole Pro Tools ecosystem changed that drastically again, I'd have to seriously consider other options as the tracking side of my business has gone down drastically since 2020. Which, is also why I feel I need hardware more than ever during mixing. All of these people recording themselves at home is pushing my mixing skills to the limit 🤣 Thanks. That's good info. I look forward to hearing what numbers you find. As an aside, part of the reason I would like to know this stuff is purely on an academic level. However, I also like to always be aware of my options and, IF I ever decided to ditch my Luna/Apollo system, I suppose I might be interested in an HDX card with 32 or 48 channels of Lynx (n). I've gotten accustomed to the DSP workflow, and wouldn't want to go back to purely native. It's a long shot that this would ever happen, but I have thought about it, hence my interest in learning some more details about the inner workings of HDX.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 6, 2024 12:10:15 GMT -6
Ok. I didn't get that there was an average of five busses from your post. Also, an average is one thing, but what would ultimately matter from a latency standpoint is the maximum number of serial busses, because that's what would determine the total latency. And you didn't indicate what the maximum would be. Also, I wasn't asking about measured latency, necessarily. I was asking if you or anybody else knew what Avid spec's for bus latency. Seems like a knowable thing that they would provide somewhere in a manual. Up above, Shadow mentioned 33 samples, but it didn't seem clear that that number necessarily applies to HDX. There's no need to defend your decision to use HDX. I get why you use it, and I am generally a supporter of DSP solutions versus native. But that doesn't mean that it's still not worth exploring how an edge case like yours might push the limits of what is workable. If a bunch of serial bussing was going to potentially cause me latency issues, I'd want to know about it rather than just assume it all is just going to work. Just saying... Your assumptions are wrong. Either I didn't' clearly lay things out, or you need to read it again. Either way, the sessions are quite complex, and they Just Work. Blackdawg , seawell , myself and virtually all other HDX users just get to work and are done with it. There is no need to be worrying about latency, delay compensation or how many busses we are cascading. It just works. You're incorrect. They are not assumptions. Digital processes incur latency. They just do. Add enough of them together, and at some point it could be a problem. I'm not saying it's necessarily a problem for you in your use case, but it's also not a zero added latency situation either. Not a hard concept. Seawell himself similarly mentioned being curious about how such a high number of busses might affect latency. If you are fine with not knowing, that's obviously up to you, but there's nothing wrong with wanting to know more about how something works, as opposed to just assuming that it always will, especially when using it at its extremes. "It just works" doesn't really address the question. In any case, I'm gonna go and look to see if I can find the latency numbers for HDX busses, as you apparently don't know.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 6, 2024 11:42:42 GMT -6
So what's the largest number of busses you run in series with one another? 5? 10? 15? And any idea what the samples of latency are for each buss? I laid it out clearly above. Average 5. And I also mentioned I never measure latency. It just works, sounds great, I go back to work and never worry about latency or delay compensation. Here's the deal. There are hundreds of posts about DAW latency and delay compensation floating around these parts. Solution, problems, general head scratching, etc.. Why? People spend more on one mic than they would on an HDX system. Seems crazy to me. I'd be willing to bet that I've made more $$$$$ off my HDX system than I've made with all my other gear combined. Folks can either continue on, or find a solution. Seems fairly simple to me. Ok. I didn't get that there was an average of five busses from your post. Also, an average is one thing, but what would ultimately matter from a latency standpoint is the maximum number of serial busses, because that's what would determine the total latency. And you didn't indicate what the maximum would be. Also, I wasn't asking about measured latency, necessarily. I was asking if you or anybody else knew what Avid spec's for bus latency. Seems like a knowable thing that they would provide somewhere in a manual. Up above, Shadow mentioned 33 samples, but it didn't seem clear that that number necessarily applies to HDX. There's no need to defend your decision to use HDX. I get why you use it, and I am generally a supporter of DSP solutions versus native. But that doesn't mean that it's still not worth exploring how an edge case like yours might push the limits of what is workable. If a bunch of serial bussing was going to potentially cause me latency issues, I'd want to know about it rather than just assume it all is just going to work. Just saying... Seems like a simple question to me. 1. Max number of busses in series? 2. Latency per bus? 3. #1 x #2 = total latency 4. Is the answer to #3 small enough to not matter? If so, cool. That explains why it hasn't been a problem, in every day use for you.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 6, 2024 10:58:45 GMT -6
I haven't been to Radio East yet, but I was kicking around going to watch Protomartyr there tonight. DO NOT MISS that show. They're incredible Seen them three times. This would be number four. LOVE that band.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 6, 2024 10:49:49 GMT -6
700 buses? Now I'm really curious. My system begins to add latency with 5-10 buses, even with zero latency plugins. . OK. 700 is probably an exaggeration, but I need a LOT. I mentioned my setup before (above ^^^). If Im doing a huge orchestral / modern hybrid mockup, almost all tracks will be stereo, there will most likely be 50-100 VI's going to individual record tracks. Let's call it 75 for the sake of argument. That's 150 busses for the VI's. Going to record tracks. Another 150. That's 300. Going to print tracks. Another 150 - that's 450. Going to stems - that could be another 20-40. Then final stereo print. Thank God I'm only doing stereo usually and not 5.1. So that puts me around 500. But there's always the sessions that push harder.... This type of workflow allows me several very valuable options. 1.) my writing, production and mixing session is linked in the same session. I can start making EQ and reverb choices that are reversible as I write that I deem "part" of the writing process. FX that become integral are already set up for mix as I'm writing. I can make automation moves while writing. My writing becomes much more streamlined, and by the time I'm ready to mix - I'm already good distance into it. i.e. FASTER!! Once done writing, I'll print the "record" tracks and get to automating and balancing the mix - although as mentioned, I'm probably already quite a ways in. Once the mix is "finished" I print the print tracks, the stems and the final mix in one pass. 3-4 minutes and I'm done. Once mixed, if recalls are needed - which honestly is rarely for me - I can go one step back and boost or EQ a stem, 2 steps back and tweak a single element., 3 steps back and adjust or change something fairly major, or all the way back to midi/VI/production tracks if a rewrite or major change has to take place. The biggest strain on the system is in the writing mode while VI's are instantiated and all subsequent tracks are on input. As I finish writing, the VI's are made inactive and hidden. Once I get to the print track stage, the automated tracks are made inactive and hidden. When I'm completely done, I'll leave the main mix, stems, and maybe print tracks "live" and the rest is inactive and hidden until needed - if ever. One thing to note that I mentioned earlier - I'm on a 2010 apple Mac Pro tower that's been upgraded as far as it will go. I'm due for a whole new setup and will hopefully put it into the chain this year. This above template is pushing things really hard, but it's been a faithful computer for me for well over a decade. That's the power of HDX. AVID's bread and butter is Film/TV and those templates make this one look like childs play. LOL So what's the largest number of busses you run in series with one another? 5? 10? 15? And any idea what the samples of latency are for each buss?
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 6, 2024 10:46:37 GMT -6
I get that it's all lined up. DSP or computer can both do delay compensation, so I'm not trying to get into a discussion on one being better than the other. My point was simply that a bus into a bus into a bus still incurs a latency hit of some kind, each time you do it, regardless of how it all gets compensated. Even if everything is all lined up and compensated with itself, the entire song (all tracks) will be delay compensated by whatever amount of delay is being caused by the most latent signal path that exists. If you do this enough times... So I was simply wondering if delay could become an issue with THAT many busses (700+). At some point, if you add in enough delay compensation (because of how many busses are going into busses which are going into busses....), I was wondering if that might not cause issues with things like automation. 700+ busses is a pretty extreme edge case, and PT DSP can't overcome physics. Neither can a CPU, for that matter. Maybe it's the case that the number of samples of latency incurred by going thru one additional bus is sufficiently small that, even in a 700 bus use case, the total delay incurred is still small enough to not be noticed? I don't know, but that's why I'm asking. Either way, delay is still delay, even on DSP. My answer is still the same. I don't ever notice it on big projects. It just works. I don't know how or why but it's never been an issue. Right, but you're not doing 700 busses, are you? That's my point. What about if someone IS doing 700 busses (assuming that many of those busses are in series)? Just because you're not doing it doesn't mean that it's not a valid question, especially if someone like Bill apparently IS doing 700 busses. If you don't know how or why this stuff works, that's totally fine. But I'm still trying to figure this out.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 6, 2024 10:44:03 GMT -6
I get that it's all lined up. DSP or computer can both do delay compensation, so I'm not trying to get into a discussion on one being better than the other. My point was simply that a bus into a bus into a bus still incurs a latency hit of some kind, each time you do it, regardless of how it all gets compensated. Even if everything is all lined up and compensated with itself, the entire song (all tracks) will be delay compensated by whatever amount of delay is being caused by the most latent signal path that exists. If you do this enough times... So I was simply wondering if delay could become an issue with THAT many busses (700+). At some point, if you add in enough delay compensation (because of how many busses are going into busses which are going into busses....), I was wondering if that might not cause issues with things like automation. 700+ busses is a pretty extreme edge case, and PT DSP can't overcome physics. Neither can a CPU, for that matter. Maybe it's the case that the number of samples of latency incurred by going thru one additional bus is sufficiently small that, even in a 700 bus use case, the total delay incurred is still small enough to not be noticed? I don't know, but that's why I'm asking. Either way, delay is still delay, even on DSP. I get where you're coming from, in HDX or TDM at least it was 33 samples of delay for a bus. However it's not a "stacking" effect per se, within the DSP mixer every bus has a 33 sample delay and if any other DAW's methodology of multi-threading is to go by then this will be per core (usually a channel inhabits one core which a single processor in itself). Well, unless you were routing busses into other busses, although whilst I do some odd stuff when parallel mixing I'd never do that. I believe native back when I had a look into this (due to some odd behaviour with busses) it was more like 200 samples.
So, where DSP usually shines is parallel processing but let's go on the recorded spec's. If you have 4 X Avid DSP cards with 72 cores you could divide the amount of bus latency roughly by ten giving you a 330 sample delay which would be about 7.48 ms. Seen as I use about six busses even with the puny 8 core power of Carbon mine would be 33 samples or 0.7ms..
I AM talking about busses into busses though. NOT parallel. I don't know how many busses Bill is running in series, but I think it's safe to assume that a decent number of those busses are in series, and not all parallel. 700 busses, with many of those busses in series, is still really high, but I can sort of see how you might get that high if you're sending busses to busses to busses. But 700 busses all or nearly all in parallel would just be nuts. I doubt he would even have 700 tracks, much less the need to buss it all on a parallel level. So I'm assuming that his complicated routing means that he's running busses into busses into busses, etc.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 6, 2024 9:51:00 GMT -6
I haven't been to Radio East yet, but I was kicking around going to watch Protomartyr there tonight. Don't know if they use this rig for every show but last show I saw there they used an RND MBP at the end of the signal chain and it sounded incredible. Really? I wouldn't expect anything nearly that posh to be getting used at a place like that. Cool that they're doing it though.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 6, 2024 9:27:18 GMT -6
Also, without any consideration of age, newness, or whatever, there is also John Prine, Colter Wall, and* *I'll add some others when I think about it. Yeah, lots of examples through the annals of time. But I'm specifically wondering about, say, the last 5 - 10 years and even more specifically if there's a market for this stuff. There's definitely a move towards stripped down music with the younger crowd that is driven (I think) by TikTok/Instagram/YouTube performances. I dropped by the Cactus Cafe singer-songwriter night last night for the first time in 10 years and, wow, it was like 80% college kids. Not at all what it used to be like. Really cool seeing probably two dozen kids in their early 20's or younger getting up there with acoustic guitars and playing songs they're writing. It was NOT like that when I first got here I'll tell you that. Something is definitely shifting. Which turns me back to my first question. So why don't the records sound like the viral hits? Colter Wall is new enough to be in that category. Also, though Tyler Childers has more full band stuff these days, he definitely used to do more of the sort of thing you're talking about, and he's fairly new. I know he's big with the age group you're talking about too.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 6, 2024 9:26:15 GMT -6
Ever seen her live? I would love to, but haven't. Speaking of shows, catching anything cool for SXSW? I've never seen her, no. I'd love to. I'm rolling freestyle for SXSW. Honestly I've been so busy working on my own record and two mixing projects that I haven't even looked at the schedule. I'm lending some backline gear to Radio East so I'll probably be hanging out there a bit. (Well, not technically lending but for the price they're "renting" it, might as well be. It's a friend, whaddya gonna do...) I haven't been to Radio East yet, but I was kicking around going to watch Protomartyr there tonight.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 6, 2024 9:12:45 GMT -6
Also, without any consideration of age, newness, or whatever, there is also John Prine, Colter Wall, and*
*I'll add some others when I think about it.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Mar 6, 2024 9:09:50 GMT -6
Yeah, and different audience expectations, too. Dylan sang so out of tune on some of those records, but it didn't matter - lots of people had out of tune vocals back then (Ruby Tuesday, anyone?). Nobody has out of tune vocals these days. I would prefer out of tune to the shiny robot singing most of the time. I think part of the problem today is that everything is a performance and an affectation now. It's very hard to find true, earnest artists who aren't thinking about their image and their "personal brand." Adding a bunch of instruments to a song that might not need it is in some ways an act of covering up the true root of who they are. Stripped down is scary. There's nothing to hide behind. The state motto of North Carolina (my home state) is Esse quam videri - "To be, rather than to seem." I feel like most of popular culture these days is the exact opposite: to seem, rather than to be. Now to be fair, back in the 80s and 90s - when record labels were paying for records to be made - it definitely happened on occasion that an artist would want to record something more simply and straightforwardly and the label would refuse it out of concern that they couldn't get airplay with something that stripped down. A lot of good comments here. So is our consensus here that artists are driving this and not the market? To whatever degree there's a market for anything that isn't intended for 19 year olds taking molly in a club, is there a market for stripped down solo recordings if they're good? I do think there's something to this as well as someone else's comment about the punk ethos being similar to the "grab the guitar and play" ethos. This fits one of my theories above which is that really the performers don't stand up well to the exposure or a raw recording and the songs aren't good enough. I've already a made a playlist with y'all's suggestions and am gonna be listening in the car today. Gillian Welch, duh. Forgot about her. Ever seen her live? I would love to, but haven't. Speaking of shows, catching anything cool for SXSW? Or playing yourself?
|
|