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Post by Quint on Mar 6, 2024 8:50:54 GMT -6
All of those busses have to eventually stack up on latency, no? A buss into a buss into a buss into a buss.... Never worked on a system of DrBills scale, but on some old HD cards with 192s or 96s, as long as you weren't running RTAS between the myriad of busses, the latency wasn't usually enough to go beyond what PTHD's delay comp could deal with. Not sure how that has changed in modern HDX, but bussing itself seemed efficient. 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.
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Post by Quint on Mar 6, 2024 8:31:31 GMT -6
I get that it all gets delay compensated, and is still lined up with itself, but delay is still delay. So, for example, do you ever find that, when you're doing something like automation fader rides, that there is a discernible difference between what you're hearing and where the automation move actually is recorded on the timeline? Nope. Always in line. Always works. Never think about it. 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.
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 23:13:12 GMT -6
Well it's probably not usually much of an issue, but DrBill said he had over 700 busses, so the thought had occurred to me that that amount of routing might actually create a noticeable latency offset for things like automation. So it made me curious how he was dealing with that. 700 buses? Now I'm really curious. My system begins to add latency with 5-10 buses, even with zero latency plugins. Some buses cascade into other buses, which I assume are processed in series, not parallel. I think I might need to move to Pro Tools. Maybe I've been suffering for no reason. Whether it's DSP or native, one buss into another is a process in series. If each step in that series incurs a latency hit, and if you do it enough times, it seems like it would add up, irrespective of whether or not you're doing this on DSP or native, so I have questions...
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 22:27:42 GMT -6
I use a D-Control control surface with Pro Tools HDX and I don't notice any delay when writing automation/doing fader rides. I haven't thought about how that's compensated for, it just always worked so I never really noticed. Hopefully someone here can explain...I'm curious now haha. Well it's probably not usually much of an issue, but DrBill said he had over 700 busses, so the thought had occurred to me that that amount of routing might actually create a noticeable latency offset for things like automation. So it made me curious how he was dealing with that.
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 19:12:17 GMT -6
All of those busses have to eventually stack up on latency, no? A buss into a buss into a buss into a buss.... I never think about it. I just hit "delay compensation" and move on. It figures out if I have an insert on a path, native plugin, DSP plugin, whatever convoluted path I might have to come up with to get the job done. I have not seen anything else that gives me that kind of power and reliability. I will admit to pushing my DAW to the edge. I get that it all gets delay compensated, and is still lined up with itself, but delay is still delay. So, for example, do you ever find that, when you're doing something like automation fader rides, that there is a discernible difference between what you're hearing and where the automation move actually is recorded on the timeline?
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 18:30:58 GMT -6
I recall reading that you have enough hardware where you're able to leave most of the settings as they are. Those 76s are set for a purpose, and if you need that purpose, you patch in. Is that right? Essentially yes. But it does get more convoluted than just that. I have enough gear to pretty much get what I want, and it not, I'll use a combo of hardware and plugins. All tracks in my sessions are in "input" until finalized. Where it gets tricky is stepping rearwards from the end product to : - Final Mix (at unity); to - Stems (at unity); to - Printed contiguous "Final" tracks all at unity with printed automation and hardware; to - Automated "Mix" tracks with non-printed (software) automation, inserts, FX, EQ, etc.; to - Pre automated mix, midi & VI tracks (if used); Once my mix is "finished", Ill print the printed final tracks, stems, and final mix all in one pass. For a recall : So a simple automation recall may only require me to go back one step, two steps or all the way 5 steps back. If a tweak on the stems won't get it, I can go back to my printed (post FX/Automation/etc) tracks. If it's a massive change that requires completely doing something radically different, then I go back to my automated mix tracks. If it's something like a re-write and remix, then I can go back all the way to Midi and VI tracks if used, or call back musicians. Where PTHDX rules in this scenario is it's incredibly robust. It's quite elegant once laid out, but requires a TON of DSP mixing power. This is why I need multiple hundreds of internal busses.... All of those busses have to eventually stack up on latency, no? A buss into a buss into a buss into a buss....
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 18:08:07 GMT -6
It depends on what you're doing. Luna uses a hybrid engine, just like Carbon. So, it drops individual channels into and back out of the Apollo DSP when you arm and un-arm those channels for recording, respectively. Everything on that record-armed channel gets placed on the DSP (audio and any plugins). Otherwise, everything else is running on your CPU, and Luna takes care of making sure it's all lined up during recording and also during playback. So the stuff that needs to be on DSP, for the lowest possible latency, automatically gets placed on the DSP when you arm a track, whether that be one or two channels for overdubs, or a whole bunch of channels if you were live tracking a band or something. The number of tracks being hosted by the DSP would be limited by the amount of available DSP on the Apollo(s) and the number of tracks hosted by your computer would be limited by the CPU. Without actually using and pushing it, it's difficult to quite wrap my mind around it's potential limitations. For HDX, I can still push it to the limit, and I NEED hundreds of internal busses. If interested as to why : realgearonline.com/post/357209/threadI know that Luna allows an unlimited number of tracks, and Luna treats busses similar to tracks, so I suppose that it could also have unlimited busses?. You just create new busses, and then they're all in a row in your channel/mixer view. Plus, you can do buss spills, to only see those channels going to a specific buss. Like I said, that might have to be a customer service question about the busses. I've never seen anyone propose such a large number of busses in Luna. Not saying Luna can't do it. I just honestly don't know. 700 busses is obviously a pretty niche number.
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 17:56:31 GMT -6
During tracking, as in for low latency sends? Two stereo or four mono, which I've always felt like it was a little less than I'd like. Four stereo (8 mono) would be better. This just comes down to UA running up against the limits of what the on board FPGA is capable of. I suspect the next generation Apollo, whenever it is released, will come with a larger FPGA to eliminate this bottle neck. At least I hope so. I've been complaining about this to UA for a few years now. For a long time now, I've felt that, if the Apollos had an Achilles heel, the FPGA would be it. As for a mixing non-DSP scenario? It's effectively unlimited, as you might suspect. Not that this should be a surprise. You'd be using the your cpu at that point, and you'd only be limited by the power of your computer. So is it CPU speed limited - not software limited?? Can I do 750 busses? And I know you're going to say WTF do you need 700 + busses for. But there is a method to my madness..... It depends on what you're doing. Luna uses a hybrid engine, just like Carbon. So, it drops individual channels into and back out of the Apollo DSP when you arm and un-arm those channels for recording, respectively. Everything on that record-armed channel gets placed on the DSP (audio and any plugins). Otherwise, everything else is running on your CPU, and Luna takes care of making sure it's all lined up during recording and also during playback. So the stuff that needs to be on DSP, for the lowest possible latency, automatically gets placed on the DSP when you arm a track, whether that be one or two channels for overdubs, or a whole bunch of channels if you were live tracking a band or something. The number of tracks being hosted by the DSP would be limited by the amount of available DSP on the Apollo(s) and the number of tracks hosted by your computer would be limited by the CPU. So, if you're talking about 750 busses hosted in DSP, no, Luna can't do that. But I don't know of any reason that Luna couldn't natively support 750 busses. That is a crazy number of busses though, so I don't know who, if anybody, has tried to see if there is a limit to how many busses you can use in Luna. Theoretically, I assume it shouldn't be a problem, but, in practice, I can't say for sure. Sounds like a question for UA customer support.
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 17:38:13 GMT -6
There's definitely some things it's missing, hardware inserts being the biggest one, IMO. That said, part of that appealed to me is that I tend to use a DAW like a tape machine. I'm not doing a ton of crazy editing, so I don't need some of those features, and I actually like the clean, unbloated nature of Luna. So, in some respects, some of these things are actually weirdly a positive for me. I used Reaper for a while and, man, that DAW is the opposite end of the spectrum. You can do ANYTHING in that DAW, and there are 10 ways to do it. It was kind of just overwhelming. I was PT based quite a few years back, but I got tired of the Avid thing, and never looked back. That said, I generally didn't have an issue with the feature set in PT. It served my needs just fine. The features that I did use in PT are more or less the same features that I'm using in Luna. Just curious. What significant features do you feel are missing from Luna, that are included in PT? You said you hadn't ever looked at Luna, so you may be surprised to find out that Luna has some features that you just assumed it didn't have. I certainly wouldn't call Luna a toy at this point. Year one? Yeah, it was fairly basic, but they have added a lot of features since it was released four years ago. Once they add hardware inserts, it'll honestly be a fully fledged DAW, at least for my purposes, and, I suspect, for a lot of other people's purposes as well. For me some big ones: Automation feature set. This is hard to get into unless you really know how the advanced automation features work in Protools. But it's just so fast and powerful. I haven't seen other's implement it in the same way as effectively. I live on that stuff and it really makes doing automation fast. Helpful in music but absolutely life saving in post work. I know Nuendo has some of this too but not about to switch to that. Data import. SUPER underrated feature of protools that I don't think any other DAW does and thats the data import function. I can import session data from one session into another and pick exactly what I want. This is really powerful in so many ways. I don't think any other DAW does this? But also not super sure. I know the Stienburg and Merging stuff doesn't. and I guess just to pick on Luna, but yeah the hardware insert and automatic delay compensation. Just works. Eucon. This is also big for me. I use an S6 at work and an S1 at home with the free AvidControl app. Super powerful and helpful. Obvious Eucon works on other software but the integration into Protools is obviously much deeper. Very powerful Massive busing. I use sub bussing a LOT. In some session I have a built in matrix to have a stereo mix and a 5.1 mix and now also an atmos mix going in the same session. Takes a lot of internal aux sends and bussing. All of those = faster more efficient working. Priceless. Then theres the "industry standard" point which i know makes most people roll their eyes. But it's still true. Big shops are still dependent on it which makes pretty much all 3rd party developers also make their stuff work with Protools. things like Kraken, Soundly, RX, ect. Whatever. They will always make it work in Protools. It'll be really great when ARA support takes off in a deeper way for Protools, something other DAWs do MUCH better. It's not perfect I know. And really if all your doing is mixing some music tunes. The differences between DAWs blur heavily IMO. You could mix a song very well in garage band if you wanted. But I do enough post work to know the other side of Protools and features most music mixers never even know of. And there is a reason why post houses are mostly using it still. HDX wise, if you want hardware to always just work. Have to do lots of headphone mixes and stuff or whatever and don't have a console. HDX baby! Those are all fair points. As for the session import data thing, Luna does that now too, though I wouldn't claim to be able to offer any sort of comprehensive comparison between how Luna and PT each handle that. Not sure how the automation compares. And Eucon is Eucon, so if you need that, yeah PT is the only option there. Internal bussing and auxes, HDX has Luna beat by a mile there, IF we're talking about DSP based auxes. If we're not, then it shouldn't matter, at least in theory. It'd just come down to your computer CPU, though maybe I'm not sure what you're doing with your bussing. You said you do post? If so, then that's maybe a different story then. I don't think UA has any intention of even trying to compete or break into post. They seem squarely focused on music creation in artist/band contexts.
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 17:30:15 GMT -6
So - the Lynx Aurora with the Digi connector...that connects to an HDX card? And then you pay for PT Ultimate and the HW Inserts should work? Or is it just Avid products? There's quite a few that tricks Pro Tools into believing it's a HDX product (matched latency readout).
Apogee Symphony (HDX expansion card) Lynx Aurora Focusrite Red
Now I've always been interested in option 3, plenty of I/O, decent spec's, cheaper than the rest and you can get one new so you don't have to worry about warranty.
Antelope too, or at least they used to have HDX Digi connection options. But it's Antelope... I wouldn't go near them. Too many support issues.
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 16:54:58 GMT -6
I hope your wrong too! But I know what you mean about UA's behavior. Drew will tell you that all is well, but I do have to wonder sometimes... Luna was a highly expensive thing to get off the ground, I'm sure. From what we've been told, the conception of Luna is like 10 years old at this point, so it wasn't a rash decision. I guess all of those pedals, for which the R&D was basically already done, will help to pay off the expense of Luna. Those pedals are selling like hot cakes, from what I hear, and those pedals have got to have a pretty high profit margin, all things considered. The UAFX pedals are pretty popular around here, I bet you're seeing them too Quint. I don't know how many pedals is a lot but I feel like they're selling a lot of them. Certainly more than other $300 pedals, that's for sure. It's a really smart strategy. The coding is already done (a long time ago) and each box is the same so they have economy of scale on the manufacturing. Slap a nice paint job on there (you can never fault UA for nice design, they've got that down) and you gotta figure these are a decent margin product. They're buggy AF but great when they work. Yeah, they're around. I haven't used any myself yet, but I had considered picking up one or two. Hadn't heard about any bugginess, other than the Bluetooth app thing. Is that what you're referring to? If I picked up one of these pedals, it'd likely be purely for knob turning anyway, so I don't know if I'd care about the Bluetooth app one way or another. Bluetooth is a shit protocol to begin with, so I wouldn't be surprised to hear that there were issues. I can't ever get my god damn phone to connect to my truck. It's often a struggle.
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 16:47:56 GMT -6
For you luna users - how many internal Aux busses does Luna have? Just curious. During tracking, as in for low latency sends? Two stereo or four mono, which I've always felt like it was a little less than I'd like. Four stereo (8 mono) would be better. This just comes down to UA running up against the limits of what the on board FPGA is capable of. I suspect the next generation Apollo, whenever it is released, will come with a larger FPGA to eliminate this bottle neck. At least I hope so. I've been complaining about this to UA for a few years now. For a long time now, I've felt that, if the Apollos had an Achilles heel, the FPGA would be it. As for a mixing non-DSP scenario? It's effectively unlimited, as you might suspect. Not that this should be a surprise. You'd be using the your cpu at that point, and you'd only be limited by the power of your computer.
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 16:41:55 GMT -6
There's definitely some things it's missing, hardware inserts being the biggest one, IMO. That said, part of that appealed to me is that I tend to use a DAW like a tape machine. I'm not doing a ton of crazy editing, so I don't need some of those features, and I actually like the clean, unbloated nature of Luna. So, in some respects, some of these things are actually weirdly a positive for me. I used Reaper for a while and, man, that DAW is the opposite end of the spectrum. You can do ANYTHING in that DAW, and there are 10 ways to do it. It was kind of just overwhelming. I was PT based quite a few years back, but I got tired of the Avid thing, and never looked back. That said, I generally didn't have an issue with the feature set in PT. It served my needs just fine. The features that I did use in PT are more or less the same features that I'm using in Luna. Just curious. What significant features do you feel are missing from Luna, that are included in PT? You said you hadn't ever looked at Luna, so you may be surprised to find out that Luna has some features that you just assumed it didn't have. I certainly wouldn't call Luna a toy at this point. Year one? Yeah, it was fairly basic, but they have added a lot of features since it was released four years ago. Once they add hardware inserts, it'll honestly be a fully fledged DAW, at least for my purposes, and, I suspect, for a lot of other people's purposes as well. I'm curious about this too - what else is truly missing in Luna that would make someone like myself find it a non-starter? As most of you know, I'm in Logic rather than PT, but I used PT all the time back in the TDM days, and I still miss that "singular app" workflow that I can't get in Logic. I'm used to my Metric Halo DSP mixer, but it would still speed things up considerably if my DAW could be both my recording AND cue mixer. No question about it.
I think about PT Carbon pretty frequently, but that's still a lot of jack in my world, and everything you're saying, Quint, about using AAX-DSP plugins during tracking and switching them out for others during mixing is definitely a real concern. I wish there had been more third-party uptake on the AAX-DSP thing.
I wish UAD made a digital-only interface with AES (and ADAT, if you must...) and some DSP onboard to run Luna. That would make me sit up and take notice. I'm still really, really happy with the conversion (and even preamps when needed...) on my ULN-8. Would be interested in Luna if I could just plug in and go.
(OK, I just looked at the various Apollos on offer, and I see that it would, in fact, be possible to do as I'm suggesting, just using the ADAT protocol rather than AES. Hmmm. I may have to give this some thought...) Yeah, I've wished they would make a standalone DSP digital I/O box myself, similar to an HDX DSP card, but I suspect they won't. In any case, yeah, you can totally run your Metric Halo thru ADAT into an Apollo. Matter of fact, you wouldn't even need the latest X series generation of Apollos. If all you need it for is as an ADAT DSP hub, you could pick up a previous generation Apollo for fairly cheap. I'm not sure what your I/O requirements are though. I had, once upon a time, considered such a solution myself. One thing to be aware of is that Luna uses what UA calls ARM paths. These are the DSP driven, low latency routing paths that use the onboard FPGA in the Apollo to be as low a RTL as possible. As there is a finite amount of routing paths on the FPGA, as is the case with any FPGA (a lot of interfaces use FPGAs), there is a limit of 16 ARM paths on the latest gen X series rack mount Apollos. I believe that also applies to the previous generation blackface Apollos as well, but the first gen silver face Apollos are old enough that they had smaller FPGAs, and therefore are limited to only 10 ARM paths. So if you go looking for a used Apollo to use as an ADAT hub, just keep that in mind. One other thing that you may not be aware of is that you can now use Luna in Core Audio mode, which means that it's running entirely natively, no different than any DAW would run natively with an interface of your choosing. So you could use your Metric Halo directly with Luna, if you wanted to (obviously you wouldn't be taking advantage of the DSP low latency in the Apollo though). One nice little wrinkle to that is that you can aggregate interfaces directly within Luna while in Core Audio mode. So you can use two or more audio interfaces of your choosing, and aggregate them directly within Luna, and also easily switch back and forth between DSP (Apollo mode) and Core Audio mode, as you wish.
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 14:12:44 GMT -6
Fair enough. I was just trying to point out that you had a misunderstanding of how Luna works. It is the same sort of workflow as HDX. There is no second app to manage or to switch back and forth between. yeah totally fair, i've never even looked at it or used it. But until it's more fully featured it's not really a viable comparison in my opinion. If it gets there, then you bet. But right now, its like a toy compared to Protools as it is in its infancy still. Hopefully it grows well. There's definitely some things it's missing, hardware inserts being the biggest one, IMO. That said, part of that appealed to me is that I tend to use a DAW like a tape machine. I'm not doing a ton of crazy editing, so I don't need some of those features, and I actually like the clean, unbloated nature of Luna. So, in some respects, some of these things are actually weirdly a positive for me. I used Reaper for a while and, man, that DAW is the opposite end of the spectrum. You can do ANYTHING in that DAW, and there are 10 ways to do it. It was kind of just overwhelming. I was PT based quite a few years back, but I got tired of the Avid thing, and never looked back. That said, I generally didn't have an issue with the feature set in PT. It served my needs just fine. The features that I did use in PT are more or less the same features that I'm using in Luna. Just curious. What significant features do you feel are missing from Luna, that are included in PT? You said you hadn't ever looked at Luna, so you may be surprised to find out that Luna has some features that you just assumed it didn't have. I certainly wouldn't call Luna a toy at this point. Year one? Yeah, it was fairly basic, but they have added a lot of features since it was released four years ago. Once they add hardware inserts, it'll honestly be a fully fledged DAW, at least for my purposes, and, I suspect, for a lot of other people's purposes as well.
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 14:03:22 GMT -6
Seconding the idea that UA plugins are over rated. Not bad, but... I think the price drove the hype considerably. There are some real gems in the UAD world, but I more or less agree with this sentiment. The cats out of the bag now, and they can't go back to charging what they were. I stick with a lot of the UAD plugins that I have because the automatic switching back and forth between DSP and native, which is a Luna only feature, is pretty worthwhile to me. It basically makes it so that tracking and mixing are one in the same, as I just use the same plugins from the beginning, and then the mix is already halfway there because I'm using that same plugin during mixing that I used during tracking. I probably wouldn't be doing that with AAX plugins. If I ever hopped off of the Luna train though, all bets are off. I'd just use whatever plugins, since the DSP thing wouldn't be available to me anymore at that point.
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 13:57:25 GMT -6
Luna is very similar to the PT with the hybrid engine. No more. No less. It's Luna in the software end and the Apollos on the hardware end, and that's it, same as with PT on the software end and Avid interfaces on the hardware end. So it's the same sort of workflow. There is no additional app to manage with Luna. I think you're maybe thinking of the UA Console app, which you do need to use if you're using some DAW other than Luna, but then that's no different than using any other DAW with whatever hardware mixer is built into the interface you're using. As for cue mixes, I would refer you back to my first paragraph. There is no other app to manage for this stuff. Luna works the same as how you are describing PT HDX, and all while operating at low latencies similar to HDX. Luna is not how you're describing it. Luna lacks too many major features for me to even begin to take it seriously compared to ProTools Ultimate. So I am not taking that into account at all. Once and if it grows up a lot. Then it'll be more of a level playing field perhaps. But as of now, no way. Fair enough. I was just trying to point out that you had a misunderstanding of how Luna works. It is the same sort of workflow as HDX. There is no second app to manage or to switch back and forth between.
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 13:51:28 GMT -6
Apollo is 1.1ms, so I'd say for the purposes of this discussion, it's right there with HDX/Carbon. Of note, these latencies for HDX/Carbon and Apollo are both at 96k. That said, it's worth pointing out that some DSP plugins, can increase that latency on Apollo, and I know that can happen with HDX/Carbon too. IMO, one of the biggest differentiators between HDX/Carbon and Apollo is that, IF you want to use plugins while tracking, Apollo offers access to a way better selection of plugins than what is available for HDX/Carbon. AAX is kind of dead in the water. Plus, now that Luna auto switches between DSP and native, those same UAD plugins I used in tracking are already there during mixing. Basically you're already mixing from day 1 because those UAD plugins are something I would keep in place and also actually use during mixing. I don't think there's a whole lot of those AAX plugins that I would actually want to use during mixing. Those AAX plugins would be placeholders for some better plugin during mixing, at best. I gave Carbon a hard look, and thought about it, but I didn't like that the expandability was so limited. I think you're limited to a max of three Carbons, in which case that's a max of 24 channels (yeah, there's ADAT and all of that, but...). I have a fairly large amount of hardware, and 24 channels wouldn't get it done. You can daisy chain up to four Apollo 16s for 64 channels of I/O. But Luna doesn't have HW inserts yet, so maybe it's a moot point (supposedly HW inserts will be coming, eventually). So it's a bit of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If/when Luna gets HW inserts, that would change things though. As for AVID, man, well, it's just AVID. Ugh.... Though UA is starting to get a little odiferous itself... I thought this video (this is Part 1, there is also a Part 2) did a great job of explaining all of these latency comparisons, and also generally did a good job of weighing the pros and cons of Carbon vs Apollo. All fair points. But the biggest difference is flow at least to me. I really really am not a fan of all the apps needed to run all things these days. IN the case of UA there is like 2? To use their hardware? Plus your DAW. Protools, it's all one thing and there is no thinking about it. It just works. I personally think UA's products and plugins are overrated. I caved on a few of their native releases but never again. They just aren't that great IMO. But I'm not the biggest plugin guy either so...whatever. I also know that UA can only do that kind of latency just like every other native DSP system which is within it's own hardware. So you have to do all your headphone monitoring in the UA app, not in your DAW. Protools it's all in it you just use it like a DAW. No other apps needed. Which I love. And proof is in the pudding. I think every person that uses HDX on here says the same things over and over every time a thread like this pops up. We all love it. We all would never go back. And it just....works. Every time. Not a lot of DAWs can say that I think. But it also just boils down to what your are comfortable with and in the long run. Usually sticking to what you know best is best. Luna is very similar to PT with the hybrid engine. No more. No less. It's Luna in the software end and the Apollos on the hardware end, and that's it, same as with PT on the software end and Avid interfaces on the hardware end. So it's the same sort of workflow. There is no additional app to manage with Luna. There is no switching back and forth between the DAW and another app for cue mixes or whatever, because, with Luna, all management of all tasks takes place within Luna, just like it works with HDX. I think you're maybe thinking of the UA Console app, which you do need to use if you're using some DAW other than Luna, but then that's no different than using any other DAW with whatever hardware mixer is built into the interface you're using. As for cue mixes, I would refer you back to my first paragraph. There is no other app to manage for this stuff. Luna works the same as how you are describing PT HDX, and all while operating at low latencies similar to HDX. Luna is not how you're describing it.
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 13:12:09 GMT -6
Also, all of these AVID products (Carbon, HDX, MTRX) have fans, for whatever that's worth. If potential fan noise is an issue. Machine room. <thumbsup> After living with tape machines, then computers, then multiple interfaces - even with only one interface - I made the commitment to a machine room on the latest studio. Honestly, at this point in my career, there is not alternative. For me. YMMV. I have a machine room too. Wouldn't want to be without it. But I don't think John has a machine room, so it was still worth mentioning that there are fans to consider.
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 12:23:27 GMT -6
I'm kind of in the same boat. Been on PT forever, but it's such a Stockholm syndrome-y relationship. I've always said to myself, "I do not have time to learn another DAW..." but after dealing with various PT bugs for so long, that argument is getting weaker. For example, I just had a bunch of drum takes on playlists and I was working on a comp. Suddenly, one of the playlists is missing one of the OH tracks, and a couple other playlists have individual mics/tracks that aren't actually part of that take. I wasted a bunch of time searching around only to see lots of threads where people are like "hey, suddenly my playlists aren't sync'd...I've lost several hours of tracking since I can't comp this anymore...I sure hope Avid fixes this in the next update [post from like 2012...]". It's just one of many flaky things about PT that have been around forever and I just live with them because I don't want to spend the time to switch DAWs. If Luna gets hardware inserts (real ones, not the Avid janky way where you have to try to manually compute them but then they don't give you enough granularity in delay values you can enter), I'll probably switch. Paying top dollar for Avid's buggy DAW and thinking that maybe they'll finally fix things *any minute now* is so lame. Avid is gonna Avid and thinking otherwise continues to be foolish I think. And Luna is basically all the PT keyboard shortcuts. Well. The main ones. They could get people to come over in droves if they advertised basically as Pro Tools HDX but better (not arguing that it is…) Yeah, the PT shortcuts was a strategic move, I'm sure. I think Luna actually really could be a more direct competitor to HDX if they got a few other things implemented, HW inserts being number one. Not in the post world, or anything like that, but for the band/artist/music sort of world? Yeah, I think they could. That's one of the reasons I'm still optimistic on the long term success of Luna, and UA in general. I think UA will ultimately be fine, but they clearly seem to be in a "now it's time to make some money" phase to pay off all of the irons in the fire they currently have. Lots of debt, I imagine. And back to the shortcut thing real quick. With a Stream Deck, you don't really need to know the shortcuts for ANY DAW. Just saying.
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 11:59:16 GMT -6
I hope I'm wrong for the sake of those that use it and enjoy it, but based off of UA's recent track record, I don't have high hopes for the future of Luna. They aren't behaving like a company that is doing well financially IMHO. I doubt automatic delay compensation for hardware inserts is anywhere in the near future. Again...hope I'm wrong! I hope your wrong too! But I know what you mean about UA's behavior. Drew will tell you that all is well, but I do have to wonder sometimes... Luna was a highly expensive thing to get off the ground, I'm sure. From what we've been told, the conception of Luna is like 10 years old at this point, so it wasn't a rash decision. I guess all of those pedals, for which the R&D was basically already done, will help to pay off the expense of Luna. Those pedals are selling like hot cakes, from what I hear, and those pedals have got to have a pretty high profit margin, all things considered.
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 11:51:58 GMT -6
Also, all of these AVID products (Carbon, HDX, MTRX) have fans, for whatever that's worth. If potential fan noise is an issue. This is one reason I prefer Lynx interfaces. Half the rack space and no fan noise. They show up as Avid interfaces as far as Pro Tools is concerned, it's awesome. I used to have 2 Avid HD I/O and on hot days the noise did start to annoy me. Forgive the shameless plug but I ended up swapping the fan in the Avid and it's much better for anyone interested in that: This is one of a myriad of reasons that, IF I ever dropped my Apollos, Lynx would almost certainly be my number one choice to replace them.
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 11:40:53 GMT -6
Yeah I’m not going to get hired to do post work this millennium I think… Here was/is my goal. I want to be able to mix with hardware as conveniently as a plugin. To do that in Pro Tools, it’s going to cost thousands…when I could just switch to a daw that has a ping feature or something and all my problems are solved. I’d be kind of a dumbass to spend $4k when that’s an option. Maybe I’ll just commit to switching for a month or so and see how it goes. Have we heard anything about when Luna might get HWDC, Quint ? Quint has kind of sold me again on sticking with the UA universe…I basically have a carbon…but without hwdc…so $4k would just be for completely for convenience. I'm kind of in the same boat. Been on PT forever, but it's such a Stockholm syndrome-y relationship. I've always said to myself, "I do not have time to learn another DAW..." but after dealing with various PT bugs for so long, that argument is getting weaker. For example, I just had a bunch of drum takes on playlists and I was working on a comp. Suddenly, one of the playlists is missing one of the OH tracks, and a couple other playlists have individual mics/tracks that aren't actually part of that take. I wasted a bunch of time searching around only to see lots of threads where people are like "hey, suddenly my playlists aren't sync'd...I've lost several hours of tracking since I can't comp this anymore...I sure hope Avid fixes this in the next update [post from like 2012...]". It's just one of many flaky things about PT that have been around forever and I just live with them because I don't want to spend the time to switch DAWs. If Luna gets hardware inserts (real ones, not the Avid janky way where you have to try to manually compute them but then they don't give you enough granularity in delay values you can enter), I'll probably switch. Paying top dollar for Avid's buggy DAW and thinking that maybe they'll finally fix things *any minute now* is so lame. Avid is gonna Avid and thinking otherwise continues to be foolish I think. One would assume that UA will implement HW inserts in a manner similar to how a few of the other DAWs out there do it with a HW insert plugin, where you basically just treat your hardware like a plugin. At least I certainly think that's how UA "should" do it. And I think they will take that approach, given how plugin centric UA is. As has been discussed, UA isn't without their faults, but I'd still take UA over Avid.
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 11:36:06 GMT -6
I think I've read that the tradeoff of the lower native RTL on the Quantum is that compromises (for speed purposes) had to be made on the filters and other such things related to the AD/DA, with the net result being that the Quantum doesn't sound that great, as compared to other, slower native RTL interfaces. No free lunch, as they say. The filter are the main source of latency in converters and interfaces but the sound is garbage on it. RME does that compromised filter shenanigans too. Working with Presonus Studio and Quantum was a PITA. Presonus never again. This is one of the arguments for DSP, IMO. If you can monitor without having to take a round trip thru the computer, you can get away with slower AD/DA filter speeds (and therefore, better sound) because you don't have to worry about the additional time needed for buffers, etc., all while still maintaining low latency.
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 10:49:42 GMT -6
I thought that Quantum got the Dan seal of approval Dude it sucks. Way worse than an Apollo or Apogee. I think I've read that the tradeoff of the lower native RTL on the Quantum is that compromises (for speed purposes) had to be made on the filters and other such things related to the AD/DA, with the net result being that the Quantum doesn't sound as good, as compared to other, slower native RTL interfaces. No free lunch, as they say.
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Post by Quint on Mar 5, 2024 10:28:37 GMT -6
Also, all of these AVID products (Carbon, HDX, MTRX) have fans, for whatever that's worth. If potential fan noise is an issue.
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