Pro Tools Carbon or MTRX?

This Carbon vs Mtrx might help. I have a Carbon - glad to answer any questions about it I can...

Carbon has limited I/O expansion is the main negative. You can't simply add another carbon and such. So if you don't need the full I/O than you're fine. But if you want more channels, you gotta get the true HDX card and all the toys.

Also I've never used one just the MTRX stuff and Avid I/O's and Digi 192's. Which 192's STILL work on HDX cards. I have 2 right now working flawlessly. I use the digital aes out to a HAPI and it does it's thing just right. So it's a cheap way to get some interfaces. They go for pretty cheap. The Avid I/O's are also dropping in price. If I can ever get a CAPI Sumbuss I'll just grab one of those.

You can expand Carbon by simply adding another Carbon, up to 3 total. You don't do this via ADAT, Carbon Central uses the AVB ethernet connection for expansion using either a Carbon Pre or a full Carbon booted into Pre mode. I run a pair of Carbons, the second booted as a Pre so it adds an additional 8 analog I/O. Analog insert latency is perfectly compensated with PT, ADAT latency will be compensated but any outboard converters connected won't be. 

If I ever downsize I’ve looked around for a compact solution and the Avid Carbon comes out tops.

I think the whole concept is excellent.

Big thumbs up from me for the Carbon!

I'd just use the Carbon Pre for line ins and outs, is that possible? Yeah, I did notice the whole dongle debarcle. Fortunately I already have the TB3 - TB2 adapter for the MOTU and I managed to find somewhere with the Apple Gigabit Ethernet adapter. The Sonnet's like $250.00, mad..

I'm about to retire some of these dongles because I just don't need them anymore - if interested reach out - it'll be cheap. I think I have a few TB2 dongles/cables laying around. 

MTRX Studio is another option. Digilink + TB3 option. You get the flexibility of DADman. DANTE and DAD’s room correction is built in, and there’s no latency hit when recording. The downside is you gotta enter the insert compensation numbers manually, but maybe this will become automated with a future firmware update, idk. 16 analog I/O and you can stack them. Pretty good value if you needs lots of analog lines.

We have a winner!

Right, let me start again. Here's ShadowK's usual unabashed very opinionated first impressions.

Firstly the sound.. I seem to be hopeful that one of these modern converters is going to rock my socks off but the Carbon sounds like a slightly brighter if not a bit more clearer version of my MOTU 1248, it's pretty much on par with the Aurora and simply put nothing to see here. It doesn't annoy me like one certain converter so that's fair enough, I will say the SSl Big Six sounds better than both of them but even then it's not game changing.

I must say though that said Carbon is a powerful device, I had to drop my speakers inputs by 24dB and the headphone amps on the Carbon are probably the best I've heard period.

Anyway, this actually spurred me on to fix the SSL's hissy L channel and because of that things have changed slightly. Instead of selling the SSL I'm now going to incorporate it into my setup, use the Carbon for tracking and initial mixes then use the SSL as an "insert" to mix with. Next up, as this is an Avid & Apple device the costs don't stop at just the interface, you will need some DB25's (I spoke with the stellar people at Lynx Custom to get these) plus either the expensive Sonnet or something like an Apple TB3 > TB2 > Ethernet dongle however you do get Pro Tools Ultimate PLUS a one year sub included and some free plugs. If you look at the cost of a HDX PCI-E plus Ultimate perpetual it seems like bargain of the year in comparison even if it's not.

When it comes to the DSP well I've seen a lot of great plugs available in AAX DSP and even if it is "dead" I don't believe it matters. Let's face it the Carbon suits a very niche market where you want time aligned HW inserts for Pro Tools and some DSP for tracking or overdub purposes. When it comes to final mixes then there's a lot of competition but for tracking I don't believe the Carbon can be beat. It does appear truly latency free due to the mixer being extended to the devices DSP architecture itself and there's a level of consistency when playing that's impressive.

This doesn't apply to VI's though but in that instance there's only output latency to be concerned with, after some testing with NI synths plus a kit or two there's no issues, the problem is going to come down to guitar players using VST's which requires a full round trip. If you do decide to go Carbon then you might want to consider an Axe FX or IK Tonex but if you can afford a Carbon then it's not an issue really is it?

All in it's a great device and certainly has advantages but you'd have to be a Pro Tools fan and want like me to use plugins to emulate a final mix to fill in the gaps. Otherwise the SSL will pretty much do the exact same job if you have some external HW and another DAW. The one defining factor is overdubs, however I got away with about 30 plugs before the Carbon reached its DSP limit so a final mix would still have to be considered carefully.

It would be really cool to have a Carbon/Protools thread on going

Updated on last page, testing done and we're all good.