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Post by Shadowk on Mar 4, 2024 7:44:08 GMT -6
Second Carbon arrived and I've wired up my primary to test everything was working. So Pro Tools Ultimate asks me do you want to switch to hybrid mode and I'm like sure, why not? Although I never quite expected the impact of it, everything just tightend up from recording to basic mixing etc. I've talked about having access to hundreds of thousands in equipment plus specialised rooms at Uni, we'd record to tape / ADAT etc. and whilst the musicianship was quite poor everything always sounded super hi-fi. Now, it's been a while since I've used HDX and I had a console at the time. It seems I might have attributed a bit too much to the consoles themselves, or did I? The one thing analog doesn't really suffer with is latency. I'm out of practice, I messed up multiple times but it struck me once again how tight & punchy it all sounds.. Now, this isn't a good thing and I'd like to say I'm baffled by this but frankly after what I've seen recording through various DAW's it's not all that surprising. I understand why there's a general set methodology, avoid bussing where possible, track completely without plugins and in Pro Tools (vanilla) avoid mixing with HW. I've had DSP mixers that phased when using a send and nothing else, I've had to manually correct latency on a chained interface created to be chained, I've had a DAW's ADC slip out of time as the project went along, overdubs are generally a no go until you bypass everythhing, cue mixes are always interesting as you're adding latency when tracking. Automatic delay compensation (ADC) in general can be a bit touch and go IME, you might disagree but I say let's hear it. Do you actually notice? Have you tested every component of your DAW's automatic delay compensation to ensure it works as expected? I mean I've recorded songs and within reason just ignored the fact that it's a bit mushy and I often blamed it on limiting. You might even like a bit of phase but for me its an utterly detrimental aspect of ITB recording that you have to be completely aware of at every step. In a mix this can be very hard to spot but for example a single send to an aux or a sidechain test should be extremely easy to notice, when we talk about latency it's generally in regards to compensation as a human (which we can do easily) but consider this when we get phase from a send to aux we're talking about a small amount of samples. This could be another consideration for 96Khz as well because there is generally less latency as a whole. This merits some more experimentation, I'm going to grab Reaper for what it costs (as a mobile rig) and I've got Logic & Cubase. It's honestly quite concerning that when Pro Tools Ultimate & Carbon snaps into hybrid mode how much everything just clears up?! On a side note I've not missed Pro Tools stock plugins, I used the studio verb as a test for hybrid mode and it's awful. Thank goodness I have a HW Lexicon..
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Post by kcatthedog on Mar 4, 2024 8:00:29 GMT -6
Interesting, what exactly is hybrid mode:, multiple avid interfaces, mixed interfaces, outboard and software, working with a console and real outboard gear?
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Post by doubledog on Mar 4, 2024 8:35:41 GMT -6
from what I found:
Move effortlessly between tracking and mixing—without messing with buffer settings. The magic is in the Hybrid Engine. Toggle any track into DSP mode, and the Hybrid Engine seamlessly moves your entire live signal path to use real-time AAX DSP plugins for recording. Toggle a track back, and it automatically switches to use the AAX Native versions of your plugins, giving you the freedom to adjust plugins as the track evolves.
so it sounds like "hybrid" mode is simply using onboard DSP (or Native plugins) per track? Which means you won't fill up your DSP as quickly (if you switch some to native)
I've never used a Carbon, but with my Apollo I can also get near-zero latency (by monitoring through UA Console) and I have ADC in Pro Tools. And I can use DSP (UAD2) or Native plugins. I would say the biggest difference is just workflow (I have to jump between Pro Tools and the UA console when doing overdubs) but after you really learn any workflow it becomes second nature.
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Post by longscale on Mar 4, 2024 10:41:42 GMT -6
What I wish I could find is a quick way to toggle between DSP and native mode. I'm in HDX - with the Hybrid Engine enabled. I like that. But it is a pita to flip a bunch of things on/off all the time. I use HW outboard when tracking as inserts. Turning DSP on/off so that I can monitor with Sonarworks and actually "hear" correctly what I've tracked. That is the primary issue for me. If I could preset things: this is all the tracks, and buss setups that I want DSP on for tracking and then flip it on or off with one keystroke I'd enjoy this experience much more.
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Post by Shadowk on Mar 4, 2024 10:58:57 GMT -6
from what I found: so it sounds like "hybrid" mode is simply using onboard DSP (or Native plugins) per track? Which means you won't fill up your DSP as quickly (if you switch some to native) I've never used a Carbon, but with my Apollo I can also get near-zero latency (by monitoring through UA Console) and I have ADC in Pro Tools. And I can use DSP (UAD2) or Native plugins. I would say the biggest difference is just workflow (I have to jump between Pro Tools and the UA console when doing overdubs) but after you really learn any workflow it becomes second nature. Actually no, it's not just that. The entire mixer becomes a DSP based solution (just like HDX) hence the "zero" latency tracking direct to DAW, DSP based plugins with minimal impact and Pro Tools with Carbon automatically compensates for HW latency, mixer channel latency etc. In short you offload pretty much everything until you mix in native with standard ADC although you don't have to do that and it can be on a per track basis.
In this setup you set the buffer as high as you want and just leave it, besides VSTI's which is something to consider latency will always remain at 0.7ms (roughly, depends on what you're doing) when tracking and supposedly zero between internal groups when mixing in hybrid mode. This is more like Luna and Apollo as opposed to just the Apollo itself.
Quote from the above review: "There will probably be some people reading this thinking that they track quite happily at 32 samples and this sounds like a lot of money for not much benefit. All I can say is I have tracked quite happily at low buffer settings. It works. However, the difference between low latency and (effectively) no latency is like that moment when sitting in a quiet kitchen and the fridge stops buzzing. You didn’t realise it was annoying you until it stopped, but when it went away it was just so nice!"
They said it better than me..
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Post by kelk on Mar 4, 2024 12:50:09 GMT -6
How is the DAC on the Carbon sounding?
I've been hesitant to make the switch, i'm on a Prism sound system at the moment. The Carbon upsides are quite big from what I gather, latency wise.
I love the DA side of the Prism but maybe the Carbon works well enough there.
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Post by Shadowk on Mar 4, 2024 12:54:48 GMT -6
How is the DAC on the Carbon sounding? I've been hesitant to make the switch, i'm on a Prism sound system at the moment. The Carbon upsides are quite big from what I gather, latency wise. I love the DA side of the Prism but maybe the Carbon works well enough there. Pristine is how I’d sum it up, some will like that some won’t but in my view if I want to dirty things up I can do it whilst tracking or mixing with some decent HW. I don’t want my converters involved in any way. |
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Post by maldenfilms on Mar 4, 2024 13:24:06 GMT -6
Shadow, I actually had the exact same experience as you with my Carbon. I now always make sure to have DSP mode engaged on my tracks that have analog inserts, including my Aux with Bricasti. It makes a noticeable audible difference for the better, and I think it's also compensating latency a little better. Not to open a whole can of worms, but there's a big thread elsewhere about how CoreAudio might be impacting audio quality and it's been found that HDX bypasses CoreAudio, so maybe that has something to do with it.
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Post by Dan on Mar 4, 2024 13:39:58 GMT -6
The AAX DSP and Native versions often have different pdc latency. If Pro Tools cannot compensate for that, that's hilarious. Reaper and Cubase have rock solid PDC within their audio engines and buffers. Cubase and Reaper also do not permit feedback routing. AAX DSP was also dead on arrival. Waves and other developers refused to port their plugs to the TI DSP chips. Only a bunch of not great Brainworx and McDSP plugs. Sonnox are probably the cleanest in the format but quite old and they are not porting their later plugs like the Drum Gate and Voca to AAX DSP.
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Post by subspace on Mar 4, 2024 14:22:19 GMT -6
I was at a composer's place yesterday who had his HDX rig die on him mid-project and he needed to transition from his PT11/HD i/o on a Mac Pro to a new Mac Studio with fresh Ventura/PT Ultimate install unexpectedly before his deadline. Oh, the fun I had. He had bought a Sonnet TB4 chassis to move the HDX cards into later, but I brought a Carbon with me so I could just unplug his DB25s and have his whole set-up patched while installing the software. By the time I had PT Ultimate and all his VIs/plug-ins re-installed, then re-saved all his music cue projects under 2023.12, he'd decided to sell off his HDX cards/interfaces, return the Sonnet chassis and just buy a Carbon. He was used to HDX latency and had never used hybrid mode before, but by 2pm he was playing his guitar and analog synth through DIs 1+2, had a 33609 inserted across the mix on 5+6, and a Mutronics Mutator inserted on 7+8 for capturing the synth renders.
I try to keep my AAX DSP inserts in the 10-66 sample delay region so it's always under a ms of latency at 96k during tracking.
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Post by thehightenor on Mar 4, 2024 14:27:18 GMT -6
Cubase Pro 13 delay compensation is rock solid. 100% spot on. But for all tracking and over dubbing I use an analog monitoring mixer for true ZERO latency tracking  |
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Post by kcatthedog on Mar 4, 2024 14:29:20 GMT -6
That does sound like a great workflow.
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Post by Bat Lanyard on Mar 4, 2024 14:51:22 GMT -6
Cubase Pro 13 delay compensation is rock solid. 100% spot on. But for all tracking and over dubbing I use an analog monitoring mixer for true ZERO latency tracking That's what I do as well. |
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Post by Shadowk on Mar 5, 2024 18:00:20 GMT -6
The AAX DSP and Native versions often have different pdc latency. If Pro Tools cannot compensate for that, that's hilarious. Reaper and Cubase have rock solid PDC within their audio engines and buffers. Cubase and Reaper also do not permit feedback routing. AAX DSP was also dead on arrival. Waves and other developers refused to port their plugs to the TI DSP chips. Only a bunch of not great Brainworx and McDSP plugs. Sonnox are probably the cleanest in the format but quite old and they are not porting their later plugs like the Drum Gate and Voca to AAX DSP. Of course it can or there would be no point in ADC in the first place, also it doesn't matter if it's DOA in Carbon as the point of it is cue mixing, it's not a replacement for an entire rig. The point I'm making is with a zero latency mixer outside of things like CoreAudio which even Steinberg can't do much about everything is snappier for sure, I'm going to test Reaper and see if I can get a similar response. I've tested Logic, that's worse but I need to upgrade my version (there are some ADC & routing fixes) and I have used Cubase & Samplitude in the past.
I'm either going mad or there's something to this, I'll also say this happens way too often. I might have messed something up but with the Apollo's audio routed to a bus it didn't compensate on the internal mixer and we got phase, the MOTU's have to be run through their internal mixer if you're using AVB or something gets screwy. Logic has got well known bugs with ADC slippage, Pro Tools "vanilla" until what 2019 / 2020 didn't even support side chain compensation (it's a HDX feature of course) although now the ADC is the exact same as HDX which would have been great back in 2011 when I used it. I've seen too many examples from all DAW's, I just went on the purple site and it took me a whole five seconds to find someone with similar issues in Reaper.
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Post by Shadowk on Mar 5, 2024 18:27:10 GMT -6
Cubase Pro 13 delay compensation is rock solid. 100% spot on. But for all tracking and over dubbing I use an analog monitoring mixer for true ZERO latency tracking Sorry, should have explained more. As you know I've got an SSL Big Six, it's not "true" zero latency tracking as your converters need to output the audio and you still have to record it (hence an RT). The benefit to this approach is you're only listening to the output latency so you'll get closer but it doesn't mean it would match like in HDX unless you have an interface that can do sub ms round trip. When you add plugins into this situation it will just exascerbate the issue and overdubs are still not exactly possible unless you start bypassing, I'm sure someone will say well it's not much so I can compensate. However I'll paraphrase the SOS review, it's not noticeable because you get used to it but it doesn't mean it isn't there.
Look, I'm not an Avid defender. I think the price of any HDX solution is extortionate, also it's not impossible to build a tool to convert C++ to Assembly, C or whatever language you prefer (multiple engines do this) so if someone had the expertise they could create an easy way to convert plugs to DSP then undermine Avid. To create the interface etc. would be a task and to standardise it would take a lot of effort but again it's not impossible.
What I'm saying is it's like recording from analog to tape, the amount of latency across the board is imperceptible and it's something you understand once you've tried it. Whether this should be the case anyway, well that's another question. I'm not the only one saying it though, again the SOS review.
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Post by guitfiddler on Mar 6, 2024 2:54:03 GMT -6
Avid Carbon user here. Demo a Carbon you just might like it! I need 8 more I/O, adding Carbon PRE8 soon
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Post by Shadowk on Mar 6, 2024 15:19:03 GMT -6
Avid Carbon user here. Demo a Carbon you just might like it! I need 8 more I/O, adding Carbon PRE8 soon My DB-25 for the Carbon Pre extension arrived today so I should be able to hook it up tomorrow and finish off patching. This is where I find out what works and what doesn't any more  ..
I actually tried the onboard amps on the Carbon, I'll never use them but they are very good.
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Mar 6, 2024 16:48:43 GMT -6
Avid Carbon user here. Demo a Carbon you just might like it! I need 8 more I/O, adding Carbon PRE8 soon My DB-25 for the Carbon Pre extension arrived today so I should be able to hook it up tomorrow and finish off patching. This is where I find out what works and what doesn't any more ..
I actually tried the onboard amps on the Carbon, I'll never use them but they are very good.
So maybe you can clear something up, all these benefits of the Carbon... are they still in place when you use ADAT to extend the I/O? For some reason I thought that you can only run the AAX plugins on the analog lines. Also, your post reminded me that i really wish they'd make a Carbon version without the preamps at a lower price point for folks that would never need them. |
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Post by Shadowk on Mar 6, 2024 17:44:43 GMT -6
So maybe you can clear something up, all these benefits of the Carbon... are they still in place when you use ADAT to extend the I/O? For some reason I thought that you can only run the AAX plugins on the analog lines. Also, your post reminded me that i really wish they'd make a Carbon version without the preamps at a lower price point for folks that would never need them. Unfortunately not no, you'd have to manually add in the sample offset, for ADAT only channels connected to single units it isn't too bad as the delay should be consistant. This is where templates help as well because you can add the I/O plug with default latency and the sample offset is usually in the manual (there is online calculators for this stuff as well to convert from samples to MS). I will say that it should be far more stable with Carbon, I've had it before with an ADAT device connected to a third party device that changed on occasion (no I wasn't changing the sample rate).
If you've got multiple devices connected to the ADAT channels then you can do it per track or I/O plug again but this starts to get a bit messy after a while. It's not too difficult to use an external ADAT device with any Pro Tools interface it's just I'd err on the side of keeping it simple and just in case never have a stereo mic plugged into two units. For example use Carbon for two mic's or two external ADAT controlled amps.
As for the actual plugins it's the DSP mixer that controls it not the I/O itself so I wouldn't have thought it to be an issue as long as the track itself is offset either on the channel or by I/O as an insert. I'll let you know on that..
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Post by copperx on Mar 7, 2024 0:15:41 GMT -6
Shadowk, a bit off topic but how do the Carbon ADDA and preamps compare to your old MOTU setup?
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Post by Shadowk on Mar 7, 2024 7:26:46 GMT -6
Shadowk , a bit off topic but how do the Carbon ADDA and preamps compare to your old MOTU setup? IME conversion isn't going to completely change your world of recording compared to a good sounding interface like the MOTU's unless they're just annoying sounding interfaces like a couple are. It is a step up though, certainly on par with an Aurora(n) or Symphony. I wouldn't pay the additional $5K for a two interface AVB setup if it couldn't do all the extra bits, I got rid of the Aurora(n) for the exact same reason, yes it's better but nothing near earth shattering. Maybe I should have got the HDX expansion for the Aurora? Then again the cost does stack up (50/50 on that).
Anyway the onboard amps are actually really good, as in useable for studio recording. First interface I've come across since the Metric Halo amps that I'd actually be happy with, shame that I have no use for them whatsoever.
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Post by guitfiddler on Mar 7, 2024 8:55:04 GMT -6
And for my next trick I’m going to hook up two Alesis Adat XT’s to my Carbon via light pipe and record! 😆
It just might sound a little warmer😆
That’s right, I said it, ADATS!😆
When I first got my Carbon, I tried just about every 115 plugins that came with it just messing around with just the plugins. I was surprised, then when I plugged in my outboard it sounded like a record🤟🏻
I am surprised on how good the preamps sound. 2nd time I actually used preamps in an interface. My experience with the Apollo 8p wasn't as good, however it is older tech and not apples to apples. And to be more specific, I really forgot about all the other interfaces on the market since I got the Carbon. I’m happy and it took me a while to think about either going HDX or Carbon. Then when Avid was acquired it made me hesitant again about going with a Carbon Pre8, almost bought another Carbon before the PRE8 was released. Glad I waited, but does it really matter whether you get another Carbon or get a PRE8? I would think it would integrate the same? The Carbon does cost more, however can you do 8 headphones cues? Or does it just stop at 4? These are questions Ive yet to research and find out.
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Post by notneeson on Mar 7, 2024 9:56:12 GMT -6
Anyone using Carbon and overdubbing virtual instruments? How’s that flow?
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Post by Shadowk on Mar 7, 2024 10:28:28 GMT -6
Anyone using Carbon and overdubbing virtual instruments? How’s that flow? It's not bad in low latency mode, what I'm finding is it's best to get a pre-production mix going (with either HW or DSP plugs) with the hybrid engine until you're at the stage where overdubs are done then flip if you need to (or if it's down the line hybrid will just bypass the plugs causing latency). Pro Tools will compensate for Midi & VST latency so even though it's slower than most interfaces I'm not finding any issues with the output latency for VSTi synths etc. alone..
Guitar sims that require an RTT are exactly as I expected, crap.. Not an issue if you've got an AXE FX, Tonex or real amps etc. though and one thing I'm going to try next week is re-amping as a HW insert via my Suhr.
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Mar 7, 2024 10:35:12 GMT -6
Anyone using Carbon and overdubbing virtual instruments? How’s that flow? It's not bad in low latency mode, what I'm finding is it's best to get a pre-production mix going (with either HW or DSP plugs) with the hybrid engine until you're at the stage where overdubs are done then flip if you need to (or if it's down the line hybrid will just bypass the plugs causing latency). Pro Tools will compensate for Midi & VST latency so even though it's slower than most interfaces I'm not finding any issues with the output latency for VSTi synths etc. alone..
Guitar sims that require an RTT are exactly as I expected, crap.. Not an issue if you've got an AXE FX, Tonex or real amps etc. though and one thing I'm going to try next week is re-amping as a HW insert via my Suhr.
Seems to me that the HDX systems in PT assume that you're going to be "tracking" and then "mixing" as distinct stages. More the old school way of doing things versus what I call the Prince way of doing things. So to Shadow's point, as long as you kind of separate your workflow into tracking / overdubs / mixing you swerve around most of the weird idiosyncrasies and bugs in PT. I can't believe I'm defending ProTools but... here we go, I'll say it. I think a lot of the complaints about ProTools are from people familiar with other DAW's who are trying to make it work the way other DAW's work. Then they get upset when it doesn't cuz it wasn't made to do things that way. (Fwiw, a lot of the ProTools users who don't like Cubase or S1 or whatever have the same problem in reverse.) |
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