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protools HD Archive

6

HD Native has arrived!

– October 7, 2010Posted in: General Topics

After months of conjecture, rumoured leaks (they obviously couldn’t be confirmed) and flame wars on the bulletin boards, Avid have come out of the darkness to announce a milestone release – Avid ProTools HD Native. Basically a host based system (no DSP Accel cards) that can connect to the new HD interfaces (that are expandable up to 64io) with all the features of PTHD (automation features, track counts, VCA faders, etc) AND automatic delay compensation for RTAS plugins AND extremely low latency!

The way it works, is a PCIe host card allows you to connect to your HD interfaces (including Sync HD, its got a digiserial port) using the new mini-digilink connectors, launched with the new Avid interfaces.

Interestingly, the specifications state it runs a 64bit floating point mixer, is this a potential step up or sideways from the 48bit fixed mixer on the existing PCIe Accel architecture? Fixed bit processing makes for less “rounding off” of data to the nearest binary integer, so it was always sold as superior to floating point, but if you throw in that extra resolution of 64bits, even with floating point holding it back, it will be interesting to do listening comparisons to the summing between the two systems.

For those in post, there was a link to the Satellite technology page from the HD Native home page, so I guess we are to assume its all good to go to lock up native rigs with HD rigs – Can anyone say cost effective video satellite/dubber? The US dollar value of their gear puts a HD Native system with a MADI interface and Sync HD for $10.5K. Throw in a Decklink card and you’ve got a 64 track native dubber with HD picture playback for around US$11K (plus a CPU). Not bad value really! For a comparable system before this release you’d need a minimum HD2 core instead of the native core and the difference in price would be US$7.5K. That’s a pretty big saving! (maybe you could afford to renew your WUP or something?)

For a cost effective surround edit suite, the bundle price WITH an OMNI interface (7.1 monitoring system built in and 2 preamps) is US$6K. Open HD sessions immediately – VCAs, all your automation features, syncing and dubbing options if needed. I mean, 6K in Australia would barely have gotten you a 192io a few years ago (when the dollar was down, admittedly).

Interesting times! I wonder what else they’re working on??

7

Indiana Mix and the Template of Doom

– July 10, 2008Posted in: General Topics

The idea of stem mixing is as old as film sound, but in recent years its taken off in the music industry to the point where mastering engineers are often being supplied with stems (or requesting them) instead of the traditional 2-track.

If you adopt a stem based workflow, one of the most effective ways of saving time is setting up a mixing template.

In ProTools that may consist of two parts, both a *.ptf file (write protected/stationary pad) and an io Setup file – so your busses are labelled the way you like and your outputs are set up for either stereo or 5.1 mixing. Be sure to keep a backup of these files somewhere safe!

Going down the path of setting up your ptf file, if you adopt a template there are two killer features you should be using, markers and window configs…

Picture this: you are mixing the project, diving down, working on backing vox or ambience tracks or SFX or the drum kit and you want to change the overall balance of your stems. So what do you do? You simply hit “.”, “2″, “.” to recall memory locate 2 and what happens?

Potentially, all of this: in the edit window, the track list gets hidden, the region bin closes, the io view and inserts views disappear, all your tracks disappear except the buss masters, in volume view, which blow up to take up a quarter of the window each (red lines drawing as you mix in latch mode), on the right hand side, your favourite buss master compressor plug in window opens and maybe Signal tools, showing you the current level in Peak and RMS and you are now in the sweetest place to mix your stems – all the info you want, maximised on screen at the press of a memory locate.

So how? Well, create a memory locate, tied to no “Selection” but with track show hide/track height and a window config attached…

This is the point – combining windows configs and memory locates in your template gives you alot of power when it comes to everyday tasks, navigating your session as a power user who can anticipate the every day tasks of crafting your mix.

Ive seen some power users with templates that include windows configs that open/close a tonne of info in both their edit windows and mix windows saved to common sense buttons on their numeric keypad like 4 and 5 to open and close the edit window, 7 and 8 to do similar with the mix window, 1,2,3, 5 and 9 for project specific views – seeing it in action is definately a “penny drop” moment.

ICON Power feature:

Taking this idea a step further – dig into your ICON preferences to enable “Track Show/Hide: ShowHdn”

This means that tracks that are hidden in the edit window are still accessible on the control surface using your custom fader groups! So you can now mix on tracks on the console, independent of what is visible in the Pro Tools GUI.

Next Blog: An ICON automation feature called AutoJoin, how to mix effortlessly without reaching for the stop button and a mouse when you make a mistake!