Pro Tools Sound Quality (continued)???
 

This is a continuation of the previous thread Pro Tools Sound Quality???

Re: Pro Tools Sound Quality (continued)???
 

I take it these mixers are for Mac, not NT, systems??

Re: Pro Tools Sound Quality (continued)???
 

Yes, Mac only for this initial evaluation. If we include this with the shipping product in a future release, the NT version will be there...

One other thing: I posted yesterday that the dithered mixer does its work on MIX cards *only.* We won't necessarily be restricted to that if we decide to ship this out, but it will extremely ineffecient (DSP wise) if we let it all run on "vintage" DSP Farms. That said, we'd probably want to enable the older Farms if we ship this mixer. Because the dither only works on MIX cards, please *disable all I/Os connected to any "vintage" DSP Farms" in your HW setup, (set 'em to "No Interface"), in order to ensure that dither will be applied by the "Dithered Hi-Res Mixer" in your tests.* Lastly, the dither always is present when a mixer is running on a MIX DSP chip, whether or not a mixer is running on a "vintage farm" or not.

Sorry for the inconvenience, and looking forward to your comments...

BTW, if you do submit feedback, please try to do it here on this thread, and also, let us know if you were doing an actual blind test (as described in my instructions). Thanks!

Re: Pro Tools Sound Quality (continued)???
 

Hi Dave - I haven't had a chance to try the new mixers yet. Question: If I have a Mix core and 4 vintage farms, and I open a really big session where some of the mixer DSP ends up on vintage farms as well as mix farms - you're saying that won't work? Or are you saying that if you have a mix card in your system - it will work regardless of whether or not any of the mixer is allocated to "vintage chips"...?

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Re: Pro Tools Sound Quality (continued)???
 

Disco,

The "hi-res" mixer will not work at all on vintage farms. So if your mix needs to use a vintage farm for a mixer then a 24-bit only mixer will show up there.(the undithering original) If you have an interface declared on a vintage farm then apparently the first stage of the mixer will go there until that chip is full. If you have multiple interfaces declared on multiple vintage farms then the mixer will continue to the next vintage farms until those chips are completely full. After all the mixers on the vintage chips are full, then a "hi-res" mixer will show up on the MIX card and dither will be applied to the busses going through the "hi-res" mixer only. So if your listening test is of a smaller mix then chances are there is no dither being applied, or in other words there is absolutley no difference between the old and both new mixers. So for multiple card systems with multiple interfaces, the vintage farms come first with the mixer and the MIX card comes last. For this reason you need to make sure that you have no interfaces declared on any vintage farms when you do the test.

Now to your original question. If you have a large mix that has multiple mixers including some on vintage farms then this is what will happen. Open "allocator" and you can physically see the mixers. Any mixer on the MIX card will say, "hi-res". Any mixer on the vintage cards will say "24-bit Mixer". Only the mixers labeled "hi-res" are using dither. The others are using absolutely no dither. So on a large mix, some of the outputs and busses are indeed using dither and some of the outputs and busses aren't.

So for a "PURE" listening test, you'll want to make sure that your mix has no "24-bit Mixer" showing up on vintage farms.

[This message has been edited by blairl (edited 12-15-99).]

Re: Pro Tools Sound Quality (continued)???
 

I'm unable to get the Hi Res mixer to work with Logic Audio 4.0.7 (DAE 3.4.2 & 3.4.2f9). I tried trashing DAE Prefs, resarting, then booting Logic but no luck. I have a Mix DSP + 2 vintage farms and an 888/24 connected to the Mix DSP.

The meters on the individual tracks work (even with plugins inserted), but the signals can't be bused.

Any recomendations?

Re: Pro Tools Sound Quality (continued)???
 

Dave Lebolt,

How does the new mixer handle external inserts (via A-D/D-A)?

Re: Pro Tools Sound Quality (continued)???
 

When I switch between mixers, do I need to reboot my machine or just make sure I quit DAE, switch mixers, then reload PT?

Just checking. I want to make sure I get it right!

-adam

Re: Pro Tools Sound Quality (continued)???
 

Just quit, change mixers, and launch PT again. No need to reboot the machine.

Re: Pro Tools Sound Quality (continued)???
 

Sorry to sound like a complete dunce, but where can I download the hi res mixer?...
I've tried a search for "dithered mixer" and "high resolution mixer" to no avail...
I haven't visited the DUG for a week or so and the original thread is closed.....

Thanx
Ade
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