Elastic Audio: X-Form vs. Disable Elastic Audio

[sharchik]

Might be a dumb question but I just want to make sure I'm using Pro Tools elastic audio in its best possible quality for my drum tracks.

When I render my edits using "X-Form" rendered processing, it seems like it only takes a few seconds for it to render out my edits, BUT when I disable elastic audio and "Commit Elastic Audio" it takes an extremely long time to conform and give me new audio files (Like 20 minutes...)

Are these both doing the same thing?

I guess in short my question is, does X-Form = Disabling Elastic Audio?

Thank you!

[suicune]

Well, for a start if you're using multi-channel drum tracks you shouldn't be using x-form at all. Whilst X-form provides higher quality on a track-by-track basis, rhythmic and monophonic modes preserve phase across tracks far better. Although if your drums are only stereo x-form is fine.

The short answer to your question is no, using x-form is not the same thing as disabling elastic audio altogether. Whilst x-form and other non-realtime modes create a temporary file which should in theory play back exactly like a normal audio file, they are just that: temporary files. If you come to rely on them as a substitute for committing your EA edits you can cause yourself a whole heap of problems.

First of all if you attempt to trim or splice an x-form region, it will insist on re-rendering some or all of it.

Second if you have a crash or some other problem, on relaunching you will occasionally find PT has lost all its temporary files for that session and has to recalculate them which could take ages especially if you have renders in playlists too.

Thirdly it's highly dangerous from a backup/future proofing point of view. EA algorithms have changed many times over the years. You can't guarantee if you're leaving them 'live' that your session will open sounding the same or even open at all if you need to come back to it in PT13 or something

Is that enough reasons?

Now - a little tip. Here's how you can stop x-form from taking ages all over again after you disable an click 'commit'. Before you do your EA edits - consolidate the tracks you are editing to a single continuous file on each track. Do not trim or fade it AT ALL. If you need to copy/paste anything just make a note of it and do it after. If you change the region in any way this won't work. Do your edits, check you're happy with them, then disable EA and click commit. You'll find your tracks commit almost instantly.