Perhaps a dumb question regarding transitioning from PTHD 9 to HDX 11...

[songwritersoul]

Ok, I'm sitting here with my HDX card ready to pull out my old pci HD3 cards and do the big swaparoo and am just wanting a little advice on how to do this without losing access to all my old 9.x sessions.

I believe I've read that PT11 comes with a version of PT10 to be able to open up old sessions etc, but if I have 9.x installed already, can I just leave that installed and use that for my old sessions or will it not recognize the new HDX card? Just not completely certain on how old 32 bit, 9.x sessions open up with the old PTHD cards gone and a new 64bit HDX card in their place.
Sorry if this is a stupid question. I'm just trying to make this as smooth as possible and avoid creating problems from my own ignorance. :)

thank you in advance,
Steve

[nst7]

Someone else can chime in and explain how the old TDM sessions open, but I can answer a couple questions.

HD9 will not recognize the HDX cards. Also, HD9 can not coexist with any other version of Protools. And the best thing to do is a complete (clean) uninstall of Protools 9, before installing 10 and 11.

Keep in mind that with some of the Avid TDM plugins that were updated to AAX, you will need to run the latest installers for them. Also note that a few Avid plugins have been discontinued and won't be ported to AAX (you can still use them in HD10). One of them is Bruno/Reso, which was TDM only, and will not be ported to AAX either native or DSP.

Here is a helpful page about all that:

http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=340211


As for 3rd party plugins, particularly ones that were TDM, you'll have to check with each manufacturer to see what the status is. In some cases the upgrade is free, in some cases there is a charge (or you must upgrade to a newer version that may have new features).

In some cases, the manufacturer will not be making DSP versions, only native, such as Waves. In some cases, the plugin just falls off the face of the earth, such as Line 6 Echo Farm.

I would say that opening sessions in PT10 should open similar to how they were in PT9. It's PT11 where the mystery is, as to what happens to formerly TDM plugins that are now native only, or non-existent.

[songwritersoul]

Thank you very much.

[albee1952]

If you have not pulled the trigger on this yet, do yourself a HUGE favor. Before you touch anything, when you remove the HD cards, remove the system drive and stash it. Install a new system drive and do a fresh install of OS and get the computer running and stable. THEN, install the HDX card and PT11 according to the instructions.

By doing it this way, if anything goes sour, you can pull the HDX card and system drive, put the old stuff back in and get work done. There's nothing worse(or sadder) than a brand new rig that isn't right, and you trashed the old rig in the process

All your old sessions should be fine, but as said, they will open with many/most old plugins made inactive(or you may need to hold the SHIFT key while opening, to force ALL plugins inactive). Once these sessions are open, you will need to re-save in the new format(so the old version will be available in case you need to revert back to the old hardware).