Waves DLI vs HD Native

[Barry Johns]

I was thinking about this the other day, if someone were "ONLY" looking to buy HD Native Card/Thunderbolt and considering the fact that you can get the waves DLI used for around $400 these days, why in the world would anybody buy the HD native card/thunderbolt when the DLI does the same thing?

The DLI also lets you use your Digidesign/Avid I/O's with any native DAW.

[Watagushu2013]

Very good question indeed!
The are some things HD native has that waves DLI it appears doesn't have, like low latency monitoring with its dedicated chip for protools. And second, I think the DLI connection is via a ASIO driver.


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[propower]

Latency -

DLI + AVID I/O without a Waves SoundGrid Server is ~4ms (96K/64buffer) of latency in record mode with Native plugins (plus any delay the plugin introduces). I took unclear notes when I had this but I believe that is more like 6ms at 44.1k/32. You also revert to 32 channels of I/O and have to use the Waves SoundGrid playback engine and Map all I/O in the SoundGrid Studio App.

With HD Native it is 1.7ms at 96k/64.

With a SG server + DLI + AVID I/O using Waves (or SoundGrid) plugins it is 1.2ms at 96kHz regardless of buffer size.

[Table Syrup Records]

If you are a serious or pro user doing recording, the DLS makes sense, but the DLI sort of doesn't... the latency with the DLS is debilitating for the recording process, in my opinion.

With the DLS, this is a stellar rig, provided you can work with session templates, and the track template hacks, to ensure a fast process with little or no routing needed each time you are setting up a new track for record, or setting up a new session.

In many ways, the DLS setup is better (lower RT latency than HDN, regardless of buffer) , with plugs in monitoring , loads of DSP.... and being on the SoundGrid platform, which is super badass..... a bit more portable than HDN considering the lack of need for the card, and a bit more forgiving of switching between machines, as ethernet is across the board. - and the platform better and more widely integrates between studio and live - if that interests you

That said.... like ProPower noted, you are back to 32 I/O in Pro Tools via 3rd party driver and Avids limitations. That may or may not be an issue for you, but for us, we have one room that has to stay on the Native card due to I/O needs.... though, I will likely add a DLS to that system at some point, for the benefits in large sessions where the DSP would be needed in order to dub into large sessions, when plugs in monitoring at low latency are required (no need to increase PT buffer due to CPU limits)

Definitely takes some thought.... it is a big change. For me, for the better on two rigs.... while HDN is still better on the other.

FWIW, went from 3 HDN rigs, to 2 HDN rigs and a SoundGrid rig... and plan to change another one over, and also expand one of the two SG rigs to do double duty of both studio and live (via LV1 and MultiRack)

Very very cool stuff