Maximum amount of tracks on an HD5 system?

[MX582]

What's the maximum amount of audio tracks an HD5 (1 core card, 2 accel cards, 2 process cards) can have? Not talking about inputs/outputs, just the maximum amount of audio tracks you have have in a session?

[crizdee]

Originally Posted by MX582

What's the maximum amount of audio tracks an HD5 (1 core card, 2 accel cards, 2 process cards) can have? Not talking about inputs/outputs, just the maximum amount of audio tracks you have have in a session?

192 voices!

that could be 192 mono audio tracks, but bear in mind that other things require voices!!

chris

[johnnyv]

Chris,

Yes, that's what our HD5 system maxes out at. Is there any way to increase voice count? We have a client saying they have a session with 250+ tracks. Is there any way to hear all these things at one time if we added more cards to our system or is this a limitation of PT?

We have PCIx Core, 2xAccel, 2xProcess, 8-core Harpertown and Magma PCIx-PCIe expansion chassis.

Thanks for any additional info you have...

[scottleader]

I am curious how someone has a session with 250 tracks. What a mess. Many of them have to be inactive.
I always thought 192 voices was the most you could get...
Did you ask this client how they ran that? If you did, what did they say?

[crizdee]

Originally Posted by johnnyv

Chris,

Yes, that's what our HD5 system maxes out at. Is there any way to increase voice count? We have a client saying they have a session with 250+ tracks. Is there any way to hear all these things at one time if we added more cards to our system or is this a limitation of PT?

We have PCIx Core, 2xAccel, 2xProcess, 8-core Harpertown and Magma PCIx-PCIe expansion chassis.

Thanks for any additional info you have...

NO, 192 voices is max.

250+ tracks most people running that many would have 2-3 systems and run satellite i guess.

You can share voices between tracks if they're not playing at the same time. where it says dyn (dynamic) on the mixer channel and assign 2 tracks to the same voice etc. then under options select "mute frees assigned voice" never used it but should help.

[johnnyv]

OK guys...I got the scoop and have a new question!

So, this client has a musical album of 10 songs, with like 25 tracks on each. However, they flow together, so they are all part of one big session, with each song following the previous, rather than each song having its own session.

So, my new question is simply a hypothetical one...could a person have a session with 250 tracks and play the session from top to bottom...such that, when the first song has passed, ProTools "takes away" those voices and gives them to the later songs when needed then? I mean, you'd never really mix the project this way (at least, I can't imagine that), but does ProTools allocate dynamically on the fly like that?

[scottleader]

Not during playback, you'd have to stop and switch the voices.

[crizdee]

if they are on separate tracks you can manually assign the different tracks to the same voice, which would work as they aren't playing at the same time.

messy way of doing things! just save each song separate and mix them one at a time

Chris

[Tony Shepperd]

Originally Posted by crizdee

if they are on separate tracks you can manually assign the different tracks to the same voice, which would work as they aren't playing at the same time.

messy way of doing things! just save each song separate and mix them one at a time

Chris

Manually assign the voices, that's probably the best way to do it!

[Drew Mazurek]

ugh... what a hellish way to work IMO.

Separate session for each song!!!!!!