New PT 11 HD Rig System Config Questions

[innerbooty]

Greetings,
I am currently running Pro Tools 10 HD2 Accel on a 2009 Quad Core Mac Pro with Apogee AD/DA16X with X-HD cards. Runs great. Very stable. But I long for more delay compensation, and also the ability to address more RAM and use 64-bit plugins...


A music friend of mine just donated to me a 2009 Mac Pro 4,1 8-Core 2.66 Xeon with 32 GB RAM, several internal drives including a 250GB SSD. As fate would have it, he also has PT 10/11 HD licenses on an iLok he is willing to loan me. So, unless I am mistaken, if I were to buy an HDX card, I should be able to start running PT 11 HD on this rig. Is this correct? I am checking in wondering if there is some kind of technical "gotcha'" that I could encounter if I took the plunge and bought an HDX card? The Apogee AD/DA-16Xs both have the updated firmware on the X-HD cards to my current PT 10 HD rig sees them as "HD I/O", so I am assuming that should work with HDX, correct? I also also assuming that the Digilink cable is a different type for HDX? Or maybe not? Is there an adapter I would need to buy?


I would also entertain any thoughts on HDX vs. Native. I do mostly mixing, but also a fair amount of tracking, sometimes up to 16 tracks at once, but not often. I also like to run inserts through outboard I/O when mixing. Not sure how well Native handles all this relative to HDX. Thinking that for the amount I'd pay for an HDX card I could maybe get a much more souped up Mac, and an HD Native card?



FWIW, I use a lot of UAD plugs on an Octo card as well, so I need to run on a computer with PCIe slots.



Anyway, I'd appreciate any tips or thoughts anyone might care to share before I take this plunge. Thanks so much! - Steve

[c-tone]

Yes, it should work fine, but you will need to get an adaptor cable to connect the HDX card to the 16X, since the HDX cards use a mini-Digilink port. You may also need to buy a Digilink I/O license to use your non-Avid Digilink interface. Just make sure to read all of the compatibility documents on Avid.com for HDX as well as PTHD11, particularly to make sure that you have an approved Mac OS version installed.

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...m-Requirements


As for HDX vs. Native, HDX will give you additional processing power, less latency, and the ability to run AAX DSP only plug ins and add-ons such as HEAT. If you upgrade to the current version of Pro Tools, you will get more voices using Native than you will on HDX1.

Be aware that all plug-ins will need to be AAX as no TDM or RTAS will run on your new rig, so you may need a lot of upgrades, and the plug-ins that never get ported to AAX can't be used.

[innerbooty]

Hey,
Thanks so much for the fast response! Very helpful. As for the Digi I/O license, if the X-HD cards "emulate" the Avid HD I/O, and the DA/AD 16X's currently show up in Hardware Setup as "HD I/O", shouldn't Pro Tools just think it's connecting to an Avid box? I will check in with Apogee though...


As far as AAX, I think with PT 10 HD, I am already in this weird in-between land where the majority of the plugins I am running installed with either AAX only, or both AAX and DPM versions. A quick unscientific accounting shows DPM-only for all the AIR plugins, all Eleven plugs (I don't even use Eleven), Echo Farm and Drawmer Dynamics. Hopefully I shouldn't have too much plugin upgrading to do, but I think it would be a worthwhile tradeoff.



Sounds like HDX is the way I will most likely go. Although I am stable and productive enough on 10 that even that expense by itself is a bit hard to fully justify...?? Thanks!!

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by innerbooty

Hey,
Thanks so much for the fast response! Very helpful. As for the Digi I/O license, if the X-HD cards "emulate" the Avid HD I/O, and the DA/AD 16X's currently show up in Hardware Setup as "HD I/O", shouldn't Pro Tools just think it's connecting to an Avid box? I will check in with Apogee though...


As far as AAX, I think with PT 10 HD, I am already in this weird in-between land where the majority of the plugins I am running installed with either AAX only, or both AAX and DPM versions. A quick unscientific accounting shows DPM-only for all the AIR plugins, all Eleven plugs (I don't even use Eleven), Echo Farm and Drawmer Dynamics. Hopefully I shouldn't have too much plugin upgrading to do, but I think it would be a worthwhile tradeoff.



Sounds like HDX is the way I will most likely go. Although I am stable and productive enough on 10 that even that expense by itself is a bit hard to fully justify...?? Thanks!!

Re Digiliink license: The Digilink license is required from HD12.6 and up to current versions of Ultimate for using any Digilink interfaces.

Re AAX plugins: PT10 was AAX 32 and all newer versions require AAX 64, so you will need to download newer versions of all plugins that you have licenses for. Some TDM plugins were never ported to AAX DSP(Waves being the big one)

Re HDX vs HD/Native: your current interfaces(and anything that uses a Digilink connection) should continue to work on either HDX or HDN. HDX may be overkill, but its your money. Just be aware that an HDN setup can do fine under most circumstances, and may actually do better under certain conditions. I ran a commercial studio in Nashville for 6 years and ran HDN(on PC) with 32 live inputs(with 2 192 interfaces and 2 HD IO interfaces). I had no issues tracking full bands(32 was all the preamps I had) at a 64 buffer setting, while providing 6 stereo headphone mixes from PT. My band tracking template was so well-dialed that I rarely spent more than 1 minute on headphone adjustments

[c-tone]

Good additional details from albee.

You might also consider upgrading your PT10HD to current PT Ultimate version if you can find one of the leftover upgrades to a Perpetual license which technically went away on Dec. 31, 2019. Some retailers still have them to sell, but they will be gone at some point, and the only option will be to purchase a full cost license or go with a subscription.

That way you can run a newer Mac OS version and take advantage of the new features (and extra voices if you go native). Otherwise your whole rig is still stuck pretty far back in time. If you can find that, it includes PT10HD/11HD licenses in the bundle so you can run what you want, and your buddy can keep his iLok and licenses.

[innerbooty]

Once again - thanks! One of the things that has most baffled me in recent years while I sit stuck in the land of PT 10 (I actually only upgraded to HD from my old MIX++ rig in 2013!) is how licensing/purchasing works now. Totally mystifying. Maybe they have one those "Dummies" books for Pro Tools licensing...

[c-tone]

The simple answer to PT licensing is that you can either purchase a Perpetual license (does not expire) or a subscription. If you choose Perpetual, you get a year of updates included. You are stuck at the last version at the time the year is up, unless you renew your update plan for another year before it expires. Otherwise, you would need to purchase a full license when you are ready to get a new version (no more lower-cost upgrades outside of active update plan).

[JFreak]

One problem with the old 2009 Mac Pro is that it is only supported up to OSX 10.11.x which is probably the crappiest OSX ever. It also means latest supported PT will be 2018.12

Google for flashing firmware of Mac Pro 4,1 to 5,1 and this would effecctively make your 2009 box appear as 2010 box. If you like you can change CPU to a more powerful one while you are on it. The 5,1 model is supported up to 10.14.x if you also upgrade to Metal compatible GPU. All very well documented if you search for instructions.

[innerbooty]

Thank you, yet another one of my questions had to do with solid, reliable versions of OS X vs. the Worst Ones (endless questions...). And I had actually had done quite a bit of Googling at some point about this flash update from 4,1 to 5,1. But would it be easier, or would there be other benefits, to just buying one of the 2010-2012 versions of the cheese-grater, as opposed to doing this whole upgrade process to my 2009? Those Macs are pretty cheap now...

[JFreak]

It seems best use for 2009 tower today would be flash it to 5,1 and install High Sierra which is still supported by current PT version. If you are adventurous enough, upgrade the CPU and GPU as the original components are over a decade old already. You will thank yourself for this later. With a Metal compatible GPU it would even be possible to install Mojave which is the latest that can run 32bit software.

Also; as you should have a spare PCI-express slot after HDX upgrade, consider upgrading your storage to NVMe SSD's which are easily 10x faster than anything you can get from the onboard SATA (good for backup).

Still plenty of life left on that tower.