Altiverb 7 and AAX-DSP

[rus5]

I sent "Audio Ease" an email a few days ago asking them if they were ever going to port Altiverb 7 to AAX-DSP. I quickly received the candid response from Aram Verwoest directly quoted below (with their permission):

"Thanks for your message. We are currently working closely with AVID to find out how we can accomplish this (Altiverb AAX DSP). This is because the current AAX DSP infrastructure is not ready for a plug-in with the capabilities like Altiverb TDM. This is a large project and will take serious development time. Altiverb 7 AAX Native will therefore come first, to make sure everyone can keep on using Altiverb 7 (also in Pro Tools 11 and on). But do rest assured, we are working on AAX DSP."

So of course its great news that they intend to support AAX-DSP once they figure out how to do it. But the rest of it is absolutely amazing !! They're specifically saying that not only is it hard to write to AAX-DSP contradicting the story Avid has been telling everyone from the beginning ("... will take serious development time"), but it's "not ready for a plug-in the capabilities like Altiverb TDM" !!! Meaning, as it stands, HDX isn't even capable of supporting what HD can, at least in this case!! Think of all the things Avid has told us (especially at the PT10 launch) that this direct measurement of reality contradicts.

[musicman691]

If writing for AAX dsp is so difficult how can a one man shop like McDSP be coming out with their AAX stuff so quickly? Altiverb is dragging their feet just like they always do. At least, as you say, it's a good sign they are at least working on AAX native.

[rus5]

Originally Posted by musicman691

If writing for AAX dsp is so difficult how can a one man shop like McDSP be coming out with their AAX stuff so quickly? Altiverb is dragging their feet just like they always do. At least, as you say, it's a good sign they are at least working on AAX native.

Based on what Avid was saying at the PT10 launch around Thanksgiving 2011, McDSP's Colin McDowell and therefore everyone else expected they'd have ported that entire line by the end of Q2 2012 at the latest. Instead it turned out to be HUGELY more difficult than he thought which is why we're nearly a year and a half into it and he still has only released about 1/2 of them. McDSP is definitely not "coming out with their AAX stuff so quickly" by even the wildest stretch of the imagination.

And Massey, and UA, and Flux::, and URS, and East West, and Sonnox, and Antares, and Melodyne, and Sound Toys, and Eventide, and Lexicon, and on and on and on are ALSO just under a year and a half out making slow if any progress. Only a couple of those companies have even gotten their FIRST AAX-DSP port out. iZotope is saying they probably won't EVER take it on (which is especially bad news). Avid themselves sold their own entire "Air" line rather than port them to AAX, let alone AAX-DSP. And of course, the most important of them all, Waves, threw in the towel completely and isn't going to port any of their plugs to AAX-DSP at all. Ever. They specifically said they gave up because porting to AAX-DSP was too difficult. There is absolutely no case whatsoever that porting to AAX-DSP is not difficult.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by rus5

Based on what Avid was saying at the PT10 launch around Thanksgiving 2011, McDSP's Colin McDowell and therefore everyone else expected they'd have ported that entire line by the end of Q2 2012 at the latest. Instead it turned out to be HUGELY more difficult than he thought which is why we're nearly a year and a half into it and he still has only released about 1/2 of them. McDSP is definitely not "coming out with their AAX stuff so quickly" by even the wildest stretch of the imagination.

You are refusing to acknowledge that Colin is coming out with his stuff way faster than Audio Ease. He's got more stuff to port than AE who only have what 2 plugs? Colin already has AAX native and has public beta AAX dsp as I understand it. So it's taking longer than some want but still it's happening for some plugin vendors who aren't afraid to get their elbows dirty with code. The difficulty isn't what's really holding AE back; like a lot of vendors they don't see the need to get AAX and AAX dsp out now.

[groundcontrol]

I wonder how many people are still on Altiverb 6. I know for a fact *not* everybody upgraded to 7.

[TOM@METRO]

Convolution reverbs are not the same as typical plug-ins. They require a ton of memory and perhaps chip sharing. The work done on making this function on TDM is not easily translated to HDX. With HDX you first solidify Native and then go to work on DSP. I do not recall AVID ever saying that convolution reverbs (DSP) were anticipated as easy or commonplace in HDX systems, especially not this close to introduction.

[rus5]

Originally Posted by TOM@METRO

Convolution reverbs are not the same as typical plug-ins. They require a ton of memory and perhaps chip sharing. The work done on making this function on TDM is not easily translated to HDX. With HDX you first solidify Native and then go to work on DSP. I do not recall AVID ever saying that convolution reverbs (DSP) were anticipated as easy or commonplace in HDX systems, especially not this close to introduction.

That's not what he said. Again, what he said was: "This is because the current AAX DSP infrastructure is not ready for a plug-in with the capabilities like Altiverb TDM." - please note the word "infrastructure". He's pointing directly to the HDX "infrastructure" compared to the HD "infrastructure", not how hard it is to write in general relative to other types of plugins. I assure you, if you had asked Avid at the PT10/HDX rollout if the HDX "infrastructure" would or would not support convolution reverb plugins (or any plugins) as well as HD, they would have told you it absolutely would - far better than HD. Go watch the roll-out videos on YouTube, they're still there (last I checked anyway), and see if you don't agree.

[crizdee]

Originally Posted by rus5

That's not what he said. Again, what he said was: "This is because the current AAX DSP infrastructure is not ready for a plug-in with the capabilities like Altiverb TDM." - please note the word "infrastructure". He's pointing directly to the HDX "infrastructure" compared to the HD "infrastructure", not how hard it is to write in general relative to other types of plugins. I assure you, if you had asked Avid at the PT10/HDX rollout if the HDX "infrastructure" would or would not support convolution reverb plugins (or any plugins) as well as HD, they would have told you it absolutely would - far better than HD. Go watch the roll-out videos on YouTube, they're still there (last I checked anyway), and see if you don't agree.

Hi,

I would lie to know exactly what he means by infrastructure? As I think this is probably what Tom is referring to! Especially the amount of memory required for convolution reverbs. TL Space would use 6 DSP chips! So maybe they need to spread the memory across multiple chips and there would lye the difficulty I think. But is that infrastructure?

Chris

[Marsdy]

Thanks doing this rus. Altiverb is an essential plug-in for me so it's good to hear it will make it to HDX albeit with a long wait! It's less encouraging to hear yet another company is having difficulties optimising for HDX

With TDM, the longer the reverb time the more chips Altiverb takes up. I was told this was because of the very limited amount of memory available per 56k chip. There is 4x the amount of memory per chip with HDX so you would have thought this would be less of an issue.

[Emcha_audio]

Originally Posted by rus5

And Massey, and UA, and Flux::, and URS, and East West, and Sonnox, and Antares, and Melodyne, and Sound Toys, and Eventide, and Lexicon, and on and on and on are ALSO just under a year and a half out making slow if any progress. Only a couple of those companies have even gotten their FIRST AAX-DSP port out. iZotope is saying they probably won't EVER take it on (which is especially bad news). Avid themselves sold their own entire "Air" line rather than port them to AAX, let alone AAX-DSP. And of course, the most important of them all, Waves, threw in the towel completely and isn't going to port any of their plugs to AAX-DSP at all. Ever. They specifically said they gave up because porting to AAX-DSP was too difficult. There is absolutely no case whatsoever that porting to AAX-DSP is not difficult.

Avid sold the Air team, true. But they do have a deal with iNMusic that will have them continue working on the Air plugin line that is with Pro tools, which does mean AAX versions of the plugs, only remains to be seen if they will be DSP but I'd suspect they will since it's probably part of the deal, although I have no firm information about that.

Originally Posted by Marsdy

Thanks doing this rus. Altiverb is an essential plug-in for me so it's good to hear it will make it to HDX albeit with a long wait! It's less encouraging to hear yet another company is having difficulties optimising for HDX

With TDM, the longer the reverb time the more chips Altiverb takes up. I was told this was because of the very limited amount of memory available per 56k chip. There is 4x the amount of memory per chip with HDX so you would have thought this would be less of an issue.

If this is the issue, then it's not an issue of Ram amount anymore, its the fact that their plugin is coded to use more dsp chips to compensate for the lack of ram. They should rewrite their plugin the other way around, Use less dsp chips but more direct ram.