HDX vs Native Geek Qs/Observations

[s.d. finley]

Originally Posted by brianjanthony

Thanks guys. For the record, I don't hate the avid channel Strip. But because of my health, the smaller scaling and dark color make it less appealing than say Metric Halo Channel, which blows up nicely and is more visible on my Raven.

So far, the past few weeks with HDX have been less than stellar for me. Tracking wise, it feels ok. I would imagine new sessions could be built around a more HDX tuned workflow. It just so happens I've got 2 dozen albums in full swing and it's been difficult. A lot more crashing and instability, and the sessions feel like they take 5x long to load. And there's been weird playback issues that weren't a problem in Native (left and right randomly playback out of time with each other).

Been trying to work thru it with Avid. But it's hard because I don't have the latest OS or PT version. And I maybe get one tech email a day. So it's not speedy.

I have a film crew coming next week from a major music store to do a feature on me and my lovely, half functioning Hdx system. I begged Avid to lend a hand so I don't look foolish with crashes every 5 minutes. :-(.

When it works it's golden. I know My cheese grater is almost 10. The upgraded core is awesome. But I'm beginning to wonder if it needs to go out to
Pasture.

Tell us more about your Mac/PT setup. Are you using the appropriate PTHDX version for Yosemite? Are you using both 12.5 and 12.8?
We have a Mac Pro 5.1 and HD Native system running Sierra and 2018.3 and it very smooth and loads fast. Just the occasional buffer error.

[brianjanthony]

It's a Mac Pro cheese grater. 5,1 with 48Gb of RAM. Yosemite. 6 core updated core from the original. I use ssd for system drives and rotate 6tb record
And sample drives. I've used PT TDM (hd5), PTHDN (for the last 2-3 years) and now HDX. I just recently switched to 12.8.1, the last useable Version for Yosemite. I run a slate RAVEN MTI2. The graphics card is upgraded as well, a 7950. Up until about a week ago I was running 12.5.1 Hd native.

I attempted Sierra maybe a year ago. Too many graphics glitches and frozen GUI for me to continue. So I went back to what was stable (Yosemite with 12.5). I've got so many ongoing projects and label Deadlines, it's just not been possible to do the whole New drive New system reauhorize and reinstall all my plugins. I'd like to take a few days off to Try again. But I'd be installing Sierra or whatever is qualified with hdx and my old machine.

12.8.1 won't let you commit or freeze if you have HEAT enabled. That's a bummer. Sessions also tAke far longer to load. But the random crashes are killing me. soooo much more than before. And Avid tech support hasn't been adequate. I'm sure they're swamped.

I have the latest greatest PTHD on my laptop (MacBook Pro Sierra 2012) and it seems more stable. But I'm also not killing it with gigantic sessions like I do in the studio.

I'm so tempted to swap out the HDX and save 3k. I wasn't having a firepower issue before. I only did it to 1)act as an upgrade/write off and 2) potentially have lower or close to no latency (clients were not complaining in at 64).

That's why I was trying to ask about a certain scenario. That being.... would a client tracking in native at 64 buffer feel less latency than my situation now... an hdx track at 128 buffer with 325 samples of latency reported. To my mind, native would exceed hdx in that scenario. Am I mistaken?

Other things like UVI (which houses my favorite Hammond) and slate trigger seem really buggy with HDX. Just by stop starting a playback.... all hell breaks loose and timing and ADC gets all thrown off. ThAt wasn't happening in 12.5 native.

Anyways hope that helps understand my system a bit better
....,long hot weekend sorry for rambling

[Philthy]

The client will experience the lowest throughput latency with an HDX system with *any* buffer setting as long as you're doing it right.

With the HDX system you can set the buffer as high as you want and it doesn't impact throughput latency on channels with no native inserts. HDX-only channels bypass the host processor and hardware buffer altogether.

A native buffer at 64 does not equate to 64 samples of latency. 64 samples is the additional buffer on top of whatever time is needed to pass through your host processor, driver, AD/DA, etc- a matter of some milliseconds and not samples. That's what HDX gets around- HDX audio never has to pass through your host processor.

Where HDX starts to shine is when you have a session with a decent number of tracks & plugins and you need to do overdubs into it without worrying about throughput latency. You can jack up the buffer as high as you want to keep virtual instruments, native plugins happy, and track in with DSP only plugs and keep the rock bottom throughput latency for monitoring.

[DetroitT]

Well articulated!

Not quite TDM but as close as Avid could get in tech at this time.