can I add HDX + HD Native for more Omni HD inputs?

[RackAddict]

I was wondering if anyone could tell me what the best industry standard way to track with dsp is and if I want to get some sort of neve simulation happening should I just get an Apollo to add to the omni by using Adat to my omni and use the UA dsp? Or should I get an hDX pcie card and use Avid tax dip plugins? If I do the latter do I still need my HD native card? Or will it be useless at that point? Or can I leave it in the system for extra inputs? Unless it can't be used alongside a Hdx card.

And was just wondering if there is AAX dsp with neve 1073 simulation through any company doing aax dsp? Because I heard only universal audio has that dsp neve tracking stuff and not the aax dsp which is NOT good.

But I don't know if that will still be slower than just using an Hdx card.

I could settle for just tracking with the Focusrite bx console plug-in if it's still whey faster than anything from times

The Focusrite console is apparently an awesome neve-ish simulation which also has aax dsp..

With that being said I still don't know if I should buy a second omni to link to my first and if the first HD native card will be rendered useless if I go with HDX core, or If tracking with universal audio Apollo dsp stuff out adat into the omni into the HD native card will be just as fast as HDX since I would be doing everything Adat from the apollo into the Omni. (I know that I am able to easily track at 32 buffer long times no cutouts with AES input but not long with analog for some reason. I assume adat will also be as good as aES because it's also an instant digital thing at the interface level. I just don't know how many extra steps the Apollo to its dip to the adat to the omni to the HD native would be as compared to just doing hDX.

But something tells me the Hdx card would be superior to all this. Problem is I'm not aware of any neve tax dsp simulation.
Only pultec and LA-2A and 1176 are the vintage aax dsp I've heard is availabpreferenthe bx Focusrite console strip.
But Why no neve? Why is neve not licencing to industry standard stuff???

I don't know what to do.

Also can anyone advise me on how I can get longer than 8 seconds at 32 buffer recording analog in with my computer and it's HD native until I get all the other stuff? I don't know how else to optimize the computer. Support tells me something about trashing preferences.

It's a dual 2.7g 8 core Intel Xeon 64 gig ram. This should be able to track at 32 buffer unless the salesperson 5 years ago lied to me that it's easy with the HD native card.

And to clarify the other question, can I link the two Omni Hd somehow to only one HD card or can I mid cards on a system?

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[BScout]

Can't run HDX card with HD Native card. There is no bridging connector on the Native card which would be necessary.

For DSP Neve emulations your best solution is Plugin Alliance's offerings. They have more than one from the same family.

You can only use one omni per system. You cannot have two. (HD IO are a better option anyway and they go for a lot less than new on the used market)

[Darryl Ramm]

"industry standard way to track with DSP"... uh depends on what you have and what you are trying to do. Avid HDX DSP is a totally different beast than UAD DSP. So you kind of are asking a meaningless question.

You've not described what your budget is, what you do, what you are tracking, how many simultaneous I/O you are tracking, why latency/DSP based tracking is so critical here, or why having a Neve pre- or channel strip in the monitoring path is so critical etc. You might get more useful advice if you stepped back from asking technical questions and looked at the bigger picture.

Originally Posted by RackAddict

It's a dual 2.7g 8 core Intel Xeon 64 gig ram. This should be able to track at 32 buffer unless the salesperson 5 years ago lied to me that it's easy with the HD native card.

How would a sales rep know this and why would you ever believe a claim like that? Very few systems will be reliably at 32 sample IO buffers. Certainly not reliable at decent load. Multi-chip Intel CPUs with slower clock rates and slower memory/cache access than faster single chip systems are likely to have more throughput to run large sessions but less ability to run small sessions at the lowest IO buffer sizes.

HD Native does not guarantee any ability to run at low IO buffer sizes, and a good ASIO interface can deliver just as well here as HD Native (and both currently have 64 IO limits). You want to think this though, especially whether you really want to go further down the Avid/Digilink/HDX yellow brick road--you might, but you also really might not want to.

The Omni is limited to a total of only 8x8 IO, if I wanted to go UAD Console plugins then I would be using that interface directly via ASIO as long as I could get a Thunderbolt card in the PC. Maybe if you can't, and really want to go UAD plugins in the monitoring path it's time to buy a new PC. But it all depends on what you are trying to do and budget. You are chasing low latency, but do you *really* need it? And for how many channels of IO? Or bite the bullet and switch to Mac and Pro Tools Carbon, a nice box, but that's got issues as well, including current issues/bugs, the AVB/Mac only weird decision, and I'm not sure I trust Avid with a long term product roadmap here.

Since you seem focused on latency an outboard Apollo converter on an Omni is going to add conversion latency and may require you to hand tweak things for alignment. Heck conversion latency can be significant at a 32 IO buffer size, so is that an issue for what you are doing?

If you want a large console type behavior in a DAW, really really need to track through plugins you want and be able to do easy punch ins etc. then HDX is the way to go. But is that worth $5k-$10k or more, to you and to be further locked into Avid? Running a busy commercial studio, heck yes. Pile up those HDX cards and get some serious I/O attached. You want to keep mixing sessions full DSP, that can eat HDX cards. But most folks don't need specific preamp/channel strip emulation during monitoring, and/or are often able to monitor fine with somewhat larger I/O buffer size with native DAWs. And getting off Digilink gets you more flexible hardware based monitoring and might save you money you can spend elsewhere.

If you are only tracking a few channels and really want the Neve thing, then why not a real or clone Neve preamps/channel strip hardware? And interface hardware monitoring if needed? Or got a serious budget, pick up a Neve console. Vintage King has several drool worthy used Neve toys in stock. Gear/latency lust threads keep being rehashed on DUC and elsewhere, ones over focusing on latency number for the sake of latency numbers often go nowhere. If users understand their budgets, their client/artist needs then the best options to them typically do fall into place pretty quickly.

[RackAddict]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

"industry standard way to track with DSP"... uh depends on what you have and what you are trying to do. Avid HDX DSP is a totally different beast than UAD DSP. So you kind of are asking a meaningless question.

You've not described what your budget is, what you do, what you are tracking, how many simultaneous I/O you are tracking, why latency/DSP based tracking is so critical here, or why having a Neve pre- or channel strip in the monitoring path is so critical etc. You might get more useful advice if you stepped back from asking technical questions and looked at the bigger picture.



How would a sales rep know this and why would you ever believe a claim like that? Very few systems will be reliably at 32 sample IO buffers. Certainly not reliable at decent load. Multi-chip Intel CPUs with slower clock rates and slower memory/cache access than faster single chip systems are likely to have more throughput to run large sessions but less ability to run small sessions at the lowest IO buffer sizes.

HD Native does not guarantee any ability to run at low IO buffer sizes, and a good ASIO interface can deliver just as well here as HD Native (and both currently have 64 IO limits). You want to think this though, especially whether you really want to go further down the Avid/Digilink/HDX yellow brick road--you might, but you also really might not want to.

The Omni is limited to a total of only 8x8 IO, if I wanted to go UAD Console plugins then I would be using that interface directly via ASIO as long as I could get a Thunderbolt card in the PC. Maybe if you can't, and really want to go UAD plugins in the monitoring path it's time to buy a new PC. But it all depends on what you are trying to do and budget. You are chasing low latency, but do you *really* need it? And for how many channels of IO? Or bite the bullet and switch to Mac and Pro Tools Carbon, a nice box, but that's got issues as well, including current issues/bugs, the AVB/Mac only weird decision, and I'm not sure I trust Avid with a long term product roadmap here.

Since you seem focused on latency an outboard Apollo converter on an Omni is going to add conversion latency and may require you to hand tweak things for alignment. Heck conversion latency can be significant at a 32 IO buffer size, so is that an issue for what you are doing?

If you want a large console type behavior in a DAW, really really need to track through plugins you want and be able to do easy punch ins etc. then HDX is the way to go. But is that worth $5k-$10k or more, to you and to be further locked into Avid? Running a busy commercial studio, heck yes. Pile up those HDX cards and get some serious I/O attached. You want to keep mixing sessions full DSP, that can eat HDX cards. But most folks don't need specific preamp/channel strip emulation during monitoring, and/or are often able to monitor fine with somewhat larger I/O buffer size with native DAWs. And getting off Digilink gets you more flexible hardware based monitoring and might save you money you can spend elsewhere.

If you are only tracking a few channels and really want the Neve thing, then why not a real or clone Neve preamps/channel strip hardware? And interface hardware monitoring if needed? Or got a serious budget, pick up a Neve console. Vintage King has several drool worthy used Neve toys in stock. Gear/latency lust threads keep being rehashed on DUC and elsewhere, ones over focusing on latency number for the sake of latency numbers often go nowhere. If users understand their budgets, their client/artist needs then the best options to them typically do fall into place pretty quickly.

Hi, an Apollo is not the way to go apparently. Conversion is for the prosumer grade at best. And I do remember the sound quality back with the Apollo units 5 years back even the racks. Was nothing special to my ears. Don't know if they improved on that but I have been confirmed by the pro tools department of Long and McQuade Toronto that Apollo conversion will not touch avid and that UA has been able to make cheap converters work with their unision preamp Sims and other dip tracking in such a colored way where it doesn't have the need for better converters due to the coloration. (Although why better converters were not built into it to maximize the depth of the analog emulations one can never know. (Unless if ultra high grade converters built in would reveal the limitations of the dip emulation of the analog?? So maybe to mask it? This all is not good news to me if that's the case with all the UA plugins I own for use with my octo card. It's mentally going to be a bit of a drag.

This explanation alone as well as my not special reaction to hearing a Apollo rack 5 years ago, has sent me running like the wind. Al

I will just go for an HDX card for a special trade barter towards it that someone will help me out with (nord A1R + some other gear is what's been accepted as a trade towards an Hdx card. I hope it's the right one it's the core one ).
And also with an HD I/O 8x8x8 and you are right I did find a cheap one on hold for about 1400.

I did in fact find some bx stuff but not the 1073 Eq. But the point of all this is because I can't actually Mic a cab I use an axe FX 3 which is decent and I just want to have stems with the neve 1073 EQ-ing on guitar files to smooth them out a bit and with the high mid and low shaping rather than put plugins on each audio track in the mix because otherwise i have to reprint them for the stems. In my mix template I only want to use plugins on busses and one if I absolutely have to on individual channels.. I just want the content printed so that if a person I hire to mix doesn't have the analog simulation stuff that it's already built into the stem.

I use a separate mixing pro tools template than my recording/producing template where I would now reprint, or ideally with and Hdx setup coming print on the fly by DSP-ing an aux which is immediately routed to an audio track to record. I just saw no neve 1073 model in any aax dsp company doing this aax dsp avid stuff. Why is there such a lack of companies doing this?

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[albee1952]

My thoughts on this:
1-Mixing Avid hardware and Apollo is a bad idea. Pick one platform.
2-As said, you can't mix and match HDX and HDN cards(HDN operates as 1 card only. HDX cards can be combined for more IO)
3-Some good options already for adding Neve-ish flavor while recording. One more option would be to add some Neve-ish preamps to your setup. My big rig had pairs of Vintech, Chameleon Audio, Warm Audio and Focusrite ISA-428 preamps. Make it good on the way in and everything else just gets easier