HDX or Native in this scenario

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by Mark Ziebarth

Pro Tools Ultimate is double the price than vanilla.

Yes, but you need Ultimate for HDN also

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by Nephew312

Thanks for the insight! I wish I could tell every artist that came in “learn how to sing” haha. Doubt I’d have any paying clients left tho!!! I think it’s more so a specific type of effect they are looking for. They want to bend the notes and be in key. TBH if I could avoid it completely I would!

Just become a tracking nazi and record as many takes on different playlists that you need for proper comping. After that, tune the worst notes.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by Nephew312

track with AT

Only useful scenario is with bass that has poor intonation.

[Nephew312]

Thanks for the responses.

For me it’s more so- do I need to keep something around for those specific tracking scenarios where they must monitor through the AT? Will I get unnoticeable latency numbers with the auto tune artist plugin in the chain with HDX to the point where the artist won’t notice? I know natively you can do this because I have used non UAD powered auto tune and it works through the Apollo. I just haven’t tried on HDX yet.

Price is a non-issue. I am already invested in avid products, have ultimate and recently gave up my Apollo’s for an avid mtrx. At this point, I know I have successfully worked with auto tune in a native environment and believe me, if these artists wouldn’t ask for it, I wouldn’t even think twice about it. But some want to monitor through it when they record.

The dsp solution with Apollo is great. Unfortunately, what pushed me to the decision is after using X16’s to stem out mixes to my analog console, I kept feeling like I wasn’t getting the best conversion I could get and kept having to eq again or things would thin out and and i’d loose more then I would like in the process. Plus hardware inserts didn’t behave like an avid interface and had to be accounted for. I was not working as fast as I would have liked. I have lots of outboard that I want to selectively use at times. So my solution was 2x UAD octo cards, and get rid of the Apollo’s. Maybe keeping one apollo is smart if I will have drawbacks with HDX though?

Along with that, there are many other factors for why I went back to HD/HDX. With mtrx, there’s so much more functionality, and I’m looking at the unit as basically future-proof. My new control room isn’t finished yet, but with the spq card there is bass management and I am able to tune and do adjustments With DADman.. If I want the subs on with the mains at +3 because the rap guys are coming in, I can do that easily. Or different rooms being networked together in the same building, the rooms can communicate if needed with the Dante card.

Honestly yes, you may have limitations with an HDX1 system but that’s something that can be expanded. Does it cost more? Of course. That’s talk for another day though.

[s.d. finley]

Originally Posted by Nephew312

Thanks for the responses.

For me it’s more so- do I need to keep something around for those specific tracking scenarios where they must monitor through the AT? Will I get unnoticeable latency numbers with the auto tune artist plugin in the chain with HDX to the point where the artist won’t notice? I know natively you can do this because I have used non UAD powered auto tune and it works through the Apollo. I just haven’t tried on HDX yet.

Price is a non-issue. I am already invested in avid products, have ultimate and recently gave up my Apollo’s for an avid mtrx. At this point, I know I have successfully worked with auto tune in a native environment and believe me, if these artists wouldn’t ask for it, I wouldn’t even think twice about it. But some want to monitor through it when they record.

The dsp solution with Apollo is great. Unfortunately, what pushed me to the decision is after using X16’s to stem out mixes to my analog console, I kept feeling like I wasn’t getting the best conversion I could get and kept having to eq again or things would thin out and and i’d loose more then I would like in the process. Plus hardware inserts didn’t behave like an avid interface and had to be accounted for. I was not working as fast as I would have liked. I have lots of outboard that I want to selectively use at times. So my solution was 2x UAD octo cards, and get rid of the Apollo’s. Maybe keeping one apollo is smart if I will have drawbacks with HDX though?

Along with that, there are many other factors for why I went back to HD/HDX. With mtrx, there’s so much more functionality, and I’m looking at the unit as basically future-proof. My new control room isn’t finished yet, but with the spq card there is bass management and I am able to tune and do adjustments With DADman.. If I want the subs on with the mains at +3 because the rap guys are coming in, I can do that easily. Or different rooms being networked together in the same building, the rooms can communicate if needed with the Dante card.

Honestly yes, you may have limitations with an HDX1 system but that’s something that can be expanded. Does it cost more? Of course. That’s talk for another day though.

For our AT use it's strictly hip hop/rap/pop stuff where it is 100% needed to get THAT sound. Not for pitch correction, when that is needed I will reach for Melodyne after doing as JFreak suggest to comp with playlists the holy mackerel out of the artist, comp for the best take and THEN pitch that. IIRC back in the old TDM days you could eat up voices and cause huge amounts of latency by having an RTAS plug in AFTER a TDM. Not sure if that is the case with HDX, as having a Native plugin after DSP would still cause extra latency. One thing I have noticed is with our Apollo 16s with a trashcan MP6.1 and PT Ultimate is the buffer goes down to 32. I have accidentally been tracking rap vocals with AT @96khz using the 64 buffer with about 10 or so plug ins, open the usage window and almost have a heart attack because the usage is pegged but the session didn't stop. HD native system would not have done that. HDN seems a little more finicky with very low buffers and many plug ins IME.

[LDS]

You still need to run a DSP plugin followed by a native plugin in HDX. Mainly because a native plugin alone will be bypassed when you record arm the track. Adding a DSP trim stops it from happening. The added latency is really just the result of audio needing to move from DSP to the native CPU and back again. If you track in only DSP, that doesn't happen. It's a tricky question to answer, as it really depends on how big a session you plan on running, and how much latency is too much.

HDX feels like it has gotten a lot better at low latency native monitoring in recent releases. It could perhaps coincide with my move from MBP to trash can, I don't know. I've got a 109 fader 5.1 post mix open at the moment. It is using about 70% of a HDX card, 183 voices, 90ish DSP plugins, plus three dozen native plugs including 11x 5.1 instances of Stratus 3D. It plays back fine with a 64 sample native buffer. I can't really ever remember it doing that in the past. Usually 128 minimum.

Not only that, I can create a mono channel, add Waves Tune LT (the only autotune I have), and track through it, with a send to one of those 5.1 stratus instances totally smoothly while the rest of the session plays. Flipping that same session to native using the analogue IO of a thunderbolt 2 AJA XT IO, I need to increase the native sample buffer to 128, or bypass the send to stratus to get it to work smoothly.

How does that compare latency-wise? Running a native plugin with no inherent latency will add 138 samples in HDX. How many samples of latency the autotune plugin has, I have no idea. Based on that simplistic test, if all you are doing is tracking a single vocal through a native plugin and reverb in an already established session, native might be a slightly better choice, at least with my 6,1 Mac Pro. Where HDX really shines is in larger scale DSP tracking. It will do that one channel through a native autotune, but it will also handle tracking another 30 mono channels with as many DSP plugins as your HDX card can handle at the same time.

One thing to really be aware of though, is that HDX doesn't scale entirely evenly. It is a much bigger beast than UAD. UAD is capped at 4 stereo cue mixes. HDX will do a 16 channel cue mix in a single send slot, and still have 9 more slots available for you to use. That is A LOT of possible cue sends. The routing capabilities, I/O counts and plugin chains it can manage entirely within DSP are exponentially larger than anything UAD offers. Part of throwing that much audio around does mean an increased use in native system resources. 64 sample native buffers at 70% of HDX1 works... but I would anticipating having to increase the native buffer higher if you suddenly find yourself at 70% of HDX2... and higher again if you end up at 70% of HDX3.

But anyway, I'm rambling. If you want me to test anything specific, just let me know. HDX can be an obtuse thing to navigate. Often too small for big mixes, yet totally overkill and barely utilised in smaller tracking sessions.

[Mark Ziebarth]

Originally Posted by LDS

You still need to run a DSP plugin followed by a native plugin in HDX. Mainly because a native plugin alone will be bypassed when you record arm the track. Adding a DSP trim stops it from happening. The added latency is really just the result of audio needing to move from DSP to the native CPU and back again. If you track in only DSP, that doesn't happen. It's a tricky question to answer, as it really depends on how big a session you plan on running, and how much latency is too much.

HDX feels like it has gotten a lot better at low latency native monitoring in recent releases. It could perhaps coincide with my move from MBP to trash can, I don't know. I've got a 109 fader 5.1 post mix open at the moment. It is using about 70% of a HDX card, 183 voices, 90ish DSP plugins, plus three dozen native plugs including 11x 5.1 instances of Stratus 3D. It plays back fine with a 64 sample native buffer. I can't really ever remember it doing that in the past. Usually 128 minimum.

Not only that, I can create a mono channel, add Waves Tune LT (the only autotune I have), and track through it, with a send to one of those 5.1 stratus instances totally smoothly while the rest of the session plays. Flipping that same session to native using the analogue IO of a thunderbolt 2 AJA XT IO, I need to increase the native sample buffer to 128, or bypass the send to stratus to get it to work smoothly.

How does that compare latency-wise? Running a native plugin with no inherent latency will add 138 samples in HDX. How many samples of latency the autotune plugin has, I have no idea. Based on that simplistic test, if all you are doing is tracking a single vocal through a native plugin and reverb in an already established session, native might be a slightly better choice, at least with my 6,1 Mac Pro. Where HDX really shines is in larger scale DSP tracking. It will do that one channel through a native autotune, but it will also handle tracking another 30 mono channels with as many DSP plugins as your HDX card can handle at the same time.

One thing to really be aware of though, is that HDX doesn't scale entirely evenly. It is a much bigger beast than UAD. UAD is capped at 4 stereo cue mixes. HDX will do a 16 channel cue mix in a single send slot, and still have 9 more slots available for you to use. That is A LOT of possible cue sends. The routing capabilities, I/O counts and plugin chains it can manage entirely within DSP are exponentially larger than anything UAD offers. Part of throwing that much audio around does mean an increased use in native system resources. 64 sample native buffers at 70% of HDX1 works... but I would anticipating having to increase the native buffer higher if you suddenly find yourself at 70% of HDX2... and higher again if you end up at 70% of HDX3.

But anyway, I'm rambling. If you want me to test anything specific, just let me know. HDX can be an obtuse thing to navigate. Often too small for big mixes, yet totally overkill and barely utilised in smaller tracking sessions.

+1 HDX is a complicated beast. A versatile companion on the one hand and a eye of the needle on the other hand. It depends on your recording environment.

Best

Mark

[JFreak]

HDX is at its best on S6L and you should really think that desk when you use your HDX on computer. Everything on DSP and you need to have a reason to go Native. That way it is great. Mix and match was even worse on TDM systems.