Best AAX DSP reverb available?

[TimNielsen]

Sure, and it is a powerful system. The real problem you run into is with wide pathways, and wide sends. It chews up so much DSP. And I literally max out my DSP cards and it limits what I can do. I can literally max out my DSP without instancing a single DSP plugin. Purely Avid's mix engine, can max out an HDX3!

Open that on a Native system, no such limitation. So I'm excited (and angry) by the new announcement of extra voices purchasable for Native. I'm sure my work will buy as many as I need, so I'll be able to move away completely from DSP soon! Good riddance!

Originally Posted by MixerGuy

Hi Tim

I can only speak from my own experience, and for me, mixing stereo, 5.1 and 7.1 - music only - HDX3 + a souped up cheese grater is very powerful, and works very well for me.

I don't recall saying that Native + HDX is *always* more powerful than Native.... perhaps I was unclear. I apologize for not being more clear. I'm only speaking about my experiences and how things work for my workflow.

I am sorry that ProTools while working in 7.1.2 chews up your DSP. I had heard that from someone else who was working in 7.1.2
Perhaps this is a serious software efficiency that needs to be addressed? I'm speculating.

[LDS]

Originally Posted by TimNielsen

Sure, and it is a powerful system. The real problem you run into is with wide pathways, and wide sends. It chews up so much DSP. And I literally max out my DSP cards and it limits what I can do. I can literally max out my DSP without instancing a single DSP plugin. Purely Avid's mix engine, can max out an HDX3!

Open that on a Native system, no such limitation. So I'm excited (and angry) by the new announcement of extra voices purchasable for Native. I'm sure my work will buy as many as I need, so I'll be able to move away completely from DSP soon! Good riddance!

I would totally love to see Avid introduce a revised playback engine for HDX that has three options - 'Native', 'AAX-DSP only' and 'Full DSP'. It would make sense really, particularly for the different approaches people use when tracking, overdubbing or mixing.

With that said, you need to be doing some pretty bonkers routing to chew through the DSP with the mix engine. Particularly before hitting the voice limit. It seems I can consistently run 800 or so audio paths on my HDX1 system before the mix engine eats up the DSP. Even with a HDX3 system and 7.1.2 channels, that is a heck load of bussing you have going on there. Any chance of seeing a screenshot of it? At the moment there is no way to even run a 700 voice count, HDX3 session with a maxed mix engine in native. With the release of PT2019 in the coming months, it will be interesting to see what native can really do!

[Frank Kruse]

It's quite a common problem us fx editors run into:
Large sessions from HDn won't play back on HDX1. Sometimes they do on HDX2 but there are cases where we need an HDX3 because of the loss of voices from native plugins on HDX.
So yes, a full native mode on HDX would be great! We'd probably only ever need an HDX1 in the theatre or HDX2 max.
Thing is: If we can now buy hundreds of extra voices for HDn how will those sessions ever play back on HDX?

[reichman]

So yes, a full native mode on HDX would be great!

I thought Avid Audio Server was the way to do this. In theory, this is native-mode using the HDX as audio I/O only. But to be honest, the times I've tried enabling this mode on an HDX system have failed. Is anyone working this way?

[LDS]

Originally Posted by reichman

I thought Avid Audio Server was the way to do this. In theory, this is native-mode using the HDX as audio I/O only. But to be honest, the times I've tried enabling this mode on an HDX system have failed. Is anyone working this way?

It probably can do it, but it sounds more like a backup plan by Avid in the event of installing a HD Driver that is too modern for the version of Pro Tools being used.

[Firechild]

Interesting thread. I just came here by accident and lo and behold what different needs we have in post versus music production!
You guys want the mixer to be native and it is the other way around when recording, it is the WHOLE idea to have it on DSP when tracking with virtually zero latency.
So far I can tell every studio with some self respect is using some form of dsp during tracking may it be HDX, Native HD, UAD console, RME console, you name it so...DSPs are not dead

[VRS]

Originally Posted by LDS

I would totally love to see Avid introduce a revised playback engine for HDX that has three options - 'Native', 'AAX-DSP only' and 'Full DSP'. It would make sense really, particularly for the different approaches people use when tracking, overdubbing or mixing.

With that said, you need to be doing some pretty bonkers routing to chew through the DSP with the mix engine.

I run out of DSP with my HDX2 rig with just the mixer so often that I only use DSP plug ins when I really need to watch Delay Comp limits. It is crazy that HDn systems are more capable than HDX 2 or 3 systems. On the movie I'm currently on, the SFX mixer was on an HDn system and went to an HDX2 for the mix. He spent most of the first morning just re-organizing DSP so he could play his session.
I read the complaints about not enough DSP plug ins being available and I laugh. WHO CARES!! I don't have enough DSP to run the plugs ins anyway.

[tom_lowe]

Originally Posted by VRS

I run out of DSP with my HDX2 rig with just the mixer so often that I only use DSP plug ins when I really need to watch Delay Comp limits. It is crazy that HDn systems are more capable than HDX 2 or 3 systems. On the movie I'm currently on, the SFX mixer was on an HDn system and went to an HDX2 for the mix. He spent most of the first morning just re-organizing DSP so he could play his session.
I read the complaints about not enough DSP plug ins being available and I laugh. WHO CARES!! I don't have enough DSP to run the plugs ins anyway.

Sadly given that HDX cards were underpowered 10 years ago, it's not all that crazy. What is crazy is that Avid won't let native go beyond 32 IO and they still flog the deadhorse that is HDX.

[MixerGuy]

Originally Posted by tom_lowe

Sadly given that HDX cards were underpowered 10 years ago, it's not all that crazy. What is crazy is that Avid won't let native go beyond 32 IO and they still flog the deadhorse that is HDX.

However - in a new Mac Pro - I get all the insane native power PLUS my HDX-3 cards.

Dont forget that.

[Frank Kruse]

Originally Posted by MixerGuy

However - in a new Mac Pro - I get all the insane native power PLUS my HDX-3 cards.

Dont forget that.

Yeah, but the mixer will still eat up most of your cards in a complex 7.1 session, especially with all those AAX native plugins on auxes. You'll need all your cards to run the mixer unlike a native system where you can just get some voice packs and have actual voice count to play back tracks.

Plus the added waiting on DSP reshuffling and other odd things that only seem to happen on HDX like the infamous lost busses after track imports that I've never seen on native systems. Especially fun on the last round of mix fixes when every quick track import means risking a restart of the HDX3 to get those busses back when the forced DSP reshuffle in the system usage window fails.

But I get it, there's no way around it when you need all those physical outputs for Atmos.

It would be great if owners of HDX could run fully native without losing the ability to feed all those outputs. I'm sure most of them would be really happy if they could skip the HDX engine entirely as an option. They have the cards anyway and paid for them. Why not throw that in as a bonus to keep up with native sessions that come in to the theatre?

Would be great!