Which PCIe chassi to Mac Pro 2010?

[Firechild]

Sorry for a question I am sure been asked before...
But... I have a HD3 PCIe system in a Mac Pro 2010 but I need to add a UAD-2 PCIe card as well as the UAD-2 Satellite version is adding an 512 samples extra buffer which is killing my workflow with external hardware synths.
I have also a spare HD core card to have a HD4 system if I get the correct PCIe Expansion chassi.

So, should I go for a PCIe chassi or go for an old PCI chassi and buy 4 used PCI HD cards instead... they are so cheap now but not the PCIe chassis...
Or is there a 4 slots PCIe chassi available for reasonable amount of money?

Running 10.8.5 and Pro Tools 10.3.10.

[Darryl Ramm]

Or maybe consider not tracking with UAD plugins at all? Only using them at mix time. Printing things etc. And you are aware of the latencies for the actual UAD plugins you are using? Every now and again there is a problem report on DUC caused by a super-high latency UAD plug in instantiated in a session while trying to track.

Before getting an expansion chassis can you borrow a UAD card, pull one of your existing HD cards out of the Mac and try the UAD card out with a session to see how it works for you?

[albee1952]

Indeed^^^ I suspect that the only way to track with UAD plugins and not suffer latency, would be to use Apollo interfaces. I have a UA Quad card in my HD/Native system and every UA plugin reports over 1000 samples of latency and I never track with any of them(or I might use the reverbs, turn off delay compensation on those tracks and chalk up the latency as extra Pre-Delay). In retrospect, I often with I'd saved my money(not bought the card) or had gone with the Apollo(except that at the time, the Apollo lineup was limited compared to now).

[Barry Johns]

That being said, which would be the best magma unit for him to use?

Everyone else is right, forget about this idea of being able to track through UAD plug-ins on a TDM rig. Only real way to do that, it's with the Apollo series that of course don't work at the same time as running TDM.

[Darryl Ramm]

I would not go to a chassis if it is avoidable. If you *really* want HD/TDM and your sessions are running out of voices etc. then sure go for it. Reasonable amount of money? Ah depends on what you mean reasonable, and if you *need* to solve a problem...

I would personally not go old PCI-X
- PCIe chassis is useful for more stuff
- PCIe chassis will have higher resale value
- PCIe cards in the expansion chassis can be swapped with the main CPU box, always nice for reconfiguring/debugging.

Any Magma PCIe-PCIe expansion chassis.

If the desire is HD/TDM for low tracking latency then great stay there.

If the desire is lovely UAD plugins for mixing then use them there.

If you really want to track through UAD plugins then get off HD/TDM and buy an Apollo. And to me that would be a Thunderbolt Apollo and new Thunderbolt Mac... after Apple (finally) ships some new Thunderbolt 3 Macs. Damn Apple screwed the pooch here with jamming display signals over Thunderbolt and lack of upgrades, they really want to force obsoleteness.. All that gated by wanting to see a more stable version of Pro Tools 12 at some time... or switch to a PC and be at the bleeding edge of Thunderbolt/Thunderbolt 3 there.

[Firechild]

Thank you guys.
As you say , even with the PCIe version of the UAD-2 card there will be latency so the correct workflow in my situation is to add UAD plugins at the mix stage, not during tracking.
Thanks for keeping me away from the chassis route

Still waiting for the next HDX versions, and hopefully Waves will be back on the DSP train again...

Until then...I wil stay on PT HD 10.3.10 and my HD cards