Need advice on HD Native

[jdsaviator]

Hello all, I am thinking about taking the plunge with an HD native system and have a question. I will be building a new PC to run it.
I was hoping to get the Thunderbolt box rather than the pcie card for flexibility but from what I've read, the only PC thunderbolt options are z87 currently. Most of the builds I've seen on the forum are x79 based. Are there known compatibility issues with z87 and PTHD native right now?

[TAMBOR]

I am running an HDX card in an ASUS Z87-WS, with no problems so far. Just got started though, so I don't have a lot a run time yet.

One thing to consider at least with HDX, the motherboard I have will only work with the HDX card in certain slots, and so I could not use two or more HDX connected together becuase of this. I don't think that would matter with HD Native.

[albee1952]

Tread carefully on this. I'm not so sure the TB drivers for Windows are as good as they need to be I would think about the regular PCIe card and a TB chassis(so you have options), but stuffing the card in the computer(directly on the motherboard) will likely be the safest bet for best performance

[jdsaviator]

Thanks for the info guys. That's not a bad idea regarding the thunderbolt chassis. That sounds like the safer way to go. I'm looking into doing a x79 w/6 core cpu since I don't have to worry about the thunderbolt. I'll probably post my build before I buy just to see if anyone catches me about to do something stupid.

I'm still on the fence on whether I NEED HD native anyways. Short answer, probably not...but I want great conversion with the best possible latency in a native solution so I figure by the time I picked up something else like say the Orion and a monitor controller, I'd be around the same price anyway. If I added a madi card then it's a grand or more and I really don't need all those I/O. If I get to the point where I need more I/O than the Omni has I could always pick up a HD I/O.

Thanks again guys

Jeff

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by jdsaviator

Thanks for the info guys. That's not a bad idea regarding the thunderbolt chassis. That sounds like the safer way to go. I'm looking into doing a x79 w/6 core cpu since I don't have to worry about the thunderbolt. I'll probably post my build before I buy just to see if anyone catches me about to do something stupid.

I'm still on the fence on whether I NEED HD native anyways. Short answer, probably not...but I want great conversion with the best possible latency in a native solution so I figure by the time I picked up something else like say the Orion and a monitor controller, I'd be around the same price anyway. If I added a madi card then it's a grand or more and I really don't need all those I/O. If I get to the point where I need more I/O than the Omni has I could always pick up a HD I/O.

Thanks again guys

Jeff

In a very similar boat here, and still on the fence for a few reasons I will share. Latency is a big deal and I thought all would be dandy with HDN, but the more I read about it, the more confused I get on the reality(was looking at HDN card with HD IO 16x16). I rarely get any mentions of latency on my current 003/firewire setup, but I track at the 64 buffer and keep any high-latency plugins inactive until mix time.

Re. the Orion, make sure you get a return policy on it as my "excursion" with it was, shall we say..."interesting". Personally, I felt it sounded okay, but was probably the most infuriating piece of gear I ever worked with(took hours to configure, and then I lost the entire setup as nobody mentioned that the unit will NOT store a scene while Pro Tools is open). Some friends with HD/HDX rigs did their own shootout with it, alongside HD IO, 192 IO, and an old DAT machine and both declared the Orion the clear loser, sonically(but a fair amount of sonic opinion is down to taste, and what you are used to hearing).

[Greg M]

Albee,

Not exactly sure what your concern about latency with HDN is, but my experience is that tracking at 128 with HDN feels about like tracking with an 002 at 64. No latency complaints at 128, 64, or 32 with HDN, PTHD 11, and Win 8.1.

Greg

[jdsaviator]

Originally Posted by Greg M

Albee,

Not exactly sure what your concern about latency with HDN is, but my experience is that tracking at 128 with HDN feels about like tracking with an 002 at 64. No latency complaints at 128, 64, or 32 with HDN, PTHD 11, and Win 8.1.

Greg

Thanks Greg, great to know. I see in your signature that you are using win 8.1 with HDN. Do you recommend it over 7? Any issues to speak of?

Albee,

thanks for the heads up on the Orion. For the most part, everything I've read on it has been very positive (the latest tapeop for example) and I'm sure it's a fantastic piece of gear especially if you need that many I/O. For someone like me who doesn't, then it becomes more about performance and sonics. Most people seem to agree that it sounds great but doesn't hang with the upper end converters but I think you are spot on with it really boils down to taste. Wanting to continue to work in Pro Tools and with what I want from an interface, HD native is looking like the way to go.

I'm no stranger to building PC's but one thing that had scared me a bit was hearing how PTHD is so picky about hardware but seeing so many documented builds on this forum, I'm not too concerned about that anymore. What an excellent resource!

Jeff

[albee1952]

Greg, thanks for chiming in. What you describe is what I have heard, but there are a few on the DUC that are up in arms over latency of their HDN rigs. All I can imagine is that they are missing some tweak, or maybe using some mastering plugin with a ton of latency and thinking, "ADC should fix that, right??"(kinda surprising how some folks don't really get how delay compensation works) Is it possible that different versions of PT(8 vs 9 vs 10 vs 11) would exhibit different latency(wondering if its fine in PT8, but later versions are worse for some reason)?

[Greg M]

Albee,

I have HDN/PTHD 11 running on both Win 7 and Win 8.1. For whatever reason PTHD 11.x.x has actually been more stable on Win 8.1 than Win 7. In fact, I'd call it rock solid on Win 8.1. It's almost like all of the 11 stuff (PT, plugins, etc.) was written for Win 8.

At this point, all of my "go to" plugins are AAX64 so I almost never go back to PTHD 10 for anything. I'm pretty satisfied with my current rig.

Hope this helps,
Greg

[chrisdee]

I think this thread covers different experiences with latency.
http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t...hlight=latency



Most good singers will probably be just fine with the latency, however I get pitchy with any latency. Personally I can clearly hear a difference between direct monitoring and a buffer size of 64 samples on my system. Therefor I use analog direct monitoring exclusively. Maby it's easier to hear the latency differences when recording vocals in dry spaces like I do?

LLM is very close, but I prefer direct monitoring.