Plugin Order

[Poker]

I am wondering about ideal plugin order for optimizing my template. Since I am running an HDX system with 2 UAD pcie cards, I have 3 different things that are processing audio. I am curious if I have the signal path right. As of now, I am running plugins on auxes in this order: AAX Native>UAD>AAX DSP. Nothing on the master. My question is mainly about UAD. Am I correct in assuming that the audio goes directly from the UAD to the DSP card for output, or does it return at to the cpu?

[JFreak]

UAD is on native side as far as PT mixer is concerned. You don't want to mix dsp/native/dsp/native/dsp too much, but use whatever necessary. sometimes the middle dsp plugin is beneficial to switch to native, however.

[Poker]

Thanks so much for the quick response. I am definitely trying to have my processing flow be one direction. But the question I have is, does the uad card process the audio it's fed and then output that audio to the dsp mixer? Or does it send it back to the cpu before it hits the dsp mixer?

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by Poker

Thanks so much for the quick response. I am definitely trying to have my processing flow be one direction. But the question I have is, does the uad card process the audio it's fed and then output that audio to the dsp mixer? Or does it send it back to the cpu before it hits the dsp mixer?

UAD is native as far as PT mixer is concerned, so yes, it goes to CPU first and then from native buffer it re-enters DSP mixer

[LDS]

I am pretty sure that AUX channels are DSP based from the get go, so it doesn’t matter if you run native->dsp, or dsp->native. You’ll be using a voice per channel to head to native, and another to head back to DSP for summing in both cases. The easiest way to save voices, particularly in wide bus formats is to stick entirely with DSP on your AUX channels. The biggest killer is alternating Native->DSP->Native, etc.

On playback audio channels it’s a different story again. Run native, followed by DSP as pro tools will process the native plugins before shooting the audio over to DSP.

[Poker]

Thank you both! Very helpful info