ISIT WORTH UPGRADING FROM 001 TO PRO TOOLS D24 ?

[cane]

Hi.
Has anyone here upgraded from an 001 to a d24 system ?
I've seen quite a few pro tools d24 systems around lately on the 2nd hand market & at a very tempting price, which seems to be getting even lower since the new hd systems have been launched.
Im jus' curious because it seems to me that a tdm system could really start to be affordable now.
Isit it worth it to upgrade to a d24 system or should i wait until the mix 24 system's come down in price?

Please let me know if any of you have recently upgraded to a tdm d24 or mix 24.

Thanks [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Marso]

If # of tracks is the issue, maybe. If you're planning of using a lot of plug ins then you will need to buy some dsp cards meaning: enough available slots in your computer. Myself, I would go for mix+ BUT IT IS DIFFICULT TO SAY SINCE I DON T KNOW THE DEAL YOU RE ABLE TO GET.

[Mr T]

I totally agree with the former post.
One of the studio I'm working in has that D24 with some DSP Farm. You can go up to 32 tracks but the plugs!!!...
You ask for one on a track (or use the audiosuite), the pointer in shape of a hand appears (you know the one with the fingers taping/counting) and it's like...taptaptaptaptaptap (sound of the fingers taping)...taptaptap...(that's where you begin to think the whole comp. is about to crash)...taptaptap...wooops....heeere you go ! The plug's window finally appears...
Its a drag and I don't even mention the fact that you're really limited in terms of plugs count.
Your choice.

[M Lawrence]

i might wait about it until the dust settles. though you only get 24trks with le, because it uses floating point math (instead of fixed, like tdm), it actually sounds better when it comes to plug-ins & summing tracks. kind of a big trade-off. i'm not totally sure, but i think the new 192/hd line is using a similiar architecture to le's. something the think about, anyway. good luck,


ml

[cane]

Ok so what i can gather from what i've read is: that it is debateble whether the d24 system is any more powerful than the 001 system & that the mix core system is the one to get.
But this now leads me into to a more powerful mac 867/933 001 system versus a mix core system situation.
Can anyone help me out here?
Isit worth upgrading my g4 466 to say a new 933 or 867 mac & sticking with the 001 + maybe buy an apogee rosetta, this way, will i have a competitive system against a 2nd hand mix core system.

by the way the d24 system was £3200 which included the d24 card + dsp farm card + 882 interface.

bet if i wait a couple of months i can get a mix core for the same price [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[peteri]

Sorry coming to this a bit late - but might as well chip in.

Summer last year I went from 001 to D24 - I thought long and hard on this, basically with a D24+dsp farm setup, you will realistically have bought the TDM s/w and the ability to run a decent reverb.

The d24 card runs the 'engine', the mixer runs on the DSP farm, this will use atleast one chip and very possibly two.

This leaves you two chips for plugins, a reverb will take one chip - therefore you have one chip for other plugs.

Now with RTAS that isn't such a bad position, you've still got a significant upgrade over the 001, because the reverb is no longer Native, and is probably of better quality.

But to be honest, it is a little disappointing, but the software will run sooo much better TDM, so in that respect it is worth it - scroll during playback, all the shortcuts, beat detective (which ROCKS) etc. so if you approached it from that respect it may still be worth it.

Shortly after I got my system I got an additional DSP farm for about £450, which makes the system much more practical, and is really a more realistic minimum. Then I added a Mix Farm - and this is when it really rocks, the Mix chips are a lot more powerful. Finally a Mix Core - and I sold by D24 system

So in conclusion, the Mix Core is a better purchase, but only if the price is right, a Mix Core on it's own will not give you a massive plugin count, you will have to use RTAS and you may have to bounce to disk:

6 chips
1 for engine
1 for mixer (might go to two)

Leaves 4 for plugins:

1 for reverb

Leaves 3.

Now plugins from different manufacturers 99.9% of the time will not chip share, and many plugins from the same manufacturer are the same - so really you can safely say you can run 3 different 'types/makes' of plugin.

A sensible minimum to be able to run a 32 track mix, 24bit dithered mixer, reasonable routing and effects, couple of reverbs, maybe virus (don't forget direct connect will also 'steal' a chip) is a Mix+ which I now have.

BTW: That price for the D24 was a bit steep in my opinion - I got a D24 card, Dsp farm and 882 interface for £2250 last summer - paid £200 to digi for the software and off I went, I just sold a D24 + 2 dsp farms (no interface or s/w for considerably less than that).

And no - sorry the Mix system will still take the higher spec Mac, remember with TDM your processor is doing next to nothing - so think of the extra plugins that will free up (now you can use RTAS). Native is good, but not that good yet!

Just my opinions - mail me if you want more 'life experiences'! (I'm in London so these are 'real' prices not converted $ rates)

Pete

[lwilliam]

I agree that 3200 pounds is WAY too much for a basic d24 system (if I understand the conversion factor is $1 = .70 pounds). There is a D24+farm card on ebay right now for $1375. An 882 should only go for about $400-500.

I'm already seeing used MixCore cards for sale as low as $3500. I think that within a few months, you will see MixPlus's going for that range - if you can wait.

Off-topic: Is there a "pound" symbol on a US keyboard or an alt/key combo?

[Kling3]

Question remains...why? What is it about LE that isn't cutting the mustard for you? Do you just want to spend money? We have both systems in our studio (radio and post) Guess what... 80% is done on the LE system, for no particular reason. How critical does someone have to be? Our clients can't hear the difference (totally subjective anyway).

I have a suspicion things are going to radically change in the next year, between OSX and G5 processors/(dual?). Unless you have a undeniable need for TDM now, I'd hang tight.

Look at Digital Performer and what it can do with a dual processor Mac as a host. How many tracks?!!

Mbox $450.00. Hmmmm, whats going on here? Things are going to get interesting.

Don't get me wrong, Digi still has the best work flow going, but DP is getting very, very close. I think Digi will a whole new ball game with OSX and G5 processors.

Food for thought.

[Kling3]

Yes,

More plug-in power for sure (now), but within a year DAW's are going to be something elso altogether with OSX and G5 processors. Apple's new (OSX) architecture for audio along with more faster/dual everything is going to rewrite the need for TDM in my humble opinion. Just a hunch really. TDM may be a good deal now, but there is usually a reason things get cheap (on the way out?)

Mbox is a 001 with two ins and two outs. Thats all we need in post and radio because we use a mixer for the front end (patch bay if you will). We don't record live bands, so we don't need all the ins/outs.

I also don't understand all this need for multiple reverbs in a session. We typically use one, D-Verb, used on an insert on an aux stereo track. Then we bring up bus sends on the tracks we need reverb for. Once in while we'll use two set up that way if we have delay, but thats it. We use the inserts for eq, compression, limiting. Yes reverbs come in all shapes and sounds, different yes, better, hmmmm???

I'm not looking for a pissing match here just some real world thoughts. The possibilities are endless with the technology at hand. But what do you REALLY need? I'm also coming from a radio/tv spot perspective. But we do use large track counts and heavy edits so we're not light on the system by any means.

Pro-Tools software and an Mbox for $450.00. Do you know we still have Pro-Tools NuBus systems sitting in our junk drawer that cost around $6,000.00!!!
Can you say TDM?

[peteri]

Following up a bit more...

No - a Mix system will be considerably more powerful than a native, for the simple reason you'll have native and TDM power, not just native.

As an example for a 32 track session:

6 dsp:

1 for mix engine
1 for mixer
1 for reverb - you'll get two TC Works/Lexiverbs, one Realverb, Reverb 1 per chip.

This leaves three chips left, as a rough guide

Compressor bank you'll get 16 mono or 12 stereo compressorbanks per chip

Filter bank will giver you 48 channels of eq per chip.

Therefore you could have 16 mono compressors, with a 3 band eq on each channel, and you'll have a chip free - for more/other effects, or maybe Access Virus synth (that runs on the DSP) - this will give you 8 instances (that's synths) per chip.

And all of this while your processor is sitting there practising mouse pointer drawing.

So you can see a Mix system will give you considerable power, and allow your CPU to be used for O/S and plugin processing only (no routing, mixing etc). Also using directconnect you can access a fair few soft synths, and these are alot more accessible when the CPU is entirely free to deal with them - on my G4 533 I can run Reaktor, Absynth and Battery with no problems at all.

When I switched to TDM I didn't (and haven't) regret it for a minute, and not because of the plugins - because my system runs sooooo much better when it's not having to run all the mixing, effects etc. Logic also runs much much smoother when under DAE, because the processor is not multi-tasking to such a degree.

Finally you're right about the interface - when I went from Digi001 to (16 bit) 882/16 - I was amazed by the difference, the 882 is simply miles better - not surprising when you remember that the 882 probably cost £1200 when new.

Hope this helps - please email me if you have any questions

Pete