Dealing with track counts

[seanbil]

Originally Posted by jeffro

Thanks for continuing the discussion and sharing your perspectives.

As pointed out a few posts back, 'active' audio tracks in Pro Tools increased to 128 in version 12.1. Also, PT and PTHD both have 512 Instrument Tracks as shown here.

One of our mods logged a feature request to retain tracks between PTHD and PT here.

And to clarify - I'm not saying this is solved by correcting the documentation, just that the existing behavior should be accurately reflected in the docs.

Excellent! Thanks for pointing out the voting link, jeffro! Thanks as well to the Moderator who took the time to write up the Ideascale vote, and to nigelpry for the additional research. I think the Mod summed up our concerns nicely! Okay, it's now time to vote up the Ideascale, people; and especially you, OP! VOTE HERE: http://protools.ideascale.com/a/dtd/209200-3779

Also, would it be possible to set up a Forum sticky where we can post some of the high interest topics that are up for vote at Ideascale? There are currently over 3,100 items on the agenda at the Pro Tools Ideascale site, so it might be helpful to some people if they knew how to locate the voting links for some of the topics that received a lot of attention here in the Forums. Also, voting links that are mentioned in Forum threads tend to get lost very quickly during an ongoing discussion, so this would help make the process of finding those links easier, as well as prevent the duplication of ideas posted to Ideascale.

We could also establish a set of criteria for vote links to receive mention in the sticky, such as a minimum number of views and a minimum number of unique participants to a thread that is related to a particular Ideascale vote. This would help to keep the sticky focused on issues that are of interest to a majority of Forum members. I would think that the only items necessary for such a sticky would be a very brief description of the vote, a link to the related forum thread and a link to the Ideascale vote. Would this be helpful to people or should I just put it up for vote at Ideascale?

[seanbil]

Originally Posted by nigelpry

Of course I fell into my own trap, as I only have 11HD and I trusted the 12.2 Reference Guide.

As reported in the thread, HD now supports 512 Instrument Tracks as well, since 12.1, so that anomaly's gone. All Avid meeds to do is update the Reference Guide to reflect that .... sigh

No wonder they gave up producing printed manuals ;-)

I wouldn't trouble yourself over it because I'm fairly sure that nobody else here was screaming it from their rooftops. So it's no wonder why it went relatively unnoticed, even by those on HD. It's just a pretty ridiculous number for VIs, HD or not!

[nigelpry]

Originally Posted by seanbil

I wouldn't trouble yourself over it because I'm fairly sure that nobody else here was screaming it from their rooftops. So it's no wonder why it went relatively unnoticed, even by those on HD. It's just a pretty ridiculous number for VIs, HD or not!

Actually I can see it if composers create huge template sessions with everything they ever use loaded in but set to inactive, ready to activate at need.

But I've worked the other way ... I set up a variety of track preset hack template presets, and then use add new track and select the relevant presets, and there they are, set up, in the session, just how I like them, minimum pain.

[seanbil]

Originally Posted by simonjewel

Lol! You're probably right, but for my money I'd rather have unlimited audio and aux tracks and a ceiling on VI tracks, purely selfish of course cos I do all my programming in Logic Pro lol!

I absolutely agree, because the bread and butter of Pro Tools is audio handling. And especially for Vanilla, 512 VI tracks is rather excessive for not having the ability to work in 5.1. I don't know if this ever topped the list on Ideascale, but anyone with any influence on the matter would probably have been on HD anyway. Therefore, I really can't say how this particular item got through other than maybe to compete with other products on the market. But all that aside though, it does become an important issue when we consider the exchange of session files between PT and PTHD. So if anything, at least that potential firestorm has been nipped in the bud!

Originally Posted by nigelpry

Actually I can see it if composers create huge template sessions with everything they ever use loaded in but set to inactive, ready to activate at need.

But I've worked the other way ... I set up a variety of track preset hack template presets, and then use add new track and select the relevant presets, and there they are, set up, in the session, just how I like them, minimum pain.

Hmm, I suppose that could come in quite handy when writing a film score. It's a good idea but rather excessive for my own needs though. When I work with VIs, it's very much in the same manner that you describe with your workflow.

[demodigi]

Originally Posted by seanbil

Hmm, I suppose that could come in quite handy when writing a film score. It's a good idea but rather excessive for my own needs though. When I work with VIs, it's very much in the same manner that you describe with your workflow.

I also use Track Presets rather than huge template but Track Presets are not officially supported.

Well I don't think we cannot complain about having 512 instrument tracks for everyone, close to infinite to me. And Avid's marketing cannot write "infinite" for PT "Vanilla"/Native and limited to 512 for PT HD… (that's the lonely reason why "Vanilla"/Native has track limitations ).

[nigelpry]

Yeah, Track Presets are not supported, but as it works, hopefully one day someone at Avid will decide to incorporate it into officialdom ;-)

For me, for example, my Track Presets in the Drums folder (to give you an idea) are ...
AcDrumsB N
AcDrumsB U
AcDrumsS N
AcDrumsS U
SupDrumsB N
SupDrumsB U
SupDrumsS N
SupDrumsS U

AcDrums = Acoustic Kit
SupDrums = Superior Drummer
B = Big/Full layout
S = Small/Cutdown layout
N = Native plugins instantiated
U = UAD plugins instantiated

I just select the one I want in add new tracks, and from that one selection, all the tracks get made, with all the plugins there ready to go.

AcDrumsB N, for example, gives me these tracks (descriptive names below, but abbreviated in the session itself) ...
Kick In, Kick Out and Kick Buss
Snare Top, Snare Bottom and Snare Buss
Tom 1, Tom 2, Tom 3, Tom Floor, Tom Stereo Buss
HiHat
Ride
Overheads Left, Overheads Right, Overheads Buss
Drums Buss and Drums Compression Buss (for parallel compression)
Drums Ambience, Drums Plate, Drums Room, Drums Hall and Drums Delay FX Busses

The audio tracks all come with my go to EQ and compressor there, plus a transient designer on the kick and snare tracks, and with sends set up already to get signal to the parallel compression buss and the fx busses. All the i/o routing is of course set up too.

It saves an unbelievable amount of time to ...

a) be able to call up all of that with
cmd+shft+n (to get the add new tracks dialog), then
cmd+down arrow (until I see the word 'Drums' in the Track Type field), then
opt/alt+down arrow (until I see the Track Preset template I want), then
Enter ..... and watch the magic ;-)

and

b) have a consistently laid out block of tracks for my drums.

It's just .... well .... it's one of those things that is just WOW for me, as you can tell .... I LOVE IT !!!

And it means that if another guy starts off the session, I know that when I get to it, I won't be scratching my head trying to figure out what's what.

Come on Avid .... support it officially .... ASAP

[demodigi]

I think we're a bit Off Topic here …
(Even if it's always interesting to share working methods (and yours is interesting BTW))

[nigelpry]

Originally Posted by demodigi

I think we're a bit Off Topic here …
(Even if it's always interesting to share working methods (and yours is interesting BTW))

Sorry, more than a bit OT, my fault, feel free to castigate me ;-)

It just flowed so easily fom my OT question about how anyone might use the 512 Instrument Tracks we were discussing in relation to track counts.

I'll try harder next time!

[demodigi]

Sorry, more than a bit OT, my fault, feel free to castigate me ;-)

I am OT too, so it's a kind of self-moderation .

[simonjewel]

Originally Posted by seanbil

I absolutely agree, because the bread and butter of Pro Tools is audio handling. And especially for Vanilla, 512 VI tracks is rather excessive for not having the ability to work in 5.1. I don't know if this ever topped the list on Ideascale, but anyone with any influence on the matter would probably have been on HD anyway. Therefore, I really can't say how this particular item got through other than maybe to compete with other products on the market. But all that aside though, it does become an important issue when we consider the exchange of session files between PT and PTHD. So if anything, at least that potential firestorm has been nipped in the bud!

On reading your post I went over to "Ideascale" to vote on a couple of things ... Something that really surprised me was how few votes there are on issues overall. Seems somewhat strange given the depth of feelings on many issues here ... Just a thought