Looking at new Mac Pro and upgrading to HD|Native. Advice from those using Native?

[Belegur]

Hi all...

I'm about to do my first significant upgrade for quite a few years, both Hardware and Software. My system is used to track/mix/master solo artists, small groups (but tracked one at a time, not recorded live) and for Composing for Film, Games, and my own solo projects.

Currently using a 2.66 Mac Pro Quad Core (Xeon) 10GB RAM, OS X 10.5.8, Pro Tools LE 8.0.5 - Complete Production Toolkit, Instrument Expansion Pack, 003 (not rack) interface/surface. Despite sticking to Leopard for my PT drive, things have never been completely stable... and I'm forever having to play with buffer settings and running out of resources for plugins. Sometimes with only a few tracks active.

I'm about to order a new Mac Pro 12 Core, 48GB RAM and thinking about jumping up to HD|Native with the OMNI interface, and maybe an Artist Control if I miss the 003 too much.

I'm concerned about the jump to Lion, which the new system will come with. If I'm to stay with the 003 I'll need to ditch Lion and maybe run Snow Leopard instead.

In the real world, how have you guys found the stability of HD|Native so far?

There are numerous VI's and plugs that I use a lot for my work. While the Compatibility Grid is helpful, it's not always been 100% solid from my experience. So if anyone has actually used the following under Lion with Pro Tools 10 HD|Native, I'd really like to hear what their experience has been like.

3rd party products I use almost daily: (all legitimate purchased versions)

EWQL Play - with most of their instruments installed.
FXpansion BFD2 - heaps of expansions installed.
FXpansion DCAM Synth Squad - All expansions installed.
FXpansion Geist - all expansions installed.
NI Komplete 7
TL Space
Izotope Alloy
Izotope Ozone 5


Any advice would be greatly appreciated, as I'm not made of $$$. I don't mind spending if things are going to work, and the tools don't get in the way of being creative and productive... but if I go down this route, there wont be any funds left for a plan B.

Thanks for your time Guys and Gals.

[musicman691]

A couple of problems you may run into:
Macs coming with Lion cannot reliably be back-dated to use Snow Leopard.

The Play engine is not compatible with Ethernet control surfaces (and that's what the Artist is) in ProTools. See this thread: http://www.soundsonline-forums.com/s...ad.php?t=39013

Also see this page: http://www.soundsonline.com/Symphonic-Orchestra

[midnightrambler]

Me? I'm sick to the back teeth of -9129 errors. I'm saving up to get back into HDX land asap.

[danander11]

I'm using 10.7.2, PTHD 10.0 and HD|N on a 2008 Clovertown 2 x 3.0GHz Mac Pro.. There are a few PT-related bugaboos but it runs very well for me on this computer.. The updates have been less than successful for me but 10 is, by far, my favorite iteration of PT.

That being said.. I use a Clovertown, as noted above, and it is well and truly past it's use-by date as far as Avid is concerned.. With no new Mac Pro's on the horizon, and the price of the current ones I'm going to order a i7 980x processor and may try Windoze out again...

That being said.. I've also begun using Samplitude Pro X which, at this date, is still Win only.. They have a Mac version in the offering, but I think I'll get busy making a Win box work for me again. The bargain of the horsepower to cost ratio is just too great for me to ignore.

If all else fails, I'll retire and go back to playing shooter games

[tomhartman]

Originally Posted by Belegur

Hi all...

I'm about to do my first significant upgrade for quite a few years, both Hardware and Software. My system is used to track/mix/master solo artists, small groups (but tracked one at a time, not recorded live) and for Composing for Film, Games, and my own solo projects.

Currently using a 2.66 Mac Pro Quad Core (Xeon) 10GB RAM, OS X 10.5.8, Pro Tools LE 8.0.5 - Complete Production Toolkit, Instrument Expansion Pack, 003 (not rack) interface/surface. Despite sticking to Leopard for my PT drive, things have never been completely stable... and I'm forever having to play with buffer settings and running out of resources for plugins. Sometimes with only a few tracks active.

I'm about to order a new Mac Pro 12 Core, 48GB RAM and thinking about jumping up to HD|Native with the OMNI interface, and maybe an Artist Control if I miss the 003 too much.

I'm concerned about the jump to Lion, which the new system will come with. If I'm to stay with the 003 I'll need to ditch Lion and maybe run Snow Leopard instead.

In the real world, how have you guys found the stability of HD|Native so far?

There are numerous VI's and plugs that I use a lot for my work. While the Compatibility Grid is helpful, it's not always been 100% solid from my experience. So if anyone has actually used the following under Lion with Pro Tools 10 HD|Native, I'd really like to hear what their experience has been like.

3rd party products I use almost daily: (all legitimate purchased versions)

EWQL Play - with most of their instruments installed.
FXpansion BFD2 - heaps of expansions installed.
FXpansion DCAM Synth Squad - All expansions installed.
FXpansion Geist - all expansions installed.
NI Komplete 7
TL Space
Izotope Alloy
Izotope Ozone 5


Any advice would be greatly appreciated, as I'm not made of $$$. I don't mind spending if things are going to work, and the tools don't get in the way of being creative and productive... but if I go down this route, there wont be any funds left for a plan B.

Thanks for your time Guys and Gals.

If you are not tracking bunches at a time, and you already have a fast Mac and CPTK, I can't imagine Native helping you much.

The errors in PT when running any kind of native (HD Native, or "regular native") are caused by the program itself. As Avid has stated a million times, they are "working on it" and optimizing PT for more VI's, and just plain better "native" performance will happen eventually.

But right now you won't solve it by getting HD Native.

Though you might by getting HDX

TH

[Danny Caccavo]

Actually, some of the -90xx errors are specific to the HD Native rig - I am assured there will be a patch coming for those.