HDX vs HD Native

[Drew Mazurek]

Originally Posted by mik

That's very interesting. I'm considering buying HDX or HDN before end of january, and it's difficult to make my mind.
My main concern is the transfer between HDN to HDX, as i will finished big projects in HDX, and i want that sessions will sound the same, as it is between 2 HD systems.

There is no difference between HDX and HD Native. In fact, there's no difference between ANY version of PT now. They all use the exact same mix engine.

[Emcha_audio]

The only difference between HD and vanilla will be the audio interface that you have that could change the sound.

[Mixchump]

Originally Posted by Drew Mazurek

There is no difference between HDX and HD Native. In fact, there's no difference between ANY version of PT now. They all use the exact same mix engine.

Drew? Seriously? Have you actually mixed some records on both, and gone back and forth with sessions?

Because I have, and I can guarantee you that they sound very different. If I start a mix on HDX, and open it up on HDN, the drums, in particular, are very different. It's much easier to get things to have impact.. When opening the same mix on HDN, the first thing you need to do is toughen up the percussive elements.

I'm not saying that HDN is bad, by any stretech... There's an interesting sense of space that's not the same with HDX.

Honestly, I really, really hope AVID decides to make it possible for me to run the HDX card with I/O only, and run a completely native mix engine. I'm mixing a big AC record right now with rhythm section (drums, bass, piano, ac and elec gtr) and full orchestra (MosFilm) and vocals. I'm mixing it in 5.1 for an upcoming PureAudio Blu-Ray release, so my resources are stretched thin... 5.1 master faders with Native plugs (no DSP counterpars) are killing all of my voices... I've ended up pulling the HDX card and I'm running HDN so that I can have access to Native plugins with impunity. I can run hardware inserts (system 6000) no problem.

Why can't I do this on HDX? I'm going to wear out the contacts on the PCIe connectors if I keep swapping cards between studio A and studio B all the time... Total bull$4it...

Just sayin...

[klaukholm]

Originally Posted by Mixchump

Drew? Seriously? Have you actually mixed some records on both, and gone back and forth with sessions?

Because I have, and I can guarantee you that they sound very different. If I start a mix on HDX, and open it up on HDN, the drums, in particular, are very different. It's much easier to get things to have impact.. When opening the same mix on HDN, the first thing you need to do is toughen up the percussive elements.

I'm not saying that HDN is bad, by any stretech... There's an interesting sense of space that's not the same with HDX.

Honestly, I really, really hope AVID decides to make it possible for me to run the HDX card with I/O only, and run a completely native mix engine. I'm mixing a big AC record right now with rhythm section (drums, bass, piano, ac and elec gtr) and full orchestra (MosFilm) and vocals. I'm mixing it in 5.1 for an upcoming PureAudio Blu-Ray release, so my resources are stretched thin... 5.1 master faders with Native plugs (no DSP counterpars) are killing all of my voices... I've ended up pulling the HDX card and I'm running HDN so that I can have access to Native plugins with impunity. I can run hardware inserts (system 6000) no problem.

Why can't I do this on HDX? I'm going to wear out the contacts on the PCIe connectors if I keep swapping cards between studio A and studio B all the time... Total bull$4it...

Just sayin...

This theory is quite easy to disprove.
If there is no sonic difference, an identical mix should null completely.
Try running the same mix through both without using reverb and do a nulltest.

[RyanC]

Originally Posted by klaukholm

This theory is quite easy to disprove.
If there is no sonic difference, an identical mix should null completely.
Try running the same mix through both without using reverb and do a nulltest.

We tested this on gearlslutz with 10 between HDX/HDN/core audio and TDM. TDM was the only odd man out, but even at that the bits that didn't null were around -90dB and buried in quantization noise that low.

HDX/HDN/CA in PT10 all = full null even when boosting the resulting audio file 100dB.

[nst7]

Plus, Avid has publicly confirmed that the mix engine is the same across all versions since PT10 (64 bit floating point). TDM is still at 48 bit fixed point because of the hardware, so that would account for any differences.

[vudoo]

Drew? Seriously? Have you actually mixed some records on both, and gone back and forth with sessions?

Because I have, and I can guarantee you that they sound very different. If I start a mix on HDX, and open it up on HDN, the drums, in particular, are very different. It's much easier to get things to have impact.. When opening the same mix on HDN, the first thing you need to do is toughen up the percussive elements.

I'm not saying that HDN is bad, by any stretech... There's an interesting sense of space that's not the same with HDX.

I'm using HDX and HDN with 2 x HD IO 16x16 and shared storage, i open the same session (everything from music to large surround film mixes) on both rig everyday. They sound exactly the same to me. Also did the null test a while back and they null out 100%.

[Drew Mazurek]

Humans are the worst witnesses. They can be fooled very easily and often think they hear differences in order to conform to what they want the result to be. Lots of known psychological phenomenon at play here.

So as others have said, it's the same mix engine no matter what now and has been since PT10. Avid didn't seem to want to talk about this at first because at the time they were still selling TDM systems. Not to mention the fact that they would be "admitting" that all those 32bit float DAWs (including PTLE BTW) sounded better than TDM for all those years!

But now it's common knowledge. So if you hear a difference, it's either in your head or there's a variable you haven't controlled.

[RyanC]

Originally Posted by Drew Mazurek

Humans are the worst witnesses. They can be fooled very easily and often think they hear differences in order to conform to what they want the result to be. Lots of known psychological phenomenon at play here.

So as others have said, it's the same mix engine no matter what now and has been since PT10. Avid didn't seem to want to talk about this at first because at the time they were still selling TDM systems. Not to mention the fact that they would be "admitting" that all those 32bit float DAWs (including PTLE BTW) sounded better than TDM for all those years!

But now it's common knowledge. So if you hear a difference, it's either in your head or there's a variable you haven't controlled.

It's arguably always worth a good test though right? If not to keep *the man* straight then for our own sake.

IME expectation bias is a fickle mistress. Personally if I listen to something from 20 years ago, if I'm honest with myself the worst part if it wasn't opcode's vision (then voyetra, then cakewalk, then sonar, then cubase, then TDM, then HDN, or any of the gear really)...it was me. Not that the tools don't improve/change, but even at that they only seem to improve my consistency (a marketable commodity no doubt). But I'm pretty sure most of us have a few things recorded on some cheap gear in a bad room that sound great.

OTOH overall workflow is a strange thing...I have things that work for me that if someone could prove were scientifically insignificant (or even bad) I would probably still do them, because they have worked and seem to keep working.

I always revert to a piano master class in school where this old russian dude (not a really big name but amazing none the less) described how the instrument is less important that the interaction with it...he made a dusty old upright sing in a way that the kid at the steinway couldn't. On some level, whatever it is that makes that happen, makes that happen.

[rogerhavoc]

Ryan C, I could not have said it any better! Great post

Cheers,

Roger