Future Of LE

[jayprotools]

I'm a LE 002Rack owner for just over the past 4 years and have been using Pro Tools LE/HD for the last 7/8 years. I love PT and version 7 is great with still a few issues to address.
I use LE to compose, record, mix etc. and engineer for a studio with a HD2 Accel system. I am a fan of Pro Tools and the Software is definitely one of the best DAWs around that I have personally experienced.
We Pro Tools users are the most paying customers compared to most other DAW users and the future products need to reflect the hard earned money we've put into Digidesign to go on and innovate.

Software-wise PT is great! Just please fix the little bugs asap. I know we are going through a OS changes with Leopard & Vista, we can wait. Elastic Audio is an amazing concept, for live recordings and programming it truly is astounding!
Please just do one more thing, basically buy Celemony out or steal the Melodyne concept. Simply going to pitch view on an audio region (like waveform,volume,elastic etc.) would show the audio on a piano roll like Melodyne, if you can implement this, truly wow!!!!

Hardware-wise I was very disappointed when I saw the 003 line of products, as I did want to upgrade my 002r to the 003, but the 003 line seems more like a re-hash of the prevoius product line with minor improvements (2 Headphone outs, was good though).
I'm sure we will be waiting a long time before we see a glimpse of a 004 line, but Digidesign please consider this:

The next 004rack, 004, Mbox3 etc.. should have DSP based cards in the sound cards, maybe some of those obselete old TDM/HD cards? but i'm sure we users would want newly developed cards.
Now before you say 'Dah! PT HD stupid!' Of course Limit the track count to just 64 (stereo) tracks for 004 and 32 (stereo) tracks for Mbox, you still would have only 8 hardware i/o's (+ADAT) with the 004/004r and less with Mbox, so your HD user would still need there HD systems for larger i/o's, track counts, bigger control surfaces etc..
The ProTools M-Powered range could be the CPU native only version.

The 004 DSP cards could take the load of DAE, audio, routing, eleastic audio, i/o, buffer latency (HD settings to LE), ADC, MIDI timing and Digidesign RTAS/AIR plugins (only) including Structure (DSP based sampler OH MY GOD). Third-Party plugins would still run native on the computer CPU.

If you really want to take the next 004 controller to the next level, take a look at the Jazz Mutnat Lemur (youtube), incorporate that into the soundcard and the future Icon desks! Oh heck Digi buy them out too.

This would most definitely keep your user base (not that we're going anywhere) and expand as you would have the most reliable project home studio & portable system on the market. Upgradeable Firmware to keep it up to date etc..
HD will still sell and then you could release a new HD system which also loads AIR/STRUCTURE plugins into the DSP cards just like the new LE.

Focusrite has sort of touched upon this concept with the Sapphire range and i'm sure the Sapphire was actually meant to be the M-Box2 but Digi/Focusrite parted company for whatever reason.....

Well if you got this far in my post, congratulations!

Please add or criticize ideas of what could possibly contribute to the future of LE.....

Jay

[Smithcok]

I think many of us would take the position that LE doesn't want processing chip power.

Arguably, by the time the 004 line would come out (at least ~2-3+ years I would imagine), you would only need processing cards for the LARGEST sessions imaginable. I haven't fully configured my new Mac Pro (and I still need to install Tiger, which Apple tech support said is possible), but when its ready to go, I would have no problem putting that up against an HD1 or 2 system (as far as processing goes).

Even if my computer couldn't take them on, the next year's probably can. I think we are slowly but surely getting to the state where Native processing is very possible.

For many of us LE users, all we want is ADC. (Additionally, less track restrictions, more i/o, better plug-in packages, and better MIDI implementation in PT overall). But, those are secondary. For a lot of us, I think LE is a great way to make music.

[sunburst79]

Love PT myself but the concept of DSP chips is completely dead....There is no absolutely no need with native power which is much, much cheaper. And evolving much, much faster I might add.

A far better solution would be a new unaccelrated card based I/O line that took advantage of PCIe's massive bandwidth to tranfer digitised audio around internaly on a full native workstation. Couple that with some "Smart Interfaces" that would handle the AD/DA conversion at the interface level and have enough DSP be able have the I/O reconfigured electronicly and provide compensation for inserts would be cool. This would actually make some sense. Think modular 8 Channel Digi "PRE" with some DSP. PCIe offers somthing like 20x the bandwidth of PCI why not take advantage of it.

The only disadvantage to this system would be that you would require something like a Espresscard to use it with a laptop. I doubt that that would be a deal breaker.

Unless there a weather change in Avids management the rehashing of the MBox>Mbox2, 002>003, Control24>C|24 would tend to indicate future product plans.

Oh and lets build some stuff that no one feels the need to send to Black Lion! Appogee can do it, Digi can do it. It would be GREAT to see people switching to Pro Tools just to be able to use the interfaces. Think about that for a second.

The basic Software/Product is good and Digi has added some outstanding products, The AIR products are a excellent example. Digi has been interacting a bit more on the boards and their customer support from the aspect of issuing CS updates is very good.

Something like expanded HD will always have a place for feature films or the high end recording studio. But you read alot about consolidation in these areas and I would think that the expanding Home Studio/Enhanced Project Studio market would hold some allure, Whenever there is a market to be filled some one will fill it. I would like that to be Digi.

The argument of HD cost xxx.xx and Native only costs x.xx always comes up. What percentage of General Motors Net profit comes from Corvettes? Not a whole lot when you look at the R&D cost! The other side of the coin is what percentage comes from selling Cobalts? The answers there is not a whole lot either becuase its a loss leader meant to develop product loyaty and market share. So weres the real money come from?....The answer is in the midrange. The Malibus, Impalas, HHRs, etc and were do you think GM spends to most of their research money and add the most standard features to keep things competative? What do you think would happen to GM if they only sold Corvettes and Cobalts? Sorry about the Automaker analogies but they do market things well. Of course the question of how much of Digis profits come from selling Corvettes and how much comes from selling Cobalts we don't know.

But

I want a Impala, And make it a SS.

I would love to see some sort of stepping stone between LE and HD. I would love to see new customers and I would love to see happy people in the forums.

[citi]

"For many of us LE users, all we want is ADC"

Speak for yourself. I could care less either way. ADC or the lack of ADC never made my songs better or worse.

[Forum Member LE]

-DSP chips and the concept is far from dead.
Until they decide to make an OS designed specifically for music/video or both we will still get aspects that are not the sames as the TDM systems.
Yes we have plenty of computer power, but it's still far from realtime.

-ADC for LE still requires that HD can deal with LE's method and LE can deal with HD's method.
So how will the LE system account for TDM plugs and the DSP chips when working back and forth?
Making them inactive would defeat the purpose since you are trying to mix.

-Based on the quality of the products coming from AIR, a DSP card or device to run their VI's or some RTAS is gonna happen.
The UAD is outdated yet still prominent, the Duende went over well and even the LiquidMix is growing.
Digi's goal of keeping custers where they want them has not changed they just offer be ways to do it.
Digi never jumped up and down about the RTAS Wrapper, ever wonder why?

Look at all the other DAW's they have all these neat features but with every new version they are still adding or copying things that PT has always done.
The bells and whistles still aren't making people move.

It's a big difference between importing your audio into another DAW and starting a mix compared to just opening a session on a different PT rig and continuing what you were already doing.

[jayprotools]

Great to see the responses peeps,

I agree there would need to be a complete code re-write of PT from the ground up, maybe PTv8.

DSP chips to run a ProTools LE rig with no load on the CPU, come on that is not dead. Imagine your 64 stereo tracks mixdown with 64buses with 10 instances of the new D-Verb IR (please), Strike, Hybrid, Velvet, Structure and as many EQIII and DYN III as you want with no load on your CPU! No more bouncing down down, keep the VIs open and apply the FXs on top.

Leaving all the new mass native power for your third party VI's, FX, Waves etc. Remember these instrument libraries are just gonna get bigger and plug-in companies always push CPUs to the limit for bigger and better things Also Keyswitch VIs take a huge amount of CPU.
Even if you dont use VI's and just need to record, edit and mix, you have got a sh*t-hot DAW that can run from a MacBook as the load is external, no freezing up or sluggish behaviour, the lowest latency and yes ADC, finally.
More likely less bugs I think as the hardware software will be all in-house (code re-write needed of course).

By the way dont know if i mentioned it, I actually would like to see the DSP actually hold the audio files in your session like the RAM from the CPU would. So as soon as you import, record & edit audio that is live on the Edit page it is buffered in the DSP.

Having Structure as a DSP sampler as well as native that would be amazing. I'm sure Digi will slowly be getting all Kontakt Libraries on Structure in due course, East West is already porting over products by the looks of things.

Don't get me wrong PT LE is great software and once v7 is completely stable it really has become a compositional tool that is a force to be reckoned with.

Anyway..... not that my optimistic system will ever come to fruition, i needed to vent it out....

Started this thread elsewere, guitardom reply mentions Elastic Pitch, WOO HOO!!!!! if it is true!

http://duc.digidesign.com/showflat.p...3389%231243357

[Shawn Simpson]

DSP chips to run a ProTools LE rig with no load on the CPU, come on that is not dead. Imagine your 64 stereo tracks mixdown with 64buses with 10 instances of the new D-Verb IR (please), Strike, Hybrid, Velvet, Structure and as many EQIII and DYN III as you want with no load on your CPU! No more bouncing down down, keep the VIs open and apply the FXs on top.

That's a pretty description of the TDM system.

[emorganproductions]

I'm sorry to say, but this optimistic system of yours is already on the market

DSP chips to run a ProTools rig with no load on the CPU. Imagine your 64 stereo tracks mixdown with 64buses with 10 instances of the new D-Verb IR (please), Strike, Hybrid, Velvet, Structure and as many EQIII and DYN III as you want with no load on your CPU! No more bouncing down down, keep the VIs open and apply the FXs on top.

It's called TDM my friend. To use Sunburst's Automotive analogy, its like your saying you have a mid level Impala or Malibu, but want it to have the same engine as the Corvette, all the same features, heck maybe even a corvette body kit! If you want a corvette then buy a corvette. People buy Mid-level cars because they are affordable and get them from A to B, just like my Pro Tools LE system, which is why I bought it.

Just a thought,

[jayprotools]

I am well aware of HD/TDM, but this topic is about the future of Pro Tools Products, so HD would still be the high-end and more powerful app than LE. If you have ideas for the next HD please mention them.

The (very hopeful) LE system i mention is similar to the (now available) HD of course, but has less hardware i/o and more track count than LE has right now (64 Stereo would be nice).

LE needs to be a cut above the rest (Logic,Cubase...) cause you are restricted to the Digi hardware.

The only reason I think DSP on (future) LE is to make the System rock solid, that is what Digi should focus, nothing can beat reliability.

3 specific systems:

M-Powered : 100% Native powered

LE : DSP & Native, NO TDM plug-in support but the DSP takes care of ProTools and DigiRack/AIR plugins, Playback Max 64 Stereo tracks

HD : DSP & Native, TDM Plug-In Support, Larger track i/o's, Playback Max 320 Stereo track or something ridiculous, Icon, C24 control surface support etc, DSP based DigiRack/AIR plug-ins and even more great features that Digi will come up with.


Most likely markets they would aim for (which they already do):

M-Powered: Entry-Level, College Grad, Mobile Musician, Budget.

LE: Small/Medium Project Studios, Professional Composers, Mobile Rig.

HD: Commercial/Post Studios, Medium/Large Project Studios.



Regarding the earlier post, any one look at the Jazz Mutant Lemur gear?
That is one amazing control surface, can u imagine a 004 soundcard with that control at your fingertips and even implementing that with the future HD/Icon desks..... Gasp...

Appreciate all your views, keep them coming.....

[Forum Member LE]

Regarding the earlier post, any one look at the Jazz Mutant Lemur gear?
That is one amazing control surface, can u imagine a 004 soundcard with that control at your fingertips and even implementing that with the future HD/Icon desks..... Gasp...

I see just the opposite.
DIDI seems heading more toward giving the benefits of technology but with a more tactical analog feel.
The Mutant defeats two things about what the ICON is about which are tactical analog workflow and system reliability.
Can't see them wanting the potential issues of a touch surface.