Can this be? Only 16 stereo inputs in PT9?

[Park Seward]

With the standard PT9, you can record 32 tracks at the same time. Then, you can do submixes to stems.

The complete production toolkit 2 will give you features such as 192 simultaneous tracks, up to 7.1 surround mixing, advanced automation and mixing features, and more.

Compare the different versions here:

http://www.avid.com/US/products/fami...-Tools/compare

PT Native will give you 64 recordable audio tracks at the same time. Perhaps that is what you want.

[MacPC]

I don't know anyone using tape, but yes, you have to print them, either on Logic or DP or PT, then bring them on a drive or other storage, or send electronically. If you had time you could print 16 at a time, reroute and relabel everything, then print the second set. But there is no time for that, plus the potential for errors is too high.

[MacPC]

Originally Posted by Park Seward

With the standard PT9, you can record 32 tracks at the same time. Then, you can do submixes to stems.

You need about 30 stereo stems -- those already are the submixes; the 32 tracks are, if experimentation and the other posters are correct, mono. So it's only 16 stereo stems at a time.

Originally Posted by Park Seward

The complete production toolkit 2 will give you features such as 192 simultaneous tracks, up to 7.1 surround mixing, advanced automation and mixing features, and more.

Compare the different versions here:

http://www.avid.com/US/products/fami...-Tools/compare

PT Native will give you 64 recordable audio tracks at the same time. Perhaps that is what you want.

Thanks -- I already saw all this but was / am surprised that the number of tracks they are alluding to is mono only, without specifying that in their summaries.

If I get it now, the upshot appears to be that if you need to print more than 16 stereo pairs simultaneously, you have to invest in Digi hardware. Or use Logic / Cubase / DP and import, which you already could do without PT9.

[Park Seward]

So you have comp tracks that you need to replace with a live performance?

Stock PT9:

You can have 96 playback tracks at a time.

You can record 32 tracks at a time.

If you are recording 32 tracks at the same time, I assume you then have 64 playback tracks available.

[Park Seward]

Originally Posted by MacPC

Thanks -- I already saw all this but was / am surprised that the number of tracks they are alluding to is mono only, without specifying that in their summaries.

I have always assumed that a "track" is a single mono audio track.

A "stereo pair" takes two tracks.

It may go back to the analog days where a track was a track on a recorder. It always took two tracks to record stereo.

[HD2]

Originally Posted by MacPC

I don't know anyone using tape, but yes, you have to print them, either on Logic or DP or PT, then bring them on a drive or other storage, or send electronically. If you had time you could print 16 at a time, reroute and relabel everything, then print the second set. But there is no time for that, plus the potential for errors is too high.

Ok so if you are laying down your tracks in PT's and let's say you go 150 tracks wide with a combo of stereo and mono tracks, then you want to get that down to 36 stereo stems, why would you need to have that many outputs? You can do it all within the box while monitoring on a single stereo output. If you were bussing down to 5.1 stems you would just need an interface capable of 6 outputs.
I don't follow your logic in needing more than 32 I/O's for what you are doing.
Even if you are recording your session in logic or DP cant you just create stereo or 5.1 files and import them into PT's?
It appears you are confusing physical I/O's with busses and tracks unless of course you have more than 16 external stereo instruments you are trying to record at once but that would be difficult even for an octopus

[formfunction]

Originally Posted by MacPC

you have to invest in Digi hardware.

Sounds like you are working on Features...

You do have to invest in somekind of hardware to have up to or more than 32 simultaneous inputs.

You can cut down an oak tree with a pocketknife..
Pocketknife = LE
Butcherknife = PT9
Machete = HD1-2
Chainsaw= HD3+ or multi systems.

EAch of these levels of tree cutting requires more financial commitment.
BAD analogy... but I am hungover. ff

[nst7]

I think some of us are still not sure why you need so much i/o for mixing. Maybe there's some confusion about hardware i/o vs. how many tracks you can record within the software. Within the software, you can record many tracks simultaneously, up to the max amount of tracks there are. So, for example, if you need to print 30 stereo stems simultaneously, you would route all your various mono and stereo tracks whatever way you want, to 30 other stereo audio tracks, record arm those tracks, and print them all at the same time. And you're done. All within the software. You can do this even if you interface only has 2 channels of i/o. The only reason I could see needing many outputs would be if you wanted to use an analog mixer and needed all those tracks to be individual outs.

[MacPC]

Thanks for all the replies.

Definitely, you don't need extra I/O for mixing 32 stereo pairs because PT9 would give you 48 simultaneous stereo playback tracks -- I get that.

The issue is printing about 30 stereo pairs simultaneously, from an external source, so that you don't have to mute and unmute outputs from the source in order to get the splits needed for scoring. Some engineers want even more splits but this is about right for what I normally do.

I realize that you could mute / unmute, arm different tracks and do it that way -- I get that. It's really too cumbersome to think about with the kind of schedule film and TV are on these days.

The literature I printed from Digi's website said 32 tracks and I thought it meant stereo. I didn't fully credit that it could mean mono without specifying that on the web page, as it's unheard-of for music, and as a composer I had my music hat on. Of course PT is used for post production and many other situations in which mono tracks would be quite common.

I am inferring from some posts that in Digi-speak, when alluding to track count, one apparently means mono. I tried calling pre-sales to check my assumptions but they never called back -- assume they were swamped with the PT9 announcement.

It appears formfunction's hung over response probably nails it. Unless the PT software is revised to allow one to get at all the available inputs on the MOTU card (up to 96 stereo inputs), the limit is 16 simultaneous stereo inputs.

Thank you, everyone!

[MacPC]

Originally Posted by nst7

I think some of us are still not sure why you need so much i/o for mixing. Maybe there's some confusion about hardware i/o vs. how many tracks you can record within the software. Within the software, you can record many tracks simultaneously, up to the max amount of tracks there are. So, for example, if you need to print 30 stereo stems simultaneously, you would route all your various mono and stereo tracks whatever way you want, to 30 other stereo audio tracks, record arm those tracks, and print them all at the same time. And you're done. All within the software. You can do this even if you interface only has 2 channels of i/o. The only reason I could see needing many outputs would be if you wanted to use an analog mixer and needed all those tracks to be individual outs.

Can you really print 30 stereo tracks at once in PT9 if they are coming from 30 external stereo inputs?

Or maybe you mean once you've got them inside PT?