Best AAX DSP reverb available?

[propower]

Michael - first off, what a great bunch of posts! As an analog engineer I have always imagined what might be the real technical barriers for coding on DSP chips and am super grateful to read your comments. As a long time admirer (from my PCM 80 in the late 90's to the PCM native bundle and onwards to the EA products) it is great to read your take on things.

Originally Posted by Exponential Audio

For most people (and I include professionals), there's simply no need for dedicated DSPs. ..........................

But there is a real need for super low tracking latency with plugins

Originally Posted by Exponential Audio

Now I will quickly admit that there are issues with host-based processing

Again tracking Latency comes to mind

Originally Posted by Exponential Audio

Now about my remarks concerning a Thunderbolt-connected slave Mac. Let's leave out the pure Thunderbolt issues: I don't know T-bolt at the physical and protocol level. But I believe the concept is sound. A ProTools back-end (no GUI--basically a low-latency framework for running plugins) is quite possible.

In concept the Waves SoundGrid platform already does this. It is the only platform I know of today that uses dedicated Intel CPUs for running plugins in any DAW (not just PT). Integration is not quite at the level of AAX-DSP in the PT DAW but is as close as you can get without full DAW program support. But it does give a plugin processing farm and super low tracking latency.

[Bob Olhsson]

Soundgrid uses a real time OS and not a desktop like Mac or Windoze.

[MixerGuy]

Originally Posted by MixerGuy

Bump to an old thread

And let's get it back on track



Best DSP reverbs? AAX.

And

Sonnox reverb does DSP, but it is 10 years old.

How does it stand up?

I do music.

still dreaming of new DSP verbs.... Space by Avid is cool..... but each 5.0 instance eats up one slot. Ug. 1/2 as efficient as a 5.0 ReVibe on HDX as well.

[TimNielsen]

Curios why you think you need DSP? In my opinion there aren't any DSP reverbs that can hold a candle to the new native ones, especially for example the Exponential Audio stuff like Pheonixverb and Stratus. Nothing else comes close for me.

Valhalla stuff is only stereo but sounds great, light on CPU and a bargain.

I suppose IF you have to use DSP, then ReVibe is your best bet.

[MixerGuy]

Originally Posted by TimNielsen

Curios why you think you need DSP? In my opinion there aren't any DSP reverbs that can hold a candle to the new native ones, especially for example the Exponential Audio stuff like Pheonixverb and Stratus. Nothing else comes close for me.

Valhalla stuff is only stereo but sounds great, light on CPU and a bargain.

I suppose IF you have to use DSP, then ReVibe is your best bet.

I do very complex stuff - very high track count music mixing, and very complex deliveries - and sometimes need tons and tons of reverbs, plus tons of other processing.

thus the need for carefully managing both native + HDX3 processing power allocation.

cheers

[tom_lowe]

Originally Posted by MixerGuy

I do very complex stuff - very high track count music mixing, and very complex deliveries - and sometimes need tons and tons of reverbs, plus tons of other processing.

thus the need for carefully managing both native + HDX3 processing power allocation.

cheers

It may be elsewhere on this post, but if not certainly on this forum. Michael Carnes has stated he's not made AAX DSP versions because fewer instances can be run compared to what is possible natively.

As for latency, DAWs such as Studio One can now have very low-latency when tracking, so guess this is down to Avid to implement. It can be done.

I'd not be surprised if HDX disapears soon, it's getting pretty old and compared to Xeons etc. is very underpowered. Avid could enable far higher track counts natively now.

[MixerGuy]

Originally Posted by tom_lowe

It may be elsewhere on this post, but if not certainly on this forum. Michael Carnes has stated he's not made AAX DSP versions because fewer instances can be run compared to what is possible natively.

As for latency, DAWs such as Studio One can now have very low-latency when tracking, so guess this is down to Avid to implement. It can be done.

I'd not be surprised if HDX disapears soon, it's getting pretty old and compared to Xeons etc. is very underpowered. Avid could enable far higher track counts natively now.

Certain power users who need tons of horsepower plus super high track counts plus hardware inserts that are +/- 1 sample use HDX rigs, as an HDX rig gets all the native power PLUS the HDX cards insane power.

and that is the key point - an HDX rig gets all the native power PLUS the HDX cards insane power.

HDX users such as myself wont give that up. We use all that power.

[BScout]

Originally Posted by tom_lowe

As for latency, DAWs such as Studio One can now have very low-latency when tracking, so guess this is down to Avid to implement. It can be done.

That lowest latency in Studio One is only possible with hardware DSP found in the Presonus interfaces. They didn't re-invent the wheel. It's the same as Avid's process but located in the interface verses cards.
So you could say that Studio One implemented Pro Tools' method of low latency.

[tom_lowe]

Originally Posted by MixerGuy

Certain power users who need tons of horsepower plus super high track counts plus hardware inserts that are +/- 1 sample use HDX rigs, as an HDX rig gets all the native power PLUS the HDX cards insane power.

and that is the key point - an HDX rig gets all the native power PLUS the HDX cards insane power.

HDX users such as myself wont give that up. We use all that power.

HDX cards are about 8 years old now so certainly don't have "insane" power. Also, you can run more instances of Exponential Reverbs purely natively than you can on an HDX system. Going between native and AAX DSP plugins actually reduces the capability.

I agree HDX cards enable large count tracks, but these days that's a purely artificial limit. Back in the G4 and G5 days DSP was needed, now it's not.

Are you seriously suggesting an HDX3 has more power than a Xeon?

[tom_lowe]

Originally Posted by BScout

That lowest latency in Studio One is only possible with hardware DSP found in the Presonus interfaces. They didn't re-invent the wheel. It's the same as Avid's process but located in the interface verses cards.
So you could say that Studio One implemented Pro Tools' method of low latency.

Ah yeah, forgot it was in the interface. Even without that though I believe Studio One has lower roundtrip latency.

I still stand by the point that Pro Tools Ultimate is artificially limited, and if it wasn't would be far more powerful than HDX.

Found this from Michael Carnes:
Michael then responded to a comment from "Branko" making the point that if you have dedicated DSP, you can rely on that performance and know exactly how your project will behave.

Michael Carnes Dec 2013: Yes, but...

As I've indicated earlier, if you dedicated an entire HDX card to nothing but my surround reverbs at 48K, you might be able to get half a dozen copies (optimistically). Rock-solid. Dependable. Predictable. If you restrict yourself to that same number of reverbs in a native system, you'll have the same rock-solid dependability with scads of CPU left over for other stuff--like another dozen reverbs (if you're on a pure native system, make that another 3 or 4 dozen).