TDM VS RTAS

[Rams Boy]

My friend just installed his new Digi 001 system. He gets more plug-ins then me and I'm on TDM. I have a MIX card and an original farm (10 chips total). I've spent BOOCOOS more $$$$ than him.
Can someone tell me the benefits of using TDM over RTAS? PLEASE HELP!

[TrueBlue]

The TDM system has some added features (i.e. Beat Detective & surround in 5.1) that the LE system don't have. Another possible biggy depending on how your system is used is track count. Although today's computers are capable of much more, the LE software is limited to 24 tracks!!! If they ever free up the LE software though, look out. I run the 001 on a G4 400 with 192mb of ram and this week I was running a 20 track session with compresors, eqs, and reverb with ease. Now they have a 733mhz G4! Lastly, the new 5.1 for TDM's can run RTAS plug-ins as well. That will give you more plug-in power.

Joe

[F Umminger]

With PT 5.1 your TDM system will also be able to use RTAS plugins so you will get the best of both worlds. Also, the plugin sharing has been improved substantially so if you are using Digi plugins you should be able to get quite a few more instances.

Furthermore, plugin sharing has been opened up to third parties with 5.1 and when they start adopting it efficiency will be even better. The main problem with TDM plugin counts is that older plugins grab a whole chip to just do one instance; they cannot share a chip with any other plugin. Plugin sharing fixes that.

One advantage of TDM over host processing, that is not likely to go away any time soon, is much lower latency. Desktop operating systems were not designed with the needs of real-time systems in mind and are rather hostile to the requirements of audio. Since audio is a small market compared to office applications there is not much incentive for operating system vendors to undergo the rather substantial amount of work required to change this situation.

Frederick Umminger
Digidesign Plugin Engineer