Hey Dave,
Thanks for the reply.
My workflow frustrations have absolutely nothing to do with lack of computer power at all. It's purely the fact that Avid decided to design assignable voices out of the HDX architecture. I don't know if you had a chance to follow the short thread above from back when the HDX cards were first announced, but the engineers at Avid were well aware that there were certain workflow methods that were killed off by this decision, and according to Paul Vercelotti in engineering at the time, they had intentions to replicate those methods in other ways. Unfortunately so far, this hasn't quite materialised. Here's the one I'm talking about
:
http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=316448
I mentioned in my other more recent thread on the HDX forum that in my opinion, ProTools TDM, with assignable voices and "Mute Frees Assigned Voices", was the first major advance in multi-track recording since the invention of multi-track recording itself!! A bloody dramatic statement I know, but they really did have an advantage over every other system architecture out there in the market place as far as I'm concerned. The way ProTools functions in this regard now, is
only the same as everyone else. Every active track in the session all playing at the same time (ie: ALL the vocal takes so far) is a bloody logistical disaster. Each take track higher up the screen taking over from the track(s) below is a simply beautifully elegant workflow that no one has ever improved upon IMHO.
Here's the other HDX forum thread for more detail of how I work and a scruffy little video demonstrating what's so awesome about "drop-through" voice stealing.
https://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?...29#post2604629
https://youtu.be/O9na6N7WQD8
You are right though of course. Since I had to close one of my studios, I have pressed the second system into being a VEPro host. The combo of a TDM HD3 system on Mavericks 10.9.5 and ProTools 10.3.5 plus a VEP instance on this "Master" machine, with a second machine running a second instance of of VEP on Mojave (for the more up to date libraries) has been working brilliantly for me.
I know I'm a bit of a Grandad with these older machines, but I just can't get into working without voice stealing, and you'll perhaps understand why I feel so strongly about it if you get a chance to check out my primitive video. On the other thread, Kyle Splittgerber states that it's most likely possible to bring back this capability, so hence why I've decided to rally around for a bit of support again after all this time. And you're right, I'd love to drag myself kicking and screaming into advantages the more modern systems offer, but not at the expense of a slower and less fluid and capable workflow.
Cheers.
Steve