SurrLongDelays

[Downtown_BE]

hey guys
I'm mixing in stereo on a HD3 system and I was wondering why in my system usage I get SurrLongDelays.. sholuldnt there be StereoLongDelays?

[Downtown_BE]

anyone..?

[Chief Technician]

Which mixer plug-ins are in the /Library/Application Support/Digidesign/Plug-Ins folder/

[Downtown_BE]

only the surround mixer.. I put the mixer into the plugins folder and pout the surround into unused - what exactly changes when having the surround mixer plugin instead of the mixer?

[Chief Technician]

Originally Posted by Downtown_BE

only the surround mixer.. I put the mixer into the plugins folder and pout the surround into unused - what exactly changes when having the surround mixer plugin instead of the mixer?

The presence of the surround mixer plug-in explains the SurrLongDelays that you were seeing in the System Usage window.

The surround mixer allows you to have multichannel (greater than stereo) audio paths. Sorry if this is obvious. It also incurs more DSP usage than the stereo mixer. The amount of DSP usage one mixer requires compared to the other is not easily quantified, as it depends upon how many channels, tracks, etc. are in your session.

Depending on how hard you are taxing the system, the extra DSP required to run the surround mixer might be the difference between things working properly and Pro Tools crashing or doing undesirable things. I know for certain there are bugs related to TDM DSP usage in v10 that were not fixed. They will manifest themselves as the system doing strange and unexpected things (DSP shuffles, "out of DSP" errors, etc.) if you hit the system too hard.

If you are only working in stereo, the stereo mixer is fine. If you need to work in surround (greater than stereo), your only option is to use the surround mixer.

[Downtown_BE]

Originally Posted by Chief Technician

The presence of the surround mixer plug-in explains the SurrLongDelays that you were seeing in the System Usage window.

The surround mixer allows you to have multichannel (greater than stereo) audio paths. Sorry if this is obvious. It also incurs more DSP usage than the stereo mixer. The amount of DSP usage one mixer requires compared to the other is not easily quantified, as it depends upon how many channels, tracks, etc. are in your session.

Depending on how hard you are taxing the system, the extra DSP required to run the surround mixer might be the difference between things working properly and Pro Tools crashing or doing undesirable things. I know for certain there are bugs related to TDM DSP usage in v10 that were not fixed. They will manifest themselves as the system doing strange and unexpected things (DSP shuffles, "out of DSP" errors, etc.) if you hit the system too hard.

If you are only working in stereo, the stereo mixer is fine. If you need to work in surround (greater than stereo), your only option is to use the surround mixer.

THX!

[Drew Mazurek]

If you use AFL/PFL solo modes, they require that you use the Surround Mixer FYI.