Waves and AAX DSP....

[Marsdy]

I have received some information from Waves regarding the porting of it's plug-ins to HDX. This information makes it much clearer as to why Waves has not committed to HDX. Maybe the Waves "haters" on the DUC can take this into consideration?

We did recently another test case on AAX code. We took the SSL Channel mono and compiled it for the AAX DSP. The results were very poor in that at 48K the maximum numbers of instances you can achieve is 4. At 96K it is only one and none at 192K.

As a reference, on an I7 chip we get more then 256 instances. This puts one i7 equal to 5 HDX cards.

It may be possible to get better performance by optimizing the code for this processor, but I do not believe we can afford to go that route...

…The way I see the situation is not too good.

If we were to go optimize our plug-ins it would take at the very least 3 month per plug-in component both in terms of engineering and QA work. Multiple 3 months times the 300 components we have and this is 900 months of work or 72 man years!

By the time we finish it they will not be making these chips anyway....

In the interests of clarity, I have no connection with Waves other than being a customer and my petition lobbying Waves to do an HDX version.

[matt_the_manic]

this is indeed very interesting news! I had no idea! quite shocking for those already invested in a HDX kit.

Originally Posted by Marsdy

I have received some information from Waves regarding the porting of it's plug-ins to HDX. This information makes it much clearer as to why Waves has not committed to HDX. Maybe the Waves "haters" on the DUC can take this into consideration?



In the interests of clarity, I have no connection with Waves other than being a customer and my petition lobbying Waves to do an HDX version.

[tamasdragon]

Well, it's really interesting, but for me this is still not really convincing. If this was all true then why there is virtually no other plugin maker who raised the same concerns?
Many of them committed to make AAX DSP version of their plugins. I wouldn't say that it is entirely bs, but I'm not ready to accept it, until more knowledgable people confirms it. I don't mean to sound disrespectful towards Waves, but obviously if they decide to not support a format, they need some believable cause, even if that cause is not really the whole truth.

[Raoul23]

Originally Posted by Marsdy

I have received some information from Waves regarding the porting of it's plug-ins to HDX. This information makes it much clearer as to why Waves has not committed to HDX. Maybe the Waves "haters" on the DUC can take this into consideration?



In the interests of clarity, I have no connection with Waves other than being a customer and my petition lobbying Waves to do an HDX version.

This is very very interesting

[TheJamsh]

I think it's probably a good thing that Waves aren't updating their plug-ins in the long run, not for Avid, but for the customers (us). For many reasons, here's why.

Waves Plug-Ins (depending on how many you own) are typically more expensive than the majority of Pro Tools setups (outside of big studios etc). For home users or small studios (which I'm betting is where the largest proportion of Avid's customer base is in the modern age), any Waves plugs that they've bought are probably worth more to them than the DAW they are using them in. What does that tell you? If they have to ditch one or the other to take advantage of the latest software (which they will), they'll have to ditch Pro Tools and move to another DAW. Any features added to Pro Tools 11 will already exist elsewhere on the market, despite what Avid's marketing videos will tell you.

A lot of us know how to use multiple DAW's well too, so once you get over the initial roadblock, you'll never look back. I doubt Steinberg are going to drop support for VST's in Cubase anytime soon, and Waves are still making their plug-ins as VST, along with many other companies (a lot of which DON'T support Pro Tools).

The more companies out there that DON'T support AAX, the more chance there is that Avid will start bending towards what the market wants, rather than trying to constantly keep certain formats exclusive to Pro Tools. How many of you here would like to see just ONE format of plugin that works in all DAW's? VST is the closest we've got to that, working in Reaper, Ableton, Cubase, Logic... and does PT support it? Does it hell. Not without the use of a dodgy software wrapper anyway.

I can see how dropping support for RTAS and TDM and moving to one format is a good move for Avid and Pro Tools, (especially if we want to see such features like offline bouncing and other 64-bit goodies), but is it that good of a move for the customers? Is it hell, it's just going to impose more restrictions on us. Plus of course, with the way Avid is going at the moment, in five or ten years time I'm not even expecting there to BE a new version of Pro Tools, but I suspect Cubase and other multi-platform DAW's will still be around, complete with better customer service and prices too (the sort of things we still don't really get from Avid/Digi).

Reading this back it probably sounds like I've got a personal vendetta against PT/Avid. I haven't, but I also most certainly don't have my head in the clouds about PT being the best software in the audio market (or the 'Industry-Standard' as everybody keeps saying), despite the fact that it serves as my main DAW. As soon as it's other users wise up to that, Avid are going to really have to sort their stuff out. With huge companies like Waves not willing to put the man-hours in to bother with relatively useless updates like this anymore, the likes of those days will probably (hopefully) come around sooner than we think.

Here it is in writing: I bet my first child's eyesight that Pro Tools dies out, or is at least bought out by another company in the next decade or so, if it carries on going the way it is.

[rockridge]

If I could use Reaper or Cubase or DP or any other DAW without going blind, I would, but until then, I'll keep using the 'industry standard'.

It's the most intuitive DAW out there!

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Marsdy

I have received some information from Waves regarding the porting of it's plug-ins to HDX. This information makes it much clearer as to why Waves has not committed to HDX. Maybe the Waves "haters" on the DUC can take this into consideration?



In the interests of clarity, I have no connection with Waves other than being a customer and my petition lobbying Waves to do an HDX version.

The way I read this is they didn't seem to put a whole lot of work into the port & compile. If other smaller companies that do plugs can breech this hurdle - why can't Waves?

[Raoul23]

Originally Posted by rockridge

If I could use Reaper or Cubase or DP or any other DAW without going blind, I would, but until then, I'll keep using the 'industry standard'.

It's the most intuitive DAW out there!

+1 on this. I love it

I do however thing that AAX DSP is probably quite alot of work to convert to as AAX has been out over a year now and some companies have only converted some of their plugs to AAX DSP eg Sonnox, McDSP etc. So i dont think its as easy as that.

[nst7]

One other way to look at this, assuming this is legit, is that based on their testing, it really will be more efficient to run these plugs natively on your HDX system, then to actually run DSP versions.

[Raoul23]

Originally Posted by nst7

One other way to look at this, assuming this is legit, is that based on their testing, it really will be more efficient to run these plugs natively on your HDX system, then to actually run DSP versions.

That's a good point but the whole reason for DSP is to take the load of your Host computer and low latency when tracking through plugs. Which makes HDX and native plugs a bit pointless if you use it like that