LE user considering HD upgrade

[yjacket2000]

I'm an LE user that thinks he's starting to see the ceiling of his LE use and is considering upgrading to HD. I've got a few questions I've been looking for the answers to that I haven't been able to find and am hoping some of you can help me out!

1. Do I want to consider doing this in light of rumors of things changing in the near future with regards to HD?

2. Regardless, if I purchased HD, would I be able to switch to a Mac (currently on a PC) or vice versa if things ever changed and I had to get new computers? I think you can, but I want to know for sure.

3. As a mix engineer, what is the minimum I would need? I do little to no recording (the occasional overdub), so there's not much need there, but would I be just fine on HD1 with the 96i/o or would I need something more (or would you recommend something more)?

Thanks for your help...

[nst7]

Perhaps it would help if you tell us more specifically where you're hitting the ceiling on LE. That way people could answer issue by issue whether it would be a help or not.

Also, there have been many threads of people asking the same thing, you might want to read through them.

As far as switching computers, I don't think that's an issue at all, just like it's not an issue for LE.

You mention the 96 i/o. I think the general consensus is that it's hardly much better than the 003 in terms of audio quality, so there's not much of an improvement if that's one of your concerns (the 192 is a different story).

Also, last I heard, the LE to HD promotion was scheduled to end on June 17. I'm not aware of if they've extended it or not.

[promixr]

1) There are always going to be changes in technology, and they zoom at us faster and faster each year. It's a very difficult thing to plan around the future of technology. If you're from the school of early adoption, you're always curious about the immediate future and feel you must have the very latest. On the other hand, there's something to be sad about 'tried and true' technology, HD systems have been an overwhelming success, and part of many successful workflows. If you have evaluated for yourself (with or without the help of the group) that an HD system will improve your workflow, then it matters little what else is out there or what else is coming...

2) HD systems are cross platform. You can switch from Mac to PC, as long as you follow Digidesign's recommended compatibility requirements.

3) If you do not need a lot of I/O you don't have to buy a lot of I/O. You want to consider, as a mix engineer: a) what sample rates you will be called upon to mix in and b) if you ever will need to do multi-channel (surround) mixing, so that you choose the appropriate I/O. You may find that you might require more process cards for plug-in heavy work.

[yjacket2000]

Originally Posted by nst7

Perhaps it would help if you tell us more specifically where you're hitting the ceiling on LE. That way people could answer issue by issue whether it would be a help or not.

I've been running four or so instances of Trigger with a few instances of Melodyne Editor...when all working together, I will occassionally get errors telling me to increase my H/W buffer size, the DAE buffer and cache size, when they'll all be either as high or almost as high as they'll go. Is there something I'm missing? I'll admit, this is not one of my strong suits.

Also, there have been many threads of people asking the same thing, you might want to read through them.

I am on forums quite a bit, though I don't post as much as I probably should, so I know to look. In this case, however, I ran a few different searches and didn't find what I was looking for after about 30 minutes of looking. So, I posted. If I was too quick on the draw, then I apologize.

As far as switching computers, I don't think that's an issue at all, just like it's not an issue for LE.

That's great...thanks.

You mention the 96 i/o. I think the general consensus is that it's hardly much better than the 003 in terms of audio quality, so there's not much of an improvement if that's one of your concerns (the 192 is a different story).

This I know, but I'm not sure I'm overly concerned about that at this point, seeing as I do very little recording right now anyway.

Also, last I heard, the LE to HD promotion was scheduled to end on June 17. I'm not aware of if they've extended it or not.

Thanks for the update.

[nst7]

Well, you mentioned the issues you're having. Since Trigger is new, and I haven't used it, I don't know how much power it uses or anything like that. However, for drum replacement software in general, it seems like it would make sense to use the audiosuite method, which would be a lot easier on cpu. Same with Melodyne. I also don't know how many tracks and plugs, VI's that you might be using besides that.

But in general, I have a feeling these may be technical glitches that could perhaps be looked into. I checked out your website (very nice, by the way) and saw your computer specs. I saw you have 3 GB of ram, you might want to upgrade that to at least 4, or more if you can. An inexpensive way to enhance performance. I see you're on a Core 2 quad, this should be enough to do quite a bit. I'm a Mac guy, not so much windows, but I have an Imac core 2 duo and I can do quite a bit with it.

If you really want some serious power, maybe look into an I7 quad processor. They seem to be really powerful.

You might post in the Windows LE section and post a "Sandra Report" for your computer. There's instructions for that somewhere in that forum. I think it might even be a sticky.

All this to say that if these are your main issues, it would seem like overkill to spend all that money on HD, when maybe the problem could be solved much cheaper. Then you could use that money for perhaps better preamps, converters, room acoustics, etc.