Mix+ track Counts?

[jimmyz]

Hello all,

looking to get myself a Mix+ rig with a G4 and mix core+2 mix farm (does this make it a a mix++ rig?).

I wonder if you guys can give me an idea of how many tracks you are getting away with running etc? Would be great to hear from anyone using a similar setup as to how their rig holds up (DVerb test maybe?).

Instead of buying an HD rig I want to spend the money on a some great conversion and outboard. Hoping that i'll be able to run 48+tracks with lots of plugs...

Thanks

jn

[Craig F]

Mix+ maxes out at 64 voices
you are also limited to 6.4.1 on 10.3.8 (.9 if you roll QuickTime back from v7)

unless your getting the rig for free it cost to much

[jimmyz]

So I would be limited to 64 track essentially? Assuming a mono track uses one voice and a stereo track uses two...

Guess you can have more tracks if you allocate the vices over sections like in HD.

64's plenty. Its more the amount of processing I would get (mainly with waves and sony oxford plugs).

[tj_davies]

Originally Posted by jimmyz

So I would be limited to 64 track essentially? Assuming a mono track uses one voice and a stereo track uses two...

Guess you can have more tracks if you allocate the vices over sections like in HD.

64's plenty. Its more the amount of processing I would get (mainly with waves and sony oxford plugs).

What kind of stuff are you planning to record? Post or music? Wouldn't LE be an option? I wouldn't invest in a system that's outdated and full of limitations (as Craig pointed out).

Timothy

PS: Remember punching in requires double amount of voices compared to normal playback.

[John_Toolbox]

One other annoying limitation of a mix system is that you can not put RTAS plugins on aux inputs. So to track an RTAS virtual instrument, you need to use 2 audio tracks(since pro tools doesn't record inserts, you need to put the VI on an audio track, then bus that to another track to record.)

If I remember right, a mix system will allow up to 128 tracks, but only play up to 64 voices. Before there was HD, I've heard that some people used to sync two or more mix systems to get around the track count problems(definitely a problem if you are planning on mixing in surround or working on a film with lots of tracks). This is only practical at this point if you have the stuff laying around(you need 2 USDs, 2 computers, and 2 mix cores at a minimum to do this).

Many of the ilok plugins that work with mix require different authorizations to run with a mix era system than a modern PT8 hd or le system.... , it seems that software manufacturers these days don't want your business unless you buy the newest version they've made. So the only way to find many of the plugins that will work with mix is second hand. If you plan on upgrading to HD a year or two down the road, be prepared to re-purchase many of your plugins again.

[jimmyz]

thanks for your replies.

I currently have an mpowered rig and i use some pretty decent pres/conversion via adat. i have to say that despite this seeming like a flawless way of working its proving not to be. tracks printing into PT at random amounts of delay (not monitoring latency but recording in up to 4500 samples late). I want a mix rig for the follow reasons:

-the Mix rig wil mainly be a way to 'document' what i'm doing in the analog domain. ie when tracking and then printing outboard on new playlists in a premix stage before transfering to MP to mix with my sonnox and ssl plugs (at this stage, balances and all my toys from the analog world wil be printed into the mix rig via top rate convertors). plus i want a zero latency environment for tracking with TDM plugs. simple as that.

-the money i save by not going HD will be used for stellar conversion and more outboard.

I agree that its not a work around for saving $$$ on an HD rig but if it suits your way of woring then its worth a look in. I just wonder how many cards i'm going to need to run this required setup ( i suspect at the tracking stage i'll stil be runing quite a few HTDM plugs). Is a mix farm card the equivalent to an accel and a mix core the equivalent to a HD core? ie have one mix core then start adding up the mix farm cards...?

thanks for the replies once again.

[John_Toolbox]

I currently have an mpowered rig and i use some pretty decent pres/conversion via adat. i have to say that despite this seeming like a flawless way of working its proving not to be. tracks printing into PT at random amounts of delay (not monitoring latency but recording in up to 4500 samples late

You won't get ridiculous errors like that with a mix rig. Mix does not, however, support ADC like HD, so you will need to manually adjust the delay of each track in samples. Depending on the plugins you use on each track, the amount of delay varies in samples around 3-15 or so samples. This is always consistent, you can see how much delay at track has easily, and correct it with the timeadjuster plugin. For me, this does not interfere with my workflow, but some people prefer to not have to think about it.

I just wonder how many cards i'm going to need to run this required setup ( i suspect at the tracking stage i'll stil be runing quite a few HTDM plugs). Is a mix farm card the equivalent to an accel and a mix core the equivalent to a HD core? ie have one mix core then start adding up the mix farm cards...?

HD is theoretically supposed to be 3 times more powerful than mix, though there are varying opinions on this. HD plugins take more DSP than mix plugins, so despite having more available DSP, an HD system doesn't necessarily have 3 times the capacity of a mix system depending on what plugins you use.

Mix cores and mix farms are identical in processing power, the only difference is the core card is seen as a core by the system. You need at least one core card in your system. Mix cards have 6 chips. If you do 32 voices, that takes one entire chip, if you do 64 voices, that will take two entire chips. Depending on what plugins you use, your mileage will vary. Some will take an entire chip for one instance(most third party plugins), while others(like focusrite d2/d3) can load several instances per chip. Using i/o and bussing also takes up dsp. You can run up to 7 mix cards if you have an expansion chassis and the proper node cable, but you'll fill up your 256 TDM time slots before you can use all of the DSP.