LE User has Questions on Moving to TDM system...

[mfleming]

I am a relatively new Digi002 Rack PTLE user (well, I paid for it and my son uses it ). It's set up on a very powerful PC from Carillon and I'm quite happy with it. However, I can see already from the first 20-track song that my son wrote on it, there will be some limitations or rough spots as he creates more complicated songs. I can see there may be a TDM system in our future.

If I may, I have a few questions to you TDM users:

I have a general idea, but what improvements can I expect in moving up from a Digi002 Rack LE system to a CORE 1 HD system? Better reliability? More tracks? Less latency? What else?

Will the songs we create on the LE system open in the TDM system? Or, do we have to start songs from scratch? Or, do we open them and make some modifications?

What plugin types (Digi and 3rd party) are transferrable from an LE system to a TDM system? And, if a plugin is purchased for LE, and there is a separate version for TDM, will the vendor generally not make you pay full price for the TDM version if you stop using the LE version?

Any thing else you think I should know, and plan for?

Thanks!!!!

[KingFish]

With TDM, no Latency with real time monitioring on all 16 i/o is a definate advantage to monitoring multi-tracking "through" the unit.

LE session will open on TDM

Every plugin pack is different, it depends on what you own, your RTAS plugins will install, and work on your TDM system, but can NOT be used on an aux, or Master fader - TDM plugins only.

TDM is a BIG price jump, and is definately an investment worth while for a professional recording facillity, or professional engineer / producer, however, if track count is your only limitation on the 002 LE rig, you may just want to get into the practice of "sub mixing sections"

I do this on TDM sessions anyway, mix guitar sections, percussion sections, synth sections, BG VOX, to stereo tracks (per section) all the time.

With dynamic voicing capabillities in LE 6.XX you can have over 100 tracks, with 32 voices active... which means.....

Lets say you've got 10 guitar tracks on tracks 10-20 open up a new track, (lets say 21) set all guitar tracks on 10-20 to an available bus output, set your new track (21) input to that bus, rec enable the track, and pop er into record.

when you're finished, track 21 is your sub mix of all your guitars, leave the voice on that track to dyn, set the voice on all those guitar tracks on 10-20 to "OFF" and hide those tracks.

you've always got em there.... and assigned, but you're playing them all, on 1 track. If somewhere down the road, you say.... " I wish guitar 17 was a little louder in the bridge" you can "SHOW" all your guitar tracks, reset the voices to DYN on all your guitar tracks, rec enable 21 (your guitar sub mix track) raise "guitar 17" and punch into record for the bridge.

then take the voices off, and hide 10-20 again.

Using this kind of work habit in LE, or even on TDM for that matter, will give you the abillity to mix a 100+ track session, in 32 tracks.

Good luck with what ever you decide to do.

[mfleming]

Lets say you've got 10 guitar tracks on tracks 10-20 open up a new track, (lets say 21) set all guitar tracks on 10-20 to an available bus output, set your new track (21) input to that bus, rec enable the track, and pop er into record.

when you're finished, track 21 is your sub mix of all your guitars, leave the voice on that track to dyn, set the voice on all those guitar tracks on 10-20 to "OFF" and hide those tracks.

you've always got em there.... and assigned, but you're playing them all, on 1 track. If somewhere down the road, you say.... " I wish guitar 17 was a little louder in the bridge" you can "SHOW" all your guitar tracks, reset the voices to DYN on all your guitar tracks, rec enable 21 (your guitar sub mix track) raise "guitar 17" and punch into record for the bridge.

then take the voices off, and hide 10-20 again.

Using this kind of work habit in LE, or even on TDM for that matter, will give you the abillity to mix a 100+ track session, in 32 tracks.

Good luck with what ever you decide to do.

That's great info! Thank you so much. These are the kinds of tips and tricks that we really need to learn (any books good at point these out?)

Am I understanding your point correctly? That being that, as it pertains to CPU/memory usage, it's not the number of tracks that are set up in a song, but the number of tracks that are selected for output?

[KingFish]

That being that, as it pertains to CPU/memory usage, it's not the number of tracks that are set up in a song, but the number of tracks that are selected for output?

Actually, CPU / Memory usage, will not be maxed out from playing 32 tracks of audio (even on a 92 track session with 60 voices turned off). Memory... Yes, you should have lots of memory, the more the better, it will help you play large track counts, with smaller buffer sizes, and be able to navigate around pro-tools "on the Fly" during playback. This is the same for a TDM rig, not just LE... as much Ram as you can afford !

CPU is going to be used, processing audio, and multitasking 3rd party applications, in other words, using plugins in pro tools in real Time.

there are many tips to "Printing FX to a track", so that you're saving on CPU usage, with the abillity to go back to the "un-treated" audio if you decide later, you don't like the effects.

See THIS THREAD for more details on how to do that.

These kind of work habbits in LE can make your production, track counts, and mixes go a LONG way.

[mfleming]

thanks for the link!

Our system has 1 GB of memory (3GB processor). Think I should go to 2 GB?

[KingFish]

1 G is great, you'll be fine... 2 would be even better, if you feel like it... go for it.

[chadly]

Stem mixing is the way, for certain.