Has anyone with a dual model & PT 6 done the Dave C test ?

[digahdio]

Running DUAL processors, 512+ RAM, and Pro Tools 6 (without excessive plug-ins), what track counts can you typically achieve?

Thanks.

[byteme]

Originally posted by digahdio:
Running DUAL processors, 512+ RAM, and Pro Tools 6 (without excessive plug-ins), what track counts can you typically achieve?

Thanks.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">32 tracks is cake without excessive plug-ins. The DaveC test is a benchmark and nothing more. You would never run 5 plug-ins on 24 tracks, or you have some serious plug-in love. I mixed a 32 track song the other day, used as many plugs as I wanted (probably average of 2 per track), had 5 aux returns and used 10 buses, the system ran fine. Don't take these tests as anything other than a benchmark.
AJ
[img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[John H]

But are you limited to a couple of McDSP and Bombfactory plugins and then the rest is Digirack?

After downloading the Compressor Bank and Filter Bank demos from the McDSP site, I did a few tests to see how they compare with the digirack plug-ins.

This is obviously nothing to do with the dave c test and just a little test for me to see how some common plug-ins perform. seeing as most of McDSP's products with digirack equivelents focus on EQ and Compression, those are the plug-ins I tested.

I created a session with these settings :

16bit, 44.1Khz, 256 buffer
1 Stereo Master Fader
32 mono tracks (all with record armed)

On as many audio tracks as possible I added plug-ins in this order;

Insert A - compressor
Insert B - 4 band EQ
Insert C - bandpass EQ with random 32th note automation of the frequency.

Then I put every track into record and removed plug-ins starting with the 4-band EQs on each track till it wasn't in the red, then I added back the 4-band EQs, removing a compressor to compensate until I found the maximum number of plug-ins that could be inserted before recording was impossible.

Digirack

4 x Compressor
4 x 4-band EQ
9 x 1-band 'band pass' EQ

McDSP 3.0

7 x CB1
8 x E4
9 x B1

McDSP plug-ins are more CPU efficient than Digirack and they sound a LOT better too.

If you've got the money, they look like a good performance boost for the mac!!

The only negative thing (in the UK at least) is that the cost of buying both compressorbank and filterbank adds up to around £200 less than the cost of an entry level G4 and I'm sure few mac owners, particularly people who only use Protools LE as a hobby from home could afford to lay out that much money on plug-ins. I certainly couldn't anyway.

The beauty of having the extra power is so you can use any plugin regardless of how taxing it is on your processor. Of coarse I won't be see McDSP plugins on my PC anytime soon

I think the extra cpu efficiency from using McDSP equivelents to digirack plug-ins would free up quite a few resources to make that true for running most plug-ins on the average mac these days too. Not mine obvously!

I think once we actually see results for a properly optimised dual 1.25 or 1Ghz model with a dedicated internal audio drive, a decent enough graphics card to take away the strain of Quartz and 1Gb+ of RAM, we'll see the mac closing in on PC performance. Only the first few systems mentioned in this thread seemed to be optimised for audio work.

I see recording to firewire as being a wasted expense when a dedicated internal Western Digital Jumbo Buffer drive or IBM Deskstar costs peanuts in comparison, recording to firewire drives under OS X seems to have as much of a performance hit as recording the system drive from what I've seen on the numerous posts so far.

Also, talking of drives, has anyone upgraded from another brand to Western Digital Jumbo Buffer drives and seen a performance boost at all ?

[audio1234]

[QUOTE] 32 tracks is cake without excessive plug-ins. The DaveC test is a benchmark and nothing more. You would never run 5 plug-ins on 24 tracks, or you have some serious plug-in love. I mixed a 32 track song the other day, used as many plugs as I wanted (probably average of 2 per track), had 5 aux returns and used 10 buses, the system ran fine. Don't take these tests as anything other than a benchmark.
AJ [/QUOTE


Ditto!! [img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

[byteme]

Originally posted by Jayman#9:
But are you limited to a couple of McDSP and Bombfactory plugins and then the rest is Digirack? The beauty of having the extra power is so you can use any plugin regardless of how taxing it is on your processor. Of coarse I won't be see McDSP plugins on my PC anytime soon [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I am not limited at all. I don't touch the digirack stuff unless I need an occasional compressor for a what the hell kind of purpose. I do use there gates, but thats it. The rest is bombfactory and McDSP, and I rarely run into problems. And when I do, it is because I have realverb running on 2 inserts. I get at least 10-12 BF and 14-15 Mcdsp plugs per session. I may get more but I have never needed them. I am not sure where you are getting your info from.
AJ [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[shaggy]

Regarding SCSI vs ATA

The 10k Cheetah (UW3) squeezes out at least one more Deverb and a couple comp/limiters vs the 7,200 ATA (on exact same 24/24 session) in 5. So, and yeah, good reason to list the drive you're recording to.

[redshifted]

Everyone in know that runs Mac with PTLE has to use Audiosuite processing and bouncing down to achieve a full mix with thier Mac.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Is everyone you know using Macs with PTLE running older systems?

[byteme]

K0nally posted by Jayman#9:

Originally posted by byteme:
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Jayman#9:
But are you limited to a couple of McDSP and Bombfactory plugins and then the rest is Digirack? The beauty of having the extra power is so you can use any plugin regardless of how taxing it is on your processor. Of coarse I won't be see McDSP plugins on my PC anytime soon [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I am not limited at all. I don't touch the digirack stuff unless I need an occasional compressor for a what the hell kind of purpose. I do use there gates, but thats it. The rest is bombfactory and McDSP, and I rarely run into problems. And when I do, it is because I have realverb running on 2 inserts. I get at least 10-12 BF and 14-15 Mcdsp plugs per session. I may get more but I have never needed them. I am not sure where you are getting your info from.
AJ [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img] <hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Everyone in know that runs Mac with PTLE has to use Audiosuite processing and bouncing down to achieve a full mix with thier Mac. That's good for you, that you don't have that problem, but alot do. All the power to ya. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [/QUOTE]

Ahh, in the know. Jeeze I didn't know you were the gatekeeper of such a place. I have been using the Mac and LE since it's inception in '99. I have used it on 4 different machines throughout the years. I have virtually every plug-in out, but I still am not in the know to the Jman's standards. What do you run LE on big J, your Athlon? You must be in the know then. Can someone else in the know enlighten me, preferably one that actually uses a Mac.
AJ
[img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[kenhawkins]

OK i finally did the dave-c test. short and sweet.

see my signaure for machine. i have an internal second drive Western Digital 80 gig 7200. the machine has 1 gig of ram

i got 13 tracks at 85% cpu. i wanted a fair comparison as opposed to the 99% first.

at 99% i got 15 tracks.

seems like not a big jump but i am happy with 15 right now. it looks like the bigger 1.25 g machine from apple are not fairing as well as i'd hoped. i would hope for at least 1/2 again more tracks about 7-8. that would be nice [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

however i did not get slow redraws and such on the test. just the obligatory popup! i did no fine tuning of ram allocated to ProTools before the test.

is it still good practice to allocate the ram for digi?

if so i got a gig to shuffle tonight and re-run the test.

cheers,
ken;

[dkrz]

January release Duel 1.25 / 512MB ram Geforce4 MX
OS10.2.3
OWC Firewire Elite Pro 7200rpm 100gig external drive (4 partitions)

44.1 x 24
HW buffer - 1024
CPU usage 99%
Duel Displays - millions of colors
Dock - hidden

--------------------------------------------------

RESULT - 28 tracks [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]

(Screen redraws & scrolling virtually unaffected.)

dk