Pro Tools 10-clarifying mixer and plug-in processing bit rates

[searley]

I am currently running PT 9 with a Prismsound Orpheus mixing ITB. Thinking of upgrading to PT10 but had a question that I think Avid seems to avoid clarifying. Re PT10(and not the hd-native or hdx versions), just the plain old software, is the mixer 64 bit floating point and the plug-in processing 32 bit floating point or does this apply only to hd-native and hdx? Sorry if this is an obvious question. Thx.

[clausiii]

The mixer and the aax plugins (native and DSP) are both 32 bit floating point, which means you will have virtually infinitive headroom internally.

Again, both DSP and native will be 32bit float.

PT10 is still a 32bit application. That means PT can only address 4GB of RAM

PT11 will be 64 bit. That means PT 11 will be able to address 16 Exabyte of RAM.

[daeron80]

Plug-in manufacturers are free to use whatever math they prefer inside their plugs. Most use 32-float, some 64-float, some a fixed-bit depth. I believe many of Massey's plugs use 48-bit fixed, or did in the recent past, based on the fact that they clip at full scale on the way in, out, or both. Not all manufacturers are forthcoming about the internal workings of their plug-ins. I believe that signals are passed between native plug-ins and are sent to buses at 32-bit float in all versions.

As far as the summing mixer in PT, you'll get varying opinions about that. My opinion is that it's one of those things we really don't know yet. One thing we know for sure is that, if you have the Native card or HDX hardware, you get 64-bit floating-point summing, at least at certain crucial points. I get the sense that the mixer is not 64-bit throughout, only at the points where (some?) buses sum multiple signals. Details of the signal path have not been revealed yet, as far as I know. Some say that all versions of PT from 9 on have the 64-bit summing. Others say all PT 10 have it but not 9. Others say it's determined by hardware. I kind of lean toward suspecting the latter.