Pro Tools as composing DAW with VI-heavy sessions

[stargazer]

I’m using Pro Tools Ultimate HDX as my DAW for composing, recording and mixing.
One thing that bothers me is the latency when recording VIs.
In big sessions I have to set the H/W Buffer Size at 1024 (or maybe 512) samples.

How do others deal with that - playing and recording percussive instruments, piano etc?

Even with a basic Session, I mostly have to use 256 samples.
I’m on a Mac Pro 4,1 (FW 5,1), but this doesn’t seem to be related to CPU or even the use of mechanical HDDs.
In a session with just one Piano VI, if I use a VE Pro slave (Windows 10 Pro) with M.2 SSD drives, I still can’t use 64 samples.
Not even with 2 buffers in the Vienna Server.
This seems related to the HDX architecture, since I can use 16 samples in Studio One 5.2, which I’m demoing atm.

Due to this and also the new Studio One features like Sound Variations etc, I’ve been thinking about using S1 or some other DAW for composing and Pro Tools for recording and mixing,
but I often record both audio and new VI parts as I compose, while continuously shaping sounds and building a mix.

Maybe a new Mac Pro 7,1 or the coming Mac Pro with the M1 chip will improve this enough to be worth the investment.
Anybody with a MP 7,1 doing VI-heavy productions?

How do the rest of you in the same boat deal with all this?
Syncing two DAWs (with different delay compensation sizes), exporting files back and forth etc?

Also, to make it more complicated, since I use an HDX system and a S3, I would prefer the second DAW to be compatible with those, too, which as far as I know takes S1 out of the equation.

[Southsidemusic]

We have two 28 core 7.1 macs and we still use Ableton Live11 Suite to compose.

We mix and track in PTU but the main composing with VI and ext Midi Synths are done with Live11 and Push2.
We also have 2 HDX cards but the past 2-3 years those cards are in their boxes and we run 4 Apollo X8p and a X16 interface for larger sessions. Apollo are great but those console 1 inclusion is a hassle that we can’t escape and it causes some weird issues for us.

We haven’t found any DAW for the everything and no way we will start using Studio1 or logic.

[stargazer]

Thanks Christopher,

Do you compose and do the VI-/Midi work in Live, then exporting as audio files to PT for overdubs and mix?
Or do you have some good workflow for jumping back and forth between systems and maybe keeping the midi tracks until late in the process?

Why do you want to avoid S1?

Selling your HDX cards?

Best,
Håkan

[Southsidemusic]

Hey

Just don’t like the workflow of Studio1 and never have. PTU feel like a console as we have a big nice analog console so we will stay with Pro Tools for tracking and mixing etc.

Se can and do use PTU for some VI stuff too but the quick and logical workflow in LIVE we do it that say and bounce the songs and just import into PTU.

Haven’t found any other way to import and it doesn’t take long and Music needs to be get to take time. People who I seen who keep complaining about this or that taking a few extra seconds maybe should find another job if you live off music producing and writing as we do. Patience and letting the actual steps take the time it needs is crucial IMHO

[stargazer]

Thanks,
I don’t mind if it takes time.

But let’s say I have lots and lots of midi/VI tracks that I export as audio files and import into Pro Tools.
Then I start overdubbing and suddenly need to change something on a tight deadline that involves all the midi tracks in the composing DAW.
It certainly makes the workflow more complicated and time-consuming, and I’d rather avoid that if I had a choice.

For now it seems easier for me to stay in Pro Tools and freeze/unfreeze, commit and bounce tracks and stems as I go.

Anybody syncing two DAWs (composing vs tracking/mixing) with success?

[Rectifried]

I went Ablton as well to at least have some DAW work w VI.. every time theres a new PT I try again and Again is has a fit with the most rudimentary VI sessions.. and freezes.. ALive gives a click and pop if im going over BUT pt?? Frozen.. restart... changing Buffer... frozen .. restart..
BTD.. ending with beacvh ball
not always.. but enough
PT doesnt arm a track when you inst a VI// like live ... fine
PT cant do One shot assembley line stemming of groups .. like Live... fine
PT cant play with 35% cpu without a -9xxx error many times.. not fine


all my plugins work w live
w PT.. its like spoon feeding an infant to get to the end of a track.


But I still like it and feel I know how to get a mix off it
LIVE is like a plastic box of candy.. but the mix engine sounds.. modern but good
I just dont feel I can finesse it to much
plus ALive has shyt gain staging..


good to use both .. but cmon PT.. catch the f up

[Sugarnutz]

Didn't folks used to offload VIs to separate computer using VEP? I have a licernse I got for cheap just before 7 came out (came with upgrade to 7) but I haven't used it yet. Might be an option and like I said I ain't used it so I have no clue as to how it performs as to induced latency and/or headache.

[Marsdy]

Originally Posted by Sugarnutz

Didn't folks used to offload VIs to separate computer using VEP? I have a licernse I got for cheap just before 7 came out (came with upgrade to 7) but I haven't used it yet. Might be an option and like I said I ain't used it so I have no clue as to how it performs as to induced latency and/or headache.

There’s still a lot to be said for VE Pro when using large orchestral templates. Not so much that it offloads CPU usage from Pro Tools but in the time it saves loading sessions.

My current composing template in VE Pro is around 230GB. It takes FIVE minutes to load even with super fast 8000MB/s NVMe storage. Let’s say I did that in PT and move through six cues in a day - that would be half an hour just waiting for sessions to load! Screw that! VE Pro is running on the same Mac as PT.

In reply to the original post, I’m using HDX on a 7.1 16 core and run at a buffer of 256 most of the time. As I posted in this thread: https://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=414501
- that’s equivalent to a buffer of 128 when I use a native interface.

[Marsdy]

Originally Posted by stargazer

Thanks,
I don’t mind if it takes time.

But let’s say I have lots and lots of midi/VI tracks that I export as audio files and import into Pro Tools.
Then I start overdubbing and suddenly need to change something on a tight deadline that involves all the midi tracks in the composing DAW.
It certainly makes the workflow more complicated and time-consuming, and I’d rather avoid that if I had a choice.

For now it seems easier for me to stay in Pro Tools and freeze/unfreeze, commit and bounce tracks and stems as I go.

Anybody syncing two DAWs (composing vs tracking/mixing) with success?

Yes! I’m using Ableton Live sync’d with PT. Rather than work in Live then transfer across to PT for further work I’m effectively using Live as a VI within PT. It works very nicely for me. I get the benefits of Live’s workflow, clip launching, the MIDI tools etc within PT in other words. Best of both worlds in real-time!

MIDI between Live and PT is via IAC and I’m using Dante to pass audio from Live to PT in real-time but you could use Rewire.

I also have Logic and have done the same thing but the beauty of using Live is Pro Tools now supports Ableton Link. With Logic you need to use MTC and it’s clunky if you want loop around a section in PT or Logic. With Link you can.

[ArKay99]

I can't comment on the workflow you've outlined so much, but I do use VE Pro as a server for things like Kontakt and VE Strings and also to run VST's. However, a while ago, I purchased Studio One V2.8, about 5 years ago as a way to migrate away from Pro Tools (the grass is always greener), and quickly ran across a problem that was a show stopper for me. Solo In Place is broken. When SIP is used certain tracks will start playing through the efx buss feeds to the efx channels even though they are shown as muted. Then when you cancel SIP certain tracks will still be muted even though they are not muted with the mute button until you stop the transport and restart it. I have reported this to them, made a video of the problem and they have told me they are aware of the problem and to look for a fix in upcoming versions... 5 years later the problem still exists and there has been no attempt to fix the problem. So, I'm not using S1 any longer. I may try LIVE at some point. Just a warning about S1. For me that was a show stopper, YMMV.