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  #1  
Old 03-07-2013, 06:29 AM
digidesigner digidesigner is offline
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Default FWx and Pro Tools, tell me how is your setup doing?

Tell your story, how are your Pro Tools native system doing with Venue FWx?

I use Pro Tools a lot with Venue, but with HDx and I can't say anything bad about it. I do have a FWx card in my FOH rack, but to be honest I nearly never use it. Tried it a bit ago, and had terrible errors, no matter the computer load like how many tracks etc, PT kept stopping with increase buffer error. This was with Pro Tools HD 10.2. I then updated to 10.3.3 and it seemed better. No real work, just playing around.

But my friend, who needs to rely on FWx is telling me, his much faster Macbook Pro, optimized and whatnot is totally unstable with Pro Tools 10 and FWx. He is saying one day he can do 1,5 hours of recording no problem, the other day it's a nightmare. He is saying after updating to 10.3.3 it got even worse. Now he is saying he downloaded Reaper demo to see how that will behave and he is telling me he cannot make Reaper fall over.

So, what is your experience?
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  #2  
Old 03-07-2013, 08:07 AM
Brent Lind Brent Lind is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Default Re: FWx and Pro Tools, tell me how is your setup doing?

I've recently been dealing with this setup working on a smaller tour and it took some time in the shop sussing things out, but now I've been consistently recording 32 tracks at a little over 2 hours a night with rarely a hiccup.

I'm using a 2010 Macbook Pro 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 8Gb of Ram, Mac OSX 10.7.5 and PT10HD 10.3.2, which is encouraging because it is an outdated processor, no USB3.0, no Thunderbolt and no SSD system drive (although its a hybrid drive). So, my point being, a mediocre Macbook and I'm having no trouble.

Obviously I'm recording to a separate drive from system - in my case a 7200RPM external via USB2.0. I suppose not bus-powering it would be better, but hey its working!

In my time at the shop, playing around with buffer size and Ram cache and doing the usual "system optimizing" like disabling Spotlight made some difference, but the huge thing was when I stopped trying to record to a Firewire drive. Its counter-intuitive in that FW800 is my fastest external drive option, but it actually becomes quite slow because the recording interface is on the same bus and hogging most of the data bandwidth.

The only other "aha" I've had is that when I set up the rig, whether or not I pay much attention to start up sequence, I always get an unstable PT session until I restart the laptop with everything plugged in and otherwise working. After restart, 9 times out of 10 I'm good to go for a 2 hour recording.
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  #3  
Old 03-08-2013, 05:42 AM
digidesigner digidesigner is offline
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Default Re: FWx and Pro Tools, tell me how is your setup doing?

We are just now doing some animal tests at the warehouse and recording failed again after 5 mins with a warning like this, sorry for the quiality.



Looks like an error from operating system. error number -6086. Anyone know what this is?

EDIT: This is not an old computer, we are talking about 2.4 i7, 8gb ram and recording goes to ext. Thunderbolt HDD, Pro Tools 10.3.3 (not HD)
System usage in PT shows 0-2% CPU and HDD goes up to 7% with 32 tracks running.

EDIT2: Tried not to use Thunderbolt HDD, still the same issue :/
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  #4  
Old 03-08-2013, 07:19 AM
Brent Lind Brent Lind is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Default Re: FWx and Pro Tools, tell me how is your setup doing?

No revolutionary ideas here, but a few basic things worth checking:

-as I said earlier, I always close the session and do a restart once the system is fully running.

-optimize OS basics like turn off WiFi and Bluetooth, Spotlight indexing and filevault

-turn off energy saver, firewire networking, etc

-check the Mac Activity viewer for any odd processes

-as you already are, try a variety of external drives on a variety of busses just to rule a few things out.

-try deleting digidesign databases?

-if you are running out of ideas I guess you might as well repair disk permissions and verify/repair disk, though I usually think that is kind of snake oil advice...

best of luck.
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  #5  
Old 03-25-2013, 09:55 AM
Sidhu Sidhu is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: New Delhi, India
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Default Re: FWx and Pro Tools, tell me how is your setup doing?

Mostly works well. At times I have randomly had an interrupt error.
I record to enternal cheapo WD Elements drive. So that is an issue.

But I moved to Reason/Cubase, and don't think bout it anymore.

32trks all day.

Sidhu

HP Probook 4530s
TI chipset Expresscard.
Not tested on animals.
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  #6  
Old 03-29-2013, 10:41 AM
xcx xcx is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: germany
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Default Re: FWx and Pro Tools, tell me how is your setup doing?

i had the same issue.

after changing a couple of settings inside protools it run through for a 32 track recording for 60min. before that it stopped after 5 to 20min.

system is; mac book air 2012, mountain lion 10.8.2, recording drive is a usb 3 external, protools 9 latest update. through thunderbolt adapter

--
this is what i changed in options->playback engine:

hw buffer to maximum
ignore errors
dae buffer, everything to maximum, Level 4, Large cache
plugin streaming buffer, size 2, optimizie for streaming content -> yes

preferences -> operation:
disable autobackup
--

i guess the system always stopped recording most of the times when an autobackup was written. which is basically every 5 minutes by default.
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