new HD user - When to use more DSP voices or less?

[marcioguitar]

New HD user getting used to the differences between LE and HD. I would like to know when should I increase or decrease the number of voices on the playback dialog menu. Will PT warn me that I need to increase DSP voices or should I leave it at maximum all the time? I own PT HD 2.

All comments and suggestions from more experienced users will be highly appreciated.

[Tom Hartman]

Originally Posted by marcioguitar

New HD user getting used to the differences between LE and HD. I would like to know when should I increase or decrease the number of voices on the playback dialog menu. Will PT warn me that I need to increase DSP voices or should I leave it at maximum all the time? I own PT HD 2.

All comments and suggestions from more experienced users will be highly appreciated.

You'll just get a notice saying "There are more tracks than available voices, spend more money" or something like that. I keep my on max all the time.

TH

[holden]

Pick as many voices as you think you will need in your session. Every audio track takes a voice (unless you get into voice sharing - more advanced). Aux tracks take up voices if you put RTAS plug-ins on them. If you have RTAS plug-ins on the same channel as TDM and the RTAS plugins don't come before the TDM that will cost you an extra voice (or two if the track is stereo).

You can learn the voice accounting by opening the Window>System Usage display. Look at the voice count; add a track or make one inactive and look at how the count changes. Put up an Aux track and put an RTAS plugin on it and look at the voice count again, etc.. You will get the hang of it quickly.

Voices take up DSP, but not much. Allocate more than you think you will need. If there is insufficient DSP to instantiate a TDM plug-in you will get a message that says so and the plug-in will instantiate in an inactive state. Then you can go the the System Usage window, see how many of the allocated voices you are actually using, and determine whether you can reduce your voice count.

When you start banging up against the limits of your DSP you will find that it is often worth using RTAS plug-ins strategically despite the voice hit, particularly for some of the big DSP hogs (like Altiverb, Echoboy) that have RTAS equivalents.