I have been trying to decide which way to go with my Pro Tools rig…..

1. Do I keep my HD2/192 system on a Harpertown Mac and just upgrade to Pro Tools 10 HD software?
2. Do I upgrade my HD2 to HDX? If so I will need to buy a new Mac and that isn’t going to be cheap to get one that is as powerful as my current 8 core Harpertown.
3. Do I cross grade my HD2 to HD Native?

With cash is short supply, option 1 would be the easiest but will leave me in a corner when Avid do the next upgrade. So at the moment the HD Native route is looking very interesting. I have been doing some research and the comments on the DUC have been very promising from those who actually have an HD Native system. There are alot of comments about latency performance of native systems but these appear to relate back to LE Native systems, rather than the HD Native system.

As part of my research I was checking details on the Avid site and found myself looking at my own words. More recently I picked up on a post from Brent Heber in which he outlines his attempts to break HD Native with a monster session he created and you can download to try it for your self.

So first I loaded up my tracks/voices to max, 192 of them. Then I switched on delay comp to long, 4k samples. Then I switched on all busses in the IO setup, 256 of them. Then I loaded as many auxes and sends and 5.1 outputs as I could before redlining the mixer. Now the 6 chip mixer was maxed out I proceeded onto inserts. I ran up TDM EQ3s on all the auxes in the TDM domain to avoid voice issues on audio tracks with consequent RTAS plugs (no voices left at this stage). That maxed my chips on all 3 TDM Accel cards, and then I went to RTAS on my audio tracks and started to insert RTAS EQ3s on 96 stereo tracks. Barely dented the CPU, so I started adding AAX native Channel strips.

 

The final session had most of the 96 audio tracks all running 5 instances of either EQ3 or channel strip, 2 sends and about 30 auxes with EQ3s on them as well and everything was redlining, but the session COULD play and was responsive without DAE errors.

 

Opening and closing the session – OMG, took forever. Opening it the second time I thought the machine had hung, it took about 8 minutes with no visual indication anything was happening.

 

So that was the TDM rig – I figured opening this session on native would come up with inactive plugs as it would be just using the equivalent RTAS power and would be missing the mixing/insert power of the 3 accel cards…what happened?

 

Firstly it opened snappy, within 5 seconds. Woah. Secondly everything was active. I pumped up the delay comp to 16K and I hit play….and got an error. So I went to my playback engine and bumped up the playback buffer from 512 to 1024 and cores from 10 to 12. Playback, no errors, all is good, snappy, wow…

 

So in switching from my HD3Accel to a HD Native card what have I lost and gained? I’ve lost a few TDM only plugins like Dolby surround tools, Ampfarm, Echofarm, Heat – that’s about it that I use. What have I gained? 4 times the delay comp, an extra 60 audio voices, amazingly snappy session open and close and re-routing and apparently if I switch up to 16 cores at 99%  likely more grunt than I need for your average aussie feature mix! I’ve also gained my now redundant HD rig to use as a stem recorder and thanks to PT10 and D-Command multi-mode I can access both from my console.

 

I am very, very, happy right now. Looking forwards to my first big mix and throwing around some Channel strips willy nilly!

 

The session can be downloaded here if you’re interested in running the test yourself on your own system.

So this is another very good reason to consider the HD Native route.  The upgrade path is interesting, Avid only want my HD Core card, as part of the deal, this leaves me to sell my HD Accel card and then there should be an upgrade deal for my 192 I/O to an new 8x8x8 interface.

Outstanding concerns?  When I do music sessions I use Sound Toys’ Pitch Doctor as my preferred pitch correction plug-in. That will not be possible currently as it is one of the few TDM only plug-ins. The only critical TDM plug-in I use is the TC Elctronic LM5 loudness radar meter but TC have announced a native version of this, so that is good news.

The latency issue seems not to be a real world issue. Firstly looking at this graphic

 You can see that Avid are claiming that the HD Native latency will be not that much more than my current HD2 rig, and again comments from real HD Native users seem to back this up, that handling a last post session and then having to record a voiceover just doesn’t have any problems.

Of course unless you know different?  If so I would love to hear from you.

Comments (10):

1. 

   Ted said:
   November 22, 2011 at 2:46 pm

   I have seen native hdpt10 run from a MacBook pro 17″ with I think the i7 2.4 or something chip run a post prod. Session full score video everything work of a thumb drive. I am telling u pt10 is awesome and when it updated and upgraded to handle the stuff like 64 bit system etc then it will be amazing.
   The people complaining about pt10 don’t know that comparing a plasma tv resolution to and led or LCD screen. Lot of plasma tvs are only 720p but people don’t know that that is 10 times better than there 1080p and if they get a 1080p plasma than it will be 20 times better.
   So any way hd native is awesome on pr10 and hdx will be awesome.
2. 

   Pascal Zander said:
   November 22, 2011 at 2:47 pm

   Hi,

   I just ordered my crossgrade to hdx from a hd2 accel with a G5.
   My concern was latency, that’s why I did not go with native, too afraid of vo recording with latency.
   I will change my 96 I/o and get a brand new 8x8x8.
   I should receive everything in 2 weeks.
3. 

   Topslakr said:
   November 22, 2011 at 6:40 pm

   I hate to be _that guy_ but do you need to upgrade now? Would it be possible to wait a year and see what happens? You said cash was in short supply.. why not just wait to see what Avid does in the next year? Is something broken with your current setup? Is there a cost savings to upgrading now that won’t be possible later? Are you worried that others will make the upgrade and you will lose business having not upgraded or lose business because you won’t be compatible?

   Sorry for all the questions! I’m just curious what the through process is for someone in your position.
4. 

   Mike Thornton said:
   November 22, 2011 at 7:55 pm

   @Topslakr, no need to apologise for asking the question, it is one of my options, and yes I could run my existing system with PT10 HD until at least the next version when Pro Tools becomes fully 64 bit. I suppose the reason I am considering the upgrade now is I like to be reasonably current with my system so I can find out what the issues and the bugs are first hand so I can advise my clients, write about it here and in Sound on Sound. That said when the pci-e cards first came out, I held off, keeping the pci-x cards, but replacing the Mac with the fastest secondhand Mac I could find and ran it for another 18 months or so before finally doing the pci-e cross grade and replacing my Mac with the one I have now.
5. 

   Mike Thornton said:
   November 22, 2011 at 7:56 pm

   Pascal, fair point and if I hadn’t heard first hand experience from people I trust I would have the same concern, and to a point I still do, but the difference in price between the HD Native and HDx is a lot.
6. 

   Mike Thornton said:
   November 22, 2011 at 7:58 pm

   I am with you on the benefits of Pro Tools 10 and it is great to hear about your experiences too. Thanks.
7. 

   Pascal Zander said:
   November 22, 2011 at 11:01 pm

   Mike, I don’t know anybody around me using Native that’s why I followed the HDX way.
   Based on what I’ve read at PT’s forum, my impressions were that Native was OK for mixing but not that good to record.
   Doing post and music recordings, I don’t want to take the risk to have a brand system and not being able to record without latency.
   I don’t know what kind of deal you can get but for less than 6K€ I’ll have a new HDX system and a new interface, pretty fair.
8. 

   Laustin Spayce said:
   November 25, 2011 at 1:37 pm

   At my work we’re currently rocking a Pro Tools HD|2 system, and in the next 12 months or so I’ll be looking to get HDX, too many of my clients need stuff recorded right when we’re in the finishing stages of a project (we do both Music and Post on the same system), I just hope that HDX is better than HD2 at handling mixed DSP and Native plugins in the session.
9. 

   Brian said:
   November 28, 2011 at 2:30 am

   Thanks for posting this. I am also trying to decide between HD native or an HDx card. I currently have no system as this is a brand new project studio build (so no TDM plugs to worry about not working on HDx). Pro Tools will be used for tracking/editing and mixing music from single singer songwriters to full 4-6 piece rock/metal/country and jazz bands)

   I have some confusion about the way the HDx card functions. Does its DSP only work on the new AAx plug-in format? I will be running some waves CLA bundles and vocal rider etc.. as well as have a UAD2 QUAD flexi bundle.

   I will be running 12G RAMM with i7990X on windows 7 pro 64bit.

   So im trying to figure out, is an HDx overkill, will its power be sitting there unused for me? and will HD native card track with no noticable delay and mix with out playback errors on sessions approaching 100 tracks?

   I cant see me ever needing more than 100 tracks and will most likely average half that.

   Thanks for reading guys im looking forward to anyones points of view/oppinions,

   cheers!
10. 

    Mike Thornton said:
    November 28, 2011 at 8:09 pm

    My understanding is the the HDX card will run AAX cards and you wil be able to run AAX and/or RTAS plug-ins on the computer processors so RTAS and AAX will be OK. As to tracking with over 100 tracks, I cannot say but certainly Brent has been successful and my opinion is that HD Native is excellent but we are all scared in case it isn’t and so go for TDM/HDX to be safe.

    I would try and talk to a dealer and take in a session and run it on an HD Native system in the showroom and see what it can do. Then do report back.