Help convince me to go Mac...

[James Murphy]

I measured my Mixrig plugged in N4 as an outboard FXrack. Its 23 samples (best case) Adat-in/out. Calculations do take some time, though very little in DSPcode.

i've used mix systems but never owned one, i have HD3 Accel. the only way for me to get anything like 23 milliseconds latency is i would have to play through a really high latency plug with 1000 sample latency. At 44.1 the 1k sample latency of that plug equals 22.7ms, which is roughly the same as standing 26 feet (8 meters) from your guitar amp. that's not a real world scenario though because no one would play through a plug with that kind of latency, i'd hope... i know i wouldn't. usually though plugs have only between 4 and 50 samples latency. 4 samples is like having your ear 1.2 inches (3 cm) from a guitar speaker. 50 samples is more like 1 foot, or 24 cm.

still wouldn't normally ever do that when tracking... i don't play "through" plug-ins"... though you can, normally, without feeling any latency at all.

PTHD Accel istself has no latency... plug ins can add it, AD/DA add it.... and the ADC will add it, which is why you should track with it off.... but to be perfectly honest i've accidently had it on when tracking a band before and not one guy complained of latency.


for perspective, bear in mind the Haas principle.... most humans on the planet need more than 20-25ms between 2 events in order to hear them as two distinct events.

 

[James Murphy]

bah, just re-read your post.... you said 23 samples, not milliseconds... lol.

yeah, the only measurable latency in my system with ADC off and no plugs or digital hardware inserted is 2-6 ms max. imperceptible... and it's caused by the AD/DA, and will happen on any digital system on the planet.

some guys here will say, "ha, i get nearly that on my native system".... and i won't doubt them.... when they're tracking one track at a time. try it with 24 or more though. mine won't change. native system users still can't say that... and won't be able to for some years to come, if ever.... though i'll readily concede the gap has shrunk it the last couple years... and it may, if Moore's rule stands up, become negligible in 2 or 3.

 

[Mulder]

Ok, but my measurement was like this: going in the TDMmixer -no plugs-, back to Nuendo. So the latency I measured was only the mixengine of PT5, no plugins. DSPcode always adds a very little amount of latency. But even 23 Ms can give strange side'effects with vocalists, the monitor in their cans can do weird things with their overtones, stuff like that.

Just curious if the new machines can do TDM-like latency native. In a few weeks I'll test it, Digi002's are dirt cheap anyway.

bah, just re-read your post.... you said 23 samples, not milliseconds... lol.

yeah, the only measurable latency in my system with ADC off and no plugs in or digital hardware inserted is 2-6 ms max. imperceptible... and it's caused by the AD/DA, and will happen on any digital system on the planet.

-oh yeah, read over that too. Funny how you read what you expect.

2-6 Ms... Hmm, a core i7 can do 48 samples internal with a very high trackcount, and with some no-latency plugins like Sonnox. Add ADDA..

WOW.

some guys here will say, "ha, i get nearly that on my native system".... and i won't doubt them.... when they're tracking one track at a time. try it with 24 or more though. mine won't change. native system users still can't say that... and won't be able to for some years to come, if ever.... though i'll readily concede the gap has shrunk it the last couple years.

Djeez, EDL..

i7's have this idiotic memory bandwidth due to triple channel and a build-in memorycontroller. For regular work you won't notice, but for lo latency applications you gain a factor of ten (10) times what you would normaly expect from a native system (the benchmark is some pages back).

60 44k 24bit tracks streaming at 48 samples is no problem. An that's from a regular HD, not even an SSD...

PT8LE on an i7 could be a HDkiller.. Be it Mac or Win.

And the funny thing, when you put the latency of your engine at 1024 samples during mixdown, you won't know what hit you.

Ever tried FFT-eq's? I don't know if there are any on RTAS, but they're killer. And need A LOT of latency to perform.

 

[Transputer]

Ok, but my measurement was like this: going in the TDMmixer -no plugs-, back to Nuendo. So the latency I measured was only the mixengine of PT5, no plugins. DSPcode always adds a very little amount of latency. But even 23 Ms can give strange side'effects with vocalists, the monitor in their cans can do weird things with their overtones, stuff like that.

Just curious if the new machines can do TDM-like latency native. In a few weeks I'll test it, Digi002's are dirt cheap anyway.



-oh yeah, read over that too. Funny how you read what you expect.

2-6 Ms... Hmm, a core i7 can do 48 samples internal with a very high trackcount, and with some no-latency plugins like Sonnox. Add ADDA..

WOW.



Djeez, EDL..

i7's have this idiotic memory bandwidth due to triple channel and a build-in memorycontroller. For regular work you won't notice, but for lo latency applications you gain a factor of ten (10) times what you would normaly expect from a native system (the benchmark is some pages back).

60 44k 24bit tracks streaming at 48 samples in no problem. An that's from a regular HD, not even an SSD...

PT8LE on an i7 could be a HDkiller.. Be it Mac or Win.

And Core i7 is the HD killer period - whether we can stay with Digi though with their insistence on ancient dsp is another thing, hence my earlier hope for Pro Tools Native on Digi's own bespoke OS - yeah right !!!

 

[LSD-Studio]

some guys here will say, "ha, i get nearly that on my native system".... and i won't doubt them.... when they're tracking one track at a time. try it with 24 or more though. mine won't change. native system users still can't say that... .

well, you're totally right, but why is that a problem?
unless I'm using an ampsim or so I'll just use the direct-monitoring (zero latency) of my RME.
no matter how many tracks are to be recorded. the very rare occasions where I need a plugin running (on the recorded track) during monitoring/recording I'm usually just recording one track (for ex guits monitoring revalver etc).

still, wouldn't hurt to have HD and I'm still saving

 

[Mulder]

And Core i7 is the HD killer period - whether we can stay with Digi though with their insistence on ancient dsp is another thing, hence my earlier hope for Pro Tools Native on Digi's own bespoke OS - yeah right !!!

OMG.. a Native OS for a native DAW..

Don't think Digi's marketingdep will approve easily, but OTOH it will do their aftersales a lot of good. It would be absolute killer.

Put in an Nvidia card running CUDA for realtime convolution... Ok, my inner Nerd just wet himself.

 

[James Murphy]

well guys, i have to knuckle down and get this mix done... for the time being i think it suffices to say that i have made the correct purchase for myself about 18 months ago when i bought this system... i paid it off in 12... and it's all gravy now.... so you'll have to excuse if i decline to put all my hopes on the golden egg that may or may not drop at some point in the next year. when it comes time to make my next major system upgrade/purchase, i'll carefully consider every available option.

and Lasse.. hit me up on AIM.

 

[ahjteam]

So I've decided to stick with a PC based system for now, sorry for the thread guys

Mac 0 - PC 1

 

[Mulder]

well guys, i have to knuckle down and get this mix done... for the time being i think it suffices to say that i have made the correct purchase for myself about 18 months ago when i bought this system... i paid it off in 12... and it's all gravy now.... so you'll have to excuse if i decline to put all my hopes on the golden egg that may or may not drop at some point in the next year. when it comes time to to my next major system upgrade/purchase, i'll carefully consider every option.

and Lasse.. hit me up on AIM.

Paid it back in 12... That's it. I'm still running on earlier money, so for me its more fun then business. I like to work one week, and spend three with friends doin weird stuff.

And don't get me wrong, for me its not about chasing every golden egg that comes along, but -as a KBplayer- beeing able to use my rig as a large realtime instrument. That hasn't happened yet.

 

[LSD-Studio]

this thread is really new, I've never rread anything similar on this forum...

 

[Mulder]

that's the difference

Nah, it just gives me more time to iron stuff out. Three weeks of frustration isn't my idea of having a good time between work.

It also gives me the time to make large samplelibs for my own needs, it involves quite some edits. For a while I'm running my audio of a CG-RAMdisk, sheer joy, everything responds instantly. Those kinda upgrades make you hunger for more.

And like I stated earlier, at work all is PC. AVID and PT / Pyramix.

Now that's just my case, I'm surrounded with guys who earn their living running XP. After taming it ofcourse, but that's a part of beeing a pro in their -and my- opinion.

 

[James Murphy]

I'm surrounded with guys who earn their living running XP. After taming it ofcourse, but that's a part of beeing a pro in their -and my- opinion.

so Lasse manages to kick it all off again.... lol.

i promise i'll not refer to myself as being a pro again though, ... that whole not "taming XP" thing has scuttled my aspirations.

 

[Mulder]

so Lasse manages to kick it all off again.... lol.

i promise i'll not refer to myself as being a pro again though, ... that whole not "taming XP" thing has scuttled my aspirations.

..you can find diskimages of XPinstalls with everything ironed out for audio.

Both OSX and XP/Vista are consumerstuff. OS9 was real industrial IMO. Boringly easy to handle and rocksolid.

Running XP is not part of beeing a pro, knowing how to handle it is. And loads of customers run XP, and come in with their own stuff, that also counts ofcourse.

 

[Ermz]

Mulder, are there any sites that deal with setting an XP machine up specifically for audio work?

I've already got a ton to tweak services, registry, programs, themes, start-up apps etc. etc. but it would always help to have a resource dedicated completely to audio.

Can't wait to build my new i7-based system in the coming year...

 

[James Murphy]

loads of customers run XP, and come in with their own stuff, that also counts ofcourse.

none of mine ever have. what you mean bring their own computers? or files? PT and reason files are about all anyone every shows up with here and they are cross-platform compatible, so it's irrelevent for me to know anything about XP. even though i do, as i own a PC and there are a 3 or 4 of them in my household. not even sure, since i'm not sure if my brother still has his Dell laptop or not.

 

[Mulder]

none of mine ever have. what you mean bring their own computers? or files? PT and reason files are about all anyone every shows up with here and they are cross-platform compatible, so it's irrelevent for me to know anything about XP. even though i do, as i own a PC and there are a 3 or 4 of them in my household. not even sure, since i'm not sure if my brother still has his Dell laptop or not.

AV work I do goes from 'internetcontent' and TVdocu's to ridiculous expensive realestate HDpresentations (before the crisis, that was). The guys who come in know how to work XP, a minority works on Mac. Its a lifelike percentage. Its mainly business/governmentpresentations, not art. And a lot of work comes from other companies, tasks are beeing split.

Internetcontent is beeing 'consumed' on XP, so all the flash- and directorstuff that's created better works well on it. I think that's the whole thing, the stuff we make is consumed on XPmachines, so we create it on those.

When its consumed on cd or dvd, you could make it on everything you like ofcourse.

But for me there's no truth in "Mac are for Pros and XP just can't be".

 

[James Murphy]

for me there's no truth in "Mac are for Pros and XP just can't be".

who has said that? you're losing me Muldy,

 

[Mulder]

Mulder, are there any sites that deal with setting an XP machine up specifically for audio work?

I've already got a ton to tweak services, registry, programs, themes, start-up apps etc. etc. but it would always help to have a resource dedicated completely to audio.

Can't wait to build my new i7-based system in the coming year...

Most of my info I got from work and students, and the students get it from audio-specific torrentsites. As long as they're in college they can, but I urge them to buy everything they need to become pro's at school, since we can arrange educational discount for them. But that doesn't hold them back from roaming the net ofcourse.

I always end up with Asus boards for the simple reason they outline their IRQstuff per slot in their manual. You see in a blink which slot is perfect for your interface. And the WS-series are the best, those end up in workstations so they get some extra care.

I always make a dual-boot, one for internet and stuff and one DAWpartition without networking, onboard audio, things like that. My DAWpartition is barenaked, only running audiostuff. That's mainly the whole secret, keep it lean and clean, switch off everything you don't need and put your card in the right slot.

And don't trust onboard FW, get a digi-approved one.

Put in a good PSU, a good heatsink (Thermalright) and my secret for everlasting peace: an USB HD that runs two hd's in mirror, backing up my sys with Acronis. In case my syshd breaks down (that happened four times in fifteen years) I pop in a new one with an image in minutes, since my main hd is in a mobile rack.

This may look like overkill, but in case something goes wrong I'll be up & running in notime. It's the feeling you're secure that really makes a difference for me. On a Mac I would do the same, three of those crashes I had were on Macs (remember the IBM 'Deathstar'?)

 

[Mulder]

who has said that? you're losing me Muldy,

Thou Has, Darth Murph!

No serious. Its just the mores that was common a few years ago, and still is here & there.

That has shifted, much to my own suprise.

 

[Metaltastic]

$90 for a PCI FW card, you gotta be shittin' me! :zombie: