RANT: Fuck You Avid!!

[John_C]

I'm relatively new to the world of making plugins, but I am bemused.......how would one end up with a plugin that behaved differently in offline/online unless you either
a. can't code and have released a product containing undefined behaviour
b. deliberately set the processing up to work with the system clock as it's timebase or something equally retarded
c. have a high quality offline mode (a good thing)


oh, and null tests are the one golden standard of audio.

If two things null and you hear a difference, then you're WRONG.
If every single sample is in exactly the same place and has exactly the same value (which is what the null test verifies) then there is 0 difference between them

 

[James Murphy]

so john... who said that they heard a difference between two files that nulled? because i'm pretty sure nobody did... what i said was that i could hear a difference between online and offline bounces in some cases.... so i'm specifically saying they were different... never said a thing about the two files nulling.

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

i think that this is a totally unsupportable claim Ermin.... and while i get your point about needing/wanting quick bounces at various stages of a project, i don't think you serve it well with this particular statement.

James,

I use offline bouncing the same way Ermz does. I can't bounce a mix without being in real-time (outboard and mixing desk) so I have to use real-time.

But I have done tests before with full mixes, take it your not using time variable stuff or even a drum sampling plugin in real-time (trigger, drumagog) and the mix nulls when phase inverted. This is with using quite a lot of compression plugins (This is in Cubase obviously). It could be the case that DP doesn't work as well, I don't know, never used it.

 

[James Murphy]

so? you haven't had the experience.. i have... plain and simple... as have many others (just ask most Logic users), so you NOT having had it has zero bearing on that fact.

 

[John_C]

so john... who said that they heard a difference between two files that nulled? because i'm pretty sure nobody did... what i said was that i could hear a difference between online and offline bounces in some cases.... so i'm specifically saying they were different... never said a thing about the two files nulling.

I wasn't actually responding to what you posted, more making an insurance statement in the hope that, after reading it, no-one would be stupid enough to claim otherwise.

I myself have noticed differences between on and offline renders, and back in the day on soundscape i could always hear a significant and unpleasant difference between online renders and standard playback!
I do not have a clue how offline can make things sound worse, but sometimes it does seem to. From a programming perspective it makes very little sense.

 

[gabriel g.]

so? you haven't had the experience.. i have... plain and simple... as have many others (just ask most Logic users), so you NOT having had it has zero bearing on that fact.

its true what you say about logic!

It is also true about cubase sx3 and cubase 4....

 

[James Murphy]

cool John... so we actually agree exactly. Bº)

 

[C_F_H_13]

this came from a senior digidesign tech i new back when i still lived in California.... they could have added it THEN.. they just didn't want to....
don't worry though, just as with their recent "going native", they will eventually cave to prosumer demands.

This was true then, but now they've piled to much code on too much bad code that making drastic changes to the program is going to be a long and painful process.

I agree though that I think it was more of a philosophical choice then an inability to back then. They should of switched over when they ditched HTDM....

I think it's unrealistic to consider offline bounce a hobbyist or amateur use only feature. It's highly requested simply because it's a useful alternative to real-time bounce for many people and many situations.

Its value when running off dozens of roughs comparing takes, tones, edits etc. for stuff that doesn't need to be detail-checked from top to bottom as it bounces, nor needs to run any outboard in real-time is immeasurable.

Gotta agree with you. I wish PT had non realtime bounces for a number of reasons. Biggest ones for me are mix prepping tracks I didn't record, where I have to sum 1-3 mics per take of 10-12 guitar tracks. YEah I can setup busses and print it all at once, but when you have 10 songs to go through being able to do a 5 minute song in 30 seconds is a god send. this is the reason I have Nuendo, to simply to do all these bounces. It takes less time to transfer the files to Nuendo, print em, and put em back into PT then it does to realtime.

This.
plus, Ermz: all the other features you mentioned (track presets, bus soloing etc) are of course possible in PT, even implemented in a much more convinient way than Cubase does it.
To me it sounds like a typical case of "I am used to the workflow in software A, trying to do the very same, possibly by hitting the same key commands, in software B...and it doesn't work like it does in software A> software B must be worse"...that's a flawed thought of course!

point is: all those features you're asking for ARE implemented in PT (except for the offline bounce for obvious reasons), but many of those features you won't even need once you learn the software, cause the only reason you used them in Cubase was because it's the fastest and most convinient way to do things in cubase....you just have to let go of the idea that the fastest and most convinient way in PT has to be the same way things are done in cubase.
it's a different way, you'll have to learn where it is and how to walk it, but once you know that path as well as you knew the path in cubase you'll realize, that it's actually shorter and has less hurdles in the way

+1. Feature requests are generally based on the workflow on a specific DAW. Cubase users always make comments about features they wish PT had, without realizing you can do the exact same thing as fast with a slightly different workflow.

Each DAW has amazing things it can do, and each daw has serious drawbacks....how much those drawbacks effect you is up to your workflow.




Having said all this I wish PT had a freeze function way more then offline bouncing.

 

[C_F_H_13]

Also it's nice to see you posting again James!

 

[James Murphy]

Also it's nice to see you posting again James!

we'll see how long it lasts, lol

 

[guitarguru777]

Welcome back James.....

I see your point. I have not had the experiences with offline bounce vs online bounce, I have done phase inversion tests in my DAW (Sonar X1) and there have been no issues.

That being said I still think offline bounce would be an option with great value considering the projects I have been working with which made me post this. I am currently in the middle of mixing 3 songs for a local hip hop artist who recorded all his verses on separate tracks. Some parts are single words. I just had to deal with online bouncing 20+ tracks just for vocals. It took me HOURS not being familiar with Pro Tools and trying to figure out the routing and all that jazz to try and do it in 1 pass. After hours of frustration I said fuck it and just solo'd each track 1 one by one.

This is a process that in my DAW takes 2 or 3 minutes, I had to spend 4 hours doing this in protools. This was a HUGE inconvenience.

I do admit 90% of the problem was my inexperience in the platform and its routing capabilities, but being a Cakewalk user since 2000 I have benn so used to offline bounce and the speed in which it allows me to export raw tracks without any effects into another session that I take the feature for granted. key word there being RAW TRACKS

Again welcome back dude. Stick around man this place has been pretty tame lately, even though we have no more boobs ....lol

 

[CAlexanderParra]

Since you're dealing with just raw tracks isn't consolidating an option? I'm pretty sure protools has consolidating and renders the stems offline.

 

[Trevoire520]

Yeah that's kinda what I thought, the only instance in which it wouldn't work would be if there's overlapping vocal lines on two seperate tracks, but to be honest I'd rather keep them on seperate tracks most of the time anyway.

 

[DigitalMetal]

Im totally with James and Lasse here, in fact my story is fairly similar to Lasse except i used to have to support users of Logic and Sonar as well as PT and Cubendo but first and foemost I was a Logic user untill Apple bought it, then turned steiny fan, then went PT, i dont miss offline bouncing, i dont bounce stems ever, and when i do bounce to stereo its a great way to check my mix,
If i do need to export multitrack i consolidate regions and export from the playlist,
just get used to the different ways different software works and you will see there are different ways to achieve exactly the same results on any platform, this argument will last as long as the Mac vs PC one, its a dead duck