to tdm or not to tdm, help

joeymusicguy

joeymusicguy

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Sep 21, 2006
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i'm finally buying plugins for my pro tools rig which i'll be using for the first time in an actual production on march 10th...

the prices are kicking my ass vs what i actually need to produce music

how many of you are using tdm plugins, and have you been able to compare that vs using rtas only?

is it really worth having the TDM plugins? I would really like to take advantage of the hd3 system as much as possible, but its too damn expensive!
 
the only TDM plugs i have are the stock digi ones and the massey plugins. been fine with that for 2 years, could never justify the price of upgrading to TDM on my waves stuff for the price.
i'd start with all RTAS and only upgrade to TDM if there are certain plugs you find yourself needing while tracking.
 
its hard for me to tell when i'll need a TDM plugin

a lot of the vst waves plugins that I use already have zero samples of latency in cubase

will they also have zero samples of latency in pro tools?

like one thing i do is i track vocals with two tracks, one track is just the mic pre, the other track is "baked"... as in, it's the mic pre going through plugin gate, compressor, and de-esser getting printed to the track (so there's only one instance of these plugins running on the input channel, getting printed to the audio track)

the baked tracks are just so we can hear everything back, and for tuning purposes on clean singing. but then i later go back and delete the baked tracks and edit the mic pre tracks, and re-process those

will i still be able to do this with out tdm? because those plugins have to run and get recorded to a track in real time
 
Not sure with protools hd and tdm but in Le, I will run the plugins right on the track while tracking. This lets you hear the plugins but does not bake it and you can remove when editing and such. Not sure if this helps, but thats how I roll in protools!!
 
Joshua Wickman said:
Not sure with protools hd and tdm but in Le, I will run the plugins right on the track while tracking. This lets you hear the plugins but does not bake it and you can remove when editing and such. Not sure if this helps, but thats how I roll in protools!!
Click to expand...

i dont think that will work for me

i have lots of vocal tracks...

i make a new track for every part, and everyone: don't lecture me on how to do this, this is my workflow

i'm just trying to figure out if the sample delay is the same in both daw's
 
Not 100% certain on this but....

The studio I'm working at has protools hd and Ive seen the other engineer having to buss rtas plugins to use them live when tracking in Hd. So I'm guessing you have to have tdm plugins to track plugins live in hd. There is also latency when you buss things, i think its like 64 samples or something in Le.
 
Joshua Wickman said:
Not 100% certain on this but....

The studio I'm working at has protools hd and Ive seen the other engineer having to buss rtas plugins to use them live when tracking in Hd. So I'm guessing you have to have tdm plugins to track plugins live in hd. There is also latency when you buss things, i think its like 64 samples or something in Le.
Click to expand...

jesus...

that is almost embarassing
 
Dont forget that there are really good TDM exclusive plugins.

Such as the Reverb Revibe, which is awesome, and also Crane song phoenix. So if you got a good computer then aim for the exclusive ones.
 
Joshua Wickman said:
Not 100% certain on this but....

The studio I'm working at has protools hd and Ive seen the other engineer having to buss rtas plugins to use them live when tracking in Hd. So I'm guessing you have to have tdm plugins to track plugins live in hd. There is also latency when you buss things, i think its like 64 samples or something in Le.
Click to expand...

thats 1.5 milliseconds at 44.1kHz
 
I think its stupid you can track with plugins on Le but you cant do the same thing on Hd without buying into tdm plugins. Also your limited on rtas as well unless you upgade to like hd3 or some shit. Ive seen the studio im at max out a hd1 on rtas and im flying by them on protools Le with not a hicup. I was offered a fre pci card for Hd and all i had to do was buy a 96 or 192 and i passed it up because its way to much money still to be limited that way.

Good luck on this Joey......
 
joeymusicguy said:
another thing that kicks my ass is that the lowest buffer delay i can get on my 192 i/o hd3 is 256 samples
Click to expand...

500px-HA_HA_HA,_OH_WOW.jpg
 
he has hd3 i doub't he'll be running out of voices.
joey have you messed with your voice allocation settings under Playback Engine?? your rtas buffer limit will change depending on your other settings... you might be able to get it lower...
to me if you get tdm plus of whatever you use during vocal tracking... you could just use those since they have no latency and not have to bake the tracks...?
 
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