Hardware Inserts on a PT10 Native/Firewire Rig - Am I wasting my time?

[libertine]

Just to update, ahead of hopefully some great insight from you guys, I played with Logic's I/O plugin for an hour or two earlier to see what kind of results I'd get from it's "Ping" compensation tool.

Long story short, It's a sad day over here. The whole "firewire is always a moving target" latency law has proven true in my experiment. When you press the "Ping" button in Logic's I/O plug, it's designed to do a quick white noise round trip test and auto compensate based on samples. It them displays and allows for manual tweaking to the number of samples it offsets the track. Throughout a song, I pinged the plug in several times, with varying results. And not by a sample or two. By a few hundred at a time.

So, I'm shopping for something PCIe I suppose. I wonder if it's possible to use the built in optical I/O on my Mac Pro as the interface for my insert DA? Anyone tried that?

[nyfrequencies]

How about a good old analog patch bay with some outputs coming from your SSL analog outputs.. You can interface your new hardware in the patch bay and bring it back into the PT mixer with the buffer WAY DOWN and Low latency monitoring engaged.. The down side is a bit of latency..

Once you've dialed in your outboard settings print them into PT and shift them back a few samples if necessary..

I am using the Logic I/O plug and am happy with the way it works.. It is not a perfect solution.. An SSL Matrix is the perfect solution paired with a few SSL I/O's.

[libertine]

Originally Posted by nyfrequencies

How about a good old analog patch bay with some outputs coming from your SSL analog outputs.. You can interface your new hardware in the patch bay and bring it back into the PT mixer with the buffer WAY DOWN and Low latency monitoring engaged.. The down side is a bit of latency..

Once you've dialed in your outboard settings print them into PT and shift them back a few samples if necessary..

I am using the Logic I/O plug and am happy with the way it works.. It is not a perfect solution.. An SSL Matrix is the perfect solution paired with a few SSL I/O's.

That's basically what I did on today's mix. Wasn't the headache I was anticipating. Fatso sounded great, too!

[LeMauce]

I got almost the same setup and the same problems.

I use a Alphalink madi with a madixtreme with pt10 and still with ADC activeted it shifts... so parrelel compr... out of question.
SO I have be going the OTB route with a patchbay and a GET Sum:mation and it does work wonderfull well now for a month.
The sum:mation have analog volume controlled by digital automation by your DAW with a plugin. So in short signalflow path terms. Alphalink -> outboard -> sum:mation -> analog volume controle -> L/R summed out to DSD or back in to Alphalink.
So no more funky compression behaviour of the volume automation BEFORE compression and spot on parrelel compression. Very nice stereo image summing and even it's cleaned designed, the sum:mation adds a sort of "shine" to the summing signals.

Totale cost less then 2700dollars (sum:mation and a patchbay).

[libertine]

Originally Posted by LeMauce

I got almost the same setup and the same problems.

I use a Alphalink madi with a madixtreme with pt10 and still with ADC activeted it shifts... so parrelel compr... out of question.
SO I have be going the OTB route with a patchbay and a GET Sum:mation and it does work wonderfull well now for a month.
The sum:mation have analog volume controlled by digital automation by your DAW with a plugin. So in short signalflow path terms. Alphalink -> outboard -> sum:mation -> analog volume controle -> L/R summed out to DSD or back in to Alphalink.
So no more funky compression behaviour of the volume automation BEFORE compression and spot on parrelel compression. Very nice stereo image summing and even it's cleaned designed, the sum:mation adds a sort of "shine" to the summing signals.

Totale cost less then 2700dollars (sum:mation and a patchbay).

Ah, nice. I hadn't seen the Sum:Mation's volume control setup. Very cool! That's been my biggest reason for not moving to an analog summing system, the lack of post insert volume control. Every other box I'd seen that allows for signal level control at the summing point has been way out of the price range, e.g. Neve 8816, etc. I'll definitely look into a setup like this once the bank account recovers from the purchase of my Fatso.

Also interesting, I had the MADI Xtreme 64 when I originally purchased the Alphalinks but ended up exchanging it for the Firewire ADAT box for pro tools compatibility. Not an issue with PT10 now. I am, however, surprised that you've got the same "moving target" latency issue with that card. I figured anything PCIe would alleviate this issue. Makes me wonder if going to a card like the RME Raydat would leave me in the same boat.

Guess the best option is to wait and save for the summing system!

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Anyone else want to weigh in on whether or not something like the RME PCIe cards experience the same issues?

[LeMauce]

Even with the RME you will have the shiften latency problem. It's not the cards. I got with the Madi64 a rock stable system. latency of 0.7ms on AD/DA. IT is protools ADC engine that can not "SAMPLE" accurate the latency. It will and always shift so long we can't enter sample latency and only in Msec' in the protools ADC setup. A plugin CAN created a 1/3 of MS of latency... you CAN't enter that and ADC will NOT good compensated for that. And it shift even when you change buffersize from 32 to 512 for example...

I already spoken with Scott Greiner about this and he also has this problem. Heck, it one of the reason that he design sum:mation.
The only way to have rock stable latency compensation is with HD(X)/Native cards and Digidesign Interface (or 3rd party compatible mimic 192 AD/DA's) for paralel signal threatment.

[libertine]

Originally Posted by LeMauce

I already spoken with Scott Greiner about this and he also has this problem. Heck, it one of the reason that he design sum:mation.
The only way to have rock stable latency compensation is with HD(X)/Native cards and Digidesign Interface (or 3rd party compatible mimic 192 AD/DA's) for paralel signal threatment.

Cool, thanks again for the feedback. Helps me realize what needs to happen next: HD Native.

I love the idea of summing my main mix stems in the analog domain from a sonic benefit sense, but I want to be able to do inserts in the PT mixer, including parallel drum smashing, etc. For that reason, looks like HDX/HDN and a new box of converters is the only option.

Let the saving begin.