Venue Pro Tools system crashed ...

[BradLyons]

Originally Posted by jwh1192

hi, i work as a technical producer for television, remote capture of music mostly. had to do a high end celebrity fund raiser a week or so ago. sound company had an SC48 rig with pro tools integration. half way through the show the FOH guy tells me on headset that pro tools crashed so there would be a gap in the multi-track. this multi-track was the backup in case the 2-mix had any unforeseen issues. MusicMixMobile out of NYC & LA are one of the only companies I see that have NO Seen PT issues ...

i have lost all confidence in Avid for Live Capture ... Joe Co Blackbox "type" device will now be added to all shows as a backup to the backup ... or most likely PT will become the backup to the Joe Co.

i have been privy to see and record many shows with pro tools myself and have run out of fingers to how many issues I have seen over the years.

Avid can make a Venue system that is the desk crashes your settings stay the same when the desk comes back up (scary that they had to build that in) but they cannot make a pro tools rig that will do the same ... Not Crash completely ...

i am happy that we have folks like M3 and others to take the burden of this stress out of our hands ... this job just did not have the Funds for them to be involved.

just a rainy friday rant ... thank s for listening

john

I'm sorry to hear what happened in your situation, but this is not typical...not typical at all. I started using the Venue console when it very first hit the market, in fact there was only one console (the DSHOW) and was simply called VENUE as that is all that existed. When the Pro Tools option, both for LE and HD, I started using it again almost since day one. I spent about 4-years recording and mixing a live broadcast for about 4-hours every Sunday. I had several crashes, but it wasn't Pro Tools....it was the so-called "high performance professional audio computer based on Windows" that was the problem. When I switched to the Mac with the very same hardware, those problems were gone completely. I've recorded several significant concerts and additional live broadcasts using various Venue consoles with Pro Tools attached, NO problems. Now the key is you have to have a MAC....it has to be configured for audio, you need good hard-drives.

That said there are other wonderful solutions such as those you mentioned, but from my experience if Pro Tools crashes with Venue---it's always the computer wasn't setup properly.

[jwh1192]

hi brad, thank s for the insight ... come and work with me for awhile and you will see everything under the Sun happen ... LOL

i have seen the best in the business have issues with Avid products ... Live & Studio ... it always impresses me to hear someone that has had no issues at all ... i have worked with several people in the past that have had no issues but when I am around look out brother ... haha

i am not speaking of lower end jobs either ... it is a shame that we have to have 3 recorders running these days to bring the stress level down ...

and to be fair i have seen every DAW out there crash even when on a stable compliant system ... be it PC or MAC ...

locking pro tools to video sync ... lose TC for any reason and down you go ... lose sync for any reason and down you go ...

Free Run TC with Lockit boxes and Audio spitting out TC like Film was how we have done the last few shows ... 2 mix audio is most important and used more and more for syncing ... so audio is now the backup to the timecode in case ...

in 25 years i have seen tape machines as main and DAW as backup and have had BOTH go down ... i have seen 100,000.00 cameras fry for no reason, Betacam recorders billowing smoke out of the tape door, recorders that say they are recording but on playback there was nothing there ... i have even seen RADAR go down ... from the jungles of Costa Rica to Europe S#$T happens ...

i watched one of the biggest acts of all time have the string section pro tools rig die 3 songs into a 3 hour show ... they got it back and running "5" seconds before the string scame in ... albeit a strange setup that the string computer on-stage in monitor land were feeding the FOH their string submix

so brad, when you say it is not the norm i most respectfully beg to differ ...

thank you for good conversation ... and if you are going to NAMM today, beware the roads in los angeles are a mess with the rain right now ... people do not respect the rain here as it only rains every 5 or 6 years very oily slippery roads ...

whew, i need a nap after that rant ... LOL

cheers

john

[Nick Morris]

Originally Posted by jwh1192

so brad, when you say it is not the norm i most respectfully beg to differ ...

+1

[Matt Syson]

Hi
When 'they' design a desk/mixer/whatever that can achieve a full reboot (or recovery) WITHIN say 1 or 2 samples (of say 48K to make it easy) THEN it can be called reliable.
A (muted) hole in the audio of this duration might be acceptable accoustically.
Bit like a 'tick' when you put on some lights or whatever on an analogue system.
Matt S

[jwh1192]

i would think the embedded operating system model works better and is more stable ... ala RADAR or say the Alesis HD24

i have been surprised for a long time that Avid has not created a product like this ... but yes they have .. the Venue System is this .. except it has not rolled into pro tools yet ...

and so we continue to wait and work with products that are a constant work in progress

cheers

john

[philper]

I think a good question to ask might be why there wasn't a backup rig running if this was as high-profile a gig as you say. I understand the ease of use with the integration of PT w/ the Venue stuff, but how about a JoeCo or etc running in parallel, because "stuff happens".....? As you've said, everything crashes sooner or later, and if people haven't experienced a crash like what you described then maybe they haven't done as many gigs as you have! In any case, no backup is inexcusable.

philp

[BradLyons]

In my personal use I've never tracked a concert with the SC48 via Firewire, I've always used the other consoles with the HD option. While that doesn't mean there's anything wrong or different with the SC48, it's how it connects to the computer----and the difference here is FIREWIRE v/s a PCIE card. While firewire is quite stable for the most part, notice I said FOR THE MOST PART. This is a computer protocol that is technically an extension of the PCI-bus but it is possible for firewire to drop connectivity. I have had this happen on a few rare occasions with my hard-drives on my Mac systems and MANY times on my Windows systems. In commercial work you're always going to have issues, that's a given. However there's also going to be those times we look at ourselves and realize, YEP---I'm stupid. I say that because yesterday I could NOT get a camera working, I replaced it, that still didn't work, double-checked my switcher, routing, etc. After about an hour and a half of trouble-shooting I realized.....THE CABLE I WAS PLUGGING INTO THE CAMERA WAS NOT THE RIGHT CABLE. Connected the right one and whaddayaknow it just worked. DOH!

[jwh1192]

philper ... the multi-track from the SC48 was the backup to a 2 mix going to XDcam recorders and XDcam F800 camera ... so yes, we had backup of the 2 mix .. which for all purposes was just fine. sorry if that was a confusing read ..

cheers

john

[philper]

Originally Posted by jwh1192

philper ... the multi-track from the SC48 was the backup to a 2 mix going to XDcam recorders and XDcam F800 camera ... so yes, we had backup of the 2 mix .. which for all purposes was just fine. sorry if that was a confusing read ..

cheers

john

You were clear about all that. I meant a backup system for the multitrack, if it was that important. It's a big pain to do, often, but then.... Hopefully your live mixer was really with it and you don't need your MT for that job. Also, I wasn't casting aspersions--I know you do what you can do (budget and time etc).

philp

[jwh1192]

hey philp, thanks ... yes, our FOH guy did a great job ... and budget was a huge concern when formulating a backup plan for this. would have love to had another recorder .. can never have to may things recording .. the MT was a luxury on this ..

cheers

john