largest session ITB

[tomwehrle]

What's the largest session you've done inside of ProTools (or whatever application you're using)...and by largest I mean, how many tracks, length, plugins (also auxs if you can remember).

I'm wondering if anyone has ever done anything as big as a live cd and if ProTools and if it can handle say 34 tracks at an hours length. The other reason why I ask this is cause I'd like to know what I can expect out of it, thanks.

[macr0w]

Originally Posted by djui5

largest session I've worked with on an HD rig was well over 100 tracks. Don't remember the aux and plug counts though..

For live stuff, I've recorded live shows with both an LE and an HD rig. The LE rig ran 24 tracks I believe for 4 hrs straight without a problem. The HD rig ran 24 tracks for a couple of hours at 96K without a problem..

I wonder what you used to record 24 tracks at once in le? None of the digi interfaces have more than 18 i/o. I have done 16 at once for 2 hours solid with no trouble in le. I'm sure HD will do much better. Get your self a "Venue" and go to town.

[tomwehrle]

that's really good, I have a mix plus system running in os 9, but not for long, and I couldnt open 24 tracks for 45 mins...its a pain in the butt to split tracks, make multiple sessions and do all the eqs the same etc, so they all match for the live mixdown...i'm gonna go up to version 6.4 in osx though, and i'm hoping it helps out

[rickrock305]

largest session I've done was well over 100 tracks, close to 150 i believe. It was just average song length though, and we were tracking only, so no real major plugin usage.

[Dave Peck]

Lately there are more and more film projects being done entirely on huge PT or Nuendo rigs with several hundred tracks. That's probably where you'll see the biggest projects.

DP

[tomwehrle]

Originally Posted by Dave Peck

Lately there are more and more film projects being done entirely on huge PT or Nuendo rigs with several hundred tracks. That's probably where you'll see the biggest projects.

DP

man I can't imagine trying to mix something like that without a controller of some sort...geez 100 tracks, thats a lot going on

[Dave Peck]

Originally Posted by joemeekfreak

man I can't imagine trying to mix something like that without a controller of some sort...geez 100 tracks, thats a lot going on

Oh yes, they're using controllers. Big ones like ICONs and Euphonix MC. I don't understand how anybody gets productive results mixing ANY amount of tracks without a controller (or an analog desk, but that's a hundred other threads).

But the question was ITB track count, and controling a DAW from a digital control surface is still digital summing ITB.

DP

[sounddevisor]

Originally Posted by joemeekfreak

that's really good, I have a mix plus system running in os 9, but not for long, and I couldnt open 24 tracks for 45 mins...its a pain in the butt to split tracks, make multiple sessions and do all the eqs the same etc, so they all match for the live mixdown...i'm gonna go up to version 6.4 in osx though, and i'm hoping it helps out

Hey, joemeekfreak,

You should have no trouble opening a 24-track, 45 min. session on a mix plus rig, even under OS9. Going to v6.4 may help (it'll help plenty of other things, for sure!) but I would wonder the problem might lie elsewhere - what kind of hard drive setup do you have?

[tomwehrle]

Originally Posted by sounddevisor

Hey, joemeekfreak,

You should have no trouble opening a 24-track, 45 min. session on a mix plus rig, even under OS9. Going to v6.4 may help (it'll help plenty of other things, for sure!) but I would wonder the problem might lie elsewhere - what kind of hard drive setup do you have?

I have 3 hard drives, the main one the OS is running off of, I don't use it for recording though. I have a SCSI 10,000rpm 20 gig that I'll use as well as a external 250 gig firewire drive (which I think is a 7,500rpm drive) I've tried multiple times importing a lot of tracks recorded else where to mix them down, and everytime, I've had to seperate the files up...its been a few months since I've done this sort of thing, and from what I've read, I should split the tracks up on the different harddrives (which i hadnt done) so i'll try that next time, but I have also read of other who have played a lot of tracks off one harddrive, so i dont know, it is a older G4 867mhz (NOT dual) and has 1.5 gigs of ram...for most my normal recording which consist of 20-40 tracks at 5-6 mins, I never have any problems, its only been when importing that amount of tracks and them being an 45-70 mins long...hope that explains things better

[Chris Kress]

We do a ton of live mixing stuff - 48 tracks for most of it. We have chosen to split each song into its own folder (session). The last time we tried in pro tools (about a year ago), 1 hour long audio files made editing sluggish. We found the problems to exist even with fast SCSI drives.. We use 15k SCSI drives in general.

[Bishbashbosh]

Originally Posted by joemeekfreak

I have 3 hard drives, the main one the OS is running off of, I don't use it for recording though. I have a SCSI 10,000rpm 20 gig that I'll use as well as a external 250 gig firewire drive (which I think is a 7,500rpm drive) I've tried multiple times importing a lot of tracks recorded else where to mix them down, and everytime, I've had to seperate the files up...its been a few months since I've done this sort of thing, and from what I've read, I should split the tracks up on the different harddrives

Digi specifically recommend NOT mixing different drive types, with audio files spread around the different drives. http://www.digidesign.com/compato/os9/hd/drivereq.html

Your SCSI drive should be able to play back more than 50 tracks of 44.1 or 48 if there's medium edit density.

A SATA drive (7200 RPM) should be able to give you 80+ tracks.

Even your FW400 drive should give 40+ tracks..... obviously this is subject to sample and bit rate, and also edit density.... but 34 tracks shouldn't be out of the realms of possibility just using the FW drive.

[Matt Hepworth]

About 150 tracks natively in 16bit. That was my first serious project. Album turned out well. Typically, I'll run about 55 tracks and about 85 plug-ins at 24/44.

Now that I've got better plug-ins, they down a bit more CPU. My DAW was not too happy the other day at 85 tracks and about 100 plug-ins. About 90% CPU (and I use a UAD-1) and about 30-80% disk.

[doug_hti]

finishing a project now that has well over 150 tracks for 3 out of the 4 tracks, with one of them over 8 minutes. I'm attempting to submix down to less than 64 tracks, but have had to continually reopen submixes to make changes....making my mind go around in circles....

uggghhhh

[blaugruen7]

how do you guys get so many tracks?

[C Heat]

Originally Posted by blaugruen7

how do you guys get so many tracks?

Precisely.

[tomwehrle]

yeah, I can't imagine having that many tracks because i assume more tracks equal more ideas and things going on...over the past few weeks I've been thinking about what makes a good album, and I think I personally like the more simplistic ones most the times as opposed to the big production ones, i know a different subject

but yeah, about my harddrives and not being able to play back 30 something tracks at 24/44 in pro tools under os 9, I'm justing hoping in os 10 in PT ver 6.4 I'll do better...I reformatted my scsi drive too, and as per the "digi says you shouldnt mix hard drives" yeah, digi also would like for me to buy there hard drives that are a thousand dollars or whatever, one word for that = LAME
Personally, stuff like that, I take with a grain of salt from digi, i'm not saying it won't affect it, but still, what in the world could be that bad about mixing a scsi drive for some tracks and firewire drive for the rest...and just so ya know, when I was trying to run those all those tracks in one session, it was on one drive, i should have tried splitting it up on different drives but didnt think about that, now that I think about it, i got some sort of error from protools that made me quit it and restart my computer before protools could be opened again, thats when i knew my session was to big, so i chopped up all the audio files into seperate songs, so the live cd had 14 songs and i did it in 13 sessions (1 session had 2 songs in it cause one was really short)

[PeeWeeGee]

Originally Posted by blaugruen7

how do you guys get so many tracks?

You'd be amazed at the RIDICULOUS demands that some clients can come up with.
Ex: Client: "Can you break my vocals (4 part harmony) into phrase and have each one on a seperate track?"

Me: "It can be done, but why would you want to do that? It makes mixing a real headache. I can control practically anything you'd need to change with automation."

Client: "I dont understand automation."

Me: "That's what you pay me for."

Client: "Can you just break it out?"

Me: "You're the boss."

Result: 14 tracks of music. 117 tracks of fragmented vocals. HUGE bottle of Tylenol.

PWG

[PRobb]

I mixed a children's television show that was a mix of live action and animation. it was a series of sketches with unique dialog, fx and music for each. The track count was in the 90s and I used 30 busses. There was some voice sharing, but obviously there was very high edit density. It ran smoothly, with video from a separate drive, but took FOREVER to open.

[Bishbashbosh]

Originally Posted by joemeekfreak

"digi says you shouldnt mix hard drives" yeah, digi also would like for me to buy there hard drives that are a thousand dollars or whatever, one word for that = LAME
Personally, stuff like that, I take with a grain of salt from digi, i'm not saying it won't affect it, but still, what in the world could be that bad about mixing a scsi drive for some tracks and firewire drive for the rest

Because the system will struggle to access audio through two busses which run at different speeds.
Of course you don't have to take Digi's advice. But the advice would be the same for Nuendo and Logic.... It only comes up on the Digi website because HD3 systems are actually CAPABLE of running sessions this size.
As far as AVID's own drives, yes they are expensive, but they are also very well made (especially compared to other cheaper manufacturers).
Not sure what's LAME about that.
You seem to be seeing some sort of conspiracy that's not actually there.

[David Lee]

We have recorded over 180 live shows at our venue. With that, we have done 4 live albums, one feature length music documentary, and all the material for our website promotional videos. I usually don't go over 24 tracks, with the shows being 3-4 hours long at 48k/24b. most shows span from being 20GB to 50 or 60GB...almost 8TB total of recordings. Lots of fun stuff.

[JHJ]

I have a HD 2 excell G4 dual 1 gig If I have 30 tracks and 3 plugs on each comp,eq ,phoenix and 4 aux imputs master fader with 5 inserts I get the not enough dsp.

What am I doing wrong? How should I have my dsp set ?

[Berolzheimer]

I'm doing sound effects predubs on a movie right now, on one 20 minute reel I exceeded the allowable track count (what is it, 198?) and ran out of buses (128).

With sends, many 5.1 submasters & record buses, etc.
in a PT 6.9.1, accel3 + one hd process

24bit, 48k

[picksail]

My biggest ITB session exceded 160 tracks. Sixty-two of which were vocals/BVs.

I unfortunatley, didn't get to mix the record the way I intended, but is wasn't my record. The artist had the final word.

[picksail]

Originally Posted by blaugruen7

how do you guys get so many tracks?

It happens when you begin to separate the tracks according to verse, bridge, chorus, interlude etc. I have a habit of doing things 'over-the-top'. It's not uncommon to cut 6-10 tracks of a single vocal, mutliplied by however many harmonies and vocalsts. It's much easier to manage and process this way, in my opinion.