I'm opening a new studio and I figure I need a Pro Tools Hd rig.
Is the latest Pro tools 7 still rock solid stable?

Im hoping 15K can get me into a sweet Pro Tools HD rig

Advise please


Where to buy etc Pro cons etc..

How many I/O do you need? you could probably get into an HD2 system with 16 in/8 out and a bunch of plugs for that price. The quad G5s with PCIe now work with Pro Tools 7 and shouldn't cause any problems.

I want to start with 16 in and out.

I already got apogee

Ad-16x
Da-16x

Good Choice. We use those at our studio. Extremely reliable. If you are going to get the Big Ben, I would suggest getting the Sync I/O too!

Great! If you've already got the conversion that opens up your budget a bit for other things. Just get the Digi expansion cards for the Apogees and you're set. Will you need any kind of sync? The SyncIO is a good idea, but if you're not locking anything to PTHD (such as video or a tape machine) then the only purpose it will serve is to automatically force the Apogees to switch sample rates to match each session as it opens. This is a nice convenience, but may not be worth what it takes from your budget.

What els do you need for your system? MIDI I/O? Required Plugins? Are you set on a Mac or have you considered a PC? (dangerous question, I know)

Be careful the Quad's are full of a few issues. So I've heard anyways, check out Apples' website for people and their problems.

8 midi I/O would be all I need for a long time.

I hope pro tools midi timing is rock solid and much, much better than Steinberg!
Can I do all the cool midi stuff in Pro tools that I can in Nuendo?

I'm thinking about getting a 2 track tape machine
and a friend of mine has a 16 track, so
the tape sync option you are talking about sounds great.
So this would make transferring from pro tools to tape and back and forth
a breeze right?

I got a kick ass Dual Core Amd DAW already but I don't know if I want to be a guinea pig with Pro tools on a PC.

I have heard the latest Macs have heat problems and other issues as well as things not being quite as rock sold as they used to be, so I'm a little worried.
I just got to figure out exactly what Mac is rock solid proven and the one to get.

Also wondering if the latest Pro tools PCIe cards are the way to go.
Being future proofed is good but sometimes you can get
cut from being too cutting edge.

The bummer thing is Uad-1 has dropped support for pro tools. I got 3 uad-1s loaded and 3 TC powercore firewire + MK II etc
What am I going to do with these? I love the dimension D for widening things
Is there a Pro Tools plug-in that sounds this unique? I have also heard that the uad-1 plug-ins sound better than the pro tools equivalents. If I have to use a plug-in of an 1176, la2a or fairchild I want to use the best sounding one
not no Bombfactory sub par version.



Thanks for the replies guys keep'em coming please

Be carefull with using new style Mac computers with PT!!! Make sure the bugs are worked out.

You could lock up a tape machine to PTHD using a SyncIO in conjunction with a box to control the tape machine's motor speed. This, of course, requires that the machine have the option of being controlled externally.

Regarding Windows: I am a Mac guy through and through, but the Windows versions are truly stable now, as long as the system is configured correctly. The one caveaut here is that to the best of my knowledge, Digi doesn't really endorse ADM chips. Check out Digidesign.com/compato to see if your chipset is listed.

Plugins: No more TDM UA support is sad, but there are other plugs out there that do an excellent job. If you want to keep with the theme of outboard additional processing power, you might look into SSL's Duende platform or the upcoming Liquid Mix system from Focusrite.

The MIDIio from Digi will work great and provide 10 I/O. Unfortunately, MIDI is a serial technology, and is only accurate if nothing ever gets bottlenecked and backed up. PT has never been the leader of the pack as far as MIDI is concerned, but I've heard of good results with Digi's newest MIDI implementation.

I'll be the odd ball...But sounds like you have a nice setup.
I'd think about summing option and maybe so outboard color boxes...and stick with mixing in Nuendo and the Apogees...I myself would really miss those UAD's and the Nuendo audio engine.

The AD 16X already includes the Big Ben.

Using an HD 1 with a Quad Opteron here. I took a hybrid approach. HD 1 for the mix engine etc and the Quad handles all the RTAS plug-ins. Works like a dream and very very stable.

I have plug-in power that will last for days with my Quad Opteron.

Just to give you an idea of plug-in power I get from my quad, it will do 136 Dverbs on a benchmark test. I also have a few extra DSP for some of the TDM only plug-ins I like via the HD core card.

If you want to expand for cheap and get some more voices and DSP, you can get an original HD process card used in the $500 range.

And Digi fully endorses and supports AMD.

Shane

Just to throw in a wild-card .....

Why not run PT on a Windows machine? I've been running an HD4 rig on Windows XP for something over 18months and it is rock solid (currently at PT HD 7.1). It frees you up from the limitations of Mac hardware, PCI-Express etc., and means you can configure a very powerful machine for probably slightly less cash, with plenty of PCI slots and hard drive bays (4 HD Accel cards all fit in the box here, along with up to 8 hard drives). Overall it should save you some money which you can spend on interfaces, converters, w/clock etc.

Incidentally I also run a Mac G5 (2x2GHz) here, but personally wouldn't want PT on it - I use it for Logic. If you already have good converters, all you need is a 192 Digital IO to give you your 16 channels. I have 4 Digital IO's here plus a 192 and a 96i. All are great interfaces - the 192 converters are perfect for hardware inserts, and I use a Universal Audio 2192 as the main AD/DA on the mix buss.

Lots of negative feeling about Digi' and PT around here at the moment, but I have to say I have never looked back. With good plugins, this system is very hard to beat.

Jules

With a wicked fast PC, you'll be able to run 10 times as many RTAS plus as TDM off an HD 2. I think.

Wait, no, then you'll eat up all you're "voices". Damn.

No extra voices are used with my HD 1 and Quad Opteron using all RTAS plug-ins. The audio streams from the drive, then to the CPU for RTAS processing and then to the mix bus on the core card.


I get 96 tracks just the same as if it was an all TDM based system.


It works great for me and is rock solid stable.

Shane

Check and see if Auto-Delay-Compensation is working with the Apogee units and the PT 7 upgrades.

.........maybe the 192digital???

Hey Nuke. Shoot me an email regarding this. We just had a guy build a hybrid rig with the old AD-8000s. It's smokin'

Shane

will do Shane. I remember reading something about the ADC not working with the Apogee units and their HD adapter card. It will only work when using Digi's interfaces. So I was thinking that it might work if you had 3rd party converters connected to the 192D(digital version of the 192) interfaces. They are cheaper than the 192. But I guess it all depends on if the used feels that ADC is worth the extra money.

I may be wrong

Re: the ADC on Apogees - My dealer just told me that there's no difference btw. using HD cards or Digital 192. I think it makes a perfect sense - i assume it's the conversion process itself that introduces different latencies on different converter brands

PT sees any interface as a Digi interface and applies delay accordingly. since Apogee 16X interfaces are actually faster than Digi 192s, more delay is required.

from correspondence with Apogee:

can be done with a plug or by nudging the required amount of samples manually. i also understand PT applies different values to the first eight channels of 16X than to the second eight (because sees it as a Digi box). hope this helps.

Why is it that PT HD is always referred to as a 'Rig'?