Protools 9 anounced - very interesting!

[Phil O'Keefe]

My biggest question is - what about I/O limitations with PT 9? LE was always limited to 18 channels of I/O. Now that LE is gone, and we have PT 9 and PT HD 9, what is the status of I/O counts? If I upgrade my MacBook to PT 9, and connect a 24 channel firewire interface to it, will I be able to access all 24 channels of I/O in the software?

[locust tree]

My biggest question is - what about I/O limitations with PT 9? LE was always limited to 18 channels of I/O. Now that LE is gone, and we have PT 9 and PT HD 9, what is the status of I/O counts? If I upgrade my MacBook to PT 9, and connect a 24 channel firewire interface to it, will I be able to access all 24 channels of I/O in the software?

Phil, my understanding from spending a good chunk of today poking around on the Avid site is that the number has been upped to 32 channels of I/O. Or at least, that's the number for simultaneous input channels. I can't imagine it would be any different for output.

This has got me jumping for joy as I mix through a 32 channel console.

Here's a good breakdown of the changes from LE 8.

[Gus Lozada]

My biggest question is - what about I/O limitations with PT 9? LE was always limited to 18 channels of I/O. Now that LE is gone, and we have PT 9 and PT HD 9, what is the status of I/O counts? If I upgrade my MacBook to PT 9, and connect a 24 channel firewire interface to it, will I be able to access all 24 channels of I/O in the software?

Oh yeah, Phil, I knew you were going to ask this...

... And this time I have great news for you, mah friend:

The amount of Simultaneous input channels have been increased to... 32!!!

At this very moment I'm not sure if it would accept multiple audio interfaces or only the max I/O from a single interface. As soon as I find it out, I'll post it here.

[Coaster]

wow, its like they came up with features i have had available to me for years(?) and you guys are excited?

 

i can already do 32 inputs, i already have ADC because i didn't buy my DAW from a company hell bent on reducing usefulness as an MO.

 

oh i understand; i remember being a pro tools 4.x.x drone back in 1999. i also remember that a lot of us woke up around 5.x when it started to become clear that PT was becoming a useless marketing game rather than a tool.

[MikeRivers]

 

I'm just saying that I suspect this is really bigger news to PT LE users (and indirectly to HD users, I guess), as well as however many folks have previously felt 'shut out' by the hardware requirements...

 

It'd definitely big news for LE users, because LE is going away. And because this is (and I have good reason to believe it) a re-write of substantial portions of the innards, Avid doesn't consider it to be an upgrade, but rather, a whole new program. LE isn't going beyond Version 8. If the LE user wants to move up, he'll have to buy a new program. Some will be pissed and leave the Empire, others will jump on to being able to have nearly all of the functions of an HD system available without upgrading their hardware until they're ready.

 

Perhaps Gus has access to the real numbers and can confirm this, but I'll hazard a guess that there are a whole lot more LE users than HD users.

[Philter]

i also remember that a lot of us woke up around 5.x when it started to become clear that PT was becoming a useless marketing game rather than a tool.

 

Interesting; right around the time Paul Simon recorded a record in ProTools and Trent Reznor switched over to ProTools.

[Goobers]

Guys Feel free to ask

thanks.

Does this mean there's no more need for the intermediary software level between OSX and digidesign, e.g. Digidesign CoreAudio Driver? So now ProTools and Digidesign hardware will access CoreAudio directly on a Mac? Digidesign CoreAudio driver is now officially dead?

I know that caused all sorts of problems when, for example, a software update from Apple could break compatibility.

[MikeRivers]

 

As long as your audio interface has ASIO drivers ( Windows 7 in PC) or CoreAudio ( Snow Leopard, Mac ) . . . . .

 

I asked someone who seemed to be pretty knowledgeable if they had tested it with ASIO4ALL. He said that (at least officially) they hadn't, but he knows enough about it to be able to say that it would almost certainly work, though there might be some annoyances like having to restart when changing things like buffer size. But once you settle on what works, there should be no reason to interrupt a working session.

 

They're presently undecided as to whether to publish a (necessarily incomplete) list of devices that work or to warn of devices with which they have encountered difficulty. It's still pretty new and I suspect that much of the early information will come from the early adopters.

 

And you know, of course, that early adopters always get screwed. Some of them just enjoy it more than others.

[MikeRivers]

T

It may be funny, but seriously: if you absolutely can't do your song using 96 stereo tracks, maybe you should consider another line of work.

Or revise your billing process. It used to cost more per hour for sessions on the 24-track recorder than on the 2-track recorder. If your projects require that many tracks, you're either having too much fun for your money or you're not charging enough to pay for an HD system.

 

Someone at a party last night was griping about just this same thing, however, and pointed out that there's a limit to the number of I/O streams as well as the number of tracks, and this drops as the project sample rate goes up. For example, if you send a stereo auxiliary bus mix out to an external reverb unit and then back in to your mix, that uses four streams (two out and two back). This guy likes to use a lot of outboard gear and is concerned that, since he can use more tracks with PT9 (and he knows he will) he'll want to have more outboard gear patched in, and may need to work at a lower sample rate in order to accommodate the I/O streaming limitations.

 

This is all cocktail napkin speculation, however. Someone needs to actually load test it and come up with some real numbers (about which someone will be concerned won't meet his needs).

[MikeRivers]

 

I wonder if Mackie's latest Onyx i-line of mixers coming out with their own driver to record to Pro Tools had anything to do with opening up this market.

 

I don't know how many M-Powered versions they sold to Mackie owners, but it was certainly a good market test. Regardless, Avid really had to get rid of the hardware lock-in in order to retain the low end users, which, while they each don't spend as much cash as the high end users, still brings in a significant amount of the total product line revenue.

 

I did ask specifically about the Onyx i series Firewire driver and the answer went something along the lines of: The native ASIO or Core Audio driver should work fine, and that with the "add-on" that allows it to work with M-powered Pro Tools, it will be seen by PT9 as an M-Audio interface just as it did with the M-Powered Pro Tools.

 

I'll add that since I'm not really sure who I was talking with at the Avid booth, it just may have come out of the other end of the horse, If you're concerned (and you should be) I'd wait for an actual live report from an actual live user before buying $600 worth of software that might sit on the shelf for a while.

[MikeRivers]

 

Gus: Can you explain what you mean by "wasn't really a successful experiment"?" I haven't read anything anywhere about an inability of the I-series mixers to record to Pro Tools.

 

On the technical side, I don't believe there were any but the usual batch of general Firewire incompatibility problems (which will continue to be a problem with Firewire audio devices - it's not a Pro Tools problems). If there was anything less than successful from a business standpoint, my guess would be that Mackie's Onyx sales didn't jump way up because of the ability to use the mixers with Pro Tools.

[UstadKhanAli]

Is there any difference in the summing engines, or anything new?

[Gus Lozada]

thanks. Does this mean there's no more need for the intermediary software level between OSX and digidesign, e.g. Digidesign CoreAudio Driver? So now ProTools and Digidesign hardware will access CoreAudio directly on a Mac? Digidesign CoreAudio driver is now officially dead? I know that caused all sorts of problems when, for example, a software update from Apple could break compatibility.

Well, "officially dead" sounds too tragic
But yes, it now handles CoreAudio directly.

[CME]

Is there any difference in the summing engines, or anything new?

 

 

So far I don't think there's been anything official said. However some people did notice that supposedly the on board mixer of the new HD Native card was 64-bit. Still no news officially about PT9 though. At least that I've heard. FWIW I'm loving the idea of getting something like an Apogee Ensemble and recording directly into PT9. Yes I could have already done this with logic, but I started on PT and never wanted to spend the $$ to test logic.

[Bookumdano2]

More competition is always good for we hungry consumers.

I've never followed ProTools stuff since it was out of my investment-vs-return range from day one. I'm probably not completely grasping this, but at the risk of sounding like a basher...

Near as I can tell, for $600, there's no automation of any type for your mixing (it's simply not there !!), can't use vst plugins (I guess that's the way this works), can only use 3rd party made-for-protools-only plugs on something other than this version ... you still have to buy something called a toolkit to do stuff that's normally built in to other brands. And I've looked at the chart about three times now, and it even looks like there's no solo. I must not be looking at the Avid charts correctly. I'll be very happy for anyone to tell me I'm mis-reading the features list.

The video demo says "why would you perhaps want to move to one of our interface based versions? .... for more reliability etc etc ). More reliability? Dunno what that means.

If I were thinking of moviing to ProTools (which I'm not) , this seems to be more like a $600 demo. It actually seems the more long-term cost effective way to really get in is to stick with their interface based versions where you have all the access to the bells and whistles (including bread & butter stuff you'd expect standard like automation).

Otherwise, this kind of reminds me of the old Pro Tools Free deal Digi had 10 or 15 years ago. Except this is Pro Tools free for $600.

Maybe I'm missing a bigger picture here or the value to an existing Pro Tools user. Dunno. I'm still waiting for Bruce to talk about manual mixing on the old Chi-Lites stuff.

[Gus Lozada]

You are SERIOUSLY missing a lot of information !

 

* No automation? No "Solo"? Come on, you must be kidding here. In case you are not, I'd recommend just taking a more serious look to what the software is.

 

* No VSTs - Right. Pro Tools format is RTAS but you can "translate" any VST into RTAS via Fxpansion's Translator.

 

* The whole enchilada about Pro Tools 9 is precisely offering stuff that was previously available only through additional toolkits, at the "basic" version. And no proprietary hardware required.

 

* "More Reliability" as in "made for Pro Tools" so they communicate with a propietary driver instead than a generic ASIO / CoreAudio driver.

[Coaster]

More competition is always good for we hungry consumers. I've never followed ProTools stuff since it was out of my investment-vs-return range from day one. I'm probably not completely grasping this, but at the risk of sounding like a basher... Near as I can tell, for $600, there's no automation of any type for your mixing (it's simply not there !!), can't use vst plugins (I guess that's the way this works), can only use 3rd party made-for-protools-only plugs on something other than this version ... you still have to buy something called a toolkit to do stuff that's normally built in to other brands. And I've looked at the chart about three times now, and it even looks like there's no solo. I must not be looking at the Avid charts correctly. I'll be very happy for anyone to tell me I'm mis-reading the features list. The video demo says "why would you perhaps want to move to one of our interface based versions? .... for more reliability etc etc ). More reliability? Dunno what that means. If I were thinking of moviing to ProTools (which I'm not) , this seems to be more like a $600 demo. It actually seems the more long-term cost effective way to really get in is to stick with their interface based versions where you have all the access to the bells and whistles (including bread & butter stuff you'd expect standard like automation). Otherwise, this kind of reminds me of the old Pro Tools Free deal Digi had 10 or 15 years ago. Except this is Pro Tools free for $600. Maybe I'm missing a bigger picture here or the value to an existing Pro Tools user. Dunno. I'm still waiting for Bruce to talk about manual mixing on the old Chi-Lites stuff.

 

 

wow, sounds like an awesome deal. i think i will stick with a real daw that i currently use.

[Gus Lozada]

Misinformed angry Coaster is misinformed and angry

[Coaster]

burn me twice, shame on - you cant burn me a third time(?)

[Geoff Grace]

As a longtime Pro Tools user (and a Logic and DP user), I'd like to interject that there's a fair amount of incorrect conjecture in this thread. If you want to know more about the software, ask Gustavo. As an Avid rep, he knows what Pro Tools is capable of.

Previous low-end versions of Pro Tools were handicapped in a few ways, with each new release holding back less than its predecessors. At this point, I see no serious limitations at all with the new software version. I'm a more than satisfied customer, and I'll happily upgrade to version 9.

No program is for everyone; and if others here prefer something else, that's great. If you have some venting to do about the software or the company, that's fine too. All I ask is that we start a new thread for venting and leave this thread for people who'd like to get up to speed on Pro Tools 9. This signal to noise ratio here is really high.

(The same goes for Mac venting/bashing in Mac new release threads and PC venting/bashing in Windows new release threads. As longtime members here know, I've made this type of request in those threads too.)

Thanks.

Best,

Geoff

[protools9]

I have been looking forward to this product coming out pro tools 9, and will definatley buy when i have the money

Anyway , do you guys think it will be as good as all the press are saying?

[Bookumdano2]

...............You are SERIOUSLY missing a lot of information !
* No automation? No "Solo"? Come on, you must be kidding here. In case you are not, I'd recommend just taking a more serious look to what the software is............


Hey I know. Like I said, I could be way off on features there or not there , but as I go down this page link below and see all those places where there is no check mark for stuff like solo, automation, grouping, it's real confusing. Probably much more clear for day to day users -
http://www.avid.com/us/products/family/Pro-Tools/compare

[Phil O'Keefe]

I'd like to interject that there's a fair amount of incorrect conjecture in this thread.

 

That's an understatement Geoff.

[Ernest Buckley]

Well, they're just thinking about their future, I'm sure. I strongly suspect they keep their finger on the pulse of the metrics. I mean, what else does parent company AVID have to do with their time? It seems to me they had to finally bring their feature set up to arguable parity with other DAWs. The LE franchise was clearly running out as it has existed. And while HD has some inarguable merits, it's really priced itself out of all but the high end project and commercial studio markets. By unhobbling the basic hosted DAW's feature set they finally allow it to compete with the other DAWs which, my guess is, have been kicking LE's backside in aggregate sales. Logic alone was never the PT-killer that some people tried to wish it to be, but when you consider Logic and Cubase and Sonar and Reaper together, you see a group of competitors that even an able giant like Digi had clear trouble battling -- at least not with those self-applied hobbles on.

Yup, this is strictly a means to an end which is all about competing with the other DAWs which are clearly in the lead with most recordists: home/project studios.

PT simply priced themselves out of the market for most recordists. This is their attempt to get back in the game.

[Gus Lozada]

Hey I know. Like I said, I could be way off on features there or not there , but as I go down this page link below and see all those places where there is no check mark for stuff like solo, automation, grouping, it's real confusing. Probably much more clear for day to day users - http://www.avid.com/us/products/family/Pro-Tools/compare

 

 

Now I understand.

It mentions "advanced" automation, PFL SOLO, etc. Those are exclusively |HD features. Indeed, could be confusing for someone not familiar with the product at all. Sorry if this was the case.

 

But the common, standard automation, SOLO, etc... are built-in since the origin of the program, just like in every other current DAW.