From: (Mike Rivers)


There are DSP cards that can be added such as the TC Powercore (now
also available as a Firewire box - no screwing around in the case
required) and the Universal Audio UAD-1. They don't run every plug-in
in the book though, but have a pretty good selection of tools
available.

There are a couple of hardware boxes on the market now that run
plug-ins and can be used just like the rack mounted effect processors
that they are, integrating them with your computer by outside-world
connections, but I don't think that's what you're looking for.

Something like the powercore is exactly what I had in mind. The only problem
with that unit is that it supports VST, not DX. Whether this means that I can
use the Sonar wrapper to use this card, I know not. I can't find anything
referring to using the powercore in a DX capable DAW, with a VST wrapper. I
have Sonar 2, and while Sonar 3 claims VST support, if you read the details,
you'll see it's via the wrapper app. So, does anyone know if using the
powercore is possible with Sonar (2 or 3)?


-John Vice
www.summertimestudios.com

Mike Rivers )
in article znr1068552302k@trad wrote:

In article writes:

Not to mention that with certain programs like Logic Audio, there is a
latency introduced to any track that you process with the UAD card.
You have to insert the UAD comp-delay on all the other tracks to
compensate for this delay. 8 tracks is no problem, but it takes time
when you have 70 tracks, as I have found out.

That sounds like way too much work. If I had projects where I had to
mix 70 tracks, I'd take them to a studio that had a suitable console.

Of course latency is a problem with any digital system. It can be
reduced, adjusted for, and in some cases hidden from the user, but it
never disappears.


I think Cubase SX 2 has made a good stab at doing this right, with global
latency parameters for each plugin type/version, and it takes care of the
rest. I wonder if you can also do custom/user-definable inserts of
outboard gear too.

http://tinyurl.com/ul2d

IMO, it's at best 'disappointing' that this hasn't been the status quo
among DAW softwares for years, yada yada.

- Brian

In article ,
Ethan Winer ethanw at ethanwiner dot com wrote:
The idea of a custom DSP card has always been a turn-off for me. Any
proprietary system is always iffy - if they go out of business you're entire
investment is lost. If other companies don't support it, as Mike Rivers
pointed out, you can run only a limited number of things. There are too many
things that can go wrong. Versus getting a faster computer that can run
everything faster.

All that we do on computers is proprietary and of limited time value.
Every single thing you can think of seems to depreciate along the
IRS's 5 year plan quite accurately - i.e. it's worth nothing in 5
years.

There are rare exceptions, and in my experience, they _all_ involve
custom hardware. My aging Sonic SSP still works just fine - nobody
told it that it was obsolete - and that hardware is from '95 or so.
My NuVerb cards work just fine in a Mac from 1991, and they show no
signs of being obsolete.

I do however have boxes full of useless floppies that came with rather
expensive pieces of software that don't fit into the current software
framework, or have been orphaned by the manufacturer with no current
updates.

Get a new computer and some portion of your software breaks with no
hope of replacing it. It's really not anything you can do much about.
The only approach should be to buy what you can use now, do enough
work to pay for it and move along when you can't use it anymore.

But hey, differing opinions is what makes the world go 'round.

Yep...


Regards,

Monte McGuire

In article ,
Justin Ulysses Morse wrote:
So my suggestion would be to put
together a mid-line white box machine and throw a TDIF interface into
it so your "real" DAW can spit a few channels of audio into it for
fancy reverb and delay effects, then suck the returns back into the big
mix. I'm imagining maybe a $400 2GHz box here. That's got to be less
than you'd pay for an equal amount of PCI DSP power. You could even
make the 2nd box a G4 and run Altiverb on it.

I've never tried it, but I looked into it when there was no Altiverb
for ProTools TDM and I don't think it'll work so well.

Altiverb is primarily a convolutional reverb and you'd need to run a
considerable buffer size just to get some useful work out of most
machines. So, the resulting sound quality will not be anything like
what you'd get with Altiverb inserted on a track because of delays
caused by buffer latency. For example, only the first 512 samples of
an Altiverb preset are actually convolved - the rest are done with IIR
techniques. If your buffer size is 1024, then that 512 sample early
reflection stuff will be delayed by 1024 samples - this can hardly
sound like what it's supposed to sound like.

Of course, you can print the reverb and slip the track, but it's hard
to judge what to send to the 'verb when you can't really hear it in
realtime. Yeah, you could do it, but it'd be annoying and painful.

There's no
cross-platform compatibility issues if you're only sending digital
audio between them.

Hardware reverbs with digital IO (or even analog IO) are just fine for
this use. They also tend to retain their usefulness over time, unlike
anything software based. Heck, a recent plan of mine is to get a real
plate reverb to hook up to my DAW.

So, in many ways, I completely agree with you, except that I think a
general purpose computer isn't such a good outboard processor these
days because of the latency.


Regards,

Monte McGuire

John )
in article wrote:
From: Brian Takei

I was thinking that by keeping it digital the whole time (avoiding any a/d/d/a
conversions) would help minimize latency. Yes, no?

Definitely. Latency is a consequence of processing (all things take
time), so the less that is done, the less latency.

Personally, I think it's worth doing the excercice of measuring rountrip
latency out/into a specific DAW, because it's a pretty simple excercise,
and then you can use the results at will to determine for yourself if it
is significant in your own applications. If an application involves
mixing an outboard processed signal back in with its source, then any
latency is even more likely to be a problem (because of phase issues).

But don't let any such issues/possibilities deter you from just plugging
something in and seeing if you like the results, which is probably the
first thing (and maybe the last thing) you should do if you've got the
stuff to plug in.

As a sort of relevant side note -- as I said, I don't have much outboard
stuff, or 3rd party plugins. For various reasons, I've resisted the
temptations, and right now my strategy is to keep on resisting... until
my "penny saved" gear fund reaches the prevailing rate of a Kurzweil
KSP-8 (or better), which I estimate will be circa 2005. At that time, if
it's still important enough to me, "plunk", and I expect I'll be way more
than satisfied.

Regards,
- Brian

In article writes:

I think Cubase SX 2 has made a good stab at doing this right, with global
latency parameters for each plugin type/version, and it takes care of the
rest. I wonder if you can also do custom/user-definable inserts of
outboard gear too.

Probably, but the disappointment is that you have to do it. I don't
have to worry about latency because I don't use a computer for mixing
or signal processing, so to me it seems like a real pain in the butt
to get away with spending less money. But then I spent all my money 20
years ago. I can't afford computers or software plug-ins any more.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Monte P McGuire wrote:

If your buffer size is 1024, then that 512 sample early
reflection stuff will be delayed by 1024 samples - this can hardly
sound like what it's supposed to sound like.

What's 1024 samples to a reverb? Just set your predelay to 23mS less
than you otherwise would have (or 11mS if you run it at 96k). I can
see the problem with an EQ or compressor, but who cares about a dozen
or two millisex on a reverb? It's reverb! It's supposed to show up
fashionably late!

Okay, on occasions when you have to have a shorter predelay and you
have to have the sound of the Altiverb and you can't get the sound
you're looking for by slipping the reverb track after printing, then
you're forced instead to duplicate the dry track, slip one copy back,
and send it to the reverb while sending the "on time" track to the mix.
You still come out way ahead on processing power in your primary DAW.

ulysses