Is Protools Hd Worth The Money?, upgrading, waiting or simply switching? Options

[Teiwaz]

A few more observations to clear my head on this matter.. For the shrinking minority out there who may be championing the use of PTHD systems, just exactly how many plug-in instanciations can one glean out of their system when it's running at a ridiculously high sample rate of 192khz? And to be worrying about the strain on your hard drive when exceeding 24 tracks? It would appear that one would end up with a very unwieldy system (a few hot & tired noisy audio drives would be part of it)...I thought the 21st century was about conservation and efficiency, not "build bigger roads and then make everyone buy SUV's..."



I heard of a well known producer/engineer using his Apogees with his TDM rig at 24/44.1 and that those who are "better informed" are aware that the quality & detail in hard disk recording is more attributable to bit depth rather than sample rate. And of course, being an accomplished engineer with good ears is 75% of a great mix anyhow!

Most PT people who own PTHD are generally still using their new system at 48khz or 44.1 anyway!! It's just like buying the latest Mercedes model just so they can "keep up with the jones's" next door!



PTHD people sometimes MIX to 24/96khz (so the little red light with 96khz written underneath it glows in the A&R man's/director's audio system in his office behind the walnut panelling...THEY will never know that the master files of the "96khz session" were recorded at 24/44.1, certainly not with their ears, that's for sure - it's all industry politics, this 96khz thing...VERY boring)



Here's another observation on TDM: I dont like the way TDM 'interrupts' the entire audio bus when enabling/disabling plug-ins/sends/i/o/etc. Hey, VST2 doesn't behave like that! I think that's quite a fundamental design fault right there! When maxing out the DSP farms, sometimes hitting the limit when inserting a TDM plug can actually cause the system to hang. What's all that about?! I never have that problem on VST2 either.



My VST2 mixes p**s all over my TDM mixes - I wonder why?!



Summary: Approach Dodgydesign with extreme caution. And then turn around, and walk in the opposite direction.