Pro tools HD Systems

Editor's Notes

• #4: Pro Tools established itself early on when most of the other players didn't really step up. PT was one of the first systems that didn't rely on Native CPU power to run. It just was not an option to run a professional session with a native solution DAW rig when hard disk recording first came into play. Things are a little different today, with the advent of dual cpu machines and multi core CPU's we are beginning to approach acceptable processing power to run a DAW natively. Because it was a system that was adopted early, it became the system of choice for many professional audio engineers. Editing capabilities way better than any thing else at the time. People loved it's editing features and the automation. It's user interface was well designed. There might be other opinions on this matter, but these are the factors that I think led to it's dominance. Because PT is still a standard in professional studios, arguments have been made that it is the better choice in commercial studio environments, but that is a whole other can of worms.
• #5: Audient studios require a sound knowledge of signal flow around the studio Pro tools work flow optimised for recording
• #6: Unlike USB- or FireWire-based DAWs, which are inherently prone to latency, Pro Tools|HD Native employs either a high-speed Thunderbolt interface or PCIe core card to connect Pro Tools HD Series interfaces with your laptop or desktop computer. By eliminating distracting monitor latency while recording, increasing your I/O capabilities, and providing 64-bit floating-point processing for more headroom and a higher mix resolution, you get a professional native solution that meets the highest audio standards. Pro tools work flow optimised for recording The mixing desk is replace with a controller surface.
• #8: A total of 16 inputs and outputs
• #9: Input Trims - The Input Trims below the two DB–25 connectors on the Analog In card are used to store two different calibration settings (A and B) for each channel. These two adjustable Input Trims are for precisely calibrating and switching between a choice of independently adjustable headroom settings for each channel. You can adjust each Input Trim by hand with a small screwdriver. DB-25 (D-Sub connections)
• #10: Meters These four-segment LEDs indicate signal level for each of the sixteen channels. The top row of meters indicates input levels, and the bottom row shows output levels. These meters are calibrated at –42 dB, –18 dB, –6 dB, and 0 dB, respectively.
• #11: DigiSerial Port The DigiSerial port on the Accel Core (for PCIe) card is for connecting a Digidesign SYNC I/O. This connector is an 8-pin mini-DIN. DigiLink Port The HD Core (for PCI) card includes a single DigiLink port for connecting up to 32 channels of audio input and output to your Pro Tools|HD system. Pro Tools systems have long relied on dedicated DSP cards to handle most audio processing, due to the fact that at the time Pro Tools was first developed, consumer-level computers were not powerful enough to process high-end digital audio.[15] An HD Core PCI card or an Accel Core PCIe card is required in a HD 1 system; the inclusion of one or two additional Accel cards upgrades the system to HD 2 or 3 respectively, and increases the system's overall processing power, allowing for higher track counts and more plug-ins. An 'Expansion HD' product increases capability up to a total of 7 cards using Digidesign's PCI-X expansion chassis product, which is available with both PCI-X and PCIe host cards for the computer. All Pro Tools HD card variants contain a combination of 9 DSP chips from the Motorola 56k family. Some chips manage track playback, while other, different chips perform mixing and signal processing operations. At launch Pro Tools HD cards were called HD Process cards. Approximately 2 years later, the HD Process cards were replaced by the HD Accel card, which was designed around a faster variant of the Motorola DSP chip and provided approximately twice the signal processing power per card.
• #13: Monitoring. Analogue outputs on 192 connected to Control 24 monitoring section. If there was no controller surface you would connect the analogue outputs directly into your monitors.
• #17: Taken from the Pro Tools quick start guide Typical set up Monitoring - 192 outputs - Control 24 - Speakers
• #19: Home cinema configuration Sub is called LFe
• #22: SYNC I/O is a multipurpose synchronisation unit for Pro Tools systems. The SYNC I/O supports all Pro Tools sample rates, and synchronizes to all major time code and clock reference standards used in audio, video, film, and multimedia production. We have these in CB 204/302/402
• #24: No matter what kind of Pro Tools system you use, somewhere or other in your studio there's a piece of hardware whose contribution is to mark the passage of time. This might be the timing crystal in your Mix system's 888/24 interface, or your computer's internal clock in a Pro Tools Free setup. Obviously, if Pro Tools is recording or playing back audio at, say, 44100 samples per second, it has to have a way of telling
• #25: No matter what kind of Pro Tools system you use, somewhere or other in your studio there's a piece of hardware whose contribution is to mark the passage of time. This might be the timing crystal in your Mix system's 888/24 interface, or your computer's internal clock in a Pro Tools Free setup. Obviously, if Pro Tools is recording or playing back audio at, say, 44100 samples per second, it has to have a way of telling
• #26: Ever noticed in some software that your timeline starts at 1 hour? Many machines do not support negative time code, so to have the possibility of later adding credits or pick-up notes or lead-in, whatever, the industry standard is to start at 1 hour. Also when it come to syncing to hardware (chasing a video deck, etc. Software needs some 'lead time' to get all the clocks synced together.
• #29: National Television System Committee (NTSC)
• #30: Essentially, MTC follows the same format as SMPTE in that it is independent of musical tempo and expresses elapsed time in hours, minutes, seconds and frames, and all the common SMPTE variants have an MTC equivalent. MTC stands for MIDI Time Code.  Its a series midi messages that tells other devices what time it is at any given moment in hours, minutes, seconds and frames. MTC is simply understood as a conversion of SMPTE timecode that goes down a MIDI cable.  It is sent in quarter frame intervals as MIDI system exclusive data.
• #31: Difference between MTC and Clock is that clock is tempo based
• #32: Master/Slave relationship. Could be any software. This is the set up we have in CB202 as we have no dedicated sync unit.
• #34: Try Synchronising Radar to Pro Tools in the Audient studios
• #35: Native plug-ins are designed to work by using the processor within the host computer. Common examples are those in the popular VST, Audio Units with numerous native plug-ins available for both Mac and PC platforms. Because the same CPU that runs your native plug-ins also has to run your audio recording and MIDI sequencing, the available processing power has to be shared between all these activities. If a large amount of audio processing is being used in real time, it may be impossible for a single computer processor to cope with the calculation speeds required -- one processor sometimes isn't enough! For this reason, some manufacturers have developed audio processing hardware for handling processing-intensive audio functions, such as the running of plug-ins. These are usually based around a PCI card on which are a number of specialised high-power Digital Signal Processors (DSP). Because there are many types of DSP chip and operating system, the plug-ins designed for use with such audio processing hardware will normally only work in conjunction with that specific platform. For example, Digidesign have their own proprietary plug-in formats, each of which work only with their respective hardware. is a format of audio plug-in developed by Digidesign, currently Avid Technology for their Pro Tools LE, and Pro Tools M-Powered systems, although they can be run on Pro Tools HD and Pro Tools TDM systems. RTAS plug-ins use the processing power of the host computer rather than DSP cards used in the Pro Tools HD systems.[1] As the name suggests, the plug-in architecture is designed to be run in real-time, mimicking hardware inserts on traditional mixing console. This is in contrast to rendering files out of time with effects applied directly to the audio, which in Pro Tools is facilitated by AudioSuite Plug-ins.