Time to upgrade from ProTools Mix3, looking for advice

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AusTex64

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Jun 3, 2013
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Please help the elderly.

I Have two ProTools Mix3 systems running on OS9 - one at the studio, one at home. Allows me edit, overdub and comp at home. I have a beautiful ProControl at the studio I'm quite attached to. Not ready to abandon it yet.

Thinking it's time to upgrade. Appears ProTools 10 is the last rev that will support my ProControl. I'm not sure exactly what I need to upgrade to, except that it can't be later than PT10 to support my ProControl. I have questions:

- thinking I should get HD3 cards. They are affordable enough. I want to be able to do 96K sessions, as I do a lot of acoustic music. No post. Also am concerned about latency, which also points me towards HD3. Avoiding HD Native for this reason. Am I mistaken?

- I'm a Mac guy. what Mac Pro should I get? Was thinking a 12 core Westmere, but they are still holding their value pretty well. Do I really need that if I'm going HD3, or would a quad core be OK? Keep in mind I have to buy 2 systems.

- big fan of Peak for using my ProTools plug ins. What would I replace it with for 2 channel editing for CD mastering?

Thank you knowledgeable ProTools users in advance for your input, I really appreciate it.
 
Racing out the door here but if you really want to maintain the Pro Control then just get the latest versions of everything that supports Pro Tools 10

- Mac Pro 4..1 or 5.1 with SSD system drive
- HD3  Accel PCIe (or PCI with Magma chassis as I had)
- The very last build of Pro Tools 10 (10.3.1 IIRC)
- Digidesign / Avid 192io (change fan if they will be in the room with you)

I ran this rig for quite a few years and it was rock solid. 

 
HD native vs HD3 is not so clear cut with latency.  HD native can actually be better with high sample rates and low buffers. HD3 would have the edge with larger sessions and lots of plugins.

It's unfortunate about the Pro Control. But if you get a Pro Tools 12 license it also usually comes bundled with 10 as well,  so this would give you some flexibility,  but at an increased cost.

I use a PC so can't really give any Mac insight.

Is changing the fans on the 192s viable? I've avoided them specifically due to the noise issues.
 
john12ax7 said:
Is changing the fans on the 192s viable? I've avoided them specifically due to the noise issues.

Absolutely, I first modded mine maybe 10 years ago with a Noctua fan.  When that got noisy around 4 years ago I replaced with a SilenX.  It's not quite drop in with connectors but I think you would be wildly overqualified for the task  :)

To the O.P. - You'll be pretty astonished at the sonic difference coming from a Mix rig, another friend and holdout made the update recently and it was pretty profound.
 
Thanks guys for your replies and advice. I am getting more and more stoked about making the jump.

I currently own an Apogee Rosetta 800. Silent (no fans), one rack space and also sounds great. I’ve read ADC won’t work correctly with it, but I read the manual where it says to add offsets for different sample rates and it works fine. Comments?

It’s cool to hear about the better audio quality. Couldn’t hurt. My main motivation is to be able to utilize modern plug ins and 24/96 sessions.
 
AusTex64 said:
I currently own an Apogee Rosetta 800. Silent (no fans), one rack space and also sounds great. I’ve read ADC won’t work correctly with it, but I read the manual where it says to add offsets for different sample rates and it works fine. Comments?

The ADC never worked correctly in 10 in my experience, with either plugs ins or hardware (Digidesign or 3rd party with offsets).  I learned never to trust it.

I know you are happy with your Rosetta but as an aside I would much prefer to record and mix with a stock Digidesign 192 io than the Rosetta.  Just yesterday I was reminded of the sound of the older Apogee units while troubleshooting an issue at a composers studio, using my portable Prism was a significant improvement.

 
Does the apogee have a digilink connection and can you get updated drivers for it? I would avoid having to manually input delay numbers,  just get something that works as is.

The avid units obviously will work.  I've been using lynx aurora with HD native and 12. Fanless and works well,  they are cheaper these days since the newer (n)  version came out.

You are attached to the pro control,  but for plugins and overall performance I much prefer 64 bit pro tools 12 to 32 bit pro tools 10. But then again I never used 10 HD, I went from 10 to 12 to 12 HD. (11 was a disaster imo)
 
A note on buying old Digi HD cards.
We found some of ours developed faults over time where they would have issues running sessions at anything above 48kHz.
Started off flaky, sessions loosing  sync mid record to massive full scale white noise out of every output.
It's a 'known' fault on old cards. Possibly can be repaired but we traded the duff ones for HDX discounts before trying.
Test them before you buy!


 

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