Audio Ease - Getting the most out of Altiverb & ProTools

arjen

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Getting the most out of Altiverb & ProTools
22. Sep 2005 at 10:34

As a response to several questions here and in direct mail to audio ease:

The more seconds of reverb the more strain on your cpu.
The smaller the hardware buffersize the more strain on your cpu.
The more channels of reverb the more strain on your cpu.
The more instances of Altiverb the more strain on your cpu.

So to do things efficiently (assuming we'll not use high latency mode, which is impractical for post pro.)

- Use mono-in to stereo-out Altiverbs rather than stereo to stereo ones. Especially when Altiverb is inserted in an AUX, you will get away with this sonically.
- a protools playback buffer of 512 samples or higher is recommended. expect to run up to 15 altiverbs at 48 kHz in one session on a g5 this way.
- Use Lesser Altiverbs in Aux channels rather than flipping one in every track you need a bit of ambience on. Rather than that send several tracks to 1 bus and put an Altiverb in there.
- when you use Altiverb in an aux, check the left bottom most checkbox in the Altiverb interface where it says: Load as aux. It will turn wet dry to wet and direct gain to -144 dB.

There may be a chance that you’ve previously installed the ProTools file called
StreamManager_128 instead of the regularly installed one. In that case Altiverb 5 will put a lot
more strain on your CPU. You can solve this by to manually removing the StreamManager_128
version from your /Library/Application Support/Digidesign/
folder before installing the regular one from the original ProTools disk.
For higher sample rates (88.2KHz and up) the _128 Stream Manager is not supported.

To reduce the amount of seconds calculated out of a reverb sample you may indeed cut the tail at, say, -80 dB. Often our samples go down to -120, which is nice for classical recordings, but overkill for most others. Do that by clicking the CPU tab and turning the Tail Cut knob.

On the first g5 that entered the market, the smallest single cpu one at 1.6 gig, a typical postpro verb will eat 6 to 7 percent of your CPU. A concert hall of 6 seconds takes up to 12 percent. You can almost half these values for modern top notch G5's.

Automatable parameters show up in the automation menu when you click AUTO in pro-tools plug-in head right on top of the altiverb interface.
You can switch on individual parameters to be automated there.
They are: master in and out level, all EQ parameters, front and rear levels, and snapshot (load a full preset including the impulse response, introduces a short silence)
All other parameters interrupt audio and can therefore not be automated safely.

Arjen

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krish AE Newbie Posts: 6 Gender:	missing automation parameter in PT LE 7.3.1 Reply #1 - 10. May 2007 at 14:13 Hi Im using altiverb 6.0.6 with PT LE 7.3.1 on a MAC PRO running OSX 10.4.9. I'm missing automation snapshots as a automation parameter, don't know if it was there before upgrading to PT 7.3.1, but it seems to be a bug anyway. I need to automate snapshots within 2 weeks:)
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Aram YaBB Administrator Posts: 2153 Gender:	Re: Getting the most out of Altiverb & ProTools Reply #2 - 11. May 2007 at 12:22 Hi, In Altiverb 6 this parameter is called: Automation Preset Index. Aram Audio Ease
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krish AE Newbie Posts: 6 Gender:	Re: Getting the most out of Altiverb & ProTools Reply #3 - 11. May 2007 at 13:33 Thanks for answering, but that parameter isn't there either
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Aram YaBB Administrator Posts: 2153 Gender:	Re: Getting the most out of Altiverb & ProTools Reply #4 - 11. May 2007 at 14:50 could it be that you're using a control surface?? this is a bug in the current Altiverb, we're solving it. The next update should fix this. Aram Audio Ease
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krish

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Re: Getting the most out of Altiverb & ProTools
Reply #5 - 11. May 2007 at 17:34

Thanks, I was using a presonus faderport, and the automation list was largely increased turning the controller off. However, removing the controller and being able to automate wasn't very pleasing: automation written for gains, reverb time etc is not read during playback, and snapshots are only read ocassionally, most of the time the system stops and I get error messages from protools.

As a citizen of Oslo I love the sound of the vigeland masoleum which appear in the altiverb demo, but I can't find the impulse... does it exist?

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Aram

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Re: Getting the most out of Altiverb & ProTools
Reply #6 - 14. May 2007 at 11:10

could you please send a pro tools session, without audio, with the automation problems to info@audioease.com ? This will help us finding out what goes wrong.

The Masoleum IR set is not ready for release yet. We're still working on the recordings and the process tools to create a nice IR set from the recordings we did there. Don't be afraid, we'll add it as soon as it's ready.

Aram
Audio Ease

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krish

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Re: Getting the most out of Altiverb & ProTools
Reply #7 - 19. May 2007 at 13:01

Hi again Aram
Im contacting you here again since I can`t make a relevant PT session to send you.
At the moment every parameter I`ve tried is read during playback.
What I`ve done since the last posts is to install new apple updates which caused PT to crash before even getting to the startup splash, and then having to install the "OSX10.4.9 combo update" which solves that issue.
I guess there must have been some abnormalitites between PT and OSX allowing me to run the program, but restricting automation...?

Anyway, I still have problems, but I`cant show it in a sesssion, because of its nature: altiverb doesn`t write anything to the automation timeline. Tweaking paramteres results in changed sound, but nothing is written in either write/touch/latch modes...

If I write parameters using the pencil tool in the edit window, things are working. (Except for speakerpos. which updates very slowly, but I guess thats because of heavy processing..?)

As long as I can change the preset index parameter in the timeline with the pencil tool I`m able to do my work, but it should be possible to write automation using the altiverb interface right?

Good luck tweaking the vigeland recordings, I`m looking foreward to using them Cheesy

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gives

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Re: Getting the most out of Altiverb & ProTools
Reply #8 - 24. Aug 2007 at 09:51

I updated to the HTDM version of AliverbXL from Altiverb native.. since I was waiting for the non Accel version to be updated for use.. I installed it and there were quite a few versions of the plug-in in the plugins list in my Protools session..Which one to i use? There are about 10 or so Altiverb’s in the list. Is there one I need to have in there or are these normal? In the RTAS version there were only a a mono and stereo version.

Also when I closed the session I could not get it to open again.. I actually had to open a Backup of the session from the Auto Backup Session folder.

I am afraid to use the plug-in in the future until I understand what is going on with my HTDM version..

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Regards,

Gregory

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Aram

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Re: Getting the most out of Altiverb & ProTools
Reply #9 - 24. Aug 2007 at 10:26

Please check the documentation about the Altiverb 6 XL TDM version, installed at:

applications\audio ease\altiverb 6\Altiverb 6 Documentation\host specific altiverb documentation\TDM OSX - Pro Tools.pdf

This document explains all choices in TDM instances (this has to do with the length of reverb and the amount of chips).

Aram
Audio Ease

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gives

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Re: Getting the most out of Altiverb & ProTools
Reply #10 - 01. Sep 2007 at 01:33

Aram wrote on 24. Aug 2007 at 10:26:

Please check the documentation about the Altiverb 6 XL TDM version, installed at:

applications\audio ease\altiverb 6\Altiverb 6 Documentation\host specific altiverb documentation\TDM OSX - Pro Tools.pdf

This document explains all choices in TDM instances (this has to do with the length of reverb and the amount of chips).

Aram
Audio Ease

Not sure if this answer is for me, but I am getting a list of several plugin selections for altiverb in Protools.. Is that normal..? I read the pdf.. not sure how that applies to this question though.

I updated to the HTDM version of AliverbXL from Altiverb native.. since I was waiting for the non Accel version to be updated for use.. I installed it and there were quite a few versions of the plug-in in the plugins list in my Protools session..Which one to i use? There are about 10 or so Altiverb’s in the list. Why. Is there one I need to have in there or are these normal? In the RTAS version there were only a a mono and stereo version.

Also when I closed the session I could not get it to open again.. I actually had to open a Backup of the session from the Auto Backup Session folder.

I am afraid to use the plug-in in the future until I understand what is going on with my HTDM version..

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Greg

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Aram

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Re: Getting the most out of Altiverb & ProTools
Reply #11 - 03. Sep 2007 at 09:34

Hi Greg,

The number of DSP chips taken over by Altiverb 6 XL TDM depends on the channel count and length of the engine. Longer reverb tails take more DSP chips, as will wider channel counts. This is why you see a lot of Altiverb 6 XL TDM plug-ins to choose from.

There are also two types of DSP chips, regular chips (Altiverb P) and accel chips (Altiverb A)

So when you can choose for instance: "Altiverb 6 P 2.3s" you get an Altiverb 6 XL TDM plug-in that runs a mono to stereo 2.3 seconds reverb on 3 regular TDM DSP chips (this number you can look up in the list that's in the pdf I pointed you to).

Altiverb should not cause pro tools not to open a song of course. Did this happen with Altiverb 6.1.0?

Could you perhaps send a session (without the audio, if you have this repeatable) to info@audioease.com. Then we can try to reproduce this here to find out what goes wrong.

Aram
Audio Ease

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gives

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Re: Getting the most out of Altiverb & ProTools
Reply #12 - 11. Sep 2007 at 22:29

Aram wrote on 03. Sep 2007 at 09:34:

Hi Greg,

The number of DSP chips taken over by Altiverb 6 XL TDM depends on the channel count and length of the engine. Longer reverb tails take more DSP chips, as will wider channel counts. This is why you see a lot of Altiverb 6 XL TDM plug-ins to choose from.

There are also two types of DSP chips, regular chips (Altiverb P) and accel chips (Altiverb A)

So when you can choose for instance: "Altiverb 6 P 2.3s" you get an Altiverb 6 XL TDM plug-in that runs a mono to stereo 2.3 seconds reverb on 3 regular TDM DSP chips (this number you can look up in the list that's in the pdf I pointed you to).

Altiverb should not cause pro tools not to open a song of course. Did this happen with Altiverb 6.1.0?

Could you perhaps send a session (without the audio, if you have this repeatable) to info@audioease.com. Then we can try to reproduce this here to find out what goes wrong.

Aram
Audio Ease

Hi Aram, Sorry for my delayed response back.. Been a bit crazed here!! I now understand what this means.. If I use it in a test I will figure it out and sent you and email as to what the problem was.. I just could not open the session and went back to a session backup that had not used the HD plugs.. Probably something I am doing here like putting too many in..? It was saying something like that.. like out of chips? Can't remember right now.. Regards, G

Oh..

I wanted to thank you all again for taking the time to do the revised TDM version for the older non HD systems.. I REALY appreciate it a whole lot! While the newest version of Altiverb RTAS is fine for me with the improved automation, it's nice to use the hardware that I paid a bunch for years back. Again, Thank you!

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soundboy35

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Re: Getting the most out of Altiverb & ProTools
Reply #13 - 15. Nov 2007 at 07:23

Hi,

I'm helping a client with v6.1.0 with Pro Tools HD2 Accel, 7.3.1cs5, on a G5 Dual 2.3ghz, 2gig of ram, OS 10.4.8,
QuickTime Pro 7.1.3
The playback engine is set to 192 voices. He is using one instance of Altiverb, with a 2 second reverb,
and when he records through it, the file plays back, and then beachballs, and crashes pretty consistently.
Not sure if he's using the P and A settings, but there are stil a few chips left on the cards when all of this is happening.
Is that system strong enough to run this configuration? Should he go to RTAS mode? perhaps lower the voices way down?

Thanks,

Steve

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peterbakker

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Posts: 826

Re: Getting the most out of Altiverb & ProTools
Reply #14 - 15. Nov 2007 at 09:35

The system is good enough, when running Altiverb TDM you rely less on the host CPU anyway. The setup is something I have never tried, to record thru Altiverb. I assume the setup to be: input to an aux, Altiverb on that, route that via a bus to a regular track and record that ?

From the TDM plug-ins point of view, there's nothing special about this. After the recording is finished it'll happily keep on processing any input.

Is it possible to send me the crash log of PT so that I can backtrack what goes wrong where ?

Using an RTAS plug-in to record thru sounds like a hassle to me, it'll introduce latency in the signal path that you can't compensate when monitoring. Also, RTAS will be more hampered by the voice count than TDM. The only effect of the voice count on TDM is the speed of loading the IR, as the PCI is busier.

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