Stability: Pro Tools vs Steinberg, etc

joswil44

New member
I started recording with Nuendo 1.6 about 5 years ago on a PC.

Now I am using Nuendo 2 on a Mac.

I have a decent setup consisting of a Nuendo/RME 95/52 audio card with 2 Nuendo/RME 96K 8 I/O Converters.

I am wondering if anyone here has had a chance to experience both Pro Tools and Cubase or Nuendo.

My gripes about Nuendo is probably more on the Processing side of things.

I am fairly stable but have issues time to time from VST usage.

I usually try to keep drum tracks in their own project and open a new project with a stereo mixdown of the drums to finish adding other instruments.

When I consider what it would take to get a more powerful or stable system, I start thinking about UAD Cards, TC Powercore cards, a newer Mac G5 (I am using a G4 1.2Ghz) etc.

Probably running near a few thousand in upgrades.

On the other hand, I wonder if I just shelled out a little more money if I would be better off with Pro Tools HD.

I have never heard complaints about Pro Tools.

The advantages are I would be Pro Industry standard and assume to be running more powerful with greater stability.

So I am considering experimenting with an Mbox and learning Pro Tools LE to start with before Investing into HD.

If I buy 1 HD Converter with Adata Optical ins and outs I can assumably tie in my Nuendo/RME Converters and have 24 channels of inputs utilizing my existing setup.

Anyone have any opinions on this?
 
If your Nuendo system is unstable, then you have other issues that need to be addressed. I run Cubase SX sometimes for 80 hours a week and rarely have problems. The people I talk with that run Pro Tools HD a lot seem to have jsut about as many problems as I do with my sftware, which is not that much.
 
Everytime I do the Cubase SX vs. PT HD comparison I end up going back to Cubase. Most of my PT experience is in the labs at school (all G5s, LE and HD rig w/ 4GB of RAM and multi accel cards). I've seen the HD system crash dozens of times.

PT is very tempermental in regards to the correct startup order of componets. If you start up without the correct sequence everything can crash. Not to mention the order of plugins (TDM before RTAS) can cause major problems.

The bottom line.... ProTools is industry standard but not the holy grail of DAW. It has hickups just like everything else and cost a fortune.

You are using a single-core processor machine without any DSP cards. If you upgraded to a multi-core system with multi-UAD cards you would come out cheaper and have a better system. IMO

I've been running SX with multi VSTi's and will add UAD cards soon. With that setup I will have 1/4 the investment of a PT HD rig (or less) and be able to produce a product as good as HD setups I've worked on.
 
Good Points.

Im really not complaining about my Nuendo's stability because if it does become unstable it is my own fault. Which usually means I am running too many VST's and my CPU meter is peaking.

So yeah, running a dual Processor Mac would help alot as well as some additional UAD's etc.

Thanks for sharing opinions.

I would probably have a more powerful system just adding to what I have now instead of investing into Pro Tools.
 
Short of dropping the 10 grand for a HD core rig and have the TDM stuff, PT LE will probably be as bad if not worse with eating up CPU cycles and you wont have the automatic delay compensation
 
joswil44 said:
I am fairly stable but have issues time to time from VST usage.

I usually try to keep drum tracks in their own project and open a new project with a stereo mixdown of the drums to finish adding other instruments.

When you say "VST usage" are you talking about VSTI (instuments) or VST plugins?

The reason that I ask is that if you have to pre-mix drums and then open another session and work from the pre-mixes drum file just to have cpu cycles available you are either using a lot of plugins or VSTI's (or very hungry ones) for drums, or you have a really slow computer, or you're not using the features that are available to you.

If it's VSTI's (drum sampler whatever), render the tracks to audio and turn the virtual instrument off... i.e. freeze the tracks or the mix of the tracks. If it's plugins thats causing your issue I can't imagine why you can't do the same thing. Get a good pre-mix of the drums and freeze all the individual tracks that have hungry plugs on them and continue on with the rest of the song... back from near 0 cpu.

In either case I can't imagine any scenario that would *require* a new session to continue. Playing an unaffected stereo track (your drum mix) as opposed to 16 indiviual unaffected drum tracks (frozen tracks after dsp) shouldn't be much different on the cpu since neither scenario has active plugins nor VSTI's.

Honestly, it seems to be more of you (possibly?) not using Nuendo to it's full advantage or I'm just not understanding the problem correctly (more likely). The way I see it is maybe 3-4 eq's and a few comps for drums maybe. If that causes system instability due to very high cpu usage, so much so that you can't continue to work on top of it, you need a faster computer.

Give us a little more detailed information. VSTI's? Plugins? Why aren't you freezing tracks?

Im really not complaining about my Nuendo's stability because if it does become unstable it is my own fault. Which usually means I am running too many VST's and my CPU meter is peaking.

Piano track from VSTI? Freeze it or render it... now it's an audio track... reclaim the cpu, put the midi track in a folder track and mute it. That's a standard working method in a native daw app to maximize cpu. What you end up with are audio tracks just like you'd have had if people played all those parts in realtime.

Frankly, if I had an HD3 system I'd probably do the same as the virtual instruments have to be made into audio tracks eventually anyway and whatever cpu or "Accel card super-juice" you reclaim (native or PTHD) can be used during mixing for other things. You can always unfreeze and edit/change later if you need to.

This should be done before you start overdubbing acoustic tracks if your cpu usage is creeping up. I'd start thinking about that when (if) the cpu meter hit 80% or so.

Again... as a 5 year Nuendo user ... why aren't you doing that?
 
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