TDM OS X- Pro Tools

text revision number: 1.3 - July 2007

1 System Requirements
2 How many chips are used ?
3 Latency
4 RTAS -> TDM switching and back
5 Length & Reverse
6 Default to ‘Touch’ instead of ‘Latch’ when automating snapshots
7 Altiverb and control surfaces

1 System Requirements

• Powermac G4 1GHz or higher, Mac Pro 2GHz or higher

• MacOS X 10.3.9
• Pro Tools™ HD 6.9 or higher
• At least one HD Accel PCI or PCIe board

Altiverb 6 TDM adds a new dimension to using convolution reverb. It offloads its entire engine
to the DSP chips on the HD Accel, HD Core or HD Processor board. There are a number of
occurrences of Altiverb available in your insert slots: for instance, one is called ‘Altiverb 6 A
4.2s’ which means that it runs on an Accel board and a tail length of 4.2 seconds. A ‘P’ in the
name indicates that it runs on a PCI HD Core board, a PCI Processor board, the first two DSPs
on a PCI Accel board, or the first three DSPs on a PCIe Accel or Core board.

There are some differences between Altiverb 6 TDM and its native counterparts.

The first of those is the way the parameter updates are handled. Altiverb 6 has a checkbox to
influence the way Altiverb responds to parameter updates. In one mode ("update on mouse up")
parameters that influence the Impulse Response itself are passed to the engine only when the
mouse is released over a control, and a definite new parameter value can be processed. Altiverb
then mutes its engine and reloads the impulse response with the new parameter value taken into
account. When the update mode is set off, Altiverb will try to keep the engine live whenever
possible. This means that a lot of the parameter updates will cause gradual changes in the
impulse response being processed, taxing the CPU a little higher. Some parameter changes, such
as 'Size' and the chosen IR itself, will cause the engine to mute anyway, whatever the update
mode setting.

In TDM the update mode works differently. When "update on mouse up" is selected, the engine
will mute while the new or adapted IR is being loaded. The point where the mute occurs is
different, though, as the engine itself does not put a strain on the host CPU, and the IR is
processed as fast as possible anyway. The engine will only mute during the time it takes to send
the IR from the host to the DSP chips.

With the "updates on mouse up" mode unselected, the engine is always live, even when
switching to a new IR. As the timing of the DSP chip is hard to track from the host, the loading
process itself is not entirely accurate timing-wise: small clicks may occur during the process.
The overall response of the system is a lot faster than that of the native versions of Altiverb:
zoom in on the start of the waveform display of the IR and drag the speaker over the stage: the
updates in the waveform are almost instantaneous, and the sounding engine will follow only a
fraction later.

2 How many chips are used ?

Altiverb 6 TDM comes in many guises, as the number of DSP chips taken over depends on the
channel count and length of the engine. Longer reverb tails take more DSP chips, as will wider
channel counts. Inserting a configuration on a system smaller than its requirements will generate
a 'not enough DSP power' notice from Pro Tools HD.

Here are diagrams of the boards to indicate what versions (‘A’ or ‘P’) they can run:

PCI Core/Processor PCI Accel PCIe Core/Accel

P P P
P P P
P A P
P A A
P A A
P A A
P A
P
P

The empty boxes indicate DSPs that do not have enough memory to run Altiverb. Note that the
‘A’ versions can allocate longer tails per DSP than the ‘P’ versions: this is because those DSPs
on the Accel board have a lot more memory.

As the ‘P’ type DSPs are slower than the ‘A’ ones, ‘P’ types Altiverb are only available in
44.1 and 48 KHz.
ins x outs Length #chips @ 48kHz @ 96kHz length #chips @ 48kHz
[1x1] A 3.2s 1 P 1.2s 1
[1x1] A 6.4s 2 P 2.4s 2
[1x1] A 9.6s 3 P 3.6s 3
[1x1] A 13.0s 4 P 4.8s 4
[1x1] A 16.2s 5 P 6.0s 5
[1x1] A 19.5s 6 P 7.2s 6
[1x1] A 22.7s 7 P 8.3s 7
[1x1] A 25.9s 8 P 9.5s 8

[1x2] A 2.1s 1 P 0.8s 1

[1x2] A 4.3s 2 P 1.5s 2
[1x2] A 6.4s 3 P 2.3s 3
[1x2] A 8.5s 4 P 3.1s 4
[1x2] A 10.7s 5 P 3.8s 5
[1x2] A 12.8s 6 P 4.6s 6
[1x2] A 14.9s 7 P 5.4s 7
[1x2] A 17.1s 8 P 6.1s 8

[1x4] A 2.1s 2 3 P 0.8s 2

[1x4] A 4.3s 4 5 P 1.5s 4
[1x4] A 6.4s 6 7 P 2.3s 6
[1x4] A 8.5s 8 9 P 3.1s 8

[1x5] A 2.1s 2 3 P 0.8s 2

[1x5] A 4.3s 4 5 P 1.5s 4
[1x5] A 6.4s 6 7 P 2.2s 6
[1x5] A 8.5s 7 9 P 3.1s 8

[1x6] A 2.1s 2 3 P 0.8s 2

[1x6] A 4.3s 4 5 P 1.5s 4
[1x6] A 6.4s 6 7 P 2.3s 6
[1x6] A 8.5s 8 9 P 3.1s 8

[2x2] A 1.0s 1 2
[2x2] A 2.1s 2 3 P 0.8s 2
[2x2] A 4.3s 4 5 P 1.5s 4
[2x2] A 6.4s 6 7 P 2.3s 6
[2x2] A 8.5s 8 9 P 3.1s 8

[2x4] A 1.0s 2 3
[2x4] A 2.1s 4 5 P 0.8s 4
[2x4] A 4.3s 8 9 P 1.5s 8

[2x5] A 1.0s 2 3
[2x5] A 2.1s 4 5 P 0.8s 4
[2x5] A 4.3s 8 9 P 1.5s 8

[2x6] A 1.0s 2 3
[2x6] A 2.1s 4 5 P 0.8s 4
[2x6] A 4.3s 8 9 P 1.5s 8

[4x4] A 1.0s 2 3
[4x4] A 2.1s 4 5

[4x4] A 4.3s 8 9
[5x5] A 1.0s 2 3
[5x5] A 2.1s 4 5
[5x5] A 4.3s 8 9

[6x6] A 1.0s 2 3
[6x6] A 2.1s 4 5
[6x6] A 4.3s 8 9
3 Latency

High latency mode is not available in Altiverb 6 TDM, as it would not save any processing
power. The latency of Altiverb 6 TDM @ 44.1 or 48kHz is 6 samples for the Accel version (at
48 kHz this is 0.000125 seconds or a quarter millisecond), and 198 samples @ 88.1 or 96 kHz.

The ‘P’ types Altiverbs have a latency of 1064 samples, the mono-mono version 172.

Three of the above list of Altiverbs (1x1, 1x2, and 2x2 single chip) will carry the same identifiers
as Altiverb 5 HTDM did, so when loading a session with a mono-mono, mono-stereo or stereo-
stereo Altiverb 5 HTDM inserted, it will be replaced by Altiverb 6 TDM. Other Altiverb 5
HTDM channel configurations will be replaced by RTAS versions, to make sure you get the
length of audible tail originally intended in the session.

4 RTAS -> TDM switching and back

When switching from RTAS to TDM from the control in the plug-in window, Pro Tools HD
will select the first matching TDM one with that channel configuration. Thus you may wind up
with a TDM insert that's significantly shorter than its RTAS counterpart. When that occurs, you
can manually change the insert to a longer Altiverb 6 TDM, and the settings will automatically be
transferred to that.

5 Length & Reverse

As selecting an Altiverb 6 TDM of specific length may not accomodate the whole impulse
response you've selected, part of it may not be loaded. To make that clear in the Altiverb user
interface the inactive part of the impulse response is grayed out in the waterfall and waveform
views.

When reversing an IR the behaviour on TDM is slightly different from the native version. If the
IR is shorter than the currently selected engine length, Altiverb 6 makes sure that the head of the
IR is going to wind up at the end of the engine length, making sure its included. For example, in
a 4.2 second Altiverb you reverse an IR of 6 seconds; the host will prepare the IR for loading, so
first reversing it, and then sending from second 2 thru 6 to the DSP.

Another small difference when reversing an IR is the behaviour of the direct color knob: when
reversed the flat sound will be incorporated in the IR itself. This will not make a difference in
general, but when using EQ on the output, this case will also EQ the flat sound.

6 Default to ‘Touch’ instead of ‘Latch’ when automating snapshots

If you put a Pro Tools tracks into automation write mode you can automate the movement of, for
instance, the equalizer bass knob.

After write mode, Pro Tools will snap into latch mode. Latch mode will playback automation
until you touch the bass knob, after which you will override (and thus record) automation data
for it rather than play it back.

So, in latch mode, when you change a parameter that is listening to protools automation curves,
you override and therefore destroy the existing automation curve.

This also goes for automation preset changes or preset selection in Altiverb. When you select a
new automation preset, all parameters in Altiverb receive a setting from it, and therefore all your
latch tracks will start recording new data from thereon. In effect: when you touch an automation
preset snapshot, or automate it to switch, while in latch mode, you start erasing all other Altiverb
automation.

If you want to mix the use of automated snapshots and parameter automation, it is a good idea to
put your tracks in read or touch mode rather than latch mode.

In Set up->Preferences->operation->mixing you can have protools switch to touch in stead of

latch after write by default. Like shown on the picture below.

7 Altiverb and control surfaces

Before Altiverb 6.07 there were incompatibilities with certain control surfaces. In case you see
incomplete parameter lists for Altiverb in Pro Tools' plug-in automation Dialog, please update to
version 6.07 or higher.