Is Pro Tools 12 resource hungry?

[trtzbass]

Hey all.
Today I have been mostly playing with PT 12 as I'm considering buying a subscription, mainly to send / receive sessions from clients, etc.
the experience has been incredibly frustrating. I loaded up a small session of 15 virtual instruments, no plugins and PT wanted none of that. Jitters, stopped playbacks, maxed out CPU and RAM. Freezing the tracks only slightly alleviated the issue.
now I must mention I have a small Windows machine, a 2.6 Ghz, quad core with 8GB Ram which admittedly is not super powerful, BUT the exact same session works flawlessly, and by a large margin, on Cubase as well as Samplitude (yes I recreated it)
So, all of you who have PT as well as other DAWs: is it my issue or are you experiencing the same disparity in resource consumption too?

[lfm]

My view is that daws mainly developed on Mac - have issues on Windows and lack in optimization.
Windows is a different beast, kind of.

Worst is probably Digital Performer, then ProTools, then all but Reaper, then Reaper as clear winner.

I looked at Avid forum when PT 12.8 was out regarding video - and a couple of posts how bloated it was.

Try and contact Avid support and see if they have any help for you. I trialed PT 11.x at some point(they did not have v12.x as trial), and all I got was excuses. You must have this and that as system requirements says.

If you don't have the Xeon computers they suggest, you are pretty much on your own.

[Topcheese]

I don't know a thing about PT12, but found the requirements:

Windows:
Intel PC with Windows 8.1 (Standard and Pro Editions), or Windows 10 (standard or Anniversary) ...
Intel i5 processor.
4GB RAM (8GB or more recommended)
Minimum 1280 Horizontal Monitor Resolution.
Internet connection for installation.
15GB disk space for installation.

It sounds like you need to find the audio settings and change the rate and/or sample buffer.

[trtzbass]

My view is that daws mainly developed on Mac - have issues on Windows and lack in optimization.
Windows is a different beast, kind of.

Worst is probably Digital Performer, then ProTools, then all but Reaper, then Reaper as clear winner.

I looked at Avid forum when PT 12.8 was out regarding video - and a couple of posts how bloated it was.

Try and contact Avid support and see if they have any help for you. I trialed PT 11.x at some point(they did not have v12.x as trial), and all I got was excuses. You must have this and that as system requirements says.

If you don't have the Xeon computers they suggest, you are pretty much on your own.

Now I remember why I let go of AVID round about PT10.
I really want to like PT also because it would give me peace of mind when tranferring projects between studios, bun man they make that hard!

[trtzbass]

I don't know a thing about PT12, but found the requirements:

Windows:
Intel PC with Windows 8.1 (Standard and Pro Editions), or Windows 10 (standard or Anniversary) ...
Intel i5 processor.
4GB RAM (8GB or more recommended)
Minimum 1280 Horizontal Monitor Resolution.
Internet connection for installation.
15GB disk space for installation.

It sounds like you need to find the audio settings and change the rate and/or sample buffer.

Done all that, also went through the Win optimisation checklist on their website, down to tweaking the CPU affinity thing and trashing the prefs
Results - same session with all the tracks frozen, no plugins and idling shows a 78% memory load. How's that even possible?

[Topcheese]

I've always heard that is was a hog,so I guess it's true. Thanks for sharing!

[mike_the_ranger]

Long time PT user her. No it is not a resource hog. Especially not on windows. Here it nicely balances the workload to all cpu cores. I can load more plugins as AAX than I could load for example in S1 as VST. I experienced PT works best with its own ASIO driver. Although it of course supports 3rd party driver this may influence the performance. In the audio settings you can also set a checkbox which disables jitter/crackling and instead simply stops the playback when the realtime workload is to high.

[Kinh]

Long time PT user her. No it is not a resource hog. Especially not on windows. Here it nicely balances the workload to all cpu cores. I can load more plugins as AAX than I could load for example in S1 as VST. I experienced PT works best with its own ASIO driver. Although it of course supports 3rd party driver this may influence the performance. In the audio settings you can also set a checkbox which disables jitter/crackling and instead simply stops the playback when the realtime workload is to high.

I was doing big PT11 sessions and had some difficulty. I take it 12 is the same given they're still using the multi core technology which came with 11 but the way I see it, PT isn't designed for high demanding VSTi and especially glitch effects . It just doesn't handle that kinda of work load well. Every and I mean every glitch effect I used in it it would crash in seconds. It's no coincidence their midi editor hasn't had any improvements since 2011, they just dont want a piece of the electronic market and as result, haven't bothered to improve performance and speed required for electronic production.

My advice to the OP, dont expect too much from protools and you wont be disappointed.

[macmuse]

Which version was the one that broke free from requiring their own hardware to work (m-box, etc)? Was that the start of it getting worse, just curious.

[THE INTRANCER]

I would have thought most studio's would have switch to Cubase or Studio One by now, particularly since most composers don't want to bother with subscriptions and neither do their clients, and since Presonus introduced their Quantum Thunderbolt Audio Interfaces which comes with Studio One 3.5 Artist as standard although Pro is more likely in what purchasers of one have. I would have thought the old adage of every studio is using Protools has died out now... and just isn't the case any more...

[LawrenceF]

Kinda. But it's a lot more complex than that. I doubt if PT has been an overwhelming favorite for "personal studios" since... decades... for multiple reasons. Otoh, the guys who mostly do it for a living (full time AE's using PT) don't change easily, if ever.

They tend to get a system humming and leave it completely alone, not playing games or installing all kinds of unrelated things that may potentially cause issues with it or the system. It's a business. "Studios", full time studios, have no real relationship to the consumer world. When things work they leave them alone and just ... make money.

But yeah, I thought Cubase was a much better product for the home or personal studio 20 years ago and still feel the same way. Even so, if I opened a large room I'd certainly (also) have a PT system in it.

[noiseboyuk]

Kinda. But it's a lot more complex than that. I doubt if PT has been an overwhelming favorite for "personal studios" since... decades... for multiple reasons. Otoh, the guys who mostly do it for a living (full time AE's using PT) don't change easily, if ever.

They tend to get a system humming and leave it completely alone, not playing games or installing all kinds of unrelated things that may potentially cause issues with it or the system. It's a business. "Studios", full time studios, have no real relationship to the consumer world. When things work they leave them alone and just ... make money.

But yeah, I thought Cubase was a much better product for the home or personal studio 20 years ago and still feel the same way. Even so, if I opened a large room I'd certainly (also) have a PT system in it.

Pretty much spot on. I was in a dubbing suite a couple of weeks ago who were still on PT12.4, and they clearly had no issues with it, whereas I broke it in minutes (*pride*) because I do things in a slightly different way. I quickly hit a bug long since fixed from 12.4, so hanging on to old versions has its drawbacks too.

Anyway, I find PT pretty efficient using AAX effects, but I do all my music work in Cubase because it's so much better for midi and VIs. When it comes to VIs, my understanding is that PT is still not really very efficient. But there again, Cubase isn't either - Reaper is approximately 2x as efficient, but Cubase is still better here than PT I think.

So for pure audio work PT is great, but not so much for midi (again, imo), but they have made some great improvements in the past year or two which could yet lure me back over. For example, PTs implementation of Track Presets blows Cubase out of the water.

[Gregorius]

I would have thought most studio's would have switch to Cubase or Studio One by now, particularly since most composers don't want to bother with subscriptions and neither do their clients, and since Presonus introduced their Quantum Thunderbolt Audio Interfaces which comes with Studio One 3.5 Artist as standard although Pro is more likely in what purchasers of one have. I would have thought the old adage of every studio is using Protools has died out now... and just isn't the case any more...

No, this is by far not the case. I think one would get this feeling because meanwhile there are more bedroom producers which of course rather buy reaper or s1 for their notebook than PT or Cubase. PT seen as a complete system (daw, interface, dsp cards, mixing console) is the easiest and most efficient way to set up a reliable studio but also something that requires more money. PT is still state of the art, not only for acoustic music recording/production (mainly, because imo it lacks with midi features) but also for tv synchros and film music. A change I experienced was the switch from Mac to PC in studios.

I don't think it is resource hungry. Their "new" audio engine (AAX) has improved a lot over RTAS (and I think AU/VST/VST3). It doesn't need much graphics processing because it doesn't has any fancy visuals. Meanwhile they've implemented thing like track freezing too which additionally "frees" resources and processing.

Can't complain about PT

[trtzbass]

hey guys, thank you all for chiming in.
I totally agree with the idea of pro studios having PT up and running on a dedicated platform and, yes, Cubase is much more geared towards composition / arrangement.
I can clearly see why if you have an HD system you are good to go - it is a very convenient, self contained environment that just works.
I of course am testing the lesser version. I do pre production at my place then move the sessions to larger studios and I thought that having PT would speed up the process of transition.
Of course I could keep it just for that, but 25£ + VAT per month seems like a hefty fee to pay for it; I'll probably end up renting it only when I need to move large sessions.
I stopped using PT at 10 because it wasn't as flexible as other production environments; I tried 12 again just to see how I felt and, besides it being pretty much the same beast with only a few improvements, I was not impressed with how it would refuse to even start playbac on the same exact session that runs smoothly on Cubase and Samplitude (Samplitude wins by a large margin, BTW)

[MadDogE134]

resource hungry? if you are speaking of bank accounts... why yes it is!!! lol