KVR Audio

Kingcherry · Post by **Kingcherry** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 8:43 am

Does anyone have any idea how to get Powercore working with Pro Tools using the Fxpansion VST to RTAS wrapper? I've installed it all but can't see Powercore in the Insert box.

pherson · Post by **pherson** » Thu Nov 03, 2005 12:10 pm

Works for me, they appear under "Other" in the plug-in list. As far as I can tell the PoCo plugs take the DSP power from Powercore (with laaaatency as result) or you have to click the PoCo-logo in the plugin to switch your computer's CPU. (Just got mine yesterday so I could be wrong...

Kingcherry · Post by **Kingcherry** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 10:57 am

Thanks for your reply, pherson. I read a posting elsewhere which pointed out that I needed to name the Powercore folder with capital letters thusly - POWERCORE - and it then worked. I don't like the idea of latency
- I thought the whole point of a DSP card is to relieve the burden on the computer's CPU - it seems a bit pointless if this can only be done with resulting latency.

pherson · Post by **pherson** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 1:09 pm

Ok, good to know. Well, it's all in the visious scheme of Digidesign, God forbid you would use 3rd party DSP without buying a TDM system.

Kingcherry · Post by **Kingcherry** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 1:16 pm

Forgive my ignorance but what is TDM? Is it the squillion pounds set-up? Unfortunately I had the Powercore before I got Pro Tools.

pherson · Post by **pherson** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 1:29 pm

Sorry, TDM is Digidesign's hi end system with their own DSP cards. The basic sytem is HD1 but you can expand with multiple powerful DSP's. And it's not very cheap, I think a HD1 costs about £10,000. But if you have the TDM version (which can only be run with HD hardware) you can also use Powercore with the benifit of Digidesign's PDC (plugin delay compensation).

Kingcherry · Post by **Kingcherry** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 8:54 pm

I see. I was under the impression that you can use delay compensation with Pro Tools M Powered & Powercore - am I wrong about that?

pherson · Post by **pherson** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 9:04 pm

Well, yes and no. In all of your PoCo plugins there is, as you probably know a PoCo logo in the lower left corner. With that activated, the PoCo plug-in takes it's power from your computer's CPU instead of your Powercore unit and then works delay free. So if you're only interested in getting the plugins working and have a powerful processor this is a working option.

Alan · Post by **Alan** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 3:34 am

Kingcherry wrote:I was under the impression that you can use delay compensation with Pro Tools M Powered & Powercore - am I wrong about that?

Neither PTLE nor M-Powered supports PDC.You'll have to sacrafice some latencey and possibly compensate manually in some cases.

Alan · Post by **Alan** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 3:39 am

pherson wrote:In all of your PoCo plugins there is, as you probably know a PoCo logo in the lower left corner. With that activated, the PoCo plug-in takes it's power from your computer's CPU instead of your Powercore unit and then works delay free.

Huh?? Iv'e heard of spill overs on the Mac side but nothing intentional as the PoCo plugs are desinged to run off a different PPC than the old Motrola's that G4's use,besides the fact that those plugs will run native G4 Procs to their knees,and even if they do run natively with no problem,that has absolutely nothing to do with PDC.

pherson · Post by **pherson** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 12:21 pm

Alan wrote:[Huh?? Iv'e heard of spill overs on the Mac side but nothing intentional as the PoCo plugs are desinged to run off a different PPC than the old Motrola's that G4's use,besides the fact that those plugs will run native G4 Procs to their knees,and even if they do run natively with no problem,that has absolutely nothing to do with PDC.

As far as I know they do run native on G5 with a PoCo unit attached, but even with a G5 processor it's very heavy. But I could be wrong, works for me though...

ericj23 · Post by **ericj23** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 12:32 pm

they can be run in no latency mode(although sound card latency mode would be more precise) and cpu goes up massively -but this is not becuase it runs natively - it is becuase the powercore grabs the pci bus for itself in order to get the data there and back quickly enough

this has the affect of making all native calculations more difficult as lots of empty memery buffers and stuff slow down the calcations (or something like that)

whatever the explnation they 100% do not run on the host cpu

pherson · Post by **pherson** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 12:47 pm

Kingcherry · Post by **Kingcherry** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 12:50 pm

So what would you guys advise? Forget about Powercore with ProTools M-Powered or forget about Pro Tools?
Please bear in mind that I am not part of the Church of Mac - (McChurch anyone?) I am a PC dissenter.

pherson · Post by **pherson** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 3:28 pm

I really can't speak on the behalf of PC users (I'm one of those McUsers), I can't imagine there'd be any difference in behaviour though. It's really a matter of priority, you can never get Powercore working seemlessly with a PT LE-system. On Mac these problem aren't an issue with Logic or even Cubase. It all depends on what you do with your system. If you're hooked on protools I guess you'd have to loose the PoCo, or else go with another recording app, like Cubase... (I really don't feel comfortable recommending Cubase to anyone, but I can't think of a better seq for PC)

Powercore and Pro Tools