Plug-ins... TDM vs. Native... why the huge price difference?

Tim McCulloch

Tim McCulloch

Graduate Student
Jan 11, 2011
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Wichita KS USA
Subject line says most of it... I get email offers from Waves. I don't own or use any DAW except for time/level edits; no recording, no desire to be the next Trevor Horn, etc. So my purchase of plug ins would be for installation on Avid Venue systems, and I'm wondering why the price of "native" (WTF is that?) is about half the price of TDM. Anyone have an answer beyond "that's what the market will bear"?

Tim Mc
 
Re: Plug-ins... TDM vs. Native... why the huge price difference?

When manufacturers of plug-ins refer to TDM (time-division multiplexing) they are referring to plug-ins that take advantage of external DSP chips, separate from the computers main processing systems (ProTools HD or HD|Native). On the other hand, native plugins rely on the computers on-board processing to handle all of the DSP functions (Former ProTools LE, ordinary ProTools). Subbing out that extra workload, when using TDM plugins, takes significant strain off the computers processing, allowing it to focus on more important tasks and not have to worry about processing the audio. Avid Venue systems have mix engine cards that have banks of DSP IC's to handle the audio processing, so when purchasing plug-ins for Avid Venue systems, TDM plugins must be used. This is the main reason of the largely differing price points, they are each designed to take advantage of different processing architectures. Keep in mind that a lot of times when you purchase a TDM plug-in, you often get the native version of the plug-in as well.

Hope this helps!

Ben
 
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Re: Plug-ins... TDM vs. Native... why the huge price difference?

Tim McCulloch said:
Subject line says most of it... I get email offers from Waves. I don't own or use any DAW except for time/level edits; no recording, no desire to be the next Trevor Horn, etc. So my purchase of plug ins would be for installation on Avid Venue systems, and I'm wondering why the price of "native" (WTF is that?) is about half the price of TDM. Anyone have an answer beyond "that's what the market will bear"?

Tim Mc
Click to expand...

Tim, Avid is dumping TDM in favor of the new AAX standard. TDM was an old architecture and not very easy to develop for (required rather difficult low level programming). Native plugs tend to be much easier to develop. The new AAX architecture allows for DSP supported plugins on a similar code platform as native.

As a result, you should see TDM prices falling as TDM will not be supported past the current version of ProTools (10).
I have not heard what the plans are for Avid Venue consoles in terms of AAX support in the future, presumably the Mixrack type systems can be upgraded with a card (the SC48 may be more difficult), but regardless, there are tons of existing TDM plugins that are great and should increasingly show up on the used market in the next while.

You may want to consider looking for used TDM plugins from places like KVR - http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=43

Note that with Waves plugins there is separate program called "D Show Enabler" that you must buy (around $20) for their plugs to work on Venue systems.

Hope that helps
Jeff
 
Re: Plug-ins... TDM vs. Native... why the huge price difference?

Jeff Babcock said:
Tim, Avid is dumping TDM in favor of the new AAX standard.
Click to expand...

Actually, AAX is replacing both the RTAS and TDM architectures. The hardware DSP version will only run on what they are calling HDX.

I have not heard what the plans are for Avid Venue consoles in terms of AAX support in the future
Click to expand...

You know what the answer to this question is. It's the same as Avid/Digidesign's track record for the last 10 years of product support and deprecation. They will stop supporting the current plug in format by issuing an End of Life for the current crop of Venue consoles. Forcing everyone either keep their old consoles with old software unsupported, OR buy an entire new console which has current software and current support for the next 7 or 8 years, and then do it all over again.

Just watch, it'll happen, you know it to be true.
 
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