2 articles on tdm plugins (1996)

[supernova777]

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1996_articles/feb96/tdmplugins.html http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1996_articles/mar96/tdmplugins2.html

The all-digital, computer-based recording studio is no longer a distant future possibility. Thanks to Digidesign's TDM buss, many of the processing capabilities of a traditional studio setup are now available as computer software 'plug-ins'. In the first of this two-part feature, MIKE COLLINS takes us through some of the available options.

 

While conventional recording studios are based around a mixing console, a multitrack recorder and various outboard signal processing units, there is an alternative in the form of Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs). These come either in the form of stand-alone units or as computer-dependent systems such as Digidesign's Pro Tools, and with the continuing fall in the price of large-capacity hard disk drives, they are increasingly finding their way into music and post-production studios, sometimes replacing the traditional equipment altogether.

With the Pro Tools system, Digidesign invested much of their development effort in perfecting the recording and mixing hardware and software front-end, rather than signal processing. Nevertheless, realising the importance of outboard equipment in a traditional studio, they had the sense to make it possible to bring processing (in the form of so-called software 'plug-ins') into the all-digital Pro Tools system too. This is where their TDM buss (available as an option on early versions of Pro Tools and now part of the standard Pro Tools III system) comes in -- it's the key element in assigning plug-in processing to the desired part of your digital signal path. Though many people have heard of the TDM buss and software plug-ins, not half as many know what they actually are. However, it's really quite simple...