Hybrid audio seems to be the path more and more top audio brands are taking to ensure the best possible sound and user experience for tracking and mixing. Has the future of modern recording arrived?
A Potted History Of DSP Audio Hardware
For a long time, users have had to make a choice of investing in powerful computers, such as the new Apple Mac Pro to run a ‘native’ system powered by the host computer, or DSP powered solutions from brands like Avid and Universal Audio, these are powered by dedicated DSP chips on cards or built into the interface hardware.
In a relatively short period of time, four leading brands, Apogee, Avid, PreSonus and Universal Audio, have all announced hybrid audio solutions.
Apogee DualPath
First, Apogee surprised owners of their Ensemble interfaces by revealing they contained DSP, and this could be used to run near zero-latency tracking and processing with a new range of Apogee plugins. Then Apogee announced native versions of the same plugins and DualPath.
Previously Apogee FX plugins could only be used in their DSP versions and therefore only when the Apogee interface was present. The Dual-path option means that the DSP versions can be substituted for the native versions seamlessly when the Apogee hardware isn't present. Having either a native or a DSP version of the plugin available means that you can use DSP and Native for what it is best suited. Apogee call this DualPath: DualPath allows the same plugin to operate in DSP or Native versions depending on the workflow need.
This is what Apogee say about DualPath;
With DualPath Monitoring DSP-Native technology, Apogee FX Rack plugins can run both on the hardware DSP in Ensemble Thunderbolt and Element Series interfaces and as native plugins on your Mac. In DualPath Monitoring mode, you set up and control everything – Apogee FX Racks, direct monitoring level, even mic pre gain – right from the Apogee FX Rack in your DAW. All the processing and settings you make in the DAW FX Rack are instantly mirrored to the direct monitoring FX Rack running on your Ensemble or Element hardware DSP. There’s no need to manage two mixers or duplicate settings – the system transparently does the work for you.
Apogee’s DualPath technology opens up a variety of popular, simplified workflows, always with the lowest latency. No other system offers this level of flexibility and sound quality.
Officially Supported DAWS
Logic Pro 10 (Best experience)
Ableton Live 10
Pro Tools 12, Ultimate (ProTools 11 and lower not currently supported)
Cubase 9.5 VST 1 & 2 (VST 3 not implemented in this release)
Please note any AUv2, VST 2, or AAX fully compliant DAW should work
Avid Pro Tools Carbon
Avid, who are long-standing proponents of DSP, with their ubiquitous Pro Tools HD and HDX, then announced Avid Carbon, which also employs a hybrid workflow.
Up until this point, Pro Tools systems have been Native, or they have been DSP systems. It's easy to forget that latency was a big problem for those wanting to record audio when Pro Tools HD was created. However, the cost of entry for Pro Tools DSP powered systems was still costly and quite complicated compared to a single interface solution until Avid released Pro Tools Carbon.
Native Pro Tools is fundamentally the same as any other native DAW, but with Pro Tools as a front end, which is a huge advantage for many, the hardware required to run it is cheap, but the downsize with Pro Tools running natively, is that it suffers the same disadvantage as any other native DAW - Latency.
If you have a powerful computer and use it wisely, you can work very effectively using native processing but Pro Tools HDX, while expensive, makes latency go away. You no longer have to think about it, and for music users, this is its most significant advantage. Pro Tools Carbon now offers a hybrid, one-box solution and a new way to get HDX performance without having to buy a full HDX system with DSP cards and a Mini-DigiLink equipped interface.
Here’s an extract from an excellent article from Avid’s Adam Labowski,
The power of HDX is that it essentially eliminates recording latency—sub-1 ms—and delivers deterministic, reliable performance. No system does this better. But "determinism" also means a hard and fast voice limit that puts a cap on session size. For users that work with high track counts and plugin-heavy sessions, like big Dolby Atmos mixes, this can be constraining. Also, HDX can be inefficient when using native and DSP plugins on the same track. For example, inserting a native plugin after a DSP plugin causes round-tripping between HDX and your host computer that eats into available voices.
HDX Systems versus HDX Hybrid Engine
By contrast, the Hybrid Engine splits processing between DSP and native mix engines. It runs your session on your host computer, taking advantage of its robust computing power. Then, when you need to supplement your CPU or record with near-zero latency, it gives you immediate access to HDX’s onboard DSP.
The result is a significant boost to performance. The Hybrid Engine enables you to run bigger sessions more smoothly because it can use native and DSP voices at the same time. It also eliminates round-tripping when using native and DSP plugins on the same track. This has the added benefit of reducing system delay, which directly improves the fader and knob responsiveness of a control surface. And with these powerful new capabilities, when you upgrade your computer, you'll be able to realize its full power and still get HDX's unique capabilities on demand when you need them.
Without the Hybrid Engine, HDX is limited by a maximum number of voices—256 per card—which puts an upper bound on session size. In audio post production, where massive mixes are commonplace, this presents a big challenge. Even with three cards and 768 voices, DSP headroom can evaporate fast amid hundreds of mono tracks, surround tracks, and plugins.
The Hybrid Engine overcomes this challenge by letting you work with thousands of native voices alongside HDX's onboard DSP. With the June 2021 release of Pro Tools | Ultimate, the native voice limit will increase to 2048 at all sample rates—over twice as many as a typical three-card system. This means that all HDX configurations—including single-card HDX Systems like the HDX Thunderbolt 3 MTRX Studio Bundle—will have the same, incredibly high voice limit.
As a result, smaller, streamlined systems will be able to take on bigger sessions with greater ease. Home studios will be able to do more with just a one-card system, and major facilities will be able to keep costs low.
Universal Audio LUNA
When Universal Audio, makers of Apollo and UAD hardware, announced LUNA, their recording system for Apple Mac, they cited a key benefit, ARM. ARM stands for accelerated realtime monitoring (not to be confused with ARM processors which are the basis of Apple Silicon chips).
The advanced realtime monitoring technology from UAD makes the need to choose between DSP for tracking and native for mixing almost seamless. You can see more in our video below.
Universal Audio say this about ARM;
Accelerated Realtime Monitoring™ (ARM) is a deep hardware, DSP, and software integration feature inside LUNA that allows you to achieve the lowest possible latency while recording with UAD plug-ins in real time.
For those familiar with Apollo’s Console software, ARM eliminates the need to use the Console app altogether, while providing all of the same features and benefits such as low latency plug-ins, input routing, cue mixing, and others.
You can turn ARM on or off globally. Use ARM to achieve the lowest possible input monitoring latency when you monitor input signals through LUNA outputs, including monitors, headphones, and cues.
In a more recent development, Universal Audio announced the API Vision Console Emulation. You may have missed a small detail in the announcement…
"Console emulation runs natively while mixing and switches seamlessly to UAD processing while tracking, optimizing resource usage for the task at hand."
This solution is only available to LUNA users. However, we can’t imagine this hybrid workflow will stop here and expect it to appear more in the future, although Universal Audio has not confirmed this.
This announcement seems to indicate that Universal Audio has also recognised the advantage of a hybrid audio solution.
PreSonus StudioLive
When connected to Studio One as an audio interface, a StudioLive mixer is an integrated extension of the recording environment. The PreSonus exclusive hybrid Fat Channel plug-in runs on the mixer’s DSP and natively in Studio One on your computer, so you can record and monitor with StudioLive-based processing and seamlessly switch to the Studio One Fat Channel for playback.
Studio One offers an exclusive hybrid plug-in format that allows the Fat Channel plug-in to run either on the DSP engine onboard your StudioLive mixer or on your computer’s processor in Studio One. So, while you’re recording, the plug-in runs on your mixer’s DSP. While you’re playing back, it’s running on your computer. The StudioLive instance of the Fat Channel plug-in is automatically loaded into the mixer as soon as you select one of the analog inputs on your StudioLive as the source for an audio track. It will show up in blue above the inserts in the console.
The Fat Channel does limit your options to PreSonus versions of plugins, however, over the last few years, the Fat Channel architecture has seen many emulations of well known vintage plugins.
Why Do Hybrid Audio Solutions Matter?
Hybrid audio matters for several reasons…
First, the user does not have to invest in rocket-powered computers to deal with audio latency or large plugin intensive sessions. In reality, there isn't a native solution on the planet that offers zero-latency tracking without the need for some software layer that works with the interface. Until recently, DSP was your only answer to low latency tracking with minimal fuss. Yes, there are workarounds, but in reality, there is always a degree of compromise.
Secondly, even DSP systems are limited, and it doesn't take long on more extensive sessions to run out of DSP power. Then the user is left having to buy more and more boxes of DSP hardware interfaces or DSP cards to hang off their computer.
Thirdly, until recently, mixed DSP and native systems have been a pain in the ass to use. All the brands have worked hard to create workflows, but it's often been a compromise in many cases. This has been in areas like dropping-in takes or just remembering what plugins are using DSP and native.
What hybrid solutions aim to do is give the best of both worlds.
First, the load is shared between dedicated hardware and your computer. This load sharing means you don't have to buy the most expensive computer or hardware, and over time, you can upgrade one or the other as your requirements change.
Second, the workflow in most of these solutions is, in many cases, seamless and getting more transparent all the time.
Hybrid - Cost Of Entry
Cost of entry for Hybrid audio starts with the UAD Arrow Interface. That’s going to get you 2 DSP channels to work with for around $450, the good news is the software LUNA comes free. However bear in mind that you need to add the price of UAD powered plugins to that. For an Apogee or PreSonus solution then you need to budget around $1500 for the Apogee Symphony Desktop, or $2199 for the PreSonus StudioLive 32SC. For a Pro Tools Hybrid solution you need to consider either Avid Carbon at $3999 or an Avid interface and HDX card solution, which if you shop around you might get a bargain on eBay.
Hybrid - Future Or Fad?
It would be remiss of us to write such an article and not mention the downsides to these kind of workflows. The major one is that you are tied into a DAW and often also a plugin choice, at this point there is no such thing as a DAW/plugin agnostic hybrid system. So if you want to adopt the hybrid way then you need to choose which you want to hitch your wagon. Right now the choice looks like this;
Avid Carbon - Pro Tools
Apogee - Logic Pro (although dual path works less elegantly in other DAWs)
PreSonus StudioLive - Studio One
Universal Audio Apollo - LUNA
In summary, the idea of hybrid solutions should come as no surprise. Many users have been advocating the idea for over a decade; it's not rocket science to suggest hybrid is the right solution. However, like flying cars or self ironing shirts, it's one thing to have the idea, but another thing to make it happen (take note all you forum keyboard warriors who post silly comments like, “it must be easy to do this”). Be in no doubt; it takes some smart people to make this kind of technology work and a great deal of time; we are glad that some of them work at Avid, Apogee, PreSonus and Universal Audio.
The good news is that hybrid solutions are only going to get better, more flexible and cheaper.
Hybrid audio for pro audio... fad or future? Our money is on it being the future of pro audio.