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Post subject: SAW versus DAW

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Topic posted by handybrent

I’m selling my Pro Tools system, and am going to buy something that will get the job done more affordably. Have you ever been to:
http://www.sawstudio.com and seen the video demo? Have you ever used it?

It has done what Pro Tools is just now doing in 6.0 (like assigning plugs on the fly, importing files on the fly, etc. Plus it does things that PT can't do.

What are your thoughts?

Reply posted by midihell

I don't have any practical experience with SAW. But something else you might want to check into is Samplitude 7.

Reply posted by handybrent

No. SAW Studio is THE ONLY PC based system that I would consider. If you have a chance, download the demo. It is FAST! It is written in assembly language, is super stable, and Windows does not detract from it. It's almost like it doesn't exist and is real time as well.

Reply posted by malcolm123

I once used it (SAW Studio) a long time ago and it was stable then. I downloaded the demo and it seems straight to the point, I need MIDI though -, not sure how well it works with softsynths.. I will try it for real tonight on some of my gear.

Reply posted by handybrent

MIDI is a few months out. I don't need MIDI at all. Of course that's why PT MIDI didn't bother me. I hear that the video studio application is about six months out.

What did you think? Pretty powerful for a PC program eh?

Reply posted by kifaru

What is exactly meant by it's fast? I heard this about SAW before but was never quite sure what was being alluded to.

Reply posted by handybrent

Download the demo. Once you learn it, it is much quicker than anything else.

Part of the performance speed is the fact that it is written in assembly language and bypasses Windows operationally. All of the processing is done in real time. The plug-ins are assignable on the fly, edits are done in real time. There are no screen re-draws. It is quick!

Reply posted by pricey

Sounds very intriguing. I like my Nuendo, but I wish it were more stable. Maybe there is something to the assembler language approach.

It looks like SAW can run VST and DX plugs. You should find out if it works okay with the UAD-1 card; the UAD plugs are the best on any platform, period. If you put together an all-SCSI system with dual Pentium 4's and 2 or 3 UAD cards, it will equal or surpass the performance of Pro Tools HD. I think you will be pleasantly suprised.

Hmmm ... you may still get crashes in SAW, if you use VST plugs. Nuendo/Cubase SX are known for "poofing" - the program disappears without warning, and you don't get a chance to save your work. If I understand correctly, it is caused by the fault protection in Windows XP, and it is caused by certain plug-ins or combinations of plug-ins.

The VST standard works in such a way that if a plug-in screws up, it crashes the entire program. Hopefully there is a SAW forum where you can find out about the experiences of other users.

Reply posted by handybrent

I don't think that I would do VST. Because of it's architecture, more instances = less fidelity. I got that from a developer. In addition, the VST standard does not enforce compatibility among multiple hosts.

According to Lewis, the tech support guy at RPM, he said once that the latency with UAD card was an issue. I e-mailed for an update, but have not heard back from him as of yet.

The plugs would be an issue for me.

Reply posted by pricey

I'm not sure what you're talking about. I think there are a lot of misconceptions, myths, and outright lies about native systems.

In Pro Tools (before HD), the signal was truncated to 24 bits between plugs, so you would lose resolution evrery time you added a plug. But most native DAWs are 32-bit. Pro Tools HD is 48-bit.

The UAD card has a lot of latency. You really can't monitor through it, but you can mix with it as long as SAW has latency compensation. The upcoming UAD-8 has its own Lightpipe I/O, that you CAN monitor through.

VST is an open standard. Nothing is "enforced." It depends on how well the SAW programmers have implemented the VST standard. Most VST plugs also have DirectX versions.

Reply posted by handybrent

Actually, because VST is so open, and anyone can write a code for a plug-in, it is the weak link, since the SAW Studio is done in real time and has virtually no latency.

Reply posted by pricey

True, true. Even the "name" developers like Waves http://www.waves.com do a rather half-assed job with VST. Parameters out of order, CPU spikes caused by "de-normalization," and who knows what else. Plug-ins are probably the main cause of "poofs" in Nuendo. I've learned to deal with it (I do an incremental save every 10 minutes) because the plug-ins sound great.

UAD plugs cause the least problems, because they don't run on the CPU. They're the only "must-have" plugs anyway - I don't use Waves much anymore.

I checked out the SAW page. Very ingtriguing. This is what Nuendo “could” have been, if BeOS hadn't gone under. (Steinberg actually ported Nuendo to BeOS, but it was never released.)

If I understand correctly, SAW still has I/O latency, just like any native system. In Nuendo I can set the latency as low as 3 ms, but this cuts my plug-in count in half. Would this happen in SAW? And is there a SAW user forum?

Reply posted by rjrogut

SAW users newsgroup: news://mail.cls.at/iqsoft

Reply posted by sjoko

SAW is a very good system, well worth considering. Stable AND sounds good as well

Reply posted by pricey

Regarding my comment about "poofing" - Steinberg says it was the result of some optimizations that they tried. So it would probably not happen using VST plugs on other DAW's.

Reply posted by dingofries

I too have just been doing a bunch of research on this software. It really seems like the stuff to own. http://www.sawstudiouser.net/ is a link to a user forum website, the mailing list is better however.It does work with the UAD-1 card although there is still latency.

Recently they managed to get the latency down to something like two milliseconds with rewriting the ASIO driver, so you could have real time monitoring through effects. There's a link on the website that will explain it better than I can. It seems like the only real choice for PC.