BillFitzmaurice.info

For those of you who've boarded the SAC train and have been talking it up around here lately, I have a question just to satisfy my curiosity. I was browsing around their website and forums yesterday, and I could not figure out the difference between SAC and SAWStudio. It appears they are both my the same developer and are two distinct products, but I couldn't find any info comparing/contrasting the two.

Anyone?...

Try out the demo's. You will notice a big difference in navigation .
Gdoughtrey correct me if I'm wrong.

SAC is a live digital mixing console, SAW is a DAW package. SAC is optimized throughout for live use and ultra-low latency. SAC can easily run at 1.5ms latency in to out on a large channel count with lots of processing. SAW and most other DAW packages would struggle to meet that. They can work in tandem to mix live and multi-track everything being done onstage. Studios use the combination to mix monitors during tracking sessions among other uses. SAC passes the audio to SAW at a digital split point anywhere along the chain so there's no loss in signal as with passing through an outboard router and/or spliter.

gdougherty wrote:SAC is a live digital mixing console, SAW is a DAW package. SAC is optimized throughout for live use and ultra-low latency. SAC can easily run at 1.5ms latency in to out on a large channel count with lots of processing. SAW and most other DAW packages would struggle to meet that. They can work in tandem to mix live and multi-track everything being done onstage. Studios use the combination to mix monitors during tracking sessions among other uses. SAC passes the audio to SAW at a digital split point anywhere along the chain so there's no loss in signal as with passing through an outboard router and/or spliter.

SAC = live
SAWStudio = multi-track recording, editing, etc.

Thanks for that clarification...

I am a new SAC convert and I tell you...I would not volutarily go back to an "analog" system unless I had no other choice. SAC gives you the freedom to run your sound in a way that doesn't pose any restrictions in routing, effects use EQ, etc. How many times have you run out of sends, or wished you could do an independant EQ on the monitors, or need more compressors, gates, reverbs etc. It's all there.
In contrast..our church just installed a Yamaha LS9 (I was to slow in getting the SAC system in there. But down the road...). It is a step above analog boards but there are quite a few restrictions in comparision to SAC. SAC is far easier to use and I find "faster" to move around and navigate. I love the Monitor Mixer feature of SAC. One of the Planned upgrade / developments for SAC is a Speake Processor type module. It'll essentially replace my DBX Drivrack 260. The LS9 has a way to do that...sort of..... SAC is half the price of the LS9 and I have far more channels that allowed by the LS9. Throw in the ability to run SAW in tandem.... I can see a time in the very near future when our LS9 may go up for sale...we'll see.

jeffsco wrote:I am a new SAC convert and I tell you...I would not volutarily go back to an "analog" system unless I had no other choice... SAC gives you the freedom to run your sound in a way that doesn't pose any restrictions in routing, effects use EQ, etc... One of the Planned upgrade / developments for SAC is a Speake Processor type module. It'll essentially replace my DBX Drivrack 260.

We are in the earliest stages of switching over to SAC - assembling the components and learning the software. Sorta bewildering at first but each time through it seems to make more sense. One thing I have not yet figured out is how to EQ your system and do RTA with SAC so I'm still not sure whether we need something like a DEQ2496 or DriveRack in addition to SAC.

I think we will probably get SAC working about the time I finish the DR 250s. Then the fun will really begin.

Doug

I'm there with Dr. Doug. Just getting a SAC rig started. We slated the thing to roll out in the early spring for testing and hopefully be fully engaged with it by next Summer. At the risk of purchasing cheaper analog/digital hardware we also just decided to bite the bullet and capitalize for all quality hardware components on the premise that this will be the rig of the future and if that's the case why throw limitations at it. At worse we can regain some of the capitol by selling off some older analog gear after the rig is up and running successfully.

I could always sell just the snakes for the copper!

We'll take this one slow and build in as many backup / alternatives as possible.

What would be cool is if any of the Computer savvy folks on here would mind throwing some host and remote computer configs. together that they think would make long term reliable machines. Not necessarily the cheapest but more like the best reliability for the money without needing to re-mortgage the house!

Perhaps newegg/tiger direct links,rack mount PCs or Remote Notebooks, Routers etc.

I'd go for the biggest fastest Meanest Beeee-otch you can afford....like an I-7 and full size atx mobo.
While for the moment, SAC is only glitch free when restricted to 1 core, i believe that its just a matter of time before thats no longer the case, and the extra cores can be fully utilized...

Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.....

Those who live on the bleeding edge are most often sacrificed on the bleeding edge.
Riding the razor blade is not my idea of a good time...

Buy as much quality as you can afford, to get the most value from your procurement cycle.
Pay attention to where the work gets done, vs. the advertising.
Clock speed is NOT where it's at: Front Side Bus speed and RAM timing is where the work gets done.
Everything goes to Memory, Disk or Display. For SAC, it also goes to Network.
But this data rate is so incredibly slow compared to processor speed, to be a non-issue.

Quad core processors still share a single memory bus.
#2, #3, #4 wait in NOP state (twiddling their thumbs) while #1 has the bus.
If you want multiple cores having their own memory bus, you step up to the pricey server-class boards.

As noted above, SAC is single-cored, meaning it is clueless how to deal with multi-cores.
The quad is a complete waste of money for any single-processor application.

Lay out a simple Excel chart that does a line graph of MHz vs. Price.
You will see the very obvious jump in price-performance when you get above middle class.
My E8400s are a few percentage points slower than the hot rods, but at a much lower cost.

its single core because of windows, not because of the hardware.

to that end i've suggested the implementation of an RTOS. that way the os stays on one core while the rest are free to use uninterrupted...

EDIT: it's already been done, see below

http://www.intervalzero.com/pdfs/IZMerg ... logies.pdf

Baloney.

XP understands quad-cores right out of the box.
It isn't Windows that is multi-core unaware, it is the application software.

Workstation class boards still have a single bus to memory and I/O.
It matters little whether the OS is confined to one core, because it still has to wait while the other core is using the bus.
Server boards are a different matter. That is why 8 processor Xeons really fly. And priced to do so...

Careful installation and removal of eye candy/superfluous services will buy you bigger performance gains.
XP can be stripped down substantially with a little bit of effort.
Mine boots into a 97mb footprint when I have it stripped way down.

The memory savings by itself is trivial in a 4gb machine.
What is less obvious is all those cpu cycles consumed by the bloat services that have been stripped out.

quaizywabbit wrote:its single core because of windows, not because of the hardware.

Bruce is right. SAC is designed to deal with one core only, and it's usually windows services designed for multiple cores that step on SAC if it's not set up properly. Core2Duo processors work very well, I run an E5200 with plenty of room to spare, but the big systems are running on E8400s and up. It takes a LOT of channels, mixers, and plugs to choke those systems up.

This is one application where the latest and greatest isn't the best.

I am still looking for a way to prioritize cpus and the threads that run on them as far as memory access... but as of now, I have never found anything in the Windows API that does that.. perhaps there are some trick registry entries that some guru knows about... if so... I would be happy to learn about them.

Until the multi-cpu architecture allows for simultaneous RAM access by all cpus or at least cpu priority for RAM access... a multi-cpu system will not be a big bonus for apps like SAC and SAWStudio.

Bob L

http://www.tenasys.com/products/intime.php

http://intervalzero.com/

two different ways to skin the cat....im sure theres more.

more than capable of utilizing more than 1 core, and more than capable of putting windows in its place.....especially in Bob L's hands...

its the cost to purchase and distribute + Bob's willingness to port that remain. But both are viable solutions.......

and both offer trial versions for Bob to evaluate.......if he's using VS.net or newer, he could be testing an RTOS version of SAC and SAW as we speak...

will it guarantee better performance than what exists? i dunno...if anything it would be even more solid without the user intervention required. My guess is that it will allow him to take advantage of every last bit of what the hardware can withstand. so if memory bandwidth is a bottleneck, then it will scream right up to that point.

would it at least break the barriers to allow him to give it a go without resorting to superhuman efforts to make something do what it wasnt designed to do? Certainly....thats what it was designed for....

quaizywabbit wrote:.if he's using VS.net or newer, he could be testing an RTOS version of SAC and SAW as we speak...

Bob codes in Assembly for best performance, and while I'm sure the dual core issue is on the list, he's hinted that it's not top priority, as there are multiple very viable workarounds. Even very high channel/mixer counts can be handled on relatively moderate machines. Until those processors are no longer available, or people regularly start using loads that the best available systems can't handle, tackling the multi-core problem probably will remain a back-burner issue.

Remember, the PC that runs SAC should do nothing else (except maybe SAW or another DAW, like Reaper, which works beautifully). There's no need to trick it out to do something it'll never do. You wouldn't expect your big digital mixer to play 3d games, edit video, or surf the web, would you?

no. dedicated works for me as well.

dont get me wrong, i'm actually quite happy with things as they are. Very cool stuff indeed.

that quote from Bob was what started me looking into this. Cant have windows EVER stepping on his program, causing glitches. So its single core. a solution that works within what microsoft built-in, but one that will hit a brick wall if more and more stuff gets added and we complain that there arent enough resources to do the crazy things we do.

it's his "vision", we're just along for the ride anyways.....

EDIT: apparently he's fine working with things as they are, more power to him!!!