What are people using to get 40 i/o

Steve L · Post by **Steve L** » Tue May 27, 2008 8:45 am

I have a gospel group interested in using SAC for there entire monitor setup .
Requirement is 40 channels for the monitor setup.
Computer can be a laptop or tower they arent picky.
I am thinking profire light bridge or RME.

Steve L.
Mountain View Recording

DominicPerry · Post by **DominicPerry** » Tue May 27, 2008 8:56 am

Steve,

I haven't done any of the following, but there's no reason to assume they won't work.
2 x Fireface800 = 52 channels
EDIT [WRONG: you can't do this - 2 x Profire Lightbridge = 64 channels]
4 x Echo AudioFire 12 =48 channels
2 x RME RayDAT (PCIe card for tower/desktop) = 64
2 x RME HDSP9562 = 48 channels
1 x MadiFace (PCIExpress Card for Laptop) + ADI 648 = 64 channels

EDIT [CHEAP BUT WON'T WORK - I'm guessing the ProFire is the cheapest option followed by HDSP9652 option.]

Firewire400 has plenty of bandwidth to cope with the first three options at 24bit 48KHz.

Dominic

UpTilDawn · Post by **UpTilDawn** » Tue May 27, 2008 9:42 am

I guess the RME Digiface is almost too old anymore, isn't it?..... but two Digiface will get you 48 ch. of adat.

DanT

Post by **Bob L** » Tue May 27, 2008 10:32 am

I believe the M-Audio Lightbridge will not allow two boxes in the driver... so that is out... unless the driver has changed.

The most proven solution now would still be 2 rme hammerfall cards and 2 digiface boxes... 48 chans and proven to work in the field for years.

Or... 2 Digi9652 cards with no need for the digiface boxes....

Sydek solutions would also be a choice...

Sorry to say... firewire options for this many channels would leave me a little insecure... firewire for large channel counts is just too darn squirrly in Windows for my taste.

Bob L

Warren · Post by **Warren** » Tue May 27, 2008 10:34 am

Been using HDSP9652 for a long time can't think of a better setup for SAC try:

2 ea. RME HDSP9652 = 48 i/o ADAT plus 4 i/o SPDIF
6 ea. BEHRINGER ADA8000 pre's ADAT out

Great for SAC, Recording ?

Chris

IraSeigel · Post by **IraSeigel** » Tue May 27, 2008 10:58 am

Bob L wrote:...

Sorry to say... firewire options for this many channels would leave me a little insecure... firewire for large channel counts is just too darn squirrly in Windows for my taste.

Bob L

At first I thought you were suggesting USB.

But I assume you mean PCI or PCIe is preferred in this situation; i.e., NOT a laptop using Firewire. Is that correct?

Ira

Fat Cat Music · Post by **Fat Cat Music** » Tue May 27, 2008 11:37 am

Hello,
I have been using two digiface with six ada8000 for up to 48 channels with SAW for several years now. I have PCI in my desktop and pcmcia in my laptop. RME (Steinberg has a clone as well) put out a flat card that allowed you to use two at a time in a laptop with multiple card slots.

Lots of RAM is more important than blazing speed in my experience. My laptop is a single core 3.6 ghz machine with 2 gigs of ram.

DRBurroughs

Post by **Bob L** » Tue May 27, 2008 11:47 am

Ira... yes... the pci or pcie or pcmcia on older laptops with the RME or now the new PciExpress card for RME... definitely not USB for anything serious with audio.

Bob L

DominicPerry · Post by **DominicPerry** » Tue May 27, 2008 1:06 pm

Bob L wrote:I believe the M-Audio Lightbridge will not allow two boxes in the driver... so that is out... unless the driver has changed.

I just checked the M-Audio site, you are, of course, correct. I've edited my original incorrect suggestion.

I do know that you can have two Fireface800s and I do know that Echo claim in their manual that you can have upto 5 Echo Audiofires on firewire although I concede that this may be unstable - I haven't tried it.

Dominic

mako · Post by **mako** » Tue May 27, 2008 3:39 pm

I don't have experience with large track counts, however, I'm in the RME Digiface camp (ADA8000) and have nothing but good things to say about this setup. HDSPe in laptop and PCI in desktop. (can also run a HDSP9632 in conjunction with the PCI for another 12 I/O).

I also have an older Creamware A16 which has 16 1/4" I/O.
2 of these plus an ADA8000 would give you 40 ch with just one Digiface.
I'm not sure if their output is balanced though. It's very difficult to get any information on these units.

Good luck

mako

Steve L · Post by **Steve L** » Wed May 28, 2008 4:17 am

Thanks for the replys...I am a M'Audio dealer and was hoping they would meet the requirements. I have used RME in the past so I guess I'll go back and research them again. If this works out for the group they supply the
systems for large gospel concerts and are excited about SAC for the monitor
setup. Just a small demo of it on my shop system had them shaking their heads in disbelief. When I started adding reverb, comps, gates and EQs on the fly they just couldn't believe it. So a potential big sale for me on hardware and of course exposure for SAC in a very lucrative market!

Steve L.
Mountain View Recording
Audio-Video Electronics

kruntz · Post by **kruntz** » Wed May 28, 2008 5:40 am

Steve L wrote:I am a M'Audio dealer and was hoping they would meet the requirements

I still hope they'll add multiple ProFire Lightbridge support to the drivers..

IraSeigel · Post by **IraSeigel** » Thu May 29, 2008 9:23 am

Bob L wrote:Ira... yes... the pci or pcie or pcmcia on older laptops with the RME or now the new PciExpress card for RME... definitely not USB for anything serious with audio.

Bob L

I'm returning to this topic because something concerns me. I've been running very light loads compared to some of the others here, using either a Fireface 400 or Fireface 800 as my interface with my laptop.

As I get into heavier loads, will I continue to be able to rely on the firewire interface, or will ExpressCard or CardBus be more stable and reliable?

I notice that not too many folks have mentioned their interfaces, altho I've seen successful reports of both Digiface and Fireface.

Thanks,
Ira

DominicPerry · Post by **DominicPerry** » Thu May 29, 2008 10:08 am

Ira,

This thread -
http://www.sawstudiouser.com/forums/sho ... php?t=7215
contains a lot of detail about the interfaces people are using. There are plenty of firewire amongst them. Certainly the RME Fireface documentation says that all the active ports are transmitting, even if you are not passing 'sound', so if you are operating your Fireface in Analogue+ADAT1+ADAT2+S/PDIF mode, you are already consuming all the Firewire bandwidth and getting the same latency if you are carrying one channel of audio or 28.

Dominic

Fat Cat Music · Post by **Fat Cat Music** » Thu May 29, 2008 10:50 am

hello,
I just saw a quick notice about the new madi express card and checked out the RME site
http://www.rme-audio.de/en_index.php

I may have to think about upgrading my laptop system that I have been using for several years to this.
DRBurroughs

Fat Cat Music · Post by **Fat Cat Music** » Thu May 29, 2008 11:46 am

Just an additional note:
The prices range for this system
RME HDSPe Madiface - $1700 - $2000
RME ADI-648 - $2500 - $3000
8 - Octamic II (each)- $1500 - $2000 -

system cost ~ $16,000 - $21,000

By replacing the Octamics with Behringer ADA8000s at ~ $200
then the system becomes more affordable at $5800 - $6600

Maybe I won't be switching soon

My dual digiface system looks a lot b etter now
DRBurroughs

IraSeigel · Post by **IraSeigel** » Thu May 29, 2008 12:19 pm

Fat Cat Music wrote:hello,
I just saw a quick notice about the new madi express card and checked out the RME site
http://www.rme-audio.de/en_index.php

I may have to think about upgrading my laptop system that I have been using for several years to this.
DRBurroughs

I, too, was reading about the MADIface, but i really couldn't get a handle on what it does. I need to educate myself a bit on MADI. Is it essentially a PCIe interface similar to a Fireface?

Steve L · Post by **Steve L** » Sat May 31, 2008 8:22 am

Just got my new IBM Lenovo LT and tried it out with a FW1814 and 1 ADA8000 ....no joy! 200 slipped buffers after 10 minutes. Reinstalled XP with minimal Lenovo stuf and set up a profile with audio/networking /modem/ etc.
disabled and 1 slipped buffer after an hour or more. Demo'd it to some sound
guys and they loved it.
Going with the HDSP9652 and 5 ADA8000's for the gospel thing. They are going to push SAC themselves and refer the hardware to me...
Gonna go play with my Profire and 2 ADA8000's this weekend.

Steve L.
Audio-Video Electronics
Mountain View Recording
859-623-4406

Post by **Bob L** » Sat May 31, 2008 9:15 am

Make sure to try the RealTime Priority option in SAC... this could get you ontop of whatever stepped on the threads and stop those slipped buffers from happening.

Bob L

Carl G. · Post by **Carl G.** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 2:18 pm

Bob L wrote:I believe the M-Audio Lightbridge will not allow two boxes in the driver... so that is out... unless the driver has changed.

The most proven solution now would still be 2 rme hammerfall cards and 2 digiface boxes... 48 chans and proven to work in the field for years.

Or... 2 Digi9652 cards with no need for the digiface boxes....

Sydek solutions would also be a choice...

Sorry to say... firewire options for this many channels would leave me a little insecure... firewire for large channel counts is just too darn squirrly in Windows for my taste.

Bob L

Rather Naive about all of this...
But why not:

(1). LYNX L22 (2 high quality AD/DA I-O) & with LS-ADAT (16 ch Adat I/O)
(1). ADDA 2000 (or 2 for the 2nd bank of 8 Adat Ch).

Lynx says they typically can operate in loaded systems with 64x1 buffers, which seemed pretty good to me (since the quality of converters is outstanding).
Am I missing something?

What are people using to get 40 i/o

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