Rosetta 800 interface

[bcorkery]

for those of you who are using the Appgee box, what's the best interface to the PC? Hammerfall lightpipe is the direction I'm thinking. if you have other sugggestions, pros, cons, etc. I'd appreciate it.

TIA

[Sean McCoy]

I have a Rosetta 800, and use it with an RME Digiface through a Z-Sys Digital Detangler---but I have a complex, multi-platform room and need all that junk. Any RME interface will work well.

[bcorkery]

Thanks Sean. What do you hear about the X Firewire Card sold by Apogee?

[Himhui]

I found that apogee couldn't work at low latency with Saw....:(

[Sean McCoy]

Thanks Sean. What do you hear about the X Firewire Card sold by Apogee?
I've never looked into it because I don't do location work and I don't think it would offer any advantages in my system. And given the much greater frequency of bus and other problems I hear about with FireWire audio interfaces in general, I'd always feel more comfortable with a PCI or Cardbus setup.

[Naturally Digital]

for those of you who are using the Appgee box, what's the best interface to the PC? Hammerfall lightpipe is the direction I'm thinking. if you have other sugggestions, pros, cons, etc. I'd appreciate it.

TIABill, not for the Apogee in particular but for interfacing to any good quality converters that don't include their own interface (like a TDM bus or proprietary cable of some sort) I'd suggest going for AES/EBU. This allows you to get the card of your choice (RME or Lynx), have the option of using D-sub to D-sub cables for clean interfacing and/or using XLR breakout cables and having loads of routing flexibility. I've found myself handcuffed in the past with TDIF cables (all ins/outs on one cable) and ADAT (separate ins/outs but 8 channels per cable).

AES keeps things simple, handles high sampling rates without MUX formats and is probably here for the long-term.

[DominicPerry]

I'd suggest going for AES/EBU. This allows you to get the card of your choice (RME or Lynx), have the option of using D-sub to D-sub cables for clean interfacing and/or using XLR breakout cables and having loads of routing flexibility. I've found myself handcuffed in the past with TDIF cables (all ins/outs on one cable) and ADAT (separate ins/outs but 8 channels per cable).


Dave,

Could you just explain the way AES works for those of us used to ADAT? I know that ADAT is limited to 8 channels at 48KHz or alternatively 4 at 96KHz using S/Mux (although this is not officially part of the ADAT spec). ADAT is cheap and lots of stuff supports it, a standalone converter from ADAT to AES is expensive, what does it give us? Am I at the amateur end (which is probably where I should stay!) Can you just give us a run down please?

Dominic

[Bill Park]

Just another point of view...

I've got both, and I don't see a clear advantage to anyone with a small/simple/permanent rig using AES over lightpipe. There is a larger expense, and you do loose certain small conveniences (like DAT markers) when you switch to AES.

But you are basically looking at 2 channels on XLR (crummy connector for digital) down digital spec cable (110 ohm). The voltage is hotter than SP/DIF. There are some very minor differences in the format of the digital signal, but really not much to worry about.

So you raise your cabling costs by quite a bit, to gain the capability of being able to repatch audio (though not through a patch bay) 2 channels at a time.

Meanwhile, in the RME TotalMix app I have been able to do most all the patching and routing that I have needed in my former studio, and currently in my 24x8 writing/mixing room. And thre key here is -routing-, meaning that a signal can have multiple destinations at varying levels per destination.

As I said, just my personal point of view... nothing wrong with AES or MADI or any other pro format.

Bill

[Sean McCoy]

The two advantages I see to AES over ADAT are balanced cables for longer runs and the fact that you can make physical routing decisions based on two channels rather than banks of eight. There have been a few occasions where having to move eight at a time has been slightly inconvenient for me, but certainly not enough to warrant having to completely revamp my system. In my setup I have LightPipe cables running as long as 10 meters and have zero clock problems.

(Just to be fair, using a Z-Sys router, it is possible to use a patchbay to re-route AES digital.)

[Bill Park]

..., it is possible to use a patchbay to re-route AES digital.

But it needs to be specifically a digital patch bay, not an analog TRS bay. Price one and get back to me. Just doesn't seem practical for (as I said before) most small, home, permanent systems. If you are constantly moving, using different digital gear, and repatching, then I can see it. Using Totalmix as the router has worked just fine for me, I can send any inputs to any number of outputs. I have the ADAT cards installed in the Myteks, they come native with AES/EBU. I've only used AES/EBU once in recent memory, to plug into a Masterlink... which I hated, and will never ever use again if given a choice.

Bill

[Naturally Digital]

Dave,

Could you just explain the way AES works for those of us used to ADAT? I know that ADAT is limited to 8 channels at 48KHz or alternatively 4 at 96KHz using S/Mux (although this is not officially part of the ADAT spec). ADAT is cheap and lots of stuff supports it, a standalone converter from ADAT to AES is expensive, what does it give us? Am I at the amateur end (which is probably where I should stay!) Can you just give us a run down please?

DominicDom, here are a couple of clippings from the web:

From SOS: http://www.soundonsound.com/information/Glossary.php

"AES 3: A two-channel interface used to pass digital audio between equipment. Originally developed by the Audio Engineering Society and the European Broadcasting Union, it is often known as the AES-EBU interface. The AES standards documentation list it as 'AES 3', and it is normally connected using 3-pin XLRs. It carries two digital audio channels plus embedded clocking data on a balanced cable of a nominal 110 Ohm impedance, with up to 24 bits per sample and sample rates up to 384kHz. The datastream is structured identically to S/PDIF, although some of the Channel status codes are used differently. An extension to the AES 3 standard is AES 3-id, which describes an unbalanced version of the interface using BNC connectors and 75 Ohm video cables. "

and a couple of very detailed articles from Sweetwater:

http://www.sweetwater.com/expert-center/techtips/d--05/11/2004

http://www.sweetwater.com/expert-center/techtips/d--05/12/2004

[Sean McCoy]

But it needs to be specifically a digital patch bay, not an analog TRS bay. Price one and get back to me. Just doesn't seem practical for (as I said before) most small, home, permanent systems. If you are constantly moving, using different digital gear, and repatching, then I can see it. Using Totalmix as the router has worked just fine for me, I can send any inputs to any number of outputs. I have the ADAT cards installed in the Myteks, they come native with AES/EBU. I've only used AES/EBU once in recent memory, to plug into a Masterlink... which I hated, and will never ever use again if given a choice.

Bill
Agreed---the added expense of going all-AES isn't likely to be worth it for most people (including me).

Out of curiosity, what did you hate about the Masterlink? I don't have one, but we installed one in one of my clients' studios as an alternate mix destination.

[DominicPerry]

Thanks Bill, thanks Dave.

Dominic

[bcorkery]

Thanks guys. A lot of good informaiton here.
I'll have to try a couple of options to see what works best for me.

-Bill

[Bob L]

Balanced cabels add nothing in the digital realm... as far as I can see... you are not passing analog audio with superimposed noise... it is a digital signal.

Of course... perhaps I'm wrong here, but I don't think there is any advantage.

Bob L

[bcorkery]

So, is Firewire out, even with a non-Vista system?

The Apogee Roseta 800 will be residing in a permanent location and won’t need a long run to the computer. I’m looking for as clean a transfer from the converters into SAW Studio as possible.

[Cary B. Cornett]

So you raise your cabling costs by quite a bit, to gain the capability of being able to repatch audio (though not through a patch bay) 2 channels at a time.
I recently ran across an online discussion about AES cabling. One engineer had this comment:

***
Balanced cabling is not necessary for long runs of AES. It may not be of any advantage at all! I believe that the data does not have any components at low frequencies. At NBC, Washington we use AES3 (75 ohm unbalanced) for plant wiring. We interface all balanced AES equipment using Canare transformers that are about the size of an XLR connector. They have an XLR (male or female) on one end and a BNC on the other. Some of our cables are hundreds of feet. Although we have had thousands of AES paths for over 7 years, we have had very, very few problems. These have been due to bad crimp, damaged connectors, etc. We have not seen ANY ground loop problems on AES or SDI.
***

Please note that, once put on standard video cabling, these signals can be routed using a standard video patch bay.

[Cary B. Cornett]

But it needs to be specifically a digital patch bay, not an analog TRS bay. An engineer named Stephen Anderson who works in the SoCal area recently stated:

***
For several years now I have been using Gepco AES/EBU for everything I do, and using their high quality single pair AES for mic cables; works great.

Oh, and I run AES/EBU through TT patchbays all the time, no fuss, no muss.
***

So, apparently if the right cable is used, you CAN use conventional patch bays to route AES/EBU signals without trouble. I would not, however, try this with the sort of cheap patch bays offered through places like Guitar Center, et al.

[bcorkery]

Thanks Cary. I wasn't considering a digital patch bay because I thought Total Mix could handle all that? I've read about the RME stuff here but have never used it.

[Perry]

Thanks Cary. I wasn't considering a digital patch bay because I thought Total Mix could handle all that? I've read about the RME stuff here but have never used it.

I haven't read this entire thread so forgive me please if I'm be redundant here. It may have already been mentioned (I mentioned that.. right? :) but the SSL-Soundscape soundcards have extensive digital routing options built in as well. The Mixpander/iBox options in particular have enormous routing flexibility and features and as far as I know the deepest and most thorough capabilities of any hardware/software combination in a soundcard commonly available on the market. If this is a priority do check them out.

http://www.ssl-soundscape.com/

All the best,
Perry

[Cary B. Cornett]

Thanks Cary. I wasn't considering a digital patch bay because I thought Total Mix could handle all that? I've read about the RME stuff here but have never used it. If you want to be able to route various inputs directly to various outputs, or route different SS output channels to more than one device out, Total Mix will indeed do all of that. If, OTOH, you want to route output from one program to input of another program on the same computer without looping back from a physical output to a physical input, Total Mix may not be able. In my system, since I use an HDSP 9652 card, which provides the max number of physical inputs/outputs, TotalMix will not do internal software loopback, where, IIRC, with a 9632 (which has fewer physical I/O ports) it will.

[bcorkery]

I haven't read this entire thread so forgive me please if I'm be redundant here. It may have already been mentioned (I mentioned that.. right? :) but the SSL-Soundscape soundcards have extensive digital routing options built in as well. The Mixpander/iBox options in particular have enormous routing flexibility and features and as far as I know the deepest and most thorough capabilities of any hardware/software combination in a soundcard commonly available on the market. If this is a priority do check them out.

http://www.ssl-soundscape.com/

All the best,
PerryWill the Mixpander card work with the Rosetta 800? I've been to that site and get the idea that their gear is proprietary. Am I wrong here?

[bcorkery]

If you want to be able to route various inputs directly to various outputs, or route different SS output channels to more than one device out, Total Mix will indeed do all of that. If, OTOH, you want to route output from one program to input of another program on the same computer without looping back from a physical output to a physical input, Total Mix may not be able. In my system, since I use an HDSP 9652 card, which provides the max number of physical inputs/outputs, TotalMix will not do internal software loopback, where, IIRC, with a 9632 (which has fewer physical I/O ports) it will.I've also read about the Z-Sys gear that seems to offer a lot of flexibility. It seems like ther are a lot of options. Thanks Cary.

[Perry]

Will the Mixpander card work with the Rosetta 800? I've been to that site and get the idea that their gear is proprietary. Am I wrong here?

Some of it is proprietary while some isn't. Most all of their gear uses TDIF. I know some of the Apogee stuff had TDIF connections included but I just checked and unfortunately this one doesn't. Too bad.

Actually too, with the Mixpander used as a soundcard independent of their own hardware DAW it does require their proprietary 'iBox' (24 channel AD/DA). You can still add more AD/DA (up to another 24 I/O) with your own converters though at that point.

The Mixtreme 192 cards however work with any AD/DA so long as TDIF is present. They are limited to 16 physical I/O per card though, with 2 TDIF connections plus spdif/wordclock.

I wish they did have a light pipe card but unfortunately when SSL moved in plans for this were dropped. SSL is more interested in MADI and as I understand it the Madixtreme card from Sydec is the bigger priority at the moment.

It's unfortunate because probably all of the routing that you would ever want to do is possible with the Sydec products... they have true multiclient support (ASIO-2, MME, WDM, GSIF).


And with the Soundscape 'mixer' you have a true mixer.. basically a stand-alone digital console, DSP powered with 0 latency and an almost unbelievable depth of capabilities. After many years of using these products I am still amazed.

Best of luck finding what you need! :)

Perry

[bcorkery]

Perry,

Thanks as always. So the research continues.

:)

[Naturally Digital]

So, is Firewire out, even with a non-Vista system?No. Not by any means. It's just that when going firewire you are now relying on the vendor to provide good drivers. This isn't always the case and with Apogee I'd definitely want to try it first. They seem to have more affiliation with Mac OSX at this point than Windows although I have no hands-on experience to back this up.

Direct firewire interface to the converter can be a very nice feature and in some cases can work very well. It's just that with anything 'driver-related' it's a bit hit and miss. Do your research on the driver stability before buying the device.

BTW: Have you already purchased the 800?

LynxStudio had a deal on their Aurora converter where they were throwing in the firewire interface with the purchase of the 16 channel version IIRC. If I needed firewire I would certainly consider that one. Lynx have a great reputation for driver quality.

Also, following up on Perry's post: if you haven't purchased the converter yet then you could certainly consider the Mixpander/Alpha-link (aka "ibox") converter/soundcard combo from SSL-Soundscape/Sydec. It offers 24ch A/D and D/A at up to 96kHz plus 24ch digital I/O (either ADAT or ADAT/MADI or AES-EBU/MADI). The TDIF digital I/O is available on the ibox-48TA but you'd probably need to contact Sydec about that. This unit connects to a pci card with DSP on it (as Perry has described :)) and gives you a full 48 channels in and out of the PC. Of course, these units could be used with the Rosetta 800 via the ADAT or AES interfaces but I don't know what you'd do with the other 24 channels of analog I/O. :rolleyes: