# Flexible soundcard a la Scope platform?



## Simon Ravn (Oct 12, 2004)

I am looking into MAYBE changing my main DAW soundcard from the setup I have now (one Pulsar 2, one Pulsar 1) to something else, if I can get 3 ms. or less latency (24-bit, 44khz) without stressing the CPU too much. I took a look at MOTU's 828MK3 (isnt that the name - at least some MK3 PCI card) - it comes with 3 ADAT in/out, which isn't enough for me. But it also comes with T/DIF - anyone knows if you can get T/DIF to ADAT converters?

Also, anyone knows the routing capabilities of the MOTU - is it anywhere near as flexible as the Scope platform - does it have an internal mixer with a GUI where you can assign different channels to different intputs/outputs etc?

Also, anyone using it on PC and knows about stability/low latency performance?


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## Frederick Russ (Oct 12, 2004)

You ask such complicated questions! The PCI version of the MOTU is the 2408MkIII with a PCI-424 card. (The 828 is the firewire version.) I use mine in the G5 - can't comment on PC performance though. 

On the PCI-424 Card, a software program called Cue Mix is provided that allows you to assign different channels to different inputs and outputs. This would work with whatever Motu audio breakout box you use with the card, be it the 2408MkIII or some the higher res 192kHz high end models (The 424 handles up to 192kHz). Regarding if this compares with Scope, I can't really say (don't have it and never worked with it. )

If you go this route the mainstream solution is to get another 2408MkIII for more adat I/O but I see what you mean - seems to me that I've seen an adapter on the net that can convert the T/DIF to ADAT but I don't know how reliable those are. 

Latency settings on a Mac G5 can be set rather low - performance is sterling. Can't speak for a PC though. I hope this helps - good luck!


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## pitchdrifter (Oct 13, 2004)

RME makes one (or a few models) that convert t/dif <-> adat I believe.


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## Frederick Russ (Oct 13, 2004)

Thanks MarkusH

I found one of them:

http://www.rme-audio.com/english/adi/adi8dd.htm

Could be however that if the PCI-424 card were chosen it may be more cost effective to get another 2408MkIII? Sweetwater is offering it for like $999 - another 2408MkIII expansion would be $679 - three more adat ports.


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## Simon Ravn (Oct 13, 2004)

Thanks guys. The ability to get 6 ADAT ins/outs by stacking too of these 2408's is very tempting (but a bit pricey, here in Europe it's more like $1200 a piece). Maybe I could even still use my Pulsar card at the same time (although ASIO only allows one driver at a time). 

Anyone who has experience with MOTU's support on PC? I reckon they are more Mac-focused? I don't want to end up with some big surprises if I decide to really go for this.


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## DonnieChristian (Oct 13, 2004)

Simon Ravn said:


> Thanks guys. The ability to get 6 ADAT ins/outs by stacking too of these 2408's is very tempting (but a bit pricey, here in Europe it's more like $1200 a piece). Maybe I could even still use my Pulsar card at the same time (although ASIO only allows one driver at a time).
> 
> Anyone who has experience with MOTU's support on PC? I reckon they are more Mac-focused? I don't want to end up with some big surprises if I decide to really go for this.



You may get some people who fee otherwise but for me MOTU on the PC has been nothing but trouble. I would stick with a RME solution if possible.


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## pitchdrifter (Oct 13, 2004)

_hdsp+digiface_ is something you could use and stock (up to 3 per machine). each has 3 adat i/os, wordclock, s/pdif and a stereo trs monitoring output, they cost EUR 740 each (hdsp+digiface).

Same thing but without breakout box, the _digi 96/52 hdsp_ (its all on the card, but same specs, except for the lack of an analogue monitoring output and midi i/o) cost EUR 500 each. These also are stackable.


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## Peter Emanuel Roos (Oct 13, 2004)

I have an HDSP 9652 in my DAW. It takes up two slots (but uses only one), so I can imagine that 3 of them will not fit into a regular mobo/case combination. An outboard solution like the Digiface would be better (which I will actually look into). The driver for the HDSP series can handle a mix of up to three different types of HDSP cards.
My Giga PC's can send more adats than my Daw can receive, which is a waste from a mixing perspective.


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## Herman Witkam (Oct 13, 2004)

I've been thinking about using ADAT interfaces, but I have nothing to send the digital output to. I could get a Yamaha 02R digital mixer, but that's a lot of money. So if I'm staying digital I might as well keep the audio in the pc's. So currently I just transport the audio files over TCP/IP after simultaneous bouncing the outputs. Is is true that with the HDSP 9652 you can bounce all the outputs as loose wave files simultaneously?


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## Peter Emanuel Roos (Oct 13, 2004)

Herman Witkam said:


> I've been thinking about using ADAT interfaces, but I have nothing to send the digital output to. I could get a Yamaha 02R digital mixer, but that's a lot of money. So if I'm staying digital I might as well keep the audio in the pc's. So currently I just transport the audio files over TCP/IP after simultaneous bouncing the outputs. Is is true that with the HDSP 9652 you can bounce all the outputs as loose wave files simultaneously?



Herman, you should see my approach.
Although I occasionally have to restart, due to crackles, I mix and bounce my stuff "live" from 3 GigaPC's via Adat back into my Daw (12 stereo 24 bit channels) as a 24 bit stereo mix. Including loads of plugins and a latency setting of 6 or 12 msec.

This is just a great loop: the sequencer sends out the midi and can simultaneously mix (and monitor!) the returning 12 stereo 24 bit inputs and can even capture any output into audio tracks aligned to the midi tracks, with neglectable latencies.


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## Herman Witkam (Oct 13, 2004)

I know.
Sorry I didn't state my question clear. What I actually meant was: In GS3, is it possible to bounce any number of outputs your sound interface has? This way it makes sense for me to get an RME interface, even if I'm not using all the ADAT's. I can load the loose wave files in multitrack software (probably protools LE).

I haven't been able to use the bounce function in GS3 yet, due to a conflict GS3 and my GSIF v1 drivers. For that reason I'm temporarily back to GS2.5. btw One of the GS pc's is actually the sequencer pc as well.


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## Peter Emanuel Roos (Oct 13, 2004)

(sorry for taking this OT)

I started out with GigaSampler and bouncing to Wave files, losing the sync with the sequencer. I think that was a terrible way to make mixes.

One of my pet topics, sorry Herman  I just love how the returning audio can be re-integrated with my time-line. I really wouldn't want it differently.


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## pitchdrifter (Oct 14, 2004)

I never got under a latency of about 20ms total (that is outgoing midi from sequencer computer until incoming audio via adat from gs2.5 pc (with rme hdsp running at 1.5ms latency).
It never crackled for me, but the 20ms latency which I had to manually compensate for by negatively delaying the outgoing midi (in order to make the incoming audio from the gs pc be in sync with the local stuff) was really annoying.

Then GigaTeleport appeared, and I must say I preferred that *bigtime* over the adat approach, because the latency instead of a total 20ms was 6ms or 12ms when I maxed out that PC (100mbit lan didn't seem to be a problem either). Also I could get rid of the midi interface on that computer, as well as the HDSP+digiface. Thats about 900 bucks saved - with every giga pc.

Right now I'm 'researching' another possibility which boosts performance and gets a big chunk more performance out of the same system than my prior solutions did. Its a lot of trying, testing and tweaking (and annoying 2 developers ), but its going somewhere, and its very impressive. It also doesn't require soundcard nor midi interface in the dedicated box. So far its getting 250% of the performance out of the same hardware compared to the solutions mentioned earlier. And it gets 133% more out of a 1.7ghz p4 with 1gb ram than the typical dedicated GS3 setup does out of a 3.2ghz with 2gb of ram.

As GS3 is new still I'm *really* hoping things are gonna be resolved with that, would really like to use it, but in it's current state its somewhat behind (at least my) expectations, especially considering what GS2.5 already has been capable of. I hope Tascam are gonna listen to their users.


my 2?

Markus


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## Simon Ravn (Oct 15, 2004)

DonnieChristian said:


> Simon Ravn said:
> 
> 
> > Thanks guys. The ability to get 6 ADAT ins/outs by stacking too of these 2408's is very tempting (but a bit pricey, here in Europe it's more like $1200 a piece). Maybe I could even still use my Pulsar card at the same time (although ASIO only allows one driver at a time).
> ...



OK the MOTU looks really cool on paper though. It has more ins/outs like I need compared to any RME solution. Also it only uses one PCI slot no matter how many interfaces you add. It is a very tempting solution for me. So can you tell me what kind of problems you have had with MOTU on PC?


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## pitchdrifter (Oct 15, 2004)

have you looked at the hdsp+madi solution? thats 64 i/os per card, altho you'll need some sort of patchpay to collect your signals before piping them into the sequencer machine.


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## Simon Ravn (Oct 15, 2004)

MarkusH said:


> have you looked at the hdsp+madi solution? thats 64 i/os per card, altho you'll need some sort of patchpay to collect your signals before piping them into the sequencer machine.



Hmmm well I can't use MADI. Then I'd have to change all my other soundcards to MADI as well - nooo thanks


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## CJ (Oct 24, 2004)

Let me know how it works out Simon - I was wondering how the PCI424 cards interacted with UAD in a PC - further I'm really curious how tc powercore interacts with both.

CJ


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