[George's Pro Sound Co.]

Folks , I'd like to run the demo of the Software Audio Console
http://www.softwareaudioconsole.com/
I already have the recomkmended ada8000s for the hard wire in and out, I
would like to find a affordable interface to feed at least 12 channels in
and 4 channels back out, the ada8000s have adat andmy laptop has usb and
card bus options
if the demo is promising I would go on and build a dedicated desktop with
the rme raydat product
but I really don't want to spend 2000$ building the dedicated computer to
run a demo program I may not end up buying
what option do I have
sample rate is not a issue with the demo, 48 is more than enough
but I need to interface at least two of my ada8000s to my laptop to get to
level where i can evaluate the SAC program
ideas?
Thanks
George

[Arny Krueger]

"George's Pro Sound Co." wrote in message
m
Folks , I'd like to run the demo of the Software Audio
Console http://www.softwareaudioconsole.com/
I already have the recomkmended ada8000s for the hard
wire in and out, I would like to find a affordable
interface to feed at least 12 channels in and 4 channels
back out, the ada8000s have adat andmy laptop has usb
and card bus options if the demo is promising I would go on and build a
dedicated desktop with the rme raydat product
but I really don't want to spend 2000$ building the
dedicated computer to run a demo program I may not end up
buying what option do I have
sample rate is not a issue with the demo, 48 is more than
enough but I need to interface at least two of my ada8000s to my
laptop to get to level where i can evaluate the SAC
program ideas?

Aye, there is the rub. What both you and I both want is 16 channels worth
of ADAT I/O for about $200. What the market provides is more like 32
channels of ADAT I/O for more like $1K, from RME.

One approach may be to fish for some legacy MOTU audio interfaces with ADAT
I/O on eBay.

BTW cheers George for even considering SAC. There has been a lot of
discussion of it on PSW. IMO it is a radical approach.

As much as I'm an advocate for digital consoles, I'm not convinced about
SAC.

Also, it seems arguable that SAC isn't really at its best without a control
surface (or more). We all mix with two hands at least some of the time,
right?

[George's Pro Sound Co.]

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"George's Pro Sound Co." wrote in message
m
Folks , I'd like to run the demo of the Software Audio
Console http://www.softwareaudioconsole.com/
I already have the recomkmended ada8000s for the hard
wire in and out, I would like to find a affordable
interface to feed at least 12 channels in and 4 channels
back out, the ada8000s have adat andmy laptop has usb
and card bus options if the demo is promising I would go on and build a
dedicated desktop with the rme raydat product
but I really don't want to spend 2000$ building the
dedicated computer to run a demo program I may not end up
buying what option do I have
sample rate is not a issue with the demo, 48 is more than
enough but I need to interface at least two of my ada8000s to my
laptop to get to level where i can evaluate the SAC
program ideas?

Aye, there is the rub. What both you and I both want is 16 channels worth
of ADAT I/O for about $200. What the market provides is more like 32
channels of ADAT I/O for more like $1K, from RME.

One approach may be to fish for some legacy MOTU audio interfaces with
ADAT I/O on eBay.

BTW cheers George for even considering SAC. There has been a lot of
discussion of it on PSW. IMO it is a radical approach.

As much as I'm an advocate for digital consoles, I'm not convinced about
SAC.

Also, it seems arguable that SAC isn't really at its best without a
control surface (or more). We all mix with two hands at least some of the
time, right?
with my experiance on studio manager I envision a 32 inch touch screen
monitor as the work surface for the SAC
I have no fear of technology, if it can reduce my labor, investment in
hardware, footprint, truck pack, it is all a way for me to offer my
services at the price point people are happy to hire at
and it makes me more competitive against the guy who is dragging in 2 500
lb desks and 8 racks of outboard
but you are right I want to demo this product with a under 300$ outlay
before I commit thousand and thousands of dollars to my vision
george

[Arny Krueger]

"George's Pro Sound Co." wrote in message

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"George's Pro Sound Co." wrote in
message
m
Folks , I'd like to run the demo of the Software Audio
Console http://www.softwareaudioconsole.com/
I already have the recomkmended ada8000s for the hard
wire in and out, I would like to find a affordable
interface to feed at least 12 channels in and 4 channels
back out, the ada8000s have adat andmy laptop has usb
and card bus options if the demo is promising I would
go on and build a dedicated desktop with the rme raydat product but I
really don't want to spend 2000$ building the
dedicated computer to run a demo program I may not end
up buying what option do I have
sample rate is not a issue with the demo, 48 is more than enough but I
need to interface at least two of my
ada8000s to my laptop to get to level where i can
evaluate the SAC program ideas?

Aye, there is the rub. What both you and I both want is
16 channels worth of ADAT I/O for about $200. What the
market provides is more like 32 channels of ADAT I/O for
more like $1K, from RME. One approach may be to fish for some legacy
MOTU audio
interfaces with ADAT I/O on eBay.

BTW cheers George for even considering SAC. There has
been a lot of discussion of it on PSW. IMO it is a
radical approach. As much as I'm an advocate for digital consoles, I'm
not
convinced about SAC.

Also, it seems arguable that SAC isn't really at its
best without a control surface (or more). We all mix
with two hands at least some of the time, right?

with my experiance on studio manager I envision a 32
inch touch screen monitor as the work surface for the SAC

AFAIK reasonably priced 32 inch touch screens are like hen's teeth. It used
to be that 14" diagonal was the limit for reasonbly priced product, but that
recently jumped to more like 17 inches.

I've got some experience with trying to run Windows with a touch screen, and
it is not all that wonderful. For openers, you often end up using a stylus
and not just a finger.

If SAC was in my future, the big question in my mind would be how many of
what kind of control surface(s) I'd need.

I have no fear of technology, if it can reduce my labor,
investment in hardware, footprint, truck pack, it is all
a way for me to offer my services at the price point
people are happy to hire at and it makes me more competitive against the
guy who is
dragging in 2 500 lb desks and 8 racks of outboard

That specific promise has been talked about on PSW. The jury remains out.

but you are right I want to demo this product with a
under 300$ outlay before I commit thousand and thousands
of dollars to my vision

IMO, that is just plain common sense.

If the SAC people really want to sell this product, they need to go on the
road with a reasonbly-priced demo system. Set it up next to a M7CL or LS9 or
maybe even a Presonus with a multitrack source and a pair of cans and let
people take their licks on them.

[George's Pro Sound Co.]

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
news
"George's Pro Sound Co." wrote in message

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"George's Pro Sound Co." wrote in
message
m
Folks , I'd like to run the demo of the Software Audio
Console http://www.softwareaudioconsole.com/
I already have the recomkmended ada8000s for the hard
wire in and out, I would like to find a affordable
interface to feed at least 12 channels in and 4 channels
back out, the ada8000s have adat andmy laptop has usb
and card bus options if the demo is promising I would
go on and build a dedicated desktop with the rme raydat product but I
really don't want to spend 2000$ building the
dedicated computer to run a demo program I may not end
up buying what option do I have
sample rate is not a issue with the demo, 48 is more than enough but I
need to interface at least two of my
ada8000s to my laptop to get to level where i can
evaluate the SAC program ideas?

Aye, there is the rub. What both you and I both want is
16 channels worth of ADAT I/O for about $200. What the
market provides is more like 32 channels of ADAT I/O for
more like $1K, from RME. One approach may be to fish for some legacy
MOTU audio
interfaces with ADAT I/O on eBay.

BTW cheers George for even considering SAC. There has
been a lot of discussion of it on PSW. IMO it is a
radical approach. As much as I'm an advocate for digital consoles, I'm
not
convinced about SAC.

Also, it seems arguable that SAC isn't really at its
best without a control surface (or more). We all mix
with two hands at least some of the time, right?

with my experiance on studio manager I envision a 32
inch touch screen monitor as the work surface for the SAC

AFAIK reasonably priced 32 inch touch screens are like hen's teeth. It
used to be that 14" diagonal was the limit for reasonbly priced product,
but that recently jumped to more like 17 inches.

I've got some experience with trying to run Windows with a touch screen,
and it is not all that wonderful. For openers, you often end up using a
stylus and not just a finger.

If SAC was in my future, the big question in my mind would be how many of
what kind of control surface(s) I'd need.

I have no fear of technology, if it can reduce my labor,
investment in hardware, footprint, truck pack, it is all
a way for me to offer my services at the price point
people are happy to hire at and it makes me more competitive against the
guy who is
dragging in 2 500 lb desks and 8 racks of outboard

That specific promise has been talked about on PSW. The jury remains out.

but you are right I want to demo this product with a
under 300$ outlay before I commit thousand and thousands
of dollars to my vision

IMO, that is just plain common sense.

If the SAC people really want to sell this product, they need to go on the
road with a reasonbly-priced demo system. Set it up next to a M7CL or LS9
or maybe even a Presonus with a multitrack source and a pair of cans and
let people take their licks on them.

sold the ls9, have a presonus 24.4.2 on advance order should be in hand by
mid april, the presonus appears to be 3/4 of the ls9 at 1/3 the price, glad
I got out of the ls9 while it still had value, another 2 years and those
things will be going for 2000$
but I do agree that SAC has to have a lease/rental progam in order for
working people to get hands on time learning a new idea of how to do this
, as far as the touch screen, I should have said stylus, I would not want a
table top touch screen, I would be touching much way to many unintened
items, same problem I had when I set my ls9 up for touch sensitive faders, I
was selecting and deselecting channels without being aware of it as I tend
to rest my fingers on several faders at once while mixing
G

[Mike Rivers]

Arny Krueger wrote:

AFAIK reasonably priced 32 inch touch screens are like hen's teeth. It used
to be that 14" diagonal was the limit for reasonbly priced product, but that
recently jumped to more like 17 inches.

The RedLeaf Technology 32 inch touch screen monitor is about $3K, and it's
configured (mounted) to look and feel like a console, with some
beefing-up to
make it at least studio-worthy if not road-worthy.

http://dawtouch.com/default.aspx

I think that if I were designing a digital console based on a general
purpose
computer, I'd go for multiple screens - one for faders and controls, one
for meters, one for
channel processing, at least. That way you'd always know where to look when
you were doing something, and you wouldn't lose everything if your one
monitor
failed.

As far as an interface goes, since the Focusrite Pro 26 I/O is obsolete
now (it didn't
last very long) they might be starting to show up second hand pretty
cheap. That has
two ADAT inputs and outputs and will do 16 channels I/O at 44.1/48 kHz.
Not that it
matters how it sounds for George's appllication, but the analog A/D/A
sounded pretty
good. I reviewed it a couple of years back. A quick check found one on
Craig's List
in Nashville for $400. Not too bad for what you get, and probably not
hard to re-sell
after the experiment is completed.

--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson

[Arny Krueger]

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message

Arny Krueger wrote:

AFAIK reasonably priced 32 inch touch screens are like
hen's teeth. It used to be that 14" diagonal was the
limit for reasonbly priced product, but that recently
jumped to more like 17 inches.

The RedLeaf Technology 32 inch touch screen monitor is
about $3K, and it's configured (mounted) to look and feel
like a console, with some beefing-up to
make it at least studio-worthy if not road-worthy.

http://dawtouch.com/default.aspx

I think that if I were designing a digital console based
on a general purpose
computer, I'd go for multiple screens - one for faders
and controls, one for meters, one for
channel processing, at least. That way you'd always know
where to look when you were doing something, and you
wouldn't lose everything if your one monitor
failed.

Seems like a good idea, given that OS support for mulitple displays is
pretty good, and that the costs of touch screens skyrocket once you get past
17-20".


As far as an interface goes, since the Focusrite Pro 26
I/O is obsolete now (it didn't
last very long) they might be starting to show up second
hand pretty cheap. That has
two ADAT inputs and outputs and will do 16 channels I/O
at 44.1/48 kHz. Not that it
matters how it sounds for George's appllication, but the
analog A/D/A sounded pretty
good. I reviewed it a couple of years back. A quick check
found one on Craig's List
in Nashville for $400. Not too bad for what you get, and
probably not hard to re-sell
after the experiment is completed.

The whole scene about pricing of audio interfaces with just ADAT ports seems
to be pretty crazy. The actual parts cost doesn't seem like it would be a
lot, and the engineering doesn't seem to be rocket science. Alesis no doubt
makes it what it is with their licensing control over the basic technology.

[Mike Rivers]

Arny Krueger wrote:

The whole scene about pricing of audio interfaces with just ADAT ports seems
to be pretty crazy. The actual parts cost doesn't seem like it would be a
lot, and the engineering doesn't seem to be rocket science. Alesis no doubt
makes it what it is with their licensing control over the basic technology.

Oh, I don't think they're scalping anyone. The thing is that it's just
not a big seller.
If you want to use all 8 channels at 96 kHz you need two ports, and a
lot of people
don't really trust ADAT all that much anyway.

And then there's chickens and eggs.

The only long-lived ADAT-only interface card has been the Frontier Design
WaveCenter PCI. M-Audio and PreSonus have a 4-banger Firewire-ADAT
interface,
but that's about it. 8 channel mic preamps with ADAT output were a good
idea when
everyone was buying ADAT recorders, but now they're buying PCs and
looking for
8-channel mic preamps that don't require that they open up the computer.

So, a shortage of ADAT-computer interface boxes means dwindling sale of
preamps with
ADAT outputs. Dwindling sale of preamps with ADAT outputs means not much
call for
ADAT computer interfaces. And there's not much call for output devices
either since
many computer sound cards now have 6 outputs to feed a surround system
(primarily
fueled by the game market).


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson

[Arny Krueger]

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message

Arny Krueger wrote:

The whole scene about pricing of audio interfaces with
just ADAT ports seems to be pretty crazy. The actual
parts cost doesn't seem like it would be a lot, and the
engineering doesn't seem to be rocket science. Alesis
no doubt makes it what it is with their licensing
control over the basic technology.

Oh, I don't think they're scalping anyone. The thing is
that it's just not a big seller.

Chicken and egg?

If you want to use all 8 channels at 96 kHz you need two ports,

Look at all the digital consoles with 48 KHz as their top sampling rate.

and a lot of people
don't really trust ADAT all that much anyway.

I've been running 2 ADA8000s on my 02R96 for about 5 years now, and they
have been very good.

And then there's chickens and eggs.

+1.

The only long-lived ADAT-only interface card has been the
Frontier Design WaveCenter PCI. M-Audio and PreSonus have
a 4-banger Firewire-ADAT interface,
but that's about it.

Limited selection, none ADAT-only.

8 channel mic preamps with ADAT
output were a good idea when
everyone was buying ADAT recorders, but now they're
buying PCs and looking for
8-channel mic preamps that don't require that they open
up the computer.

The existence of an economical ADAT only computer interface would make the
several mic-to-adat interfaces move on out.

So, a shortage of ADAT-computer interface boxes means
dwindling sale of preamps with ADAT outputs.

Except that they seem to be increasing, I'm guessing because they interface
well with Yammie digital consoles.


I suspect that the growth in digital console sales is causing a resurgence
of ADAT interface products.

[James Perrett]

On Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:23:03 -0000, Mike Rivers
wrote:

The only long-lived ADAT-only interface card has been the Frontier Design
WaveCenter PCI. M-Audio and PreSonus have a 4-banger Firewire-ADAT
interface,
but that's about it. 8 channel mic preamps with ADAT output were a good
idea when
everyone was buying ADAT recorders, but now they're buying PCs and
looking for
8-channel mic preamps that don't require that they open up the computer.

So, a shortage of ADAT-computer interface boxes means dwindling sale of
preamps with
ADAT outputs. Dwindling sale of preamps with ADAT outputs means not much
call for
ADAT computer interfaces. And there's not much call for output devices
either since
many computer sound cards now have 6 outputs to feed a surround system
(primarily
fueled by the game market).



Mike - you seem to have totally ignored RME's range of ADAT based
interfaces, from the original Hammerfall through to the current Hammerfall
HDSP range. (or don't they count because they have the odd SPDIF connector
as well?)

I also don't see dwindling sales of ADAT equipped preamps. OK, so it is
pretty hard to compete with the ADA8000 so this may have discouraged some
people at the low end but Focusrite has just brought out a new version of
the Octopre and there are quite a few other alternatives right up to the
Audient ASP008 and probably beyond.

I use ADAT as my standard method of getting signals in and out of my
computers. My laptop has ground loop issues which can be completely solved
by using an ADAT based interface with separate analogue convertors.

Cheers

James.

--
http://www.jrpmusic.net

[Mike Rivers]

James Perrett wrote:

Mike - you seem to have totally ignored RME's range of ADAT based
interfaces, from the original Hammerfall through to the current
Hammerfall HDSP range.

I ignored them because everyone who needs one has one, and for the rest
of us, they're too expensive. Besides, I said "long running" and RME keeps
coming out with new ones, occasionally dropping an old one. Frontier made
one, one of the first interfaces designed specifically for this one
purpose, and
they still make it, and still support it with drivers for current
systems (not sure
about Win7 yet).

I also don't see dwindling sales of ADAT equipped preamps

Usually it's because they're ADAT and something else. But are you
in sales? Do you actually know the numbers? To most people today, an
ADAT-equiipped preamp is an accessory to something else, like a
Firewire interface with analog and ADAT I/O.

Focusrite has just brought out a new
version of the Octopre and there are quite a few other alternatives
right up to the Audient ASP008 and probably beyond.

Yeah, but who's going to buy it? Probably people who already have
something with an ADAT input (OK, maybe like an RME card). There
are more first-time buyers today than updaters and the first time buyers
will be looking for something that doesn't require taking their computer
apart. So, sticking with Focusrite, they'd probably like you to use an
Octopre
to expand your Saffire Pro 40.

I use ADAT as my standard method of getting signals in and out of my
computers. My laptop has ground loop issues which can be completely
solved by using an ADAT based interface with separate analogue convertors.

What are you using as an ADAT interface for your laptop? Do you have a cheap
ADAT-to-USB interface to recommend to the original poster?





--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson

[Arny Krueger]

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
...
James Perrett wrote:

Mike - you seem to have totally ignored RME's range of ADAT based
interfaces, from the original Hammerfall through to the current
Hammerfall HDSP range.

I ignored them because everyone who needs one has one, and for the rest
of us, they're too expensive. Besides, I said "long running" and RME keeps
coming out with new ones, occasionally dropping an old one. Frontier made
one, one of the first interfaces designed specifically for this one
purpose, and they still make it, and still support it with drivers for
current systems (not sure about Win7 yet).

From Frontier Design web site:

"
AlphaTrack Windows Installer v1.3
v1.3 2009-10-23
AlphaTrack_win_1.3.0.zip - 1.3MB
This latest AlphaTrack Windows installer is for 32/64 bit XP, Vista, and
Windows 7. It also optionally installs control plug-ins for Cubase, Nuendo,
Reason, and SONAR. The driver also includes control modes for operation with
Pro Tools and Live. Documentation on using AlphaTrack with various
applications can be downloaded below.
"

I also don't see dwindling sales of ADAT equipped preamps

Usually it's because they're ADAT and something else. But are you
in sales? Do you actually know the numbers? To most people today, an
ADAT-equiipped preamp is an accessory to something else, like a
Firewire interface with analog and ADAT I/O.

I see new models being released. I note that Behringer continues to sell the
ADA8000 even though the digital console they developed it for has been off
the market for years.


Focusrite has just brought out a new version of the Octopre and there are
quite a few other alternatives right up to the Audient ASP008 and
probably beyond.

Yeah, but who's going to buy it? Probably people who already have
something with an ADAT input (OK, maybe like an RME card).

Yamaha and some competitive digital consoles.

I use ADAT as my standard method of getting signals in and out of my
computers. My laptop has ground loop issues which can be completely
solved by using an ADAT based interface with separate analogue
convertors.

Optical I/O is even more resistant to grounding and EMI problems than
transformer coupling!

What are you using as an ADAT interface for your laptop? Do you have a
cheap
ADAT-to-USB interface to recommend to the original poster?

Good question. ADAT-to-FW is easier and cheaper - M-Audio Lightbridge 4
sets of ADAR ports - $400

[hank alrich]

Mike Rivers wrote:

James Perrett wrote:

Mike - you seem to have totally ignored RME's range of ADAT based
interfaces, from the original Hammerfall through to the current
Hammerfall HDSP range.

I ignored them because everyone who needs one has one, and for the rest
of us, they're too expensive. Besides, I said "long running" and RME keeps
coming out with new ones, occasionally dropping an old one. Frontier made
one, one of the first interfaces designed specifically for this one
purpose, and
they still make it, and still support it with drivers for current
systems (not sure
about Win7 yet).

I also don't see dwindling sales of ADAT equipped preamps

Usually it's because they're ADAT and something else. But are you
in sales? Do you actually know the numbers? To most people today, an
ADAT-equiipped preamp is an accessory to something else, like a
Firewire interface with analog and ADAT I/O.

Metric Halo dropped the ADAT inteface from their new ULN-8 because it'll
run up to 192KHz sampling rate and in that situation the ADAT 'face is
obsolete. They replaced it with an 8-channel AES port.

--
ha
shut up and play your guitar
http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/hsadharma

[Mike Rivers]

Arny Krueger wrote:

Good question. ADAT-to-FW is easier and cheaper - M-Audio Lightbridge 4
sets of ADAR ports - $400

Not only a good question, but THE question originally asked. And since
the question
also included "cheap" I'd say that $400 wouldn't qualify. And now that
I've looked, I
couldn't find a relliable price for the Frontier Design Wavecenter PCI
(which wasn't
what the original poster was looking for anyway) because I couldn't find
a dealer
selling it, only a used one for $100 on eBay.

Yeah, someone should make a little ADAT-USB adapter so people can start
using
those 8-channel ADAT-output mic preamps that they don't seem to stop
making. Sell
it for $59.95.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson

[Les Cargill[_2_]]

Mike Rivers wrote:
Arny Krueger wrote:

Good question. ADAT-to-FW is easier and cheaper - M-Audio
Lightbridge 4 sets of ADAR ports - $400

Not only a good question, but THE question originally asked. And since
the question
also included "cheap" I'd say that $400 wouldn't qualify. And now that
I've looked, I
couldn't find a relliable price for the Frontier Design Wavecenter PCI
(which wasn't
what the original poster was looking for anyway) because I couldn't find
a dealer
selling it, only a used one for $100 on eBay.

Yeah, someone should make a little ADAT-USB adapter so people can start
using
those 8-channel ADAT-output mic preamps that they don't seem to stop
making. Sell
it for $59.95.



http://www.frontierdesign.com/Where-To-Buy/US

--
Les Cargill

[Arny Krueger]

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
...

Arny Krueger wrote:

Good question. ADAT-to-FW is easier and cheaper - M-Audio Lightbridge 4
sets of ADAR ports - $400

Not only a good question, but THE question originally asked. And since the
question also included "cheap" I'd say that $400 wouldn't qualify. And now
that I've looked, I couldn't find a relliable price for the Frontier
Design Wavecenter PCI (which wasn't what the original poster was looking
for anyway) because I couldn't find a dealer selling it, only a used one
for $100 on eBay.

Nobody is retailing Frontier products any more?

Yeah, someone should make a little ADAT-USB adapter so people can start
using those 8-channel ADAT-output mic preamps that they don't seem to
stop making. Sell it for $59.95.

The pricing of ADAT computer audio interfaces seems very strange. How can
Behringer sell ADA 8000s for about $250 if the purported value of its 8
channel ADAT interface is $100? 8 pretty fair mic preamps and 8 line
outputs and the A/D and D/A converters to go with them for $125?

[Luxey]

On Feb 24, 1:50*pm, "George's Pro Sound Co." wrote:
Folks , I'd like to run the demo of the Software Audio Consolehttp://www.softwareaudioconsole.com/
I already have the recomkmended ada8000s for the *hard wire in and out, I
would like to find a affordable interface to feed at least 12 channels in
and 4 channels back out, the ada8000s have adat *andmy laptop has usb and
card bus options
if the demo is promising I would go on and build a dedicated desktop with
the *rme *raydat product
but I really don't want to spend 2000$ building the dedicated computer to
run a demo program I may not end up buying
what option do I have
sample rate is not a issue with the demo, 48 is more than enough
but I need to interface at least two of my ada8000s to my laptop to get to
level where i can evaluate the SAC program
ideas?
Thanks
George

Hi,

sorry, cause this will be long and won't nswer your question,
but I'm in bed with temperature ...

I've couple ADAT equiped thingies. Fostex VF16 HD portastudio,
Fostex ADA to add 8 line inputs to above.
Event EZBus as desktop sound card. Serves as input to VF16,
for rare cases I need more than 2 CH of phantom at once.
Inside PC thers PCI Terratec EWS88D, which I fully recommend
to everybody. Some days ago I installed W7 and it seam to work
just fine. No hard work though.

1st thought.
My usual gig is to go somewhere, record something to VF16,
than bring it home to mix and edit in PC.
Obviously, there are times when I have + 8 tracks, and EWS
is only 8. If longest take duration is less than 1 hour transfer
goes lthe backup way in 1 take. 8 tracks groups
(up to 3: 8 + 8 + alternate 8 = 24 total ) go in sucesion.
If something's longer than 59:59:59 I have to go ordinary
rec -play manner, in passes of 8. Just take care of master clock.
This is annoying, but hapens only if I record live gig and than
ther's no need for more than 2 passes, because I can not
record more than 16 tracks at once.
So 1 st wish: something with at least 2 ADATs.

2nd thought
everything's Laptop today I should go that way.
Ditch VF, ADA and EWS for Laptop. + 8 at once sessions are
rather rare lately. I already have inputs on EZBus and ADA. So ...
2nd wish: something USB, or FW with 1 ADAT is just fine

3rd thought
everything's Laptop today. This VF makes me
at least little bit different, in the sense. I'll keep it for
"field".
Also, there was a chance to get some decent space for recording
room. Pc started being noisy, too, I'll swich to laptop. So ..
3rd wish: something USB, or FW with 3ADATs to plug all
my inputs at once.

1 st wish: I fogot about it before I started thinking about the
second.

2nd wish: Soon enough I realised there are no simple input thingies.
The only pricewise acceptable thing, without too many features was
Behringer BCA2000 @ EUR120 or so. I ordered one. It would not
install on any computers dealer and I tried, so it went back without
even a tryout. They could not give me another one, because this one
seamed to be the last and the only one you could buy anywhere
arround a Europe. It's discontinued now.

At about this time, the 3rd wish emerged.
Options were close to 1. M-audio Firewire lightbridge.
Plus one worth thinking, for my pourpose not your. Almost double
cost, but cool looking Alesis Master control. 2 ADAT inputs + 8
or so own inputs. I could ditch ADA, or EzBus and ....

.... I moved to larger flat, so I can not afford recording place
anymore.

Sorry again.

V.

[George's Pro Sound Co.]

Replied via email
I have resigned to the lightbridge, shame I have to buy 1500$ worth of new
hardware(light bridge, outfitted desktop with firewire and wifi) in order to
even EVALUATE the SAC
I should have it up and running by mid july
if nothing else it will be a new adventure in audio technology for me
George

[Mike Rivers]

Arny Krueger wrote:

Nobody is retailing Frontier products any more?

Les probably obvious-searched-and-fired without checking out the
resource. Guitar
Center is on that list and they don't have the WaveCenter PCI on their
web site. Same
for B&H Pro Audio and Zzounds. I don't want to buy, I just want to find
a price, and the
only thing I can find is the list price of $379 or something, which I
think is too expensive
for what it is and when it is. But if it's no longer stocked by the big
box shops, the only
other option may be to buy it direct from Frontier, get a dealer to
order one, or find a
dealer who has one in stock.

The pricing of ADAT computer audio interfaces seems very strange. How can
Behringer sell ADA 8000s for about $250 if the purported value of its 8
channel ADAT interface is $100? 8 pretty fair mic preamps and 8 line
outputs and the A/D and D/A converters to go with them for $125?

I can't figure that out either, other than what I originally mentioned -
that the market
is for other parts of the ADAT I/O system. People are using the ADAT-out
preamps
to expand other products, not to connect to a computer through a
single-purpose
product. So while there stil may be a market for an 8-channel mic preamp
with
ADAT outputs, there are probably better preamps with USB or Firewire I/O
that
don't require another piece to connect it to a computer. And, too, the
ADA8000 has
analog outputs, so I expect that many are using it just as 8 mic preamps
and don't
care about the ADAT I/O (and are bitching that they could have made it
cheaper
if they left out the digital parts).

What ever happened to that relatively inexpensive digital snake that was
being
bantered about here a year or two back? They recommended an ADA8000 on
each end, as I recall.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson

[Arny Krueger]

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
...

Arny Krueger wrote:

Good question. ADAT-to-FW is easier and cheaper - M-Audio Lightbridge 4
sets of ADAT ports - $400

Not only a good question, but THE question originally asked. And since the
question also included "cheap" I'd say that $400 wouldn't qualify.

I did a little checking and found that the ADAT was introduced in 1991. That
means that patents protecting the basic ADAT lightpipe interface have
probably run out.

Alesis has probably had some conflict of interest when it sold its ADAT
lightpipe technology for computer interfaces because a computer with an ADAT
interface is a functional replacement for their ADAT product and sequels.
IOW, they are competing with themselves.

Even if Alesis looses patent protection for their technology, Alesis can
still control the sales of the interface by controlling the sales of the
chips to implement it. These are AFAIK sold only by an Alesis subsidiary.

The audio industry needs a "white knight" to produce economical ADAT
lightpipe interface chips and put them up for general sale.

[George's Pro Sound Co.]

What ever happened to that relatively inexpensive digital snake that was
being
bantered about here a year or two back? They recommended an ADA8000 on
each end, as I recall.

all the wifi interconnect and studiomanager type softwares in making all
snakes obsolete
my new personus 24.4.2 will be wireless to the stage
when I construct the SAC it too will be wireless, I will let the monitor
engineer set the head amp gains at the stage, I do not need remote control
of head amps, at least until that is cheap and easy via yet to be developed
hardware
George

[James Perrett]

On Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:54:11 -0000, Arny Krueger wrote:


The audio industry needs a "white knight" to produce economical ADAT
lightpipe interface chips and put them up for general sale.


Behringer use the Wavefront chips in the ADA8000 so they can't be that
expensive.

James.


--
http://www.jrpmusic.net

[James Perrett]

On Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:55:24 -0000, Mike Rivers
wrote:

James Perrett wrote:

What are you using as an ADAT interface for your laptop? Do you have a
cheap
ADAT-to-USB interface to recommend to the original poster?


I'm using an RME Hammerfall card in the studio computer and a Focusrite
Saffire Pro26 with the laptop together with a Behringer ADA8000 which will
plug into either. I'd like to buy an Audient ASP008 at some point in the
future to complete the setup.

The M-Audio Profire Lightbridge has already been mentioned as a suitable
Lightpipe to Firewire box and I believe Presonus sell something similar.
RME are the only people that I know of who have attempted to send ADAT
down a USB link with their Fireface UC (although I've just checked and
found that MOTU also sell a USB version of their 828).

You are right in that Lightpipe is often used to expand something else
(like an audio interface or a digital mixing desk) but the standard
Firewire audio chipsets like the Bridgeco or DiceII chips make it easy to
add Lightpipe to an existing interface. I know RME like to use their own
chips so I guess that they've now developed a high performance USB chip
that can handle that many channels. I'm not sure whose chips MOTU use.

I'm not a retailer but I see these 8 channel preamp boxes in most studios
that I've been in recently and I know quite a few people who own them.

Cheers

James.
--
http://www.jrpmusic.net

[Arny Krueger]

"James Perrett" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:54:11 -0000, Arny Krueger wrote:


The audio industry needs a "white knight" to produce economical ADAT
lightpipe interface chips and put them up for general sale.

Behringer use the Wavefront chips in the ADA8000 so they can't be that
expensive.

Wavefront is an Alesis spin-off. To buy ADAT chips from them you no doubt
must prove to Wavefront that Alesis licensed you the technology. This is
Alesis point of control over the use of the chips.

[Arny Krueger]

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
...

And, too, the ADA8000 has analog outputs, so I expect that many are
using it just as 8 mic preamps and don't care about the ADAT I/O (and are
bitching that they could have made it cheaper if they left out the
digital parts).

AFAIK there is no analog pass-through on the ADA8000. It may run looped
digitally, but I think you then need to provide it with an external clock.

[Mike Rivers]

George's Pro Sound Co. wrote:

my new personus 24.4.2 will be wireless to the stage

What do you use to do that?



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson

[Les Cargill[_2_]]

Mike Rivers wrote:
Arny Krueger wrote:

Nobody is retailing Frontier products any more?

Les probably obvious-searched-and-fired without checking out the
resource. Guitar
Center is on that list and they don't have the WaveCenter PCI on their
web site. Same
for B&H Pro Audio and Zzounds. I don't want to buy, I just want to find
a price, and the
only thing I can find is the list price of $379 or something, which I
think is too expensive
for what it is and when it is. But if it's no longer stocked by the big
box shops, the only
other option may be to buy it direct from Frontier, get a dealer to
order one, or find a
dealer who has one in stock.


I only checked GC. But there was, I believe, an email on there where
you could ask them. But if you're just price checking...

$379 is about what they went for. Since Fostex recommended the
EWS88-D, that's what I got. It was about half that...

snip
--
Les Cargill

[Les Cargill[_2_]]

Arny Krueger wrote:
"James Perrett" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:54:11 -0000, Arny Krueger wrote:

The audio industry needs a "white knight" to produce economical ADAT
lightpipe interface chips and put them up for general sale.

Behringer use the Wavefront chips in the ADA8000 so they can't be that
expensive.

Wavefront is an Alesis spin-off. To buy ADAT chips from them you no doubt
must prove to Wavefront that Alesis licensed you the technology. This is
Alesis point of control over the use of the chips.




It's gotta be on the long tail end of the curve now. They should just
open source it. There was a website with a couple of essays and data
about a DIY lightpipe interface, but it's gone now. Wish I'd saved it.

There's just a slightly different state machine for Lightpipe than
the TOSLink version. Reverse-engineering it would not be difficult, and
the optics are COTS. Still, for a PCI version, you'd have trouble
getting cost down to $100 a unit before retail markup.

But no doubt, Alesis will defend whatever of the IP that they can. Not
worth it. I'd like to do a 100BaseT-Lightpipe adapter (build around
COS), but the NRE is too much for my blood.

--
Les Cargill

[George's Pro Sound Co.]

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
...
George's Pro Sound Co. wrote:

my new personus 24.4.2 will be wireless to the stage

What do you use to do that?

stndard wifi, presonus has a program similar to yamaha's studio manager
George

[Mike Rivers]

Les Cargill wrote:

It's gotta be on the long tail end of the curve now. They should just
open source it.

People say that about a lot of things, but where have you ever seen it
actually happen? And if it has, has there been any sustaining engineering?
It seems that when things become obsolete, they're just replaced, not
given a new lease on life. I get e-mail from people who are buying their
first Mackie hard disk recorder asking what modifications and update there
are for it. And how many computer interfaces from the Win98 era have Win7
drivers?


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson

[Mike Rivers]

George's Pro Sound Co. wrote:

my new personus 24.4.2 will be wireless to the stage
What do you use to do that?

stndard wifi, presonus has a program similar to yamaha's studio manager

The computer can talk WiFi, but how do you get the console to talk WiFi?
Is there
a Firewire-WiFi interface? If you could talk to the Firewire port, you
could send all the
output buses to the stage, but "to the stage" to me implies 24 analog
mic lines coming into
the console. How are you going to do that wireless?

I don't believe that the PreSounus Virtual StudioLive has been released
yet. It gives
a pretty good visual presentation of what's set, but I'd hate to mix
like that. But then you
were pretty high on mixing with a computer program anyway, so I guess
you can adapt
to it better than I could.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson

[Les Cargill[_2_]]

Mike Rivers wrote:
Les Cargill wrote:

It's gotta be on the long tail end of the curve now. They should just
open source it.

People say that about a lot of things, but where have you ever seen it
actually happen?

Yes. It's much more common for software that's going end of life.
I can't think of an example sitting here. They pop up now and again.
I hear about one, and forget about it.

And if it has, has there been any sustaining engineering?

No. You basically grow a sustaining group
out of volunteers, maybe with a mix of pros. The IP aspect
is fully depreciated - no more buffalo to hunt on
that prairie. That's the point. All Lightpipe is is
4x overclocked TOSLINK, anyway.

It seems that when things become obsolete, they're just replaced, not
given a new lease on life.

Yeah, but interfaces never go obsolete. Not completely.

I get e-mail from people who are buying their
first Mackie hard disk recorder asking what modifications and update there
are for it. And how many computer interfaces from the Win98 era have Win7
drivers?



Some do, some don't. You can buy a VAX on like a PCI card now. Win98 is
probably less persistent than the Mackie harddisk recorders.

--
Les Cargill

[Mike Rivers]

Les Cargill wrote:
It's gotta be on the long tail end of the curve now. They should just
open source it.

It's much more common for software that's going end of life.

I suppose it's more likely with software than hardware because with
intellectual property laws being as convoluted as they are, it may not
be worth while for a small software company with one product, that
decided to go out of business, to keep watch to see if anyone has used
enough of their ideas to sue for infringement.

But we were talking about hardware (specifically the ADAT optical
interface) here. Lots of people have asked about getting source code
for the Mackie digital console and hard disk recorder, and who knows
what else, but companies that are still in business tend to hold on to
those things, and when the company goes out of business, releasing
software code is usually the last thing on their mind. If it's still viable
they're probably trying to find someone to buy it.

The ADAT protocol can be licensed (I don't have any idea what it
costs) so anyone who wants to make a new box with an LED and a
photo detector and use that protocol can do so. But it's probably
cheaper and more reliable to just buy the Wavefront chip.

You basically grow a sustaining group
out of volunteers, maybe with a mix of pros. The IP aspect
is fully depreciated - no more buffalo to hunt on
that prairie. That's the point. All Lightpipe is is
4x overclocked TOSLINK, anyway.

The trick with ADAT optical is the protocol that allows them to
stuff four times as much data through the pipeline than the original
design called for. The light can only blink so fast, and the photo
detector can only respond so fast.

It seems that when things become obsolete, they're just replaced, not
given a new lease on life.

Yeah, but interfaces never go obsolete. Not completely.

In theory, no, but in practice, yes. Can you buy a IDE disk drive at
Staples on a Sunday afternoon like I used to be able to do when I
was running short of "tape" for my Mackie recorder? Now I have to
stock up on 120 GB or smaller IDE drives and start recycling the ones
I have because instead of being able to buy one just about anywhere,
there are on-line dealers here and there that still have them, and when
they're gone, they're gone.

How many computers are there ready-to-go that can accommodate an
MFM hard drive? Or even have a real 25-pin or even 9-pin RS-232 port?
I had to look hard for a replacement for my studio computer to find one
that had PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports so I could continue to use the
KVM switch that I used with the computer and Mackie recorder, and
also that had a real parallel port that would work with the dongle key
for the copy of Sequoia that I have (I tried a PCI-e parallel card but it
came out configured as a port that the software didn't recognize).

Lots of hardware interfaces are still physically alive, but have a hard
time finding partners.




--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson

[Les Cargill[_2_]]

Mike Rivers wrote:
Les Cargill wrote:
It's gotta be on the long tail end of the curve now. They should just
open source it.

It's much more common for software that's going end of life.

I suppose it's more likely with software than hardware because with
intellectual property laws being as convoluted as they are, it may not
be worth while for a small software company with one product, that
decided to go out of business, to keep watch to see if anyone has used
enough of their ideas to sue for infringement.


It might be, but it's pretty unlikely. I've seen four or five patents
granted to companies I worked for, and all it does is add resume
filler to the grantees. All that tech is dead and gone except
one, which has been greatly expanded upon.

But we were talking about hardware (specifically the ADAT optical
interface) here.

Physically, it's a TOSLINK COTS part. The actuality of ADAT is the state
machines in the FPGA, and those are much more like software than hardware.

Lots of people have asked about getting source code
for the Mackie digital console and hard disk recorder, and who knows
what else, but companies that are still in business tend to hold on to
those things, and when the company goes out of business, releasing
software code is usually the last thing on their mind. If it's still viable
they're probably trying to find someone to buy it.


If it's still viable, we wouldn't be concerned about it. Then it
wouldn't be abandonware.

The ADAT protocol can be licensed (I don't have any idea what it
costs) so anyone who wants to make a new box with an LED and a
photo detector and use that protocol can do so. But it's probably
cheaper and more reliable to just buy the Wavefront chip.


Most likely, yes. But as you note - it no longer seems
(as) possible to buy a Frontier card. It may not matter -
people are less and less interested in 16 bit, anyway. Yes,
you can use ADAT as 24 bit, but it's klunky.


You basically grow a sustaining group
out of volunteers, maybe with a mix of pros. The IP aspect
is fully depreciated - no more buffalo to hunt on
that prairie. That's the point. All Lightpipe is is
4x overclocked TOSLINK, anyway.

The trick with ADAT optical is the protocol that allows them to
stuff four times as much data through the pipeline than the original
design called for. The light can only blink so fast, and the photo
detector can only respond so fast.


Optical interfaces that do 100BaseTX are commonplace. It's a COTS
TOSLINK optical part, or at least the guy's blog said it was.

It seems that when things become obsolete, they're just replaced, not
given a new lease on life.

Yeah, but interfaces never go obsolete. Not completely.

In theory, no, but in practice, yes. Can you buy a IDE disk drive at
Staples on a Sunday afternoon like I used to be able to do when I
was running short of "tape" for my Mackie recorder? Now I have to
stock up on 120 GB or smaller IDE drives and start recycling the ones
I have because instead of being able to buy one just about anywhere,
there are on-line dealers here and there that still have them, and when
they're gone, they're gone.


I believe Best Buy still sells IDE drives. Probably not 120GB ones.
And frankly, that whole thing of restricting to a range of replacement
drives didn't make sense, anyway. Poor design. Any RTOS I am familiar
with that supports IDE can open the whole drive as a linear sequence
of bytes, anyway.

How many computers are there ready-to-go that can accommodate an
MFM hard drive? Or even have a real 25-pin or even 9-pin RS-232 port?

I've not seen one that is not a laptop that does not have them. But
I haven't really looked.

I had to look hard for a replacement for my studio computer to find one
that had PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports so I could continue to use the
KVM switch that I used with the computer and Mackie recorder, and
also that had a real parallel port that would work with the dongle key
for the copy of Sequoia that I have (I tried a PCI-e parallel card but it
came out configured as a port that the software didn't recognize).


Huh. Wrong address, huh? Wonder if it was configurable, like
in the BIOS or something?

Lots of hardware interfaces are still physically alive, but have a hard
time finding partners.


I suppose.

--
Les Cargill

[Les Cargill[_2_]]

Mike Rivers wrote:
Les Cargill wrote:
It's gotta be on the long tail end of the curve now. They should just
open source it.

It's much more common for software that's going end of life.

I suppose it's more likely with software than hardware because with
intellectual property laws being as convoluted as they are, it may not
be worth while for a small software company with one product, that
decided to go out of business, to keep watch to see if anyone has used
enough of their ideas to sue for infringement.


It might be, but it's pretty unlikely. I've seen four or five patents
granted to companies I worked for, and all it does is add resume
filler to the grantees. All that tech is dead and gone except
one, which has been greatly expanded upon.

But we were talking about hardware (specifically the ADAT optical
interface) here.

Physically, it's a TOSLINK COTS part. The actuality of ADAT is the state
machines in the FPGA, and those are much more like software than hardware.

Lots of people have asked about getting source code
for the Mackie digital console and hard disk recorder, and who knows
what else, but companies that are still in business tend to hold on to
those things, and when the company goes out of business, releasing
software code is usually the last thing on their mind. If it's still viable
they're probably trying to find someone to buy it.


If it's still viable, we wouldn't be concerned about it. Then it
wouldn't be abandonware.

The ADAT protocol can be licensed (I don't have any idea what it
costs) so anyone who wants to make a new box with an LED and a
photo detector and use that protocol can do so. But it's probably
cheaper and more reliable to just buy the Wavefront chip.


Most likely, yes. But as you note - it no longer seems
(as) possible to buy a Frontier card. It may not matter -
people are less and less interested in 16 bit, anyway. Yes,
you can use ADAT as 24 bit, but it's klunky.


You basically grow a sustaining group
out of volunteers, maybe with a mix of pros. The IP aspect
is fully depreciated - no more buffalo to hunt on
that prairie. That's the point. All Lightpipe is is
4x overclocked TOSLINK, anyway.

The trick with ADAT optical is the protocol that allows them to
stuff four times as much data through the pipeline than the original
design called for. The light can only blink so fast, and the photo
detector can only respond so fast.


Optical interfaces that do 100BaseTX are commonplace. It's a COTS
TOSLINK optical part, or at least the guy's blog said it was.

It seems that when things become obsolete, they're just replaced, not
given a new lease on life.

Yeah, but interfaces never go obsolete. Not completely.

In theory, no, but in practice, yes. Can you buy a IDE disk drive at
Staples on a Sunday afternoon like I used to be able to do when I
was running short of "tape" for my Mackie recorder? Now I have to
stock up on 120 GB or smaller IDE drives and start recycling the ones
I have because instead of being able to buy one just about anywhere,
there are on-line dealers here and there that still have them, and when
they're gone, they're gone.


I believe Best Buy still sells IDE drives. Probably not 120GB ones.
And frankly, that whole thing of restricting to a range of replacement
drives didn't make sense, anyway. Poor design. Any RTOS I am familiar
with that supports IDE can open the whole drive as a linear sequence
of bytes, anyway.

How many computers are there ready-to-go that can accommodate an
MFM hard drive? Or even have a real 25-pin or even 9-pin RS-232 port?

I've not seen one that is not a laptop that does not have them. But
I haven't really looked.

I had to look hard for a replacement for my studio computer to find one
that had PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports so I could continue to use the
KVM switch that I used with the computer and Mackie recorder, and
also that had a real parallel port that would work with the dongle key
for the copy of Sequoia that I have (I tried a PCI-e parallel card but it
came out configured as a port that the software didn't recognize).


Huh. Wrong address, huh? Wonder if it was configurable, like
in the BIOS or something?

Lots of hardware interfaces are still physically alive, but have a hard
time finding partners.


I suppose.

--
Les Cargill

[Mike Rivers]

Les Cargill wrote:

Optical interfaces that do 100BaseTX are commonplace. It's a COTS
TOSLINK optical part, or at least the guy's blog said it was.

The guy with the blog, huh? Well, you can belive him, or you can take a
look at the real data sheet:
http://www.wavefrontsemi.com/index.p...productdocsoft

Sure, it uses standard Toshiba optical-to-digital parts for the gozintas and
gozoutas, but the thing that makes it ADAT Optical (tm) is the Wavefront
chip. I suppose you could design your own, but for eight bucks (or three
if you buy enough of them) why bother?

I believe Best Buy still sells IDE drives. Probably not 120GB ones.

Nope. 320 GB was the smallest I've seen there. And most of the IDE
drives left on the shelf are laptop size.

And frankly, that whole thing of restricting to a range of replacement
drives didn't make sense, anyway. Poor design. Any RTOS I am familiar
with that supports IDE can open the whole drive as a linear sequence
of bytes, anyway.

Don't blame the operating system for this one. Blame the motherboard
manufacturer. The original BIOS could only recognize drives up to 30 GB.
I had a home brew computer, a Pentium II with an Intel branded motherboard
that was like that, only maybe the limit was 8 GB. I was able to use a
larger
drive in it with a flash BIOS update. When dealing with hardware that's over
ten years old, you have to cut them some slack. While in theory they
might have been able to test it with larger drives, there were no larger
drives,
so how would they know if it DIDN'T work in the future?

How many computers are there ready-to-go that can accommodate an
MFM hard drive? Or even have a real 25-pin or even 9-pin RS-232 port?

I've not seen one that is not a laptop that does not have them. But
I haven't really looked.

A couple of years ago, I bought a brand new Dell desktop computer with
nothing but USB ports, but a lot of them, I think eight. When I found that
I couldn't use it for what I wanted to, I swapped it off for a refurbished
last year's Dell which had everything I needed and was cheaper. It was
a Pentium 4 rather than a Core 2 Duo, but I can't say that I know what
I'm missing.

I tried a PCI-e parallel card but it
came out configured as a port that the software didn't recognize.

Huh. Wrong address, huh? Wonder if it was configurable, like
in the BIOS or something?

I haven't seen a highly configurable BIOS for a while. The BIOS
didn't know about the parallel port on the card as far as I could tell.
It came out as LPT3 and there was no way I could change it. It did
appear that I could make the Wibu key look at LPT3 instead of LPT1
or 2, but I couldn't get that to work. And of course since it was an
abandoned product, the only support I could get from Magix was
to upgrade to the newest version of Sequoia which uses a USB dongle.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson

[Les Cargill[_2_]]

Mike Rivers wrote:
Les Cargill wrote:

Optical interfaces that do 100BaseTX are commonplace. It's a COTS
TOSLINK optical part, or at least the guy's blog said it was.

The guy with the blog, huh? Well, you can belive him, or you can take a
look at the real data sheet:
http://www.wavefrontsemi.com/index.p...productdocsoft


I don't see any reason to doubt him - he claimed it worked, showed
scope traces.

Sure, it uses standard Toshiba optical-to-digital parts for the gozintas
and
gozoutas,

Which is my point

but the thing that makes it ADAT Optical (tm) is the Wavefront
chip. I suppose you could design your own, but for eight bucks (or three
if you buy enough of them) why bother?


Sure, long as it stays available. I thought the problem was that
PCI cards are getting hard to find.

I believe Best Buy still sells IDE drives. Probably not 120GB ones.

Nope. 320 GB was the smallest I've seen there. And most of the IDE
drives left on the shelf are laptop size.


Unsurprising.

And frankly, that whole thing of restricting to a range of replacement
drives didn't make sense, anyway. Poor design. Any RTOS I am familiar
with that supports IDE can open the whole drive as a linear sequence
of bytes, anyway.

Don't blame the operating system for this one. Blame the motherboard
manufacturer. The original BIOS could only recognize drives up to 30 GB.

That's irrelevant, Mike. The people who wrote the firmware
for the recorder could have had it boot in a way in which
any drive at all could have been used. I claim this
is a mistake, one that was made years ago and is still
continuing to be made for no good reason.

I had a home brew computer, a Pentium II with an Intel branded motherboard
that was like that, only maybe the limit was 8 GB. I was able to use a
larger
drive in it with a flash BIOS update. When dealing with hardware that's
over
ten years old, you have to cut them some slack. While in theory they
might have been able to test it with larger drives, there were no larger
drives,
so how would they know if it DIDN'T work in the future?


Well, you engineer it such that it doesn't *matter* what
size drive is in there. You pull n bytes off the start of the disk,
load that into RAM and jump to it. Dunno if LILO or GRUB
were around, but there were plenty of other examples to choose
from. You can boot XP with either LILO or GRUB, and I was
booting '95 and '98 with LILO back around when these recorders
started being available.

Doesn't matter what you call it - it's poor engineering.

How many computers are there ready-to-go that can accommodate an
MFM hard drive? Or even have a real 25-pin or even 9-pin RS-232 port?

I've not seen one that is not a laptop that does not have them. But
I haven't really looked.

A couple of years ago, I bought a brand new Dell desktop computer with
nothing but USB ports, but a lot of them, I think eight. When I found that
I couldn't use it for what I wanted to, I swapped it off for a refurbished
last year's Dell which had everything I needed and was cheaper. It was
a Pentium 4 rather than a Core 2 Duo, but I can't say that I know what
I'm missing.


I still use a P4 myself. Seems perfectly fine.

I tried a PCI-e parallel card but it
came out configured as a port that the software didn't recognize.

Huh. Wrong address, huh? Wonder if it was configurable, like
in the BIOS or something?

I haven't seen a highly configurable BIOS for a while. The BIOS
didn't know about the parallel port on the card as far as I could tell.
It came out as LPT3 and there was no way I could change it.

Ah.

It did
appear that I could make the Wibu key look at LPT3 instead of LPT1
or 2, but I couldn't get that to work. And of course since it was an
abandoned product, the only support I could get from Magix was
to upgrade to the newest version of Sequoia which uses a USB dongle.




In cases like that, I'd be sorely tempted to patch that binary to
make the dongle check go away.

--
Les Cargill

[Mike Rivers]

Les Cargill wrote:

but the thing that makes it ADAT Optical (tm) is the Wavefront
chip. I suppose you could design your own, but for eight bucks (or three
if you buy enough of them) why bother?

Sure, long as it stays available. I thought the problem was that
PCI cards are getting hard to find.

That's just one problem. Actually it's easy to find one - RME. It's
expensive,
though. And because RME is inclined to build everything themselves, it
might not use the Wavefront chips, though it probably uses the Toshiba
optical assemblies.

The problem is that cheap ADAT to USB interfaces are hard to find. And
that doesn't have anything to do with the availability of parts, it has
everything
to do with the potential market. Apparently no manufacturer thinks it's big
enough to put their time into developing a product.

Don't blame the operating system for this one. Blame the motherboard
manufacturer. The original BIOS could only recognize drives up to 30 GB.

That's irrelevant, Mike. The people who wrote the firmware
for the recorder could have had it boot in a way in which
any drive at all could have been used. I claim this
is a mistake, one that was made years ago and is still
continuing to be made for no good reason.

The people who wrote the firmware that has to to with the recorder
booting wasn't Mackie. It was whoever made the motherboard, or
whatever part of the motherboard makes it boot. It's a PC motherboard.
I don't know of any PC motherboard from 1998 that will boot any size
drive. Or any PC operating system, for that matter.

You can boot XP with either LILO or GRUB, and I was
booting '95 and '98 with LILO back around when these recorders
started being available.

Sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about here.

In cases like that, I'd be sorely tempted to patch that binary to
make the dongle check go away.

Shall I send you a copy? I don't have any idea how to do that either. I'm
just a user. I buy what works when I need it, and I hope it will work as
long as I need it to work. So far I've been lucky and I'm not going to live
that many more years.

Kids today don't have the attention span to want to keep something
working until the wheels fall off, so that's who the designers are designing
for.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson

[Les Cargill[_2_]]

Mike Rivers wrote:
Les Cargill wrote:

but the thing that makes it ADAT Optical (tm) is the Wavefront
chip. I suppose you could design your own, but for eight bucks (or three
if you buy enough of them) why bother?

Sure, long as it stays available. I thought the problem was that
PCI cards are getting hard to find.

That's just one problem. Actually it's easy to find one - RME. It's
expensive,
though. And because RME is inclined to build everything themselves, it
might not use the Wavefront chips, though it probably uses the Toshiba
optical assemblies.


If I were them, I'd at least start out with the Wavefront, then
look at replacement as a possible cost reduction.

The problem is that cheap ADAT to USB interfaces are hard to find. And
that doesn't have anything to do with the availability of parts, it has
everything
to do with the potential market. Apparently no manufacturer thinks it's big
enough to put their time into developing a product.


Apparently.

Don't blame the operating system for this one. Blame the motherboard
manufacturer. The original BIOS could only recognize drives up to 30 GB.

That's irrelevant, Mike. The people who wrote the firmware
for the recorder could have had it boot in a way in which
any drive at all could have been used. I claim this
is a mistake, one that was made years ago and is still
continuing to be made for no good reason.

The people who wrote the firmware that has to to with the recorder
booting wasn't Mackie. It was whoever made the motherboard, or
whatever part of the motherboard makes it boot. It's a PC motherboard.
I don't know of any PC motherboard from 1998 that will boot any size
drive. Or any PC operating system, for that matter.


Well, Mackie *could* have made their own BIOS (or
modified the provided one). SFAIK, it would have
been perfectly legal. In the case of Fostex, it's
all firmware, so there was no reason at all to
constrain drive choices.

And just to be clear - there wasn't much reason for
the original PC BIOS to have those constraints, either.
After all, you could load drivers for supersized drives.

You can boot XP with either LILO or GRUB, and I was
booting '95 and '98 with LILO back around when these recorders
started being available.

Sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about here.

In cases like that, I'd be sorely tempted to patch that binary to
make the dongle check go away.

Shall I send you a copy? I don't have any idea how to do that either.

Not right now. Sorry.

I'm
just a user. I buy what works when I need it, and I hope it will work as
long as I need it to work. So far I've been lucky and I'm not going to live
that many more years.

Kids today don't have the attention span to want to keep something
working until the wheels fall off, so that's who the designers are
designing
for.



Well, when people's HD recorder died on 'em on alt.music.4-track, they
were usually pretty bummed.

--
les Cargill

[Mike Rivers]

Les Cargill wrote:

Well, Mackie *could* have made their own BIOS (or
modified the provided one). SFAIK, it would have
been perfectly legal. In the case of Fostex, it's
all firmware, so there was no reason at all to
constrain drive choices.

I belive that the Fostex 8- and 16-track workstations
that were around when the Mackie recorders came out
were limited to some pretty small hard drives. Is anyone
out there using one today with, say, a 320 GB drive? I
seem to remember seeing occasional "where can I get
a?" postings from people looking for replacement drives
for these units.

The TASCAM MX-2424 used a 20 GB SCSI drive. Nobody
has those any more (either MX-2424s or 20 GB SCSI drives).
People just didn't future-proof computer based devices in
those days. I don't think they do now, either. Lots of hand-held
recorders that were designed before the SD-HC memory
card was developed won't recognize that card even though
it fits the same socket. And 360K 5-1/4" floppy drives wouldn't
work with 1.2MB disks either.

As a matter of fact, the SDR24/96 didn't use a PC
motherboard. It was all custom, and they believed (though
couldn't test it at the time) that it could accept drives up to
2 TB. This one was completely designed by Sydec under
a contract with Mackie, based on their Soundscape technology.
Mackie eventually bought Sydec, then gave it back during
their very lean years (it's now under Prism).

The SDR was created as a knee-jerk reaction to Alesis' HD24,
to match the price and I/O capability but keep the Mackie style.
I think it was discontinued after about 2 years, never quite
finished. A few of us know enough about the HDR and MDR to
keep them going. Nobody knows anything about the SDR.

Admittedly, Mackie didn't have a really disciplined engineering
process so it's not surprising that the designs had some holes
in them, but by using off-the-shelf components and purchasing
an operating system kernel, they were able to bring a product
to market quickly, and just in time for a fairly short run before
computers pretty much took over the market for digital multitrack
recording.

And just to be clear - there wasn't much reason for
the original PC BIOS to have those constraints, either.
After all, you could load drivers for supersized drives.

This was one of the problems with the Mackie recorders. You
couldn't load drivers. Everything was compiled into a single
appllication. The HDR, which has a graphic interface, only
works with a limited range of graphics cards (which are becoming
hard to find) and as far as I know nobody has successfully
replaced the motherboard with something more modern, partially
because of port configurations, and partially because of the lack
of drivers for motherboard compoinents in the Mackie application.

Sure, go ahead. Say it's a bad design. But it isn't going to change now.
Mackie seems to not be willing or able to release source code so
someone can make a new version of the software for new computer
components. Its time came and went, and some are still alive.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson