• Registered: 2016-09-22
  • Posts: 8

Topic: Help connecting Fireface UFX with Octamic XTC and Totalmix

Hello,

I've recently bought an RME UFX and an Octamic XTC. The UFX is brilliant, but I am having a bit of trouble getting the two units to work correctly. Can anybody help with an idiot's guide to setting it all up please?

My understanding is that the two units need to be connected by ADAT and MIDI for them to properly communicate with one another and to allow me to use TotalMix for both. At the moment I have the following set up:

1. ADAT OUT 1 on XTC - cable connecting to ADAT IN 1 on UFX
2. MIDI OUT on XTC - cable connecting to MIDI IN on UFX
3. MIDI IN on XTC - cable connecting to MIDI OUT on UFX

UFX - Green light on the ADAT1, and two flashing orange lights on MIDI IN 1 and OUT 1
XTC - One flashing orange light on CTRL1

If I plug a mic in then I get signal into the UFX, but I can't make any adjustments to gain, phantom power etc in Total Mix.

I have also tried using another ADAT cable to go from the UFX to the XTC, but all that did was create lots of digital clicks and pops on the XTC.

Here's a brief outline of what I am hoping to be able to do:

1. Use TotalMix to operate the XTC, including gain, phantom power, FX and monitoring
2. Use the two phones inputs on the front of the XTC as extra headphone slots, but at the moment all I can hear is signal from the XTC, not from the UFX.

Can anyone help please?! I don't know if I've just set it up incorrectly or if I need to use other cables, but I'd very much like to get this up and running ASAP.

Not sure it's relevant, but just in case - I am connecting to a PC via USB, running Windows 7 and Cubase 6.5. It's a quad core with 4 gb of ram.

Thank you for your time,

  • Jeff
  • Jeff
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  • Registered: 2007-05-21
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Re: Help connecting Fireface UFX with Octamic XTC and Totalmix

You just missed something in the setup. Did you set the External Device as Octamic XTC in the TotalMix FX Options menu? Set for the correct MIDI ports? Octamic XTC remote controls set for the DIN MIDI ports?

Regards,
Jeff Petersen
Synthax Inc.

Jeff's Website

  • Registered: 2016-09-22
  • Posts: 8

Re: Help connecting Fireface UFX with Octamic XTC and Totalmix

Thanks a lot Jeff. I didn't have the XTC remote controls set up properly, so now I can alter the gain etc on via TotalMix.

The only thing now is how to get the two phones inputs on the XTC to pick up the audio coming from the UFX's inputs/ my DAW. Is this possible?

Jeff wrote:

You just missed something in the setup. Did you set the External Device as Octamic XTC in the TotalMix FX Options menu? Set for the correct MIDI ports? Octamic XTC remote controls set for the DIN MIDI ports?

  • Jeff
  • Jeff
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  • Registered: 2007-05-21
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Re: Help connecting Fireface UFX with Octamic XTC and Totalmix

Check the Octamic XTC setting for Source on Phones 1 and Phones 2, this should be set for the ADAT channels. See pg 17 in the manual for details: https://archiv.rme-audio.de/download/octamicxtc_e.pdf

On TotalMix FX, route the desired signals to ADAT 1/2 and ADAT 3/4 on the UFX for 2 independent stereo Phones mixes, these will in turn feed the Phones out on the Octamic XTC.

Regards,
Jeff Petersen
Synthax Inc.

Jeff's Website

  • Registered: 2016-09-22
  • Posts: 8

Re: Help connecting Fireface UFX with Octamic XTC and Totalmix

OK, so I've got signal sending to ADAT 1/2 on TotalMix, and I've selected the sources for Phones 1 on the XTC to be ADAT 1/2, but I still can't hear anything. Is it because I haven't got an ADAT cable going out of the UFX and in to the XTC? Or is that not needed? Every time I try adding that into the equation I just get lots of digital pops and clicks.

  • Registered: 2016-09-22
  • Posts: 8

Re: Help connecting Fireface UFX with Octamic XTC and Totalmix

Correction: the digital clicks have stopped now I've added the ADAT cable from the UFX to the XTC (guessing this was caused by some setting to do with the word clock?), but I'm still not getting signal to the headphones.

  • Registered: 2016-09-22
  • Posts: 8

Re: Help connecting Fireface UFX with Octamic XTC and Totalmix

Hi,

I would really appreciate it if anyone could help with a solution to getting the extra phones outputs on the XTC to work with the UFX. I have been working with both units for some time now and I am still not getting them to fully communicate with one another, which is frustrating to say the least. I even get the occasional pop/ click on audio tracks when recording with the Octamic, which is not what you expect for such an expensive unit.

Thank you.

8 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2016-12-20 15:38:48)

  • ramses
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Re: Help connecting Fireface UFX with Octamic XTC and Totalmix

Maybe this article can give to you a general guidline

Although its written in German, it gives you a list of configuration tasks.

The only difference is

A)  that you will not have Midi over MADI. So .. in TM Settings (F3) TAB "Aux Devices"
  a) choose the proper Device  Settings: Digital Channels: "ADAT 1-8"
  b) then choose proper Midi Settings for IN and OUT, i.e.: "UFX Midi Port x"
  where x = 1 for the 1st Midi Ports x = 2 for the 2nd Midi Ports
  For the UFX+ 3 = Midi over MADI optical and 4 = Midi over MADI coaxial
B)  The XTC ofc also needs different settings to get control via MIDI

You need to experiment a little...

Choose the latest driver / Totalmix version.

http://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/inde … Cber-MADI/

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13
  • Registered: 2017-07-01
  • Posts: 32

Re: Help connecting Fireface UFX with Octamic XTC and Totalmix

Caution! Newbie content!
Having finally solved the OPs original question (how to use XTC`s 2 headphone outs with UFXII and TotalMix FX) I thought I`d give back to the community and explain how I solved it...
Let me begin by saying that I hadn`t found an easy answer on this forum to this supposedly easy task, so I think this will help a few noobs like me if I explain in simple terms:

In order to control XTC channel functions in TotalMix, you have to connect UFX and XTC using 2 midi cables (in and out). This part is clearly documented in other threads on this forum. Obviously you also have to connect XTC to UFX using an ADAT cable (XTC ADAT1 OUT to UFX ADAT1 IN). In this way you get the XTC audio into UFX/TotalMix.
Now here`s the detail I overlooked for so long: ADAT is uni-directional, so with the above setup no audio can be sent from the UFX to the XTC. As a result, with this setup I can`t have headphone out on the XTC containing any signals from TotalMix and UFX.

As soon as I added a second ADAT cable: UFXII ADAT 1 OUT to XTC ADAT IN, the ADAT light indicator on the front of the XTC turned green. Now I have bi-directional audio communication UFX and XTC.
In a final step I had to define a source for the headphones 1 and 2 on the front of the XTC. I did this this using rotary controls on the front panel of the XTC (i.e. not in TotalMix). The source should be set to ADAT1, which is the connection I just made above.
Et voila, I now have four independent stereo headphone mixes available using the 2 phones outputs on the UFX and the 2 phones outputs on the XTC. In TotalMix I needed to make the relevant 2 x stereo phones hardware outputs into Control Room channels (so the 4 phones are side by side on the bottom right and have talkback functionality). I did this with the Assign button (next  to Main).

Hope that helps...
Cheers plank