1 Topic by wavesequence (edited by wavesequence 2020-10-09 13:21:49)

  • Registered: 2020-10-09
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Topic: General question from a newbie

Hello to all participants this forum. I'm a 54 years old freelance italian architect with an insane passion for music and synthesizers.

I couldn't find a suitable section of this forum to put my question, thus I chose this one.

To make a long story short, I began playing piano at an early age but when in 1982 tasted my first synthesizer, a Korg MonoPoly, it began my wonderful adventure with electronic music.
All that said, at present I can count on several synthesizers and expanders and my ultimate goal would be having all these sound sources hooked to an audio interface. Today to manage all these inputs I'm using a system made up of 2 motU 828mk3 FW and 2 MotU 8PRE FW, a Yamaha 01v and ART mixer as submixers. I'm not satisfied of this solution.

What system of RME audio interfaces should I build if I had to connect at least, 16 stereo outputs all at the same time?

Thanks for your suggestions!

  • ramses
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Re: General question from a newbie

Whats your budget for that ?
What was not satisfactory with your old solution ?
What is your expectation for the new solution ?
What are the most critical points, that the new solution needs to address ?

You didn't tell anything about your computer HW (CPU, mainboard, RAM) and Operating System....

There is no recording interface with TotalMix Routing capabilities which has 16 analog I/O.
You need to get a combination of recording interface and A/D converter.
RME offers A/D converter up to 32 channels in different price ranges.

There are many possibilities in terms of the type of connection

a) to the PC
- PCIe based
- USB2/3 based
- Thunderbolt based

b) between recording interface and converter
- ADAT (RME converter products available)
- MADI (RME converter products available)
- AVB (ethernet based, RME converter products available)
- Dante (ethernet based, no RME converter products available)

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14

3 Reply by wavesequence (edited by wavesequence 2020-10-12 13:46:20)

  • Registered: 2020-10-09
  • Posts: 2

Re: General question from a newbie

https://www.dropbox.com/s/08t5k3z6fasg816/Scheme.jpg?dl=0

ramses, thanks for your detailed reply... Well, it was my fault because I didn't tell about my computer and operating system, nevertheless I didn't describe critical points of my actual system.

At present, I'm running OSX Mojave on a i7 3770 with 32GB of RAM... yes, it's not an Apple computer... hope not to be crucified for that...
All the aforementioned audio interfaces are MotU 828mk3 FW and 8PRE FW. Every 828mk3 FW is connected to a 8PRE FW via digital cable and the first 828mk3 is connected to the second one via a FW cable. At the time I had a conversation with Dave Roberts from MotU and he suggested me that the maximum number of inputs over a FW400 cable was two 828mk3 and two 8PRE.
In the meantime the number of instruments grew up and I was forced to hook a Yamaha 01v+MY8AD24 (24 inputs in total) via SPDIF to the 828mk3.
Again to accommodate further instruments, I bought an ART MX822 analog mixer that I hooked to a couple of inputs of MY8AD24.

In this situation, the hierarchy of inputs is quite nerve wracking.

About the avaliable budget I would invest 5/6000€ maximum on a USB2/3 or Thunderbolt (if needed) system.

Thanks for your patience...

4 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2020-10-12 15:09:54)

  • ramses
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Re: General question from a newbie

https://www.thomann.de/de/rme_fireface_ufx_2.htm €2137
https://www.thomann.de/de/rme_m_32_ad_pro.htm €3499
https://www.thomann.de/de/rme_dtox_16_i.htm        € 321
https://www.thomann.de/de/rme_dtox_16_i.htm        € 321
==========================================
€ 6278

UFX+
- Thunderbolt / USB3
- 8x analog I/O
- each port can be set to different ref levels individually
- DURec
- FX chip
- standalone operateable
- 2 phones outputs
- 4 Mic / Instr / Line inputs

M-32 Pro:
- high port density
- recording with all ports in single and double speed possible
- MADI and AVB ready
- each port can be set to different ref levels individually

Alternative to UFX+:
- HDSPe MADI FX
- up to three optical MADI busses for further expansions

If you do not need so many ports at once:
- 8 analog inputs from UFX+
- 16 from M-32 Pro
= 24 ports
Then you need only one patch bay, get the 2nd later, saves €321.

Information about UFX+
- https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … 8-RME-UFX/

UFX+ and MADI
- https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … Cber-MADI/

Information about HDSPe MADI FX:
- https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … Pro-FS-BE/

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14