1 Topic by forskin (edited by forskin 2021-04-20 00:25:25)

  • Registered: 2021-04-20
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Topic: Two RME interfaces with Cubase

Does anyone know if I would be able to use 2 RME cards with cubase. Does the driver combine them? OS is windows 10.  I have a Raydat and two ADA8200 adat interfaces for channels 1-16. I use channels 17-32 as WDM Loopback inputs from other programs to cubase. I need these for vst programming setup. I would like to add a Digiface USB to get more windows loopback channels for use with cubase. That demands a native property from driver to combine two cards to be seen as one asio device. Asio4all is not answer for me and is something I don't like to mess with because it has never worked despite multiple tries different times. What I need is native driver stacking RME cards.
So currently I hesitate ordering new Digiface because of the confusion.

2 Reply by MC

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Re: Two RME interfaces with Cubase

How can there be confusion? Different drivers (PCIe / USB), so it won't work. What prevents you from adding a second RayDAT into your PC?

Else you will have to leave the RayDAT and get a MADI to ADAT based solution. That will get more expensive, though.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

MC's Website

  • Registered: 2021-04-20
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Re: Two RME interfaces with Cubase

MC wrote:

How can there be confusion? Different drivers (PCIe / USB), so it won't work. What prevents you from adding a second RayDAT into your PC?

Else you will have to leave the RayDAT and get a MADI to ADAT based solution. That will get more expensive, though.

Thanks for your kind answer. To be perfectly clear there is confusion because I'm me and I felt like confused. I fel confused very easily.  That is how there can be confusion.
But there is more to it.  There is combobox in Totalmix which gives the idea that there could be more RME devices in that list. Nothing gives an idea that there could not be an USB device in that list. Maybe it would not add to that list but another Raydat would. And nothing tells me but you did that two Raydats would combine. That was my question. Thank you for anwering that question. You say yes they will combine. I did not know that it is still on the shell. My additional point was anyway ask for insight if there is someone who really knows his Windows audio routing business. Windows has new sound settings and systems and routing compared to old times when I bought that Raydat.

4 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2021-07-27 16:40:43)

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Re: Two RME interfaces with Cubase

forskin wrote:
MC wrote:

How can there be confusion? Different drivers (PCIe / USB), so it won't work. What prevents you from adding a second RayDAT into your PC?

Else you will have to leave the RayDAT and get a MADI to ADAT based solution. That will get more expensive, though.

Thanks for your kind answer. To be perfectly clear there is confusion because I'm me and I felt like confused. I fel confused very easily.  That is how there can be confusion.
But there is more to it.  There is combobox in Totalmix which gives the idea that there could be more RME devices in that list. Nothing gives an idea that there could not be an USB device in that list. Maybe it would not add to that list but another Raydat would. And nothing tells me but you did that two Raydats would combine. That was my question. Thank you for anwering that question. You say yes they will combine. I did not know that it is still on the shell. My additional point was anyway ask for insight if there is someone who really knows his Windows audio routing business. Windows has new sound settings and systems and routing compared to old times when I bought that Raydat.

RME has different drivers for different devices, this you can look-up in the download section of the products:

  • Firewire driver: driver_fw_win_3125.zip (Fireface 400, 800, 802, UCX, UFX)

  • Old USB driver: driver_usb_win_1212.zip (UFX, 802, UCX, UCX II, UC and Babyface/Pro)

  • Newer USB driver: driver_madiface_win_09735.zip (MADIface XT / USB / Pro, Fireface UFX+ / UFX II, OctaMic XTC, ADI-2 Pro/AE/FS/DAC, Digiface USB / Dante)

  • Thunderbolt driver: driver_tb_win_116.zip (UFX+)

  • HDSPe driver for PCI/PCIe cards: driver_hdsp_win_438.zip (all HDSP and HDSPe cards/systems)

  • Special Driver for HDSPe MADI FX card: driver_pciefx_win_216.zip

  • Digiface AVB and Digiface Dante: driver_madinet_win_09735_09553

In a perfect world it should already be known that an application / DAW can only load one ASIO driver wink

The manuals state that a driver supports up to three device instances. More than three cards of the same type would only be used in rare cases anyway, so setups with more cards are not tested. Above all, the PC must also be able to cope with the number of audio channels, especially important at higher sample rates (with higher bandwidth/throughput demands).

Such a setup of several cards is possible, but one must bear in mind that the audio channels cannot be routed between cards. Only within a recording interface. And you need to take care of, that the interfaces are clock synched between each other. For this purpose you might need to sacrifice one digital connection mainly for this clock synchronization or you use Word Clock if this is supported by all interfaces.

Therefore, it may make more sense to directly select ONE recording interface that supports all necessary interfaces or supports corresponding future expansions via ADAT and MADI. Then you could still route from every HW input and SW playback channel to every HW output.

You can use the Excel of my blog article to cross check some technical information between RME USB / FW / TB interfaces (except PCI/PCIe cards): https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … B-MADIfac/
Direct link to this Excel: https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/index.ph … -04b-xlsx/

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

5 Reply by forskin (edited by forskin 2021-07-29 11:53:55)

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Re: Two RME interfaces with Cubase

Thank you very much for your great answer!  First I have to answer to MC's question "what prevents me buying another Raydat". Obvious answer is the base for the whole question: "I want to expand but at the same go be equipped for mobile laptop recording so it should be USB interface and I love RME Raydat so RME Digiface USB is havin same mixer and I'm customed to it and routing". That was my "perfect world" starting point I forgot to mention. Then I thought hmm... maybe I could use it also within one Cubase and I had already idea that it would not work which you both veriified. No big deal. I just happen to know that with proper high quality preamp or sometimes without noting extra just connecting outputs to inputs, very good sound can be routed in analog domain between audio devices. Next I run basic tests and figure out gain capabilities and verify distortion tresholds for each input and output. My system is kind of audio lab and I'm capable to measure round trip but I my case it is not so important as long as playing guitar feels "close enough" to real time. I happen to have two Cubases and then it all starts to fit. It seems after all new device being USB makes most sense. My system is not top end consisting K2600 and 16GB memory and one added PCIE Nvme but it is surprisingly quite enough for most of flow even working with 36 inputs and outputs. By neccesity I'm forced try to keep things on budget side as you can notice from my oldish equipment.
Is RME Digiface combined with ADA8200 ok for this scenario in your opinion?

6 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2021-07-29 12:21:56)

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Re: Two RME interfaces with Cubase

I forgot to mention one thing .. if you enable in TM FX DAW mode, then you can route between the cards using the DAW.
But tbh .. then you loose the benefits of TM FX routing flexibility and every audio signal needs to go through USB/TB/PCIe/..

The question for me is, that is your max budget for that ?

Feature wise I would recommend you to get something like a UCX II, UFX II or even UFX+ to have the RME features of a flagship interface .. there are some nice features that give you a real value, e.g.: Autoset, DURec, High Quality Mic inputs with up to 75dB Gain range and Instr inputs with 1MOhm and also high gain range.

IF you need many i/o ports, then I would use an UFX+ to have MADI, AES and two ADAT ports.
MADI gives you best options to expand (64ch @single speed) and using OM3/OM4 cabling which allows for up to 2km between each of the devices in a MADI RING. So you have best flexibility to place devices close to the performer even if you have multiple rooms.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13