Topic: Chaining two FF800s.

I've seen the RME video, showing you how to daisy-chain two FF800s, so I know how it's done.

My questions is, using method 3 (therefore only having 1 TotalMix window), when it says the analogue inputs/outputs of the slave device will be shown to the main device, does that mean all 10 analogue inputs and all 10 analogue outputs? I ask as in method 3 the two units are connected via ADAT, so I've assumed that only the 8 analogue inputs and outputs on the rear would be shown to the main device rather than all 10 of each.

Re: Chaining two FF800s.

"Method 3" .. what video are you referring to ? There are plenty of videos.

When connecting multiple devices be simply aware of, that you can't mix channels across units.
The only think that you can do is to connect them e.g. through ADAT and then to route channels between units as required.

From operational standpoint and more freedom in terms of TM FX routing it's better to get a recording interface which supports the needed amount of channels / devices so that you can route any HW input and SW playback channel to any HW output (aka "submix").

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

Re: Chaining two FF800s.

ramses wrote:

what video are you referring to ? There are plenty of videos.

RME's own video on daisy-chaining FF800's, it regularly appears on these threads and it's the first video to appear if one were to google such a search term.

The questions is whether all analogue inputs/outputs are made available to the master device, i.e. all 10 of each, rather than just the 8 you'd normally expect if you're connecting via ADAT.

4 (edited by ramses 2022-06-14 07:24:55)

Re: Chaining two FF800s.

It would be easier to post the specific video URL than more paraphrases that don't get to the point.

I'll just tell you the way I see it:

If your computer is powerful enough, you can usually connect up to three recording interfaces (sometimes more) to your computer.

You either connect them in parallel, each FF800 to its own Firewire port on the computer, or you form a chain of devices behind one firewire port on the computer. As far as I remember, it might be best to use Firewire 800 for the latter. I personally would prefer, that each device gets it's own firewire port.

The devices must be clock synchronised, either via WC (word clock) or by using digital ports / connections for clock transmission (ADAT, SPDIF, ...). Only one unit can be clock master (driver settings: clock source "internal"), the other units need to be configured as "clock slave" (driver settings: clock source e.g. "ADAT"). So WC is not necessarily required for such a setup, but has advantages if you intend to use the digital ports of both devices for other purposes.

When using several devices under Windows, make sure that you set the same ASIO buffer size for each device in the driver settings, otherwise you will get a slight offset in the tracks of the different devices when recording.

If you connect the devices in the way described above, i.e. each device has a FireWire connection to the computer, then you can access all I/O ports with the application (DAW, ...) via the ASIO driver.

If you route via the DAW, this is unproblematic, but then you always have the full RTL latency.
If you want to route on the card (FF800), then the routing only works within an interface, you cannot, for example, route an input port from device 1 to an output port on device 2.

In addition to the above-mentioned connection, there is of course always the possibility of connecting a second recording interface via ADAT. In this case, however, you no longer have a single port available; you can only have up to 8 additional analogue inputs and outputs via ADAT at single speed. You are free to operate the second device stand-alone, if this is supported.

In your case, it would be more advantageous to connect both devices in one way or another (2 devices parallel to each other on 2 Firewire ports or serially one after the other on a Firewire port on the computer) in order to be able to access all ports.

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

Re: Chaining two FF800s.

ramses wrote:

It would be easier to post the specific video URL than more paraphrases that don't get to the point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfexKXS7wNk

The method to which I've referred is method 3 in the above video, for the reason that it's the only method whereby you can operate a single TotalMix window (which is imperative for me) but have access to all analogue inputs/outputs on the slave device. Chaining via FW results in 2 TotalMix windows, which I do not want.

This is not to provide additional inputs/outputs to my DAW, it is purely for use for matrix mixing of analogue inputs/outputs on TotalMix and therefore latency isn't an issue, nor are any DAW-related considerations either.

Re: Chaining two FF800s.

> you can operate a single TotalMix window (which is imperative for me)

Then you need to add the 2nd FF800 by using ADAT.
ADAT is limited to 8 channels at single speed (44.1/48).
Its your choice (by routing) what channels you want to send through ADAT.

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