1 Topic by BobDavidsonBerl (edited by BobDavidsonBerl 2023-11-06 03:19:04)

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Topic: Newbie Questions about Digiface USB

Hello all,

I recently started enjoying mixing with analogue gear which has quickly rendered my existing audio interface obsolete. This world of expanded I/O is wholly new to me and I have been researching like crazy.  Here is what I am wanting to do but I don’t know enough about what I am doing to know if it will work.  I am looking at getting a Digiface USB and a Ferrofish Pulse 16 (with a future second Pulse 16 planned). I will input all my mic pre’s and outboard gear (as well as my monitors) through the Pulse 16. I am also assuming that TotalMix will allow my to listen to my DAW mixes through the headphone out on the Digiface. What I want to know is, is this a thing that can be done? Other than the obvious lack of mic pre’s on the Digiface (which I don’t care about), is there a reason to go with a different setup here?  Just me and my guitar/piano.  I don’t have need for recording a drum kit. I don’t even need much I/O for microphones, I just want to be able to have enough I/O to mix “outside the box” as my outboard gear collection grows. Any advice or cautions for pitfalls would be VERY greatly appreciated.

2 Reply by waedi (edited by waedi 2023-11-06 04:56:20)

  • waedi
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Re: Newbie Questions about Digiface USB

Yes, that will work fine with the Digiface USB, as long your outboardgear has optical Adat connections.
Yes, the headphone output can provide you everything from the computer.
DAW, outboardgear, monitoring piano and mic, no problem.

M1-Sequoia, Madiface Pro, Digiface USB, Babyface silver and blue
  • Kubrak
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Re: Newbie Questions about Digiface USB

Digiface is also very good for "glueing" together various pieces of gear. For example I use it also as patchbay for effects. I play acoustics gear connected to AD then by ADAT to DF USB from there to effect processor 1 back to DF USB, effect processor 2 back to DF USB, ..., DA to monitors/headphones.

Unfortunatelly DF USB is not designed for standalone use (without computer), but I found the way.... If it stays powered it remembers current setup even if one turns computer off. I use powered USB Hub for keeping DF USB permanently on....

On the other side.... If you need just piano/guitar maybe something like seconhand Fireface UCX (or newer models) would do. It has also one ADAT i/o so there is space for future expansion, if needed.

IMHO Babyface Pro (or Pro FS) would do your current needs, with possibility of future expansion using ADAT. If just two outputs would do for you. If you do not intend to have multichannel (5.1, 7.1, ..) output to sound system.

  • ramses
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Re: Newbie Questions about Digiface USB

If you are using the Digiface USB, then you have to be aware of, that it has relatively weak headphones outputs compared to other models and offers to you no further channel / feature reserves.

If you intend to use two Ferrofish Pulse 16, then any of the RME cards offering 4x ADAT I/O are full, and you are definitively limited to single speed. Furthermore, to consider that you might want to record your piano recordings at higher quality, double speed. With two Ferrofish you would need 8x ADAT I/O.

In that regard, I would think about getting a MADI-based solution which offers more channels and at double speed you would have still 32 (of the 64 channels due to port multiplexing).

There are two possibilities that I would recommend as a solid base for your setup
a) PCIe based card: HDSPe MADI FX with 3x MADI I/O
b) UFX III, USB3 based

to a) with this card you have 3x MADI I/O, 2x optical on board, the 3rd copper but there is an optional module available to get a 3rd optical MADI port. This card has a resource optimizing driver, allocates CPU resource in groups of 8 ports. Has phones output if needed and also offers some interesting port types like AES, MIDI, Wordclock.

to b) solid interface which has already a nice mix of I/O ports, Analog I/O and Mic/Inst ports. Interesting feature set with DURec, Autoset and more powerful headphone outputs. The amount of analog ports stay no matter which sample rate you use. It has the same converter like the ones known from the ADI-2 Pro FS reference converter. Can also be used in stand-alone operation mode.

Maybe the amount of analog ports and Mic ports and one Ferrofish are already sufficient to you.
BTW .. if you buy the Ferrofish, then do not forget to buy the MADI version, Ferro 16 MX.
AFAIR the unit can be upgraded later, but I wouldn't hesitate to buy the MADI version directly and use MADI.

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

5 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2023-11-06 11:32:44)

  • ramses
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Re: Newbie Questions about Digiface USB

Kubrak wrote:

Digiface is also very good for "glueing" together various pieces of gear. For example I use it also as patchbay for effects. I play acoustics gear connected to AD then by ADAT to DF USB from there to effect processor 1 back to DF USB, effect processor 2 back to DF USB, ..., DA to monitors/headphones.

Unfortunatelly DF USB is not designed for standalone use (without computer), but I found the way.... If it stays powered it remembers current setup even if one turns computer off. I use powered USB Hub for keeping DF USB permanently on....

On the other side.... If you need just piano/guitar maybe something like seconhand Fireface UCX (or newer models) would do. It has also one ADAT i/o so there is space for future expansion, if needed.

IMHO Babyface Pro (or Pro FS) would do your current needs, with possibility of future expansion using ADAT. If just two outputs would do for you. If you do not intend to have multichannel (5.1, 7.1, ..) output to sound system.

Did you read that he intends to connect two Ferrofish Pulse 16 because he will use a lot of outboard gear? Seems not wink
This requires at minimum 4x ADAT I/O or MADI.
All interfaces that you mentioned have only one ADAT port which is not sufficient to connect 1-2 AD/DA converter with 16 channels each.

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

6 Reply by BobDavidsonBerl (edited by BobDavidsonBerl 2023-11-06 14:52:36)

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Re: Newbie Questions about Digiface USB

ramses wrote:

If you are using the Digiface USB, then you have to be aware of, that it has relatively weak headphones outputs compared to other models and offers to you no further channel / feature reserves.

What do you mean by “no further channel/feature reserves”?

ramses wrote:

If you intend to use two Ferrofish Pulse 16, then any of the RME cards offering 4x ADAT I/O are full, and you are definitively limited to single speed. Furthermore, to consider that you might want to record your piano recordings at higher quality, double speed. With two Ferrofish you would need 8x ADAT I/O.

48kHz is more than enough for my setup which means that I would be able to use all 32 I/O slots available via ADAT, right?

ramses wrote:

a) with this card you have 3x MADI I/O, 2x optical on board, the 3rd copper but there is an optional module available to get a 3rd optical MADI port. This card has a resource optimizing driver, allocates CPU resource in groups of 8 ports. Has phones output if needed and also offers some interesting port types like AES, MIDI, Wordclock.

This was one of my concerns. I am not sure about the whole wordclock thing.  I get that each piece of gear needs to be in sync but I don’t think I have a need for a port space for that. The whole idea of a clock is fuzzy for me given that my current setup handles it automatically. I have never had to make any changes to it.

ramses wrote:

a b) solid interface which has already a nice mix of I/O ports, Analog I/O and Mic/Inst ports. Interesting feature set with DURec, Autoset and more powerful headphone outputs. The amount of analog ports stay no matter which sample rate you use. It has the same converter like the ones known from the ADI-2 Pro FS reference converter. Can also be used in stand-alone operation mode.

How weak a headphone out are we talking here?  Can it be amplified? 

Also, I have never needed to use my interface in stand alone mode. For the past 25 years, I have always used my computer with it. I don’t do any live music and so I don’t think I’d ever need that functionality. I could be wrong though, which is why I’ve posed my questions here…

ramses wrote:

Maybe the amount of analog ports and Mic ports and one Ferrofish are already sufficient to you.
BTW .. if you buy the Ferrofish, then do not forget to buy the MADI version, Ferro 16 MX.
AFAIR the unit can be upgraded later, but I wouldn't hesitate to buy the MADI version directly and use MADI.

I am just starting my journey and have only a handful of rack items. By the time I spend enough money on outboard gear to fill up 32 I/O slots, I may be dead (or forbidden to spend money by my family

  • ramses
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Re: Newbie Questions about Digiface USB

> What do you mean by “no further channel/feature reserves”?
It has nothing but ADAT I/O and headphones output.

> 48kHz is more than enough for my setup which means that I would be able to use all 32 I/O slots available via ADAT, right?
Yes.
But you mentioned that you wanted to add:
- 2 Ferros and
- Mic Preamp (assumed 8-port)
Then you would definitively need more than 4 ADAT ports even if you work only at single speed.

> This was one of my concerns.
WC is not required with the Ferros, as they have digital inputs (ADAT IN) they can read the clock from there.
But in other setups, like e.g. preamps, there are some, that only have ADAT OUT.
Then you need either WC or they need to become clock master (which works only for one of such devices).

> how weak a headphone out are we talking here?  Can it be amplified? 
I have no comparison at hand and it depends on several factors.
Depends on the headphones impedance, sensibility of the headphone drivers, impedance of the headphone output,
Only wanted to mention it, I see the differences in my Excel comparison sheet
https://forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=35156

> I am just starting my journey and have only a handful of rack items.
> By the time I spend enough money on outboard gear to fill up 32 I/O slots,
> I may be dead (or forbidden to spend money by my family

So maybe the better approach is getting an UFX III which gives you great flexibility.
Maybe 8x analog I/O , 4 Mic/Line/Inst  inputs and 2x headphones outputs are sufficient for a while before adding the 1st Ferro via MADI and maybe later a Mic Preamp should you need even more Mics.
But 4 are already nice to position 2 at the piano and then 2 more free for other use.

Depends on your budget and what you might want to do / to have in terms of "flexibility".
RME recording interfaces have a very long driver support, some devices already about 20 years.
So this can be an invest into the future, maybe your "one and only" recording interface for many many years.

Later you could e.g. expand this solution adding a reference converter to enhance your monitoring and phones section by using either ADAT or AES port .... Its always good to have some options.

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

8 Reply by Kubrak (edited by Kubrak 2023-11-06 17:12:08)

  • Kubrak
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Re: Newbie Questions about Digiface USB

ramses wrote:

Did you read that he intends to connect two Ferrofish Pulse 16 because he will use a lot of outboard gear? Seems not wink

I have overlooked the second Ferrofish "planned" in future..... I have more focused on information that so far OP has just piano and guitar and does not need plentifull of Mic preamps.

But you are right 1 ADAT would not allow to fully utilize even one Ferrofish 16 which OP intends to buy....

-----------------

Phone output of Digiface USB is (from technical data) weaker than in other RME interfaces, but it seems to me suffitient. I have use it with Sennheiser HD 650 and 600. I could test it with Sen. HD25, if that is of interest....

  • ramses
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Re: Newbie Questions about Digiface USB

Kubrak wrote:
ramses wrote:

Did you read that he intends to connect two Ferrofish Pulse 16 because he will use a lot of outboard gear? Seems not wink

I have overlooked the second Ferrofish "planned" in future..... I have more focused on information that so far OP has just piano and guitar and does not need plentifull of Mic preamps.

But you are right 1 ADAT would not allow to fully utilize even one Ferrofish 16 which OP intends to buy....

-----------------

Phone output of Digiface USB is (from technical data) weaker than in other RME interfaces, but it seems to me suffitient. I have use it with Sennheiser HD 650 and 600. I could test it with Sen. HD25, if that is of interest....

+1

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

10 Reply by BobDavidsonBerl (edited by BobDavidsonBerl 2023-11-06 20:44:39)

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Re: Newbie Questions about Digiface USB

Kubrak wrote:

Phone output of Digiface USB is (from technical data) weaker than in other RME interfaces, but it seems to me suffitient. I have use it with Sennheiser HD 650 and 600. I could test it with Sen. HD25, if that is of interest....

My Sony’s appear to be of similar impedence to the HD25’s so yes, I would love to know how they work. Thanks!