Hello,
It was not so easy... Here's the follow up of what happened.
I really believe that RME should write a FAQ/tutorial about putting multiple FF800s together!
As I said, the setup was two FF800s, ADI-8QS AD (ADAT) & 8ch preamp+AD (ADAT). It was a 33 channel recording.
The most strange thing is that the driver (?) sets by itself which unit is going to be FF I and FF II, no matter how you connect them... this was new for me (ok, I'm novice).
Or am I missing something? Is there any way to define who is I, II, III?
It was not entirely clear for me if the 2nd FF would need WORDCLOCK, as it was connected by FW800 - yes, it needed (again - ok, I'm novice).
So the final setup (trial and error) was:
- ADI-8QS as MASTER/48kHz, sends ADAT to FF I;
- FF I sends WORDCLOCK to 8ch preamp, receives it by ADAT2;
- 8ch preamp sends WORDCLOCK to FF II;
- FF II is connected to FF I by FW800;
- FF I is connected to ExpressCard/34 by FW800.
By precaution, I used the latest FF800 driver on Win XP SP3/32; and put the same (also latest) firmware on both FFs. (is this really needed?)
During this setup I found that an ExpressCard/34 that worked flawless on a computer can not work good on another.
I used a Sonnet (T.I.) during long time on my previous notebook (HP) and it was rock-solid. This same card made my current one (Clevo i7) totally sluggish, a lot of errors-per-second on FF's control panel, almost freezing DIGIcheck...
I changed for APIOTEK (cheaper, was my backup, also T.I.) and it worked nicely?! Really strange...
The last 'problem' was that in the middle of the session (on the begining), the settings for FF2 'changed' by itself... it made the setup click a lot (clocking issues) but that take was not destroyed !? And it did not happen again.
Thanks for the attention. I put my questions and requests in bold.
I really like RME, and I'm looking forward to go MADI (HDSPe MADIface) and get the new 32ch AD.
all the best,
ave.
PS: please don't drop support for Win XP/32!
