• Registered: 2011-11-20
  • Posts: 22

Topic: Sonar X1 and UFX addressing entanglement

Hello, all, and happy holidays,

I am trying to mix "out of the box" and have a 24 channel mixer wired to the 8 outputs of 3 different cards; the first one of course is the UFX, then I have a Focusrite Octopre, and then an ART TubeOpto8. (Yes, but you have to start somewhere).

Is there any way I can get Sonar and the UFX to agree what happens after the 4th output pair?  I tried disabling the 9/10 and 11/12 and AES outputs in Sonar by unchecking the boxes.  Now they don't appear in the options list when I am assigning outputs to channels BUT the three channel pairs 9/10, 11/12, and 13/14 are also not available to the next card.  I would like the Focusrite card to start in on inputs 9/10 and the Art card to start in on 17/18.

Apparently the UFX is pushing those 3 addresses into line because the hardware for the Focusrite card is wired with output 1/2 into my mixer's 9/10... so there is something going on that I don't understand (obviously).

I have to say that understanding TotalMix is somewhat of a hurdle but the more I use this product the happier I have become with it.  It's nice to be able to name-drop "Fireface UFX" to customers and see their eyes light up.  :-)

So.  If anyone knows a workaround for this I would surely appreciate your help.  This has been a wonderful support group for my newbie questions.

Best regards,

Bill

  • From: Washington DC, USA
  • Registered: 2007-08-06
  • Posts: 442

Re: Sonar X1 and UFX addressing entanglement

Can you give more detail on how your units are connected, and rephrase your question?  I am confused about your set up and what specific problem you are having.  Are you connecting the other units to the UFX via ADAT?

The Octopre, to my knowledge, will not play back recorded tracks for mixing out of the box as it is just a preamp and AD converter, not a DA converter.  The Octopre outputs just route the analog signal of whatever is coming in to the preamp, not the signal from Sonar.  So, you don't have 24 outputs but "only" 16 outputs to work with (8 UFX, 8 TubeOpto8) assuming you don't want to use your UFX headphone outs for this purpose.

In general, you can set up Sonar to route to any available outputs, so there is no need to disable any outputs.

3 Reply by wjniemi (edited by wjniemi 2011-12-30 22:13:19)

  • Registered: 2011-11-20
  • Posts: 22

Re: Sonar X1 and UFX addressing entanglement

Hi, neirbod, and thanks for jumping in.

I thought after reading my post that it might be a bit confusing so let me try to clarify.

What I am going for is analog summing.  I don't have analog summing boxes, but an analog mixer will work if it is sufficient quality.  Mine is a mid-80s AHB CMC24, which sold for about $8k back then so I am assuming it should be OK for this.  So far I am very happy with the results.

So let's go back to the rack for a moment.  I have the UFX, and then through its ADAT connections I have two more 8 channel I/O units.  The better one is a Focusrite OctoPre, and the lessor one is an Art TubeOpto8.

What I would LIKE to do is to take 8 analog outputs from each unit and run them into my mixer, then take the summed signal back into an input pair on the UFX and record that as the 2 bus track.

Here's the problem.  The UFX has extra addressable output pairs, namely the 9/10, 11/12, and the AES.  I would like to use those for monitoring the final 2 bus but not for anything else.  However, I haven't found a way I can skip over these outputs in Sonar. 

Right now I have 3 8 channel snakes, each running 8 lines from the outputs of the UFX, the Focusrite, and the ART, into an input of the 24 channel mixer.  Perfect so far.  But when I address my Sonar tracks to the UFX 1/2 through 7/8, then put the next track on ADAT 1/2, it skips over input pairs on the mixer making channels 9 through 14 unusable.

So what I would like to do is somehow be able to just use the 8 outputs on the back of the UFX for the first 8 on the mixer, the 8 outputs on the back of the Focusrite for 9-16, and so on.

I truly hope that this is a clearer explanation, and I further truly hope this is something really easy to do. 

Thank you again for trying to help me.  Best regards & happy New Year,

Bill

4 Reply by neirbod (edited by neirbod 2011-12-31 00:38:18)

  • From: Washington DC, USA
  • Registered: 2007-08-06
  • Posts: 442

Re: Sonar X1 and UFX addressing entanglement

wjniemi wrote:

So let's go back to the rack for a moment.  I have the UFX, and then through its ADAT connections I have two more 8 channel I/O units.  The better one is a Focusrite OctoPre, and the lessor one is an Art TubeOpto8.

Ok, that is more clear. First, as I wrote above, I don't think the Octopre will help you with this as I believe it is just a pre with AD conversion.  I don't think the Octopre even has ADAT inputs.  How are you hooking it up to the UFX? 

wjniemi wrote:

Here's the problem.  The UFX has extra addressable output pairs, namely the 9/10, 11/12, and the AES.  I would like to use those for monitoring the final 2 bus but not for anything else.  However, I haven't found a way I can skip over these outputs in Sonar.

In Sonar there is no need to "skip over" any unused output pairs.  Just assign the outputs in Sonar to whatever UFX ADAT outs you want.  For example, let's say you have the ART ADAT input connected to UFX ADAT1 output and you have a snare track you want to send to the ART analog output 1.  Within Sonar select the snare track and assign its output to "UFX ADAT left 1" (ADAT right 1would be ART output 2). 

Now, I am not familiar with the ART, so you may need to change some setting so it routes "ADAT In" to analog outs 1-8. 

Good luck

  • Registered: 2011-11-20
  • Posts: 22

Re: Sonar X1 and UFX addressing entanglement

Thank you again, neirbod.

I have the Focusrite Octopre dynamic, and it has 8 inputs with compression plus lightpipe connectors.  The Art has lightpipe also, so if I keep the sample rate at 44.1k I can run 24 I/O at the same time.

So here's what's happening. Let's say I am using 12 stereo tracks.  I assign the first 4 of them to the first 4 UFX outputs.  No problem.  If I assign the 5th stereo track to Stereo ADAT (1) 1, the actual hardware output that it routes to is the Focusrite 7/8, meaning that it has skipped over the first 3 output pairs of the Focusrite.

Perhaps there is a simple solution for this in matrix view?  The way I have it at the moment is that the first 4 PB pairs go to the UFX AN 1/2 to AN 7/8.  Then I have skipped over Phones 9/10, Phones 2, and Main (Main has the entire output going to it but it's assigned to AES which I'm not using).  Then after skipping those 3 pairs, I resume the PB outputs with ADAT 1/2, ADAT 3/4, and so on to ADAT 11/12 which resides on the ART card.

Puzzling, eh?  Or maybe not.  I up and working with it as it is now, but I sure would prefer to get this the way I want it to work.

Thanks again and best to ya.

Bill

  • Registered: 2011-11-20
  • Posts: 22

Re: Sonar X1 and UFX addressing entanglement

OK, it must be New Year magic.

First let me describe the hardware setup.  As mentioned above, I have a UFX with two 8 channel I/O cards connected via ADAT.  ADAT 1 is a Focusrite Octopre, ADAT 2 is an ART TubeOpto8.

All 24 outputs of the system are connected in series to 24 channels of an analog mixer EXCEPT output pair 7/8 on the Focusrite which is patched to my monitoring mixer (a Peavey RQ 3014). The 24 channel mixer's LR bus goes into AN 1/2 on the UFX which is routed in Sonar to the Focusrite 7/8 pair.  I have created an extra track to record the LR bus from the analog mixer, and that's what I'm monitoring.

One important note:  The Focusrite has a switch to toggle between modes... you can set it for AD DA playback and this must be on in order for the monitoring to work.

So with this setup, the output routing in Sonar functions as I want it to.  I can send any track or combination of tracks to any output in the rack (except 7/8 on the Focusrite, of course) and monitor and record.  Perfect. 

At this point I am not using any of the Totalmix "Control Room" features nor am I using any effects or other features.  However, I have accomplished what I set out to do, namely analog summing.  It is taking a great deal of self discipline to keep from tweaking the analog mixer controls, but to keep mixes repeatable I have disabled the EQ section and set the input pads to zero gain, and all the faders on 0 db.  I am not panning anything; the mono signals are straight up and the stereo pairs are full left-right.  This way I can guarantee repeatable mixes without having to manually write down a bunch of altered settings.

However, I have been thinking about this and I wonder if, since I'm sitting next to a very powerful tool for enhancing the mix, why not use it?  If you are creating a pre-master, that is your "final" copy anyway.  I am going to raise this question with Mixerman to get his thoughts on the topic.  His book, Zen and the Art of Mixing, is what set me off on this whole analog summing thing in the first place.  I am not trying to sell his book, but it's the one in my library that gets the most use and the most respect from me with Mike Stavrous' book Mixing with your Mind just about equal status.

Well, I have accomplished my goal.  I may update this thread later if I have any interesting discoveries to report.

Best to all and thanks to those who responded.




I set up the TotalMix for straight playback and now it is behaving exactly as I was expecting (I think).

I assigned all of the Sonar tracks' outputs to "none" in the console, and put the TotalMix into "straight playback".  Then I grabbed the bass track output and started running it through the series from AN 1 left to AN 1 right and so on. When I got to ADAT 1 left

  • From: Washington DC, USA
  • Registered: 2007-08-06
  • Posts: 442

Re: Sonar X1 and UFX addressing entanglement

I am glad you got it working.  I confess I am still having a hard time understanding exactly what is happening, such as how you can have all you Sonar outputs set to "none" and be getting any signal to TM.  But since it works, that's all that really matters.

One last thing - from your notes above it seems you don't fully understand how TM works (apologies if this is incorrect).  All I can say is that, while there is a learning curve, TM is a very powerful and flexible tool and I encourage you to learn how to use it.  Once you figure it out, it is actually quite intuitive and you'll find dozens of uses for it.

Best of luck.

  • Registered: 2011-11-20
  • Posts: 22

Re: Sonar X1 and UFX addressing entanglement

Hello again...

You are absolutely right that I do not fully understand TM.  I will definitely pursue it.  Usually the way things work around here is that I go from one pressing need to the next... the first pressing need was to find a way to do analog summing.

And you're also right to be confused about all tracjs set to no outputs.  I just did that to clear the way so I could run one track through the whole output list and then see which channel it ended up in at the mixer.  Sorry to confuse... obviously I won't use it this way, it was just a way to test. :-)

When I read the manual section on TM I have to admit I feel a bit thick.  I spent 20 years as a degreed electrical engineer and it seems like either something is so obvious that it's not being stated or that I am just not "getting" it.  I will keep working with it, and hopefully some day I will master it.  I should mention that there is what appears to be the first in a series of tutorial videos that I found to be helpful but I think perhaps the rest of the series is still a work in progress or maybe the project was abandoned.  I should also mention that I tried reproducing the behavior of TM, particularly setting up submixes, right along with the video and it didn't work for me using Sonar products.  I think maybe Sonar doesn't interface with TM as well as some other recording software products.... particularly, I don't think it gives up control of its playback routing to another software applet as I have found that I need to manually route each track IN SONAR to a physical output... this cannot be done from TM.

This may not be correct but I'm sure I will find out by using, questioning, and study.  Of course this takes time, which one of my bosses also referred to as "cubic dollars".  :-)

Take care, & thanks again!

Bill

  • From: Washington DC, USA
  • Registered: 2007-08-06
  • Posts: 442

Re: Sonar X1 and UFX addressing entanglement

wjniemi wrote:

I think maybe Sonar doesn't interface with TM as well as some other recording software products.... particularly, I don't think it gives up control of its playback routing to another software applet as I have found that I need to manually route each track IN SONAR to a physical output... this cannot be done from TM.

I use Sonar myself, and it interfaces just fine with Total Mix.  I suspect you are confusing the roles of the Hardware Outputs and Software Playback channels in TM.  If you route a track in Sonar to, for example, "UFX output 1/2" this does *not* necessarily mean you will hear it on the UFX analog outputs 1/2.  What it does is route the signal to the Software Playback channel 1/2 in TM.  From there, you can use the faders in TM to route this to any output channels you want.

Good luck.

  • Registered: 2011-11-20
  • Posts: 22

Re: Sonar X1 and UFX addressing entanglement

Again you suspect right. 

I will try this again... my clients have left for the next few days and I will have some time (hopefully!) to get better informed about this.  Obviously it's critical, much mores than any of the previous AD DA devices I've used. 

If you know the video tutorial I was referring to... it's part one of an unknown number of parts... is it correct and should I be able to get that to work?  Let me see if I can find the link...

This is it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwoKoxYf … re=related

If you can let me know if that is still valid, that would be very helpful.

Or, perhaps, maybe you could come visit the Turtle Bowl here in SE Iowa, where you appear to live longer because time seems to stand still, and show me how it works.  If it can be operated in a John Deere ballcap I probably can learn to run it.  :-)

Thanks for your insights!

Best,
Bill

  • From: Washington DC, USA
  • Registered: 2007-08-06
  • Posts: 442

Re: Sonar X1 and UFX addressing entanglement

Yes, the video is accurate.  The section where they describe the playback from Windows Media Player is where you will see the playback from Sonar.

I am 99% sure you can operate TM wearing a John Deere cap wink

Just remember to use Submix view and play around with it. It starts to make sense pretty quickly.

  • Registered: 2011-11-20
  • Posts: 22

Re: Sonar X1 and UFX addressing entanglement

Thanks, I will review the video until it gets through the tinfoil inside my Deere cap.

:-)