Using an A16 ultra with a Firewire interface on Macbook Pro?

bgarlow · Post by **bgarlow** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 6:23 am

Hi,

I'm looking for a good way to use my A16 with my MacBook/Ableton setup. There are a couple of cool Firewire interfaces (like the Focusrite Saffire Pro 26i/o http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SaffirePro26/) that have 16 channels of ADAT i/o (or 8 using S-MUX). This one in particular seems like a good options because I could plug hardware synths, drum machines, etc. into the A16 then use the ADAT out of the A16 into the ADAT inputs of the Focusrite then on to the Mac via Firewire. This also gives me 8 nice mic pre's. BUT, that's $700.

Does anyone know of an el-cheapo firewire interface that supports 16 channels of ADAT that could basically just act as middleware for the A16 to get signal into the MacBook?

p.s. don't worry, I'm not abandoning Scope

I want to use the MacBook as the front-end of my studio and let my XP machine do nothing but Scope. I'll route to it via the ADAT interfaces on my Scope cards to use the synths, effects, and mixdowns.

Cheers,
Brent

valis · Post by **valis** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 3:52 pm

M-Audio has this: M-Audio ProFire Lightbridge Relatively inexpensive and it seems to be what you want, although it is of course M-audio. It's too bad that RME doesn't have a firewire counterpart to the Digifae, as they do offer the fireface400, a firewire version of the Multiface.

There are also some inexpensive options for firewire audio i/o that include adat i/o, but personally I would probably opt for something that was a bit higher than you seem to be looking to make sure that there are decent converters attached to that as well, just for flexibility's sake when (if you ever decide to use it as a mobile setup or whatever).

Btw can't you simply connect to the firewire on your Scope box rather than the a16u? If you're doing the routing to use the processing in Scope I think that's better than adding the a16u to the chain (which will just an extra buffer for its proprietary firewire chip). It's a minor point though.

I actually have a dedicated machine for my Scope box, and using ADAT is pretty painless for routing signals around. In fact I really like the flexibility I have now, although I could use a more powerful host system for the cards these days as this lowly p3 is really not capable of running much modern software alongside Scope.

bgarlow · Post by **bgarlow** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 5:32 am

In case anybody is interested, here's what I ended up doing:

First, I bought the Saffire Pro 26 I/O. On paper it looks good: 8 green series preamps, 16 channels of ADAT (or 8 or 4 via SMUX up to 192khz). It even looks nice, and the macbook fits right on top nicely. But then I plugged it in and started smelling something burning...something distinctly electronic smelling. Oh, then I noticed the smoke rolling out of the side vents. A quick Google revealed at least one other person with the same issue.

So, back to Grandma's to swap for the Presonus FireStudio. 8 discrete preamps, 16 ADAT (or 8 at 96khz), etc. So far so good. The Presonus software is much better, and the units seems sturdier. No smoke yet! My one nit is that there is a faint hiss in the background of the headphone and monitor output. Very very low level (in fact you stop noticing it until you unplug your headphones and hear silence again). It doesn't increase with output gain, so I guess it's not a problem, but I emailed Presonus to see if it was normal.

So now I have a Macbook Pro running Ableton and (soon) Logic Pro as my main DAW, with 16 channels of ADAT over to my Scope DAW. Now I can use my Scope synths, effects, etc. from a PC that is totally dedicated to Scope...no other software running at all. Seems much happier. My A16ultra is connected via zlink, and all my external synths are routed through that.

Pretty happy wth my new setup.

Brent

ScofieldKid · Post by **ScofieldKid** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 7:42 pm

Presonus also announced this recently either at NAMM or MusikMesse:

http://www.presonus.com/pr_firestudioLPannounc.html

Takes you up to 32-channel ADAT in, 32-channel ADAT out, with firewire. Might be overkill for some folks, and of course it's missing all the pre-amp and extra A/D and D/A of the other products. But it does have a lot of blinky lights...