Syncing a G4 with a PB M-audio

kindread · Post by **kindread** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 12:53 pm

I want to connect my G4 Desktop PC and Pulsar to a Powerbook with an M-Audio fire wire 410.
Can anyone tell me what I might have to do so that I am able to record on the Powerbook whatever I am playing through the Pulsar.
I am also thinking about the possibility of connecting the Pulsar midi connections to the PB and playing the Pulsar as an external instrament.
Any help or sugesstions as to what I should look out for would be greatfully appreciated.
Also I dont understand about word clocks but I think I might need one of theese???

nprime · Post by **nprime** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 2:26 pm

I don't think that your interface (M-Audio 410)has any provision for word clock sync, so you don't have to worry about that now.

Which Pulsar are you using?

kindread · Post by **kindread** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 2:41 am

I have a pulsar I. I run it on an old g4 350 mhzand 768SDram.
I am trying to find a way to use the pulsar after having it sitting around for to long with no osx drivers.
Am I barking up the wrong tree with this?

My idea is to use the SPDIF I/O from pulsar connected to the M-Audio that is runing on my G4 powerbook. Then I want to play the pulsar from a sequencer one the PB, effectivly using the desktop mac as an external hardware synth. I only want to know if this is all possible and what if any pit falls should I look out for ???

[ This Message was edited by: kindread on 2004-07-05 04:46 ]

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 10:10 am

yes, what you intend is possible, but of course limited to that stereo pair on the S/PDIF and possibly the analog output from the Pulsar. The latter has a very high quality, don't worry to use it just because it's analog

But the Pulsar One (opposed to the 2nd generation boards) can't do bi-directional S/PDIF transfers due to it's IO limitation.

This means you have to set Pulsar to slave to the M-Audio's S/PDIF in SFP's samplerate dialog.
Keep the M-Audio powered and connected (it's providing Pulsar's master clock).
If you want to operate Pulsar without the Powerbook you have to set it as master again.
This is best accomplished by 2 basic projects, one saved with Pulsar as master, the other one with external S/PDIF as master.
Don't worry, it reads more complicated than it really is - and it has nothing to do with SFP but more with S/PDIF specs

one quickly gets used to it, but in the beginning it's a bit strange.

Your setup is perfectly ok under current circumstances of the OSX developement 'process' - specially if those 2-4 channels are sufficient.
Otherwise an Adat connection with the notebook could provide 8 or 16 dedicated channels.

cheers, Tom

borg · Post by **borg** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 11:27 am

running a G3 with 3CW cards happily together with a laptop pc/rme. the laptop has the sequencer (ableton live) which controls Scope through midi (and audio ramps if atomic is here), which on its turn sends audio back to the RME over adat, which on its turn sends audio back again to the mac, to the hardware mixer, into ableton live or vdat, andandand...

_________________
andy
 the lunatics are in the hall 

[ This Message was edited by: borg on 2004-07-05 12:30 ]

Post by **garyb** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 12:13 pm

kindread, are you from the la/oc area?

kindread · Post by **kindread** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 4:32 pm

Thanks guys:-) It seems that I have more possibilities than I could have imagined. I will move to my new apartment in three weeks and can't wait to try out some of your sugesstions. Though I still am no clearer on the wordclock thing ??? what is that all about.?
One final question, If I connect to the laptop through the optical cables what advantages would that give over the other methods of connection?
Thanks again you all have been great I will let you know how I get on in a few days or so

kindread · Post by **kindread** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 4:36 pm

Garyb I am from london but am living in Germany

borg · Post by **borg** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 6:04 pm

optical? in my case i use it as adat... 8 channels bidirectional. i tested ableton live 4 running on both my computers (i know... licences, but it's for beta's sake

), ableton on the pc was master, sending midi to scope/ableton (slave/synced via midiclock) on the mac.
on the laptop, i also had this audio signal fed to the flexor ramp in modular (over one of the RME's adat channels).
two audio sequencers, modulation and sequences in scope modular... butt tight! although i gotta admit i'm not that scientifically interested when it comes to testing these kind of things

if it bangs, then it's ok with me...

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 6:33 pm

On 2004-07-05 17:32, kindread wrote:
...If I connect to the laptop through the optical cables what advantages would that give over the other methods of connection?
...

none at all, but one small exception:
if 'bad' connections of your studio gear catch noise and hum, then an optical cable can really save you some hair - a search on the topic 'ground loop' might reveal something between absurdity, torture and pure horror

You won't be able to distinguish the signal of the Pulsar's analog out fed into a quality converter from a digitally transferred one.
If you try it with the M-Audio and hear a difference, then it would be due to a difference in level setting or the M-Audio's analog inputs, but I doubt this will be the case.

A (high quality) wordclock signal is used for either very high precision digital transfers or for interconnecting > 2 devices where master/slave setting would not work reliably. In such a scenario the first connection is ok, but the second is slaved to a slave, the third slaved to a slaved slave etc which results in randomly out of sync signals.

The wordclock signal is a series of pulses and a logic senses it's level change and so may either happen to pick the left or the right segment of the pulswave.

This results in an (unavoidable) error is called 'jitter'.
In bad (or cheap) designs it may add significantly and distorts and blurs the sound.
In good ones this time drift is so small that the effect is below the level of perception.
It's what separates good from bad and excellent from good gear.

cheers, Tom

[ This Message was edited by: astroman on 2004-07-05 19:45 ]

Post by **garyb** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 10:18 pm

cheers, kindread.
i know another here in cali(or his band is called kindread anyway)

kindread · Post by **kindread** » Tue Jul 06, 2004 11:03 am

Rock on guys

I cant wait for play time I have lots of info to keep me happy for weeks.