Multiple cards & digital I/O... what's your experience ??

Magnus · Post by **Magnus** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 2:56 pm

Hi everyone,

New to this forum, but been a Pulsar II owner since the card came out...

Now I need some help on how to proceed...

My question is this: I need to expand the I/O possibilities for my studio computer (using Cubase SX as the sequencer & multitrack) and since Cubase only support *one* ASIO driver at a time, I'm thinking of getting another SFP card (Pulsar II or Scope).

Will this give me 32 channels ADAT I/O synced to the same clock?? I'd hate to get another card and realise it drops samples/sync if I try to use them all at once (i.e. mixdown)...

The ADAT's will connect to my external Yamaha mixers (two 01V's, looking at a 02R96...) for recording & mixing (at least 24 channels of them), maybe having SX *or* SFP as submixer. Maybe I'll try to get one of them ADAT<->SPDIF entangler/detanglers for the last 8 channels.

Will 2 cards make me suffer from the PCI bus choking-message ??

I've never had any PCI problems with one card, but I've almost exlusively used it for audio routing, and not for FX/synths. I have Windows XP SP1 installed on my machine (ACPI enabled) and it works fine so far...

Any comments are very welcome !!

/Magnus

spoimala · Post by **spoimala** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 3:32 pm

Yes, another card will solve your problems.
I'm not 100% sure but I'll bet that ADAT sync will be just ok.
You won't have any PCI problems, becuse these cards will be linked using STDM cables, directly from card to another.

CW did a great job!

Magnus · Post by **Magnus** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 3:43 pm

Thanks for your reply!

Yes, the STDM bus seems like a really nice feature of these cards, very visionary for being such an old product. Too bad the marketing of CW never where up to par with the technology...

As I see it, the Pulsar family have had a little too much of a "toy-DSP" reputation with amateur synths, leaving too much room for other products from UA & TC, considering how long CW has been on the market. Anyway... back to topic.

I'd really, really like to hear from someone who use 3 or 4 of the Adats at the same time (24-32 channels). Then I can go out and happily buy another card...

/Magnus

King of Snake · Post by **King of Snake** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 6:51 pm

On 2002-10-30 15:43, Magnus wrote:
As I see it, the Pulsar family have had a little too much of a "toy-DSP" reputation with amateur synths, leaving too much room for other products from UA & TC,

well this was certainly true in the beginning, but ever since Pulsar 3 came out, with the Ligthwave, Prisma, Vectron, and now the Minimax, not to mention the Zarg synths and the Vinco, Optimaster, and Psy-Q it's really been all but amateur.

Magnus · Post by **Magnus** » Thu Oct 31, 2002 2:29 pm

Anyone using several cards with I/O ??

/Magnus

AndreD · Post by **AndreD** » Thu Oct 31, 2002 2:41 pm

2 P2 with 2 A16
No problems here...

greetinx,
andre

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Thu Oct 31, 2002 2:51 pm

No probs at all here.

Since ADAT does not pass on the PCI bus, it doesn't cause problems there. If you get more DSP and IO you ight get more ASIO ports, more effects etc. so these could tax the PCI bus. But it will probably take a project full of reverbs to cause problems. Which is non-realistic. A reverb uses about 100x the PCI bandwith of an ASIO bus.

You'll be safe, unless you're on an older VIA board. But then again, what's the price of a motherboard compared to the investment of a DSP card...

Have fun!

virtualstudio · Post by **virtualstudio** » Thu Oct 31, 2002 3:37 pm

From 3x pulsar II I use 5x adat i/o
from luna II i use adat a&b
connected to o.a 01v

works perfect !!!!

Terranova-Amsterdam

Magnus · Post by **Magnus** » Thu Oct 31, 2002 3:56 pm

Good news !

I'll be looking at another PulsarII then, or maybe a Scope...

By the way, I checked out the new Yamaha 02R96 hands on today... what a toy! Since I'm still one of them in need of hardware knobs & faders, I'll probably get this little thing soon. Running 32 channels of ADAT from this one to the CW cards can make some nice mixing

/Magnus

virtualstudio · Post by **virtualstudio** » Thu Oct 31, 2002 4:30 pm

beware you'll need 4x adat extention for 02r

Magnus · Post by **Magnus** » Thu Oct 31, 2002 5:18 pm

Extensions ??

You mean the mini YGDAI card-expansions, to get adat optical on the mixer ?

I already have two of them on my two Yamaha 01V's, will move them over when time comes...

/Magnus

virtualstudio · Post by **virtualstudio** » Thu Oct 31, 2002 6:31 pm

yes that's what i mean. My english ...I know

algorhythm · Post by **algorhythm** » Thu Oct 31, 2002 6:58 pm

why don't you just get the ADAT expansion board, or use the Z-link and buy a luna box or A16 ultra?

Magnus · Post by **Magnus** » Fri Nov 01, 2002 5:14 am

No worries Virtualstudio

On 2002-10-31 18:58, algorhythm wrote:
why don't you just get the ADAT expansion board, or use the Z-link and buy a luna box or A16 ultra?

ADAT expansion? On the mixer or for the Pulsar card ?? I didn't know you could add several I/O-only cards (without DSP) to the SFP family... I asked the reseller about this but they said it wasn't possible.

What is a "Luna box" ?

/Magnus

King of Snake · Post by **King of Snake** » Fri Nov 01, 2002 9:14 am

A Luna box is this:

http://www.creamware.de/en/Products/Con ... efault.asp

Magnus · Post by **Magnus** » Fri Nov 01, 2002 10:12 am

Ahh, I see.

Well, the Luna-box seems ok, but it's not for me. I'm kind of suspicious at these cheaper AD/DA's and will, when I have the money, go for something like the Apogee products, or in the price range of $3000-5000. Also, the Luna box have unbalanced RCA for analog I/O and that's a big nono.

The 02R96 is, in my eyes, a very nice combination of:
- very nice controller, with loads of dedicated stuff for selected channel and 25 touch sensitive 100mm faders
- decent set of preamps, all going 24/96
- nice digital patchbay
- a good digital mixer "toolkit" with dynamics, FX & EQ that will complement what I have in my DAW nicely
- decent AD/DA's but also with good support for surround mixing, in terms of monitor setup etc

I hope the CW cards will be the ultimate I/O and audiorouting-front between the external mixer and my DAW (with some whacked FX and maybe a synth or two) going ASIO to Cubase SX and some UAD and software plugs to complete the palette. With both external gear & internal software & DSP-supported stuff, this will be the most flexible solution for me.

/Magnus