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Hello...
I saw that you can daisy-chain the 1200f and the manual says that it can support 64 i/o. Does that mean that it doesn't have a problem connecting 4+ interfaces together?
Does anyone have experience with this? Does it require more than one firewire card?
I've read about people have problems going higher than 3 with other interfaces and I'm thinking about ways to get the magic 48-60 inputs.
JJ

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doubleJ Mon, 06/02/2008 - 15:02

At our church, we have 18 instrument ins (mic, di, direct), 24 singing, and another 6-8 speaking mics. That's 42 ins.
I was trying to find gear that would accommodate either recording everything separately (for later mixdowns) or to even run the sound (whether it be foh, monitor, video, etc...).
The closest thing that I've found, thus-far, is the 24io, but that still requires additional pres.
If we would do anything, monitor-wise, with it, we have 16 monitor sends, too.
It's always been kind of a pipe dream of mine to be able to make custom mixes of whatever we want. We have foh, monitor, and video. Why not have computer, too?
JJ

doubleJ Mon, 06/02/2008 - 21:48

Hehehe...
Well, I will admit that I don't like the individual mics. The audio department has been trying to get hanging choir mics for years, but everyone is still on 58s. We're waiting on building a drum room (personally, I want to go with electronic drums).
I'm also looking forward to the day when we are all in-ear.
JJ

Boswell Tue, 06/03/2008 - 02:16

doubleJ wrote: Hello...
I saw that you can daisy-chain the 1200f and the manual says that it can support 64 i/o. Does that mean that it doesn't have a problem connecting 4+ interfaces together?
Does anyone have experience with this? Does it require more than one firewire card?
I've read about people have problems going higher than 3 with other interfaces and I'm thinking about ways to get the magic 48-60 inputs.
JJ

I don't think the 1200F has a problem, although that's probably a question for the Mackie forums. Whether your computer can cope is a separate issue.

On the occasions I need more than 24 channels, I slave together a pair of my HD24XR hard disk recorders. That gets me 48 channels at 48KHz or 24 channels at 96KHz. In that way I am not at the mercy of FireWire having to perform glitch-free in and out at 56Mbps to disk for hours on end.

Post processing that many channels is another story...

Cucco Tue, 06/03/2008 - 05:31

Holy SNOT!

24 individual singing mics? That ranks up there with the most absurd things I've ever heard. You'd think in Branson of all places, the audio department would know how to capture 24 voices without using 1 mic per person.

Also - 1 instrument per every 1.3 people?

Here's my motto - the "audio department" would do well to listen to it:

Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD.

doubleJ Tue, 06/03/2008 - 06:44

Holy SNOT!
24 individual singing mics? That ranks up there with the most absurd things I've ever heard. You'd think in Branson of all places, the audio department would know how to capture 24 voices without using 1 mic per person.

Again...
It's not our decision. We've been pushing for choir mics for a couple years, now.

Also - 1 instrument per every 1.3 people?

Well, the drums have 7 mics. That sways the average a little. The keyboard has a left/right send. The piano has 2 mics. The lead guitar has an electric line and an acoustic line. The organ has 3 mics, too.
JJ

Cucco Tue, 06/03/2008 - 06:49

yeah...someone's going overboard.

For live sound.....a L/R send for keyboard?? Acoustic AND electric on lead?? Organ - 3 mics??? Geez, somebody's trying to "over-compensate" for something. (Don't worry JJ - I know it's not your call.)

Your best be is to find the person responsible for this mess, kick him squarely in the groin and while he's down, go yank all of this crap and throw it in a muddy puddle and then start from scratch.

doubleJ Tue, 06/03/2008 - 07:04

Hehehe...
Well, I will respectfully disagree with you on a couple points.
1: The keyboard sounds beautiful in stereo. I noticed the difference on recordings the first day it was done.
2: The electric an acoustic obviously isn't played at the same time (we have an acoustic rhythm guy), but there are a lot of songs where acoustic lead is nice (maybe some spanish guitar). The gut strings sound great.
I will agree with the organ, but I would remove it completely.
Hehehe...
And as far as the "audio department" is concerned...
It's not me, I'm but a lowly audio editor, we do have some guys that are serious into engineering and tech (the head guy ran road with Chaka Kahn for years). And, whereas I might not agree with the way everything is done, I will admit that they have some serious smarts about this stuff. But, with that being said, not everything is the perfect way anyone in the audio department wants it. We deal with space, staffing, money, etc... just like anyone/anywhere else.
I'm just thankful for the motu traveler. It's been indispensable for our computer recording. The editing process, now, is night/day different than when I started, nearly 4 years ago. We were recording a live cd, from the foh mix, through a tc electronics finalizer (which is partially still true, except for using the video mix instead of foh), but I was editing from that eq'd, mixed, finalized, cd. Now I have a direct split from the wireless receiver into the computer. It's as raw as I'll ever get. I'm looking for the day that receivers output over aes-ebu, now.
Hehehe...
Of course, we've ventured way off the topic at hand, but it's a nice conversation, anyway.
JJ

Edit...
Also, keep in mind, that we're not just doing live sound, here. These services are edited for television, too. Plus, the point of bringing up the multitude of inputs is for the ability to track the music, at some point, for later music release. I don't know if it will ever happen, but I certainly would like it.
JJ

Guest Tue, 06/03/2008 - 07:07

HI,
with that many inputs you realy have very limited choices. nothing will daisy chain firewire for that many not even the RME Fireface.

ideally (as we do alot of large church set ups) is the RME madi card to (numerous options)
EG: digital console with MADI, or Adat.
Adat.aes/ebu AD/da converters.

a few other options
Motu 424 card with various ad/da of thiers
Pro fools HD (if like like not being a good steward)

but it sure is NOT anything firewire

Scott
ADK

PS at our church we didnt have hanging mics either (when we actually had a choir) instead 4-5 gather around a mic x 4 groups and they were broke up based on their vox.

doubleJ Tue, 06/03/2008 - 07:14

ADK audio wrote:
a few other options
Motu 424 card with various ad/da of thiers
Pro fools HD (if like like not being a good steward)

As much as our video department would like to go protools, it will (hopefully) never happen. Honestly, our pastors aren't much for digital foh, anyway. Our video console is a yamaha dm2000 and our monitor console is a yamaha m7cl (both digital). I'm not sure why they don't want a digital foh, but it sure would be nice.
I was originally looking at the 424 card, but they don't have any pre interfaces that chain that high. I guess we could use a 24io and just branch off of direct outs, but I was trying to keep the signal chain as short as possible. Honestly, though, it would probably be the best option. At that point, I would probably break off the m7cl, as it's the most accessible.
JJ

Cucco Tue, 06/03/2008 - 07:31

Fireface 1 -
Channels 1-8: Millennia HV3D-8
Channels 9-10 - Built-in Pres
Channels 11-18 - Mackie Onyx 800R - via lightpipe
Channels 19-26 - Focusrite ISA 428 (4) and Aphex 107 (4) via lightpipe

Fireface 2 -
Channels 1-8 - Grace 801
Channels 9-10 - Built-in pres
Channels 11-16 Focusrite platinum (don't recall the model - but it had 8 mic inputs and lightpipe - it was borrowed.)

It was for an outdoor festival with 4 stages. Ran it for about 4 hours off and on with no problems.

doubleJ Tue, 06/03/2008 - 07:39

Interesting...
Now, that is something that I was trying to steer away from, but maybe it would work well...
There are just full lightpipe devices (m-audio profire lightbridge comes to mind) that could just connect pres via lightpipe.
Might this be a more logical/stable way of doing it?
That's how the dm2000 is set up.
JJ

Cucco Tue, 06/03/2008 - 07:48

Well...let's get into how you're routing your signal.

Are you splitting the FOH to go 1 leg to live sound and 1 leg to recording? Which console are you using? Do you have the digital and analog outs available to you? Do you have splitters?

If it were me and I were trying to record that many tracks at 1 time and be isolated from FOH, I'd get a few tranformer isolators, set up a mixer and run straight into a couple Alesis HD 24s then dump them into a DAW and do post later.

You're not trying to mix 24 vocalists in harmony all at one time to 2-track, right? That's why you want so many input channels??

One of the things I like about the Fireface is that you can set up amazing monitor mixes and as long as you're careful with setting the gain, your FOH guy can get a stable collection of stems or (with the right amount of DA converters or digital inputs on the board) a complete multi-track split of all of your work.

That's how I did the jazz show - I did the FOH with the outputs from the RMEs. I bused drums together and sent them as a stem and so on. It wasn't 100% ideal, but with more DACs, I could have had my cake and eaten it too.

Cucco Tue, 06/03/2008 - 08:35

ADK audio wrote: He asked for 64 I/O cant happen on ANY firewire
2 RME FF 800 will work thats only 48 i/o not 64

Scott
ADK

Well...56 at least.

If the firewire 800 works, you can get 3 units daisy chained.

I'm not sure if he needs 64 channels or just enough to get the group recorded (don't recall the exact number, but it wasn't 64).

In any case, digital out of the console would be the ideal.

Codemonkey Tue, 06/03/2008 - 09:32

Cucco said:
"Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD."

I've seen a motivational poster, of a forklift, lifting another forklift which is carrying a stack of boxes up to a high platform. Reminds me of that.

doubleJ said:
"The keyboard sounds beautiful in stereo."

Right, I'm running a line from the R channel on our organ now. At least just to test it. Hell, it might free up a mixer channel.

doubleJ Tue, 06/03/2008 - 11:12

My initial theory was that a person could run everything from a computer (foh, monitor, video, recording, etc...), live.
I just really like the idea of being able to do anything, at any time. We have 3 separate consoles (foh, mon, video) that do 3 separate things. Why not be able to do it all with one computer system (aside from the obvious "what if it crashes").
It kind of surprises me that this seems like such a crazy idea to you guys. It's quite logical to me. Even an analog board is susceptible to failing. People are doing full computer-based recording in studios. At the worst, you have a complete secondary system running at the same time and if a part of the first one fails, you just pop a cable and there's no problem. It seems especially useful in a world driven by digital mixers and computer-driven speaker systems. They are all computers, anyway. I mean, seriously, our monitor board has a usb port.
Hehehe...
If you wanted to take it a step further, lighting is much the same way. I was even looking at how sawstudio can automate a light show with the music via midi.
There are people using full digidesign systems for this type of application. Am I really to believe that protools and a mac is so much better than everything else, available?
From the cost standpoint alone, it makes sense. You might spend $300000 on separate gear systems or you can spend $30000 on consolodated gear systems.
JJ

doubleJ Tue, 06/03/2008 - 12:15

I must not be communicating well...
All I was looking for was the ability to do foh and monitor live with a computer.
The 1200f was the only interface that I saw that stated the ability to chain together for 48-64 pre/line ins.
I was simply wondering if anyone knew if it actually worked as advertised, since, the last I knew, people were having problems with firewire and more than 24 channels (3x8 pre interfaces).
Thanks for bringing up the rme pci cards. I'd seen the old pci hammerfalls, but they didn't seem that impressive to me. I have read that rme has some of the lowest latencies, though, and that madi interface really looks cool (1 card for 64 channels - 3 cards for 192 channels). I'm guessing that the rme adi-648 will take any adat 8 channel pre (it doesn't have to be one of the rme ones).
JJ

Edit...
$ 1500 rme hdspe madi (pcie card)
$ 2500 rme adi-648 (8xadat interface)
$ 1600 rme octamic 2 (8xpre)
$ 1600 rme octamic 2 (8xpre)
$ 1600 rme octamic 2 (8xpre)
$ 1600 rme octamic 2 (8xpre)
$ 1600 rme octamic 2 (8xpre)
$ 1600 rme octamic 2 (8xpre)
======
$13600 Total (48xpre)

Kev Tue, 06/03/2008 - 16:59

doubleJ wrote: It kind of surprises me that this seems like such a crazy idea to you guys. It's quite logical to me.

NOT a crazy idea

it is just that at your budget you are jumping the gun by a few years
and
at the number of inputs you want

A Digidesign Icon or any of the other MADI based systems could do this BUT it is big budget and cutting edge

ALSO
the computer is NOT the central part of the system and there is far greater parallel Digital Hardware in use to get the LATENCY low enough for live, real time use.

look to those Digital mixers as shown above
these can have secondary control panels and record options

there is many more out there than just the big name ones ... like Roland or Yamaha

by interconnecting with AES or MIDI the options for multiple brands is increased
....
A guest or hired Protools system can be connected
same goes for Soundscape and Nuendo etc ....

...
you can begin to think about IEM ... on wires in a DIY manner

Cucco Tue, 06/03/2008 - 20:33

It's not a crazy idea at all. In fact, it's exactly what I describe with the jazz show. I used the DAW inputs on the RMEs and fed that to the computer and the live sound mixer and used the RMEs as the single central point. It's not crazy at all. However, the computer should not be thought of as the central point of this system, more as an auxillary (the recording and maybe some automation. Many to most systems will automate lighting via MIDI and is quite commonly done.)

A good, solid and stable control surface (or digital mixer that acts as an interface and control surface) mixed with a stable computer and a person who knows how to make it all work could certainly pull it off.

Expect to spend some serious cash though. Stability comes at a premium.