Just dive in and have fun. Mistakes are for learning, and your first efforts can be put on a CD and handed out to your admiring relatives. If they become less than admiring after receiving your gifts, ... ta heck with 'em! Go find some new "relatives".

Hi, and welcome!

Just checking that you have an Intel-based Apple Mac with a FireWire port, right?

You would connect four of the multicore sends to the Apogee's XLR mic inputs and up to six of the muticore returns to line outputs on the Apogee. If you need more than four mic channels you will have to budget for one of more of (1) up to four channels of analog pre-amps to connect to the Apogee's line inputs, (2) a two-channel pre-amp with S/PDIF output, (3) an 8-channel pre-amp/converter box with ADAT output to connect to the Apogee's ADAT input. These additional items would be housed in the control room and fed from more of your multicore sends.

The Apogee is well-equipped with DI inputs for guitars and other instruments with pick-ups, but you can't run those down a multicore. If you need DI capability, you would be better off using DI boxes in the studio room feeding mic channels of your multicore.

Thanks alot for checking with me Boswell. I don't have an apple mac, so I don't have fire wire either! DUH to me. Been looking for a new comp for last couple of days now, and I don't think I'm gonna go with Apple, the price to spec ratio seems to be rediculous! So I've opted to go for a tower PC and get rid of the laptop, mainly because of the memory offerd on a new PC. With regards to the inputs and out puts I've opted to buy a 2'nd interface (Behringer ADA 8000) I know the quality isn't gonna be quite up to the standard of the apogee, but it seems to be a sensable choise concidering the stage I'm at right now. it also means that the stage box and multi core will still be used as I use them now.
If you have a good knowledge of the pro tools program I would very much appreciate some advice on any key factors that a PC would benefit from having to run this program? I've got all the key requirements listed,( Windows 7 pre pro ult, Nvidia quadro, sata or sas usb 2.0 and pci slot) Out of all these specs the only one that keeps catching me out is the graphics card?? It seems to boot up the price by around 20 25%, from the packages sold with the AMD card?
Thanks again for the reply and thanks for reading this. Dave.

Jenson.............................err cheers?
LAter

It doesn't matter what the graphic card is. What does matter is what Avid has in their requirements to run ProTools. It's not about what you want, it's about what they require. If you don't get what they require, and things don't work right with your ProTools, they will provide you with NO customer support. End of story. Avid/ProTools is highly finicky in that respect. It has to be precisely what their requirements indicate your computer should have or be. Otherwise all bets are off. It might work. It might not work. And then you wasted a boatload of money. So you have to be smart about this. It's very specific what their requirements are.

So if you just want to build up your own workstation your way, you probably won't want ProTools. And you'll still need to tweak & optimize your computer for audio which is different from most general purpose applications. There is plenty of information here and elsewhere about the proper tweaking of your operating system and other assorted features and software the computer may have. That's another reason why there are specialized system integrators to build computers specifically for audio production and video production purposes. Not everything will work right with the computer that you purchased out-of-the-box. ProTools was originally designed to run under the Macintosh platform only. It was only later that it was ported to PCs that have specific requirements. No other way around that when dealing with ProTools. So be careful and don't waste your money by making expensive mistakes.

I've got a specific PC designed strictly for ProTools. And it's not my regular rig.
Mx. Remy Ann David

I took your advice RAD and went ahead and got myself a mac pro tower. it turned out that the guy selling the apogee was selling his computer too. Maybee a lil bit of luck for me there? I don't know? What I do know is that all the musical knowledge I've picked up over the year's all of a sudden feel's kinda insignificant, I'm enjoyin' the total newb feeling... I minght have lost my temper once or twice over the last couple of weeks tho!!!! startin to find my feet a little bit now, with regards to the computer it's self tho, this is my first time using a mac for a real long amount of time by myself.
THere's some trouble on the interface front for me however, the ensemble is installed to the mac, it was relatively straight forward too. I've got the Maestro link on my desktop and as far as the 4 XLR inputs and the 2 DI's go it's great to work with, I haven't really looked far past those 6 inputs yet. The main problem I'm having right now is getting the Behringer to connect to the apogee. I've connected them optically (optical output from the ensemble to adat input of the ultra gain pro 8 digital(behringer). Set the sync to adat out on the Behringer, and now I'm totally lost. The pro 8 is indicating that it's picking up a signal from any input's jack or XLR that I'm putting into it, I just cant get those signals to the apogee and in turn the mac.
Thanks again for the invaluable advice in your last post. Hope to chat again soon.
Blood sand man

You need to run the ADAT lightpipe from the ADAT output of the Ultra Gain Pro to the ADAT input of the Apogee. I would continue to run the Ensemble on internal sync and use a BNC cable to connect Wordclock out of the Ensemble to Word clock in on the Ultra Gain Pro with the sync switch set appropriately.

THanks for clearing that up for me there, much appreciated. I don't have a BNC cable to hand at the mo, which is strange for this house to be missing a lead lol. It seems that you guy's give a huge amount of advice on this site, so I understand your time is valuable and your knowledge is extensive, which is exactly the kind of opinion's I want, respect and learn from.
I'm pleased to tell you that the sweaty palm's have gone now, I've taken the big step toward's my music tech I'm pleased to tell you (all on recording org). There's been too many problems to list over the last 6 to 8 week, it's been headache's all the way. However I've ironed out the huge majority of them, and I'm overjoyed to say that I began to download my licences and installers for my pro tools package late last night, and I'm still doing it now lol. Whilst sat here I've had a chance to update the equipment lineup on my profile, it's been done reasonably accurately considering my tech knowledge levels. I would be extremely greatful if you would have a quick brows down the setup I've made and maybe point out any key pieces missing(if there is any)from my lineup? Also I'll be starting regular live sessions soon to get my feet warmed up to kinda running speeds needed to work on this side of the desk. Yours would be very welcomed view's, on what kinda sound quality levels I should be producing with the equipment currently being used in my home studio?

For testing or demo usage, it is possible to run the two pieces of gear with reduced performance using the Ultra Gain Pro as the clock master and the Ensemble clocked from the ADAT lightpipe, in which case you don't need the BNC cable. The reason I suggested it the other way round is that the clock in the Ensemble is more stable than that in the Ultra Gain Pro, and hence you would get better digitised audio when using the Ensemble as the clock master.

As for "quality levels", that's really a matter of the operator's experience and technique. RemyRAD on this site is always saying she can get professional-quality results even from entry-level quality gear because she is a professional and has been doing it for mumble mumble years. But even a pro can't get results from non-functional gear, so I think once you get the bits of equipment talking to one another correctly you are on your way. Let us know how it all works out.

Well it sounds like you have scored a nice rig. I'm really an idiot when it comes to Mac. Thankfully they generally and elegantly just seem to work. And therefore what ever other software you may also enjoy utilizing, your PC can still be a handy part of your control room. You can never have too many computers in your control room LOL. Your next fun project will be placing both computers into an acoustical iso-box. So make sure that's in your budget also.

Yup, I would have also suggested clocking off of the APOGEE. But hey, if it works, it works. Higher jitter? Oh well. Like flutter on analog tape. That never stopped a hit. We've dealt with much worse back in the early days of digital in the early 1980s. When a clock was just a clock. And a computer could do nothing more than balance your checkbook.

Radio Shaft model 100 circa 1983, first consumer laptop.
Mx. Remy Ann David

thanks alot for that there, it's good to hear that I've actually made some decisions that were right. THis is my first time working with digital equipment of this standard, so a huge majority of that last post could have been written in a mixture of spanish german and secret code...lol, but I'm not going to pretend to be somthing I'm not. I'm gonna go and look up some of the phrases and term's used, then write m up in my sit and type document..... Always try and keep learning is my outlook on music. I have the BNC cable aswell now, so I'll get on syncing those clocks up today. And hopefully I'll finally get pro tool's fully downloaded, installed and working properly on here........I had no idea it was gonna be such a task? It is however the first time I've ever worked on installation of any kind of programme on any kind of computer. U minght say I occasionally throw myself in at the deep end? I do have a question for you guys aswell. When I connect the pro 8 to the apogee, will it appear on pro tools or on the maestro control? THanks again, Blood sand man

The DAW (PT in this case) has no knowledge of what is connected to an ADAT input. All it can know is whether there is a clock arriving there, and offer you the option of using that clock as your sync source.

You could try the experiment of connecting the Apogee's ADAT output round to its ADAT input to see what happens in the control panel. The clock phasing is guaranteed in this case unless you select ADAT as the source, when it all goes haywire.

Haywire aint the word friend???????lol I've managed to get the monitors working again now, but there was a short time where I was very worried? I've just re-set the unit, and it seem's to have gone back to normal. Don't seem that the 2 talking to each other tho.
The back of the ensemble to pro 8 is set as - optical in to adat out

sory about postin that prem there lol
firewire - mac optical audio
world clock out(wc in on) - pro 8 sync (WC in)
Is my mistake been made somewhere there, or is it somewhere in the tools of apogee?