you are probably confusing optical in and outs!
my soundblaster has optical and it isn't to work with adat!
if you want to transfer and need a good card to work with adat i'd recommend to look at rme! great stuff!
and yes audition is great! i use it too!

ttir wrote: I have some questions about the ADAT. First off...what exactly is the optical in and outs for? I have them on my sound card.

the optical i/o is how you get in and out of the adat digitally, what they call adat lightpipe. You can theoretically use your soundcard to send digital audio between your adat and your computer. Thats assuming if the soundcard you are using was designed for use w/ adats and adobe audition can do the mapping between the computer and the adat system. Most likely your soundcards' optical port is mainly used for connecting a stereo or surround system to your computer so you can watch dvd's on your computer or listen to music on your computer,etc.

Secondly....if i were to record drum tracks on an 8 track Adat machine how would i transfer them to my pc? I'm sure i need a firewire port but i think i'm curious as to how u convert the tracks to the pc insync with each other. right now i have an analog 8 track machine and i transfer the tracks one at a time and then i go in and cut all the tracks so they are all in time with each other. Let me know what u guys do and what systems u have. for a recording program i'm using adobe audtion. It's a great program i think.

Well, again the optical i/o is what would be used. I mainly use Protools so in older Protools systems the Adat bridge was the interface between the Adat machine and the computer. Now with the advent of Protools HD, they are included on the 192 i/o interfaces and are available as expansion cards so you can transfer in 16 tracks of adat digital audio at at time along with using timecode (in conjunction with some sort of syncroniser) to lock everything together.

ADAT uses a an optical format that Alesis developed to transfer 8-tracks of digital audio. Alesis has licensed the format and protcol to many 3rd party manufactures that use it devices like digital mixers, digital effects and even soundcards and audio interfaces. Alesis at one time a while back made a PC PCI interface to transfer files from ADAT to the PC. Many people had some problems and issues. One caompany that perfected the ADAT to PC transfer and back was Sonorus, Frontier Design and RME. I've owned and used all those and they work real well.

The interfaces I mention also include the ADAT sync which insures sample accurate sync and placement of audio transfer. (assuming that your recording software supports sample accurate transfer)

I monitor all my external synths/effects via ADAT lightpipe inputs to my RME sound card. And use the lightpipe outputs as effect sends to my external effects/outputs to my external mixer. All in all 24 out and 24 in channels connected to my RME card. :) I can record all 24 inputs straight into Cubase SX 3.0 simultaneously. But I have not tried that yet, because I use mostly softsynths. The whole setup also includes 3*8 channels A/D D/A converters with lightpipe connectors.

Cheers
Bob
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