01V96II slot expansion

[Stu Mannix]

Hi People,

 

I have a Yamaha 01V96II mixer & want to upgrade it's I/o capability. Trouble is, I don't know which expansion card to buy.

I want to upgrade to 32 in & 8 out to maximise my channel count.

Which card should I get? I know there's a 8 in 8 out card but is there a 16 in 4 out card? That would give me the extra 16 analogue inputs & increase my aux output from 4 to 8.

I just want to have 6 monitor mixes & to effects sends for delay & reverb. Not to mention all 32 channel capability.

Can anyone recommend a card?

 

Thanks (in advance)

 

Stu

[elvisdoo]

if I was you and you have to do it then, I would get the my16at and focusrite octopre. it is not ideal however the cheapest way to get mic inputs on the card and ever good resale. is the adat in and out already being used.

[Bobbsy]

Yup. I'd go with the MY16AT (ADAT) expansion card and, if you can afford them, the Octopre interfaces. If the Octopres are a bit rich for your blood, then many of us use Behringer ADA8000 ADAT interfaces--I've got 4 I use with my DM1000 and MY16AT combination.

 

Bob

[vmhstech]

A solution that I have used for the past year is to use the built in optical post with an M-Audio Octane (8 mic pres) giving me 24 channels and then added the 8x8 optical I/o card. This gave me an additional 8 channels of mic pres connected via the M-Audio Octane and now have a spare optical 8 channel output that I have not used.

[dirkenstein]

A solution that I have used for the past year is to use the built in optical post with an M-Audio Octane (8 mic pres) giving me 24 channels and then added the 8x8 optical I/o card.

The issue here is that the OP specifically wanted additional audio outs as well as inputs, and the Octane doesn't provide those.

 

There are no Yamaha expansion cards with more than 16 inputs. That is AFAIK a physical limitation of the mini-ygdai format. The 'largest' analogue I/O card is the MY8-ADDA96 which obviously provides 8 analogue line ins and 8 outs, on a connector for which you need to build breakouts for yourself.

 

The only cards which provide more than 8 channels of I/O provide some from of digital connection, such as ADAT, TDIF, EtherSound, MADI, Aviom etc.

 

Unless you want to use Yamaha stageboxes (Around £3.5k new for 16 channels in/8 out) or another remote preamp device connected by optical or cat5 cable most of these cards are not a particularly economical solution. The ADAT cards (my8-at and my16-at) are probably the most popular and least expensive (Around £250 and £350 new, for 8 and 16 channels respectively) of these options, since there are many preamps on the market that offer adat lightpipe support.

 

The cheapest and most popular of these is the Behringer ADA8000 at around £150, which is perfectly adequate for most uses, with a few caveats. These are:

a) The preamps are noisy at high gain.

b) The linear PSUs run too hot. Regulators burn out fequently, as do primary transformer windings, especially on the 120v version. Adequate cooling is critical, and running the whole device undervoltage is recommended for long-term operation.

c) ADA8000s built after 12/2009 have new DA converters with a bizarre 'feature' where receiving digital black for more than a given time causes the converters to go into shutdown. They then take around 3 seconds to ramp up the volume again when a signal is detected. Mainly a problem with audio cue playback from DAWs that send digital black during silence periods.

 

The next option up tends to be a either a Focusrite Octopre or a Presonus Digimax. You'll have to spend around £400- £450 new for one with all the features you want. Be careful which one you buy- not all combinations of Octopre plus adat card (or built in ADAT) provide analogue audio outputs from an ADAT input. For example, the Octopre mkii doesn't need a separate digital I/O card, but only provides analogue inputs and analogue direct outs, but no way to route audio from the adat in to the analogue outs. Only the mkii dynamic allows that. The same applies to the digimax D8 (no adat to analogue conversion) and the Digimax FS (with adat inputs/adat-to-analogue conversion).

 

Remember ADAT restricts you to 4 channels in/4 channels out per lightpipe I/O interface at 96KHz (double channel).

 

The Audinate Dante card offers superb value-for-money if you're doing multichannel recording/playback to and from a PC, rather then needing analogue I/O.

[Stu Mannix]

Everyone,

 

Big thanks for all your info.

As you can see from my channel list below, I'm rather anal about drum miking (due to drum effects changing on each song)

So far I've been using the MOTU 896 Mk III to increase my input/output capabilities. Most successfully for live performance so far.

But we have just taken onboard a new Keyboard Player who also sings. Until now, I could accommodate everything I needed to.

So as you can see, I have the Aux outputs covered. Our drummer LOVES the stereo monitor set up so I won't sacrifice that.

I just thought there would be a small, convenient way of adding 16 inputs to my 01v96II i.e. a plugin card.

Regarding the outputs; I could easily use the lightpipe out for the Aux outs but I wanted to take less gear to the gig for safety of gear purposes.

But I've hit a brick wall when it comes to the 32 inputs needed. 8 short. Of course, I could submix all the keyboard stuff (amongst other things)

but I don't the mix to be as perfect as I'd like. Really, I need to use 32 in & 8 aux out for live band.

Does anyone know any 'Boffins' who could build me a card?

 

Channel List:-

 

1. Kick (beater)

2. Kick (inside head)

3. Snare (top)

4. Snare (bottom)

5. Hats

6. Floor

7. Mid

8. High

9. Overhead Left

10. Overhead Right

11. Bass (amp mic)

12. Bass (DI)

13. Acoustic (inside body mic)

14. Acoustic (DI)

15. Electric Guitar 1

16. Electric Guitar 2

17. Keyboards 1 Left

18. Keyboards 1 Right

19. Keyboards 2 Left

20. Keyboards 2 Right

21. Sampler Left

22. Sampler Right

23. Vocal

24. Vocal

25. Vocal

26. Vocal

27. Reverb Return Left

28. Reverb Return Right

29. Delay Return Left

30. Delay Return Right

31. Audience Left

32. Audience Right

 

Aux One - Drums Left

Aux Two - Drums Right

Aux Three - Guitarist

Aux Four - Guitarist

Aux Five - Keyboardist

Aux Six - Vocalist

Aux Seven - Reverb Send

Aux Eight - Delay Send

[Bobbsy]

 

Does anyone know any 'Boffins' who could build me a card?

 

 

No...and I doubt it would be possible.

 

Even if somebody could build a card to fit in the expansion slot and input 16 analogue channels while outputting 8 analogue channels, you'd still need to have some kind of break out box to handle the physical size of 24 XLR connectors and 16 microphone pre-amps. This would end up being remarkably similar in size to a couple of Octopres or ADA8000s!.

 

The best way I can think of for you would be to install one MY8AT expansion card and use that plus the existing optical in/out connectors already on the O1V96. In addition to this, you'd need a small rack case housing 2 ADA8000s. This would give you 16 more mic/line inputs and up to 16 more outputs.

 

With your need for inputs and outputs, I can't think of a more cost (or space) effective way to do this.

 

Bob