Urgent Digidesign Profile Query

[adamski1010]

Hello Folks,

I'm after the advice of an all knowing Profile guru! Please excuse my lack of know how when it comes to Digidesign (or should I say Avid) products, as I'm a DiGiCo and Midas man.

 

I have, for reasons we shall not delve into, been landed on site with two Digidesign Profiles, two Stage racks and two FOH racks plus a BNC multicore and need to make it all sing together in a straight forward FOH/ Monitor system for a rock and roll style outdoor show. Now all my previous experiences with Profile have been in a white glove mixing scenario, not system tech, so at the moment I am puzzled by how all these components go together in a coherent way.

 

Going from my DiGiCo experience, I assumed I would just connect Snake output 1 of the first stage rack into snake input 1 of the first FOH rack, snake output 2 of the first stage rack into snake input 1 of the second FOH rack, so on so forth. Hence achieving a system where two consoles share the same stage racks.

 

This however doesn't seem to be working the way I would have liked and after much messing around with settings and patching, leaves me at a loss of how to proceed, short of getting an analogue splitter and running the two desks completely separately off the analogue splits.

 

Does anyone have any words of advice or tips as to how to proceed before I throw these Profiles on the bonfire and go and get a pair of SD8s instead http://forums.prosoundweb.com/Smileys/default/wink.gif

 

Thanks,

Adam

[brainwave-generator]

Hi Adam

 

Hate to tell you this but... you need to get some analogue splits.

 

I know I know, it surprised me too the first time I found out. But unlike Digico and their MADI system, you can't run 2 desks off 1 set of inputs. You do in fact need to run them as independent consoles as you would with analogue desks.

 

Sorry it wasn't the answer you wanted.

[jbaileypro]

The Avid kit is above me as well but if I was in your suitation I would contact the supplier of the kit. They will know their kit and the best configurations for it. If you can't speak to them try Avid themselves. I'm sorry I can't give you any more information (as I am sure that some blue roomers will give you guidance).

 

Jonathan

[adamski1010]

Sorted! Cheers

Adam

[ThePaGuy]

Ok I know that the OP has worked this out ,

but I thought I would clear up the issue for those who may be inerested.

 

The only way to do this with an Avid system is indeed to use a passive or active splitter system and send same signal to both stageboxes,

 

Avids Madi system does not work like Digicos, loop system

 

i.e. you cannot "Share" stageboxes or link them together,

Each local rack and surface requires its own stagebox,

 

Hope this clears this up :o)

[BlueShift]

Ok I know that the OP has worked this out ,

but I thought I would clear up the issue for those who may be inerested.

 

The only way to do this with an Avid system is indeed to use a passive or active splitter system and send same signal to both stageboxes,

 

Avids Madi system does not work like Digicos, loop system

 

i.e. you cannot "Share" stageboxes or link them together,

Each local rack and surface requires its own stagebox,

 

Hope this clears this up :o)

 

Yes and No. You have the right idea, but thats not exactly how it works.

 

Firstly, Avid consoles don't use madi for their stagebox links. You can get a madi card for the FOH rack, but that is a different thing entirely. The snake cards and stage racks use an Avid proprietary protocol.

However, while it is not madi, it does use 75Ohm coax cable and must share many of the electrical characteristics of madi since distribution devices like the RME madi bridge work with the avid system.

 

Secondly, the digico doesn't adopt a 'loop' or ring topology unless you are using optocore. Madi is a strictly point to point distribution system. Optocore is an optional upgrade to the digico system. Without it, you connect stage boxes in a point to point manner. However, Digico supports stagebox 'sharing' out of the box by providing multiple madi inputs and outputs on their stage boxes. But its still point to point.

If you have optcore, then the system adopts a redundant ring physical topology, however the optocore is just acting as a madi transport, so the system still works in the same way.

 

So, there are 3 possible ways to configure a pair of avid consoles to operate in a FOH/Mons scenario.

 

The first, is to have stage racks for each console and use a passive split, as you would with any other FOH/Mons situation. This is ideal, since it gives each console full stage I/O (this isnt possible in the other 2 methods, as you will see), both have true preamp control that is fully recallable, and this is fully supported by Avid.

 

The second is an avid supported method whereby you have 1 console with the stage racks connected in the normal fashion (lets say its Mons in this example). The Mons console then has gain control and access to the stagebox output cards. Then, you fit Madi card(s) to the FOH rack of the Mons console. In Avid world, when you install a Madi card, channels 1-48 on the 64ch madi stream are hardwired to be post preamp direct outs of the stage rack's 48 inputs. This is independent of any console programming or setup. As such, if you then have a FOH console which only has a FOH rack, and no stage rack, and have a Madi card in that, you can 'split' the 1 stage rack between the 2 consoles, with the FOH console receiving Madi input and having a trim control. In this situation though, the FOH console would have to only use the outputs on the FOH rack, or get a third party Madi D to A to provide additional outputs.

 

The third way is completely unsupported, but apparently does work. I wouldn't recommend it in light of the above option, but it can be done. In this situation you have 2 consoles each with FOH racks, but 1 set of stage racks. You connect the snake ins and outs of the consoles and the racks into an RME Madi Bridge. Because the Rme unit is a physical layer router (it doesn't decode or manipulate the madi data stream at all) you configure it so that 1 console's snake card is routed to the stage racks input and output, and other console receives only the output of the stagerack. In this situation, both consoles receive an audio stream from the stagebox, but only 1 has any preamp control, and the other will display constant snake connection errors.

 

So there you have it... Thats how it works :D

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