Looking for a 16 ch playback interface for a Windows machine

[Stuart91]

I'm putting a small recording rig together at the moment. We use Roland digital desks, and they make available a driver which lets us plug a REAC line straight into a network port on the PC and record up to 40 channels. We've already tested this out with Reaper on a laptop and it looks like I'll be building a flightcased desktop PC to be a dedicated system.

 

What I'm wondering about is output. The Roland driver doesn't allow playback, so I'm looking for a relatively cheap output device to play back 16 tracks from the PC. This will mainly be used for training purposes, letting people mix with a full band's worth of inputs. So sound quality doesn't need to be perfect, and the price needs to be quite low to be justifiable.

 

Is there anything out there that people can recommend? Most of the interfaces I can find have lots of inputs and preamps which I don't really need, but I can appreciate that an output-only box would be a real niche product. For folks who are running shows from QLab, do you just have a bunch of unused inputs on your interfaces?

 

The PC hasn't been bought yet but will be a relatively high-spec tower, with plenty PCI slots available. Likely running Windows 7, unless there are compelling reasons to install Windows 8.

[MarkPAman]

Have a look into PCI cards with ADAT outputs, possibly something like this & the Behringer ADA units.

[bruce]

2x M-audio Delta 1010? 10 outputs on each. A quick google suggests that this will work OK under XP, but not windows 7.

[boswell]

2 off ESI Gigaport HD will give you 16ch, around £100 each

 

I've used 1 off with no problems on XP, not tried on Win7 but a google might help

[Bobbsy]

Yeah, I've gone the ADAT route as well. I've gone a slightly different route to what MarkPAman mentions (Firewire to an M Audio Profire Bridge then ADAT lightpipe into Behringer ADA8000. However, I don't thing M Audio still sell the Lightbridge so you'd have to either find old stock or go with Mark's solution or similar.

[dbuckley]

Careful if going out digital with more than one light pipe into a mixer; you need to ensure the clocks of multiple ADAT sources are synchronised. On card with multiple adat outs will be ok, two cards with one each ma not be. Marian cards offer this facility, I have one but could never make it work, so buyer beware.

 

Of course,if each light pipe goes to a different d/a and you mix from analogue inputs, this note doesn't apply.

[david.elsbury]

Is that what the "ADAT Sync" D9 jack is for on the PCI card linked above?

[chelgrian]

What I'm wondering about is output. The Roland driver doesn't allow playback, so I'm looking for a relatively cheap output device to play back 16 tracks from the PC. This will mainly be used for training purposes, letting people mix with a full band's worth of inputs. So sound quality doesn't need to be perfect, and the price needs to be quite low to be justifiable.

 

There's lots of expensive ways to do this, for example:

- DiGiCo UB MADI going in to Roland S-MADI going into REAC directly producing 40 channels

- MOTU 24 I/O going via analogue into the stage box producing 24 channels.

 

I'm not sure ADAT based solutions help you at all since you still have to convert it to REAC or analogue.

 

Note the LS-ADAT card Mark linked to is not a standalone card it needs a Lynx L22 to host it. Once you've bought the L22, LS-ADAT and 2 x Berhinger ADA8200 then you've spent more than buying the MOTU 24 I/O, all be it you've got more as you've got 16 mic-preamps and could use the setup for recording without the Roland system present.

 

Two USB -> 8 Analogue Output units from pretty much anyone might to the job but also might be a massive amount of grief, the ESI one linked elsewhere in this has unbalanced consumer level outputs you'd need to cope with.

[dbuckley]

Is that what the "ADAT Sync" D9 jack is for on the PCI card linked above?

 

Sort of; "ADAT" actually isn't an interface at all, though Alesis lightpipe compatible interrfaces are almost awlays called ADAT interfaces. ADAT was an 8 track digital recorder, and lightpipe was ther 8 channel digital I/O interface it had.

 

ADAT machines had a 9 pin D type sync socket, which was used so one could have multiple ADATs in sample accurate synchronisation, so one could have a 16 track or 24 track system using two or three ADAT machines. Time was when ADAT was big, but its now just a footnote in history.

 

I hadn't spotted that the card linked to was a 16 channel card, so the sync problem is resolved on the card itself. The Marian cards I mention have a on-card link that one can use so that multiple Marian cards in multiple formats all sync together.

[cedd]

I too own an ESI Gigaport HD card and it's absolutely fine. Nice to have a small, bus powered interface device built specifically for output. Phono outs is the only down side and has required the modification of an 8 way loom from phono-jack to phono-XLR (nobody seems to make one - that I can afford anyway!).

I've no idea how 2 would play running side by side, but as an ASIO device I can only assume that it'd work ok.

 

Glad to hear somebody else has for Reaper and REAC to play. I had a bit of a struggle with it but didn't really devote enough time to it. How were you clocking the PC?

[Bobbsy]

Careful if going out digital with more than one light pipe into a mixer; you need to ensure the clocks of multiple ADAT sources are synchronised. On card with multiple adat outs will be ok, two cards with one each ma not be. Marian cards offer this facility, I have one but could never make it work, so buyer beware.

 

Of course,if each light pipe goes to a different d/a and you mix from analogue inputs, this note doesn't apply.

 

With only a few devices, you can generally get away with using BNC "T" pieces so long as you properly terminate the last "T".

 

Not exactly best practice I know, but I've been using up to 4 ADA8000s on a DM1000 mixer that way for almost 9 years now with no failures or error warnings.

[mervaka]

With only a few devices, you can generally get away with using BNC "T" pieces so long as you properly terminate the last "T".

 

Not exactly best practice I know, but I've been using up to 4 ADA8000s on a DM1000 mixer that way for almost 9 years now with no failures or error warnings.

 

Why wouldn't that be good practice? As long as the cable is properly terminated, that should be a perfectly acceptable solution imo. Fanout and distance limits are the only problems I can possibly foresee, but 10Base2 Ethernet networks use the same system with many more nodes, and at much larger distances.

[mackerr]

With only a few devices, you can generally get away with using BNC "T" pieces so long as you properly terminate the last "T".

 

Not exactly best practice I know, but I've been using up to 4 ADA8000s on a DM1000 mixer that way for almost 9 years now with no failures or error warnings.

 

Why wouldn't that be good practice? As long as the cable is properly terminated, that should be a perfectly acceptable solution imo. Fanout and distance limits are the only problems I can possibly foresee, but 10Base2 Ethernet networks use the same system with many more nodes, and at much larger distances.

 

If the equipment is self terminating the line will be over terminated. Some of the lower end gear does self terminate.

 

Mac

[Stuart91]

Thanks for the wealth of replies - lots of options to consider.

 

I can see the advantage of going for two USB based 8-channel interfaces, it opens up the option of using them elsewhere rather than being tied to a PCI card.

 

The Gigaport HD looks like the ideal form factor, and whilst I'd prefer balanced outputs the phonos will be fine for what we'd be doing.

 

If I have two units running at once, to get me my 16 channels, I assume I'd be best each on its own USB bus to avoid bottlenecks?

 

Glad to hear somebody else has for Reaper and REAC to play. I had a bit of a struggle with it but didn't really devote enough time to it. How were you clocking the PC?

 

At the moment we've just had Reaper running on a Sony Vaio laptop, a model that's a few years old. It was pretty much plug and play, I don't recall any issues getting it going. The laptop isn't the highest spec in the world, but still recorded 20+ tracks without the slightest glitch. The combination looks like a really neat recording solution without spending heaps of money.

[mervaka]

If the equipment is self terminating the line will be over terminated. Some of the lower end gear does self terminate.

 

Mac

 

Fair point. I'm not well versed with using word clocks, but that seems like a rather short sighted design decision if you can't turn that off.