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multiple interfaces

I

-igor

macrumors member
Original poster
Hi, i want to have 6 inputs for I have 3 interfaces with 2 each. Ableton does not seem to be able to do it because you can only input one interface at a time. What daw can, or is there a way to do this at all?

I tried runnning both live and pro tools at the same time with one interface each and it worked fine, but it's kind of tedious to do that and would not be looking forward to synching up all the tracks every time. Besides, I need a third daw for my third interface.
 
Nuendo can do this .. and I'm pretty sure pretty much any other DAW can... EXCEPT! that you probably need to have the same brand stuff ... Its not really software compatibility as much as hardware ... i know that RME does a real good job of this and so does the M-audio Delta series...

Another issue is being able to sync the clock on all the devices ... not that you can't .. but you just need to look out for that...


I guess the question is, what hardware are you using???
 
Open your Audio Midi setup application in the Utilities folder. From the menus chose Aggregate device editor. Then make an aggregate device with all your interfaces and simply chose That new aggregate device in your sequencer...
 
did plumbstone's response help?

I don't think there is really a way to have all of these different interfaces sync up to the same software ...

1. they are all going to have different drivers and there would be no way for them to talk to each other ...
2. they don't have external clock sync, so they're going to be acting on different clock sources causing all kinds of jitter...

The way the m-audio delta series syncs together is in their driver interface... and it is able to see different delta cards, and you are able to sync them together on the physical card...

I would sell all of those and look at getting a bigger interface..
 
Drumjim85 said:
did plumbstone's response help?

I don't think there is really a way to have all of these different interfaces sync up to the same software ...

1. they are all going to have different drivers and there would be no way for them to talk to each other ...
2. they don't have external clock sync, so they're going to be acting on different clock sources causing all kinds of jitter...

The way the m-audio delta series syncs together is in their driver interface... and it is able to see different delta cards, and you are able to sync them together on the physical card...

I would sell all of those and look at getting a bigger interface..
Click to expand...

I tried it briefly. I think it worked but I have to look into it more. What do you mean by jitter? Do you mean the tracks will just be out of sync? Because they are not hard to sync up after the fact.

Yeah I tried selling the us122 but no one was interested. Firewire 410 is pretty much my main interface for everything because i use pro tools. The Zoom H2 is a portable recording device that I want to use as a usb mic, so I wouldn't sell that (I got it like five days ago).
 
-igor said:
I tried it briefly. I think it worked but I have to look into it more. What do you mean by jitter? Do you mean the tracks will just be out of sync? Because they are not hard to sync up after the fact.

Yeah I tried selling the us122 but no one was interested. Firewire 410 is pretty much my main interface for everything because i use pro tools. The Zoom H2 is a portable recording device that I want to use as a usb mic, so I wouldn't sell that (I got it like five days ago).
Click to expand...

Jitter has many issues, but the most noticeable one would be pops and clicks and stuff ....

The samples have to be fired off at the same time as the software that records them. So you have one master clock to sync your converters to your software ... but if you have 3 different interfaces, and basically 3 separate master clocks, the samples will fire off at different times and it wouldn't sound good. .... Obviously this is a very very very basic description of it... but This white paper should give you a very in depth look at it.

Digidesign's White paper on Jitter (PDF)
 
i only have live lite and it only lets in 2 inputs, so I just ran pro tools and live both at the same time and tried recording one with one and the other with the other interface and it worked fine, i just have to export the live render and sync it with the others in pro tools. so I don't even really have software where I can use the aggragate device. I also now figure I can just use the h2 standalone (not put it into the computer) and then bring the files over then sync them. I'm just going to be doing drums so it won't be too hard to sync but still a nuissance. I also switched to demo mode in live, but only one audio track can be armed...what is this?

I downloaded reaper and am really confused by it, can it be done in reaper?
 
For the clocking issue with aggreagate devices, one of your interfaces needs to be the master clock and the others need to slave to it. To do this you need to connect any kind of digital conection from the master to the other 2 devices (you can daisychain if your master only has spdif for instance). Regardless of your Audio MIDI setup each of your devices should have its own preferance pane where you can choose whether it is a master or slave. if your interfaces don't have digital connections then you are stuck I'm afraid.

As for getting audio between Live and PT have you tried rewire? This could be a simple solution.
 
That's only one half of the issue. Timing will be skew wiff because the audio will arrive in the daw at different times from different interfaces even before you monitor.
 
Tarkovsky said:
That's only one half of the issue. Timing will be skew wiff because the audio will arrive in the daw at different times from different interfaces even before you monitor.
Click to expand...

I tried, with a metronome, all syncs flawlessly and nothing is skewed.

Anyway, I really want to know this ableton thing, if it can record more than one track at a time.
 
You've misunderstood. It's not single tracking thats the issue, it's that timing will continually vary between instruments on seperate interfaces and that running multiple interfaces will adversely affect the latency on all devices unless you're running a seperate bus, be that firewire or usb (pcis usually have their own bus).
 
Tarkovsky said:
You've misunderstood. It's not single tracking thats the issue, it's that timing will continually vary between instruments on seperate interfaces and that running multiple interfaces will adversely affect the latency on all devices unless you're running a seperate bus, be that firewire or usb (pcis usually have their own bus).
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I understand. I plugged four mics in, 2 in each interface, put on a metronome and did some claps. Nothing I heard was delayed while monitoring the recording, and when I played back all four tracks they were perfectly in sync. I don't see any problem here.
 
-Monitoring from the software still means you're going to be using a soundcard to output the audio, which may well fall out of sync

-As other posters have mentioned audio quality will be degraded by the encoding rates of the DAWs falling out of sync because they use separate clocks to do this, this may not necessarily be perceived in differences in timing however it may well brake(figuratively speaking) your mix

But hey, if it works for you, it works! Just out of interest how long did you leave them recording? Are they the same model of interface?
 
Tarkovsky said:
-Monitoring from the software still means you're going to be using a soundcard to output the audio, which may well fall out of sync

-As other posters have mentioned audio quality will be degraded by the encoding rates of the DAWs falling out of sync because they use separate clocks to do this, this may not necessarily be perceived in differences in timing however it may well brake(figuratively speaking) your mix

But hey, if it works for you, it works! Just out of interest how long did you leave them recording? Are they the same model of interface?
Click to expand...

just about ten seconds. I will soon try doing some drum tracks and see if there will be any problems. no, the interfaces are tascam us122 and m audio firewire 410.
 
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