Problems daisy-chaining 896HD & 8pre

[darrell]

Hi all, I’m still wrestling with getting my two MOTU interfaces (896HD & 8pre) to ‘daisy chain’ into DP, giving me 16 tracks at once to record live audio. I’ve started a new thread to do so, because I muddled up the last with tryng to do to much , I think.

Describing what I’ve done so far, and as clinically as I can:

The 8pre is the master and 896HD the slave.

Wiring: I have 2 connections going into the back of the 896HD: optical connection IN from the 8pre, and firewire OUT going into the 8pre. The 8pre has optical OUT into the 896HD, firewire IN from the 896HD, and firewire OUT and into the Mac. That’s it.

MOTU Audio Setup: Both units appear in the window .
8pre (the master) is clocked at Internal, Optical In is None, optical out is ADAT. (When I disconnect the firewire between the two units, only the 8pre shows up in Audio Setup.)

896 is clocking at ADAT, Optical-In is ADAT, and Optical-Out is None.

Apple Audio panes are the same.

DP: Setup/Configure Audio System/Configure Hardware Driver mirrors the above.

In the tracks window I have 16 mono audio tracks, 8 of which are Mic/Inst (8pre’s default names) 1-8, and 8 of which are called ADAT Optical 9-16.

When I plug a mic into any of the Mic/Inst tracks, I get action on the 8pre’s LEDs, in DP’s Mixing Board & Meter Bridge, when the channel is record ready. I can record audio.

When I plug a mic into any of the ADAT Optical tracks, I get action on the 896HD’s LEDs, but nothing in DP. In fact, any of the record ready tracks of ADAT Optical have a solid red line in fader level, which indicates to me some kind of feedback loop.

This is as far as I can get with the ‘daisy chain.’ Any help or advice is surely appreciated!

[mikehalloran]

You may have to do this with FireWire and create an Aggregate Device in AudioMidi Setup.