828 MK II as ADAT In/Out unit

[Smokehouse]

I have posted this question to MOTU support, but they don't seem to understand my question. I'll save my MOTU support bashing for another day, but would appreciate some insight from my fellow MOTU users. Here's the question:

I purchased an 828 MK III (love it!) and want to use my old 828 MK II as A/D and D/A to take full advantage of the MK III. Specifically, I want to use the MK II's 8 analog inputs and feed them via ADAT Optical to the MK III *AND* use the 8 analog outputs fed by the MK III ADAT Optical out. (Does that make sense?) I want to have a total of 16 inputs and 16 outputs.

(Repeating myself here, in a subsequent exchange with 'TechLinks') I want to use my MK II as to provide 8 channels of ADAT Optical In to Analog Out *AND* 8 channels of Analog In to ADAT Optical Out. The goal is to provide 8 more Analog In and 8 more Analog Out to my new MK III by using my old MK II. Is this possible and if so, how?

[dwolff002]

let me make sure I understand your question -

You are trying to get 16 analog ins and out.

- the plan is to get 16 analog in's via the 8 MKiii analog ins plus the 8 MKii analog ins connected through the ADAT ports. the MKii's analog ins are converted by the MKii and light piped to the MKiii so that in your computer/DAW you should see 16 channels designated in CUE mix. I think this should work.

- the remaining question is whether or not with your ADAT connections you can utilize the analog outputs of the MKii? this would enable you to send the digital signal out of hte MKiii to the MKii, the MKii then converting it to analog and sending out.

Have you tried it via ADAT or Firewire?

[mandobilly64]

Hmm, that was my question when I read this,
why not just hook it up via firewire? Your Motu audio setup should have no problem adding the mkII.
I actually have the same stuff but haven't hooked my mkII up to the mix because I don't really need it right now as I'm using a Saffire Pro 26 i/o> the analog inputs on my MK3 and run an Octopre via ADAT to the MK3, so that gives me 18 mic pres counting the 2 on the front of the MK3.

Peace,
Billy

[Smokehouse]

Good question, glad you asked. A bit more detail...

I'm using all these INs and OUTs because I'm heavily using the internal DSP/CueMix capabilities. The band is all 'electronic'. Two guitars and a bass through "PODs" or equivalent, drummer through a Roland electronic drum 'kit', etc. All the inputs go into the MKIII (directly via Analog In or indirectly through MKII and DigiMax LT via ADAT In). The MKIII CueMix then creates 5 distinct stereo mixes, for each of us in the band, plus one more mix that goes to the reverb unit (to give some 'space' to the sound). Each mix goes to a separate headphone amp and out to each musician.

The results are really fantastic! Everybody gets their own mix (with more "me") and at their own volume. The sound quality is very, very good, and as the singer I'm delighted to no longer have to compete with the other instruments.

To do this, I'm using 8 Analog Outs from the MKIII as 4 stereo pairs (that's 4 people). And I've been able to use 2 more stereo output pairs from the MK II via ADAT (that's the 5th person and the effects send).

BUT... The problem is that to route audio from Analog In / Out to ADAT Out / In, you consume a Mix Bus (at least that's what I think). And the MKII only has 4 stereo Mix Buses (8 channels). So if I route all the Analog Ins to the ADAT Outs, I've already used up all of the Mix Buses, and so can't *ALSO* route the ADAT Ins to the Analog OUts. Right now, I'm splitting the difference. I have 4 Analog Inputs to ADAT (the 4 feeds from the drum synth) and 4 ADAT to Analog Outputs (5th stereo mix and stereo EFX send).

So mandobilly64, that's why I don't just use FireWire to the MK II. Everything has to flow through the MK III CueMix.

dwolff002, I'm not trying to get 16 outputs from my DAW/computer. I'm trying to get 16 outputs from the MK III CueMix system. It has 8 Stereo CueMix Buses, and I want to use all of them (for when we have additional 'guest' musicians, or for any other real-time purpose i might put my mind to.)

Thanks to all for your brainpower on this. I fear that it may be technically flatly impossible because of the limitations of the MK II CueMix design, but I'm determined to see if there's a way.

- Smokehouse

[mandobilly64]

Are you sure that by adding the other MkII via firewire that it won't just add those capabilities to the Cuemix FX control panel?

I haven't done this yet like I say but think it would be worth hooking up that way to see.
and if you do, please let us know, if it does or doesn't work that way.

Good luck,
Billy

[Smokehouse]

Well, I'll try it, but I don't see how I would get mixes out of the MK III to travel via FireWire into the MK II and then out the Analog Out. Does the equipment work that way? Sounds cool, but I doubt it.

[mandobilly64]

My point was not to use the cuemix outs on the MkII but rather use the inputs on it.
So instead of sending the drums through the ADAT inputs, use all your Mk3 out puts as necessary to achieve what you want and use the extra inputs from the MkII. Now I don't know if you'll be able to add eq, compression and reverb to those inputs but maybe, I just haven't tried any of this yet.
I haven't used that many output pairs on the Mk3 but I'm assuming you are saying you need to use the 8 analog outs as well as the 8 ADAT outputs in order to get 8 full stereo outputs.
So do that and just use the MkII for the extra inputs.
Let us know if any of this works for you.

Peace,
Billy

[Smokehouse]

Thanks, nice try. But the drum inputs have to make their way to the MK III somehow because they have to be part of the CueMix inputs to feed the individual headphone mixes.

[mandobilly64]

Thanks, nice try. But the drum inputs have to make their way to the MK III somehow because they have to be part of the CueMix inputs to feed the individual headphone mixes.

I don't think you're following me, when you add a second Motu device via firewire, I think it will add all those inputs to your cuemix console. So you would then just run the drums into the second motu and through the cuemix.
Like I said, I haven't tried this with a Mk3 and an MkII, but it seems like it should work this way.
If you have both units and an extra firewire cable, it wouldn't be too hard to find out.

Peace,
Billy

[Smokehouse]

OK, so I tried this. Having the two 828s connected by firewire does NOT route the audio from one to the other. You can control the units from the CueMix console on the host computer, but the audio from one 828 does not flow to the the DSP/Mixer in the other 828.

After banging on this for a while, and talking with MOTU "technical" support, I've come to the conclusion that you cannot use an 828 MKII to provide 8 channels of D/A *AND* 8 channels of A/D. The cuemix routing won't allow it. The most you can get is 8 channels in total of ins and outs. I'm settling for 4 ins and 4 outs for now.

I will likely sell the 828 MK II and buy a Behringer ADA8000.

- Eric

[Pappy725]

Do you HAVE to have stereo headphone mixes? If not, you have more than enough outputs. Just thinking it might be easier to simplify things. My 2¢.
Pappy

[mandobilly64]

Would you be able to achieve this if you were using another 8 channel to ADAT as well as your Presonus?
Just thinking about this instead of using the MOTU 828II.
There supposed to be a way to get 8 stereo outputs from the Cuemix FX, so I am just wondering if it's possible by adding another ADAT preamp. I know it's an expense, but may be worth it if needed.

Peace,
Billy

[therealbigd]

a Behringer ADA8000... I wouldn't! The routing is notably often a bit funny, and the pre-amps are awful. We checked all of our Behringer pres with a KT spectrum analyser and the results were pretty shocking.

You can still cheaply buy Alesis ADAT machines, the converters in those are much better.

[therealbigd]

Although, coming to think of it, you'd need 2, one for going in, one for going out.

But it's the same on the Behringer, you'd need 2. The line outs on the Behringer come straight from the pre-amps, not back through light pipe. I don't think, in fact, the Behringer has an ADAT in at all.

I'd honestly play around with the firewire a bit more if I were you, and try and get it working. You may wish to even look at Logic. with the extensive mixer functions in the Logic environment, you can pretty much eradicate the need for Cuemix completely. I'm 99% sure you could do what you want to do, latency free, in Logic. If you already have Logic, or buy it, let me know and I'll build the environment for you.... cos im nice like that.

EDIT: oh god, you're a PC user. forget about the Logic bit.

[Pappy725]

Okay, how about in your DAW you create as many auxes as you need monitor mixes? Sends from each of the channels to one of the 5(?) auxes. Then assign those to the analog outputs as needed. I did this with DP for a session and it works pretty well. Of course, I was using the main outs as one headphone mix with the 8 analog outs as 4 stereo mixes.
HTH,
Pappy