Hey All
Has anyone ever used a firewire patchbay in between a pc, mac and a motu product like the 2408? I use a 2408MKII with a pc but I'd like to learn Mac and use DP3 and I'm wondering if I can use a firewire patchbay to make switching easier. I realize that the pci series uses a proprietary type of format and is not the same as firewire, but would the interconnect still work?
Also - anyone got tips for a soon-to-be mac newbe?
peace
Rich C
PCI and Firewire Patchbays
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Discussion related to installation, configuration and use of MOTU hardware such as MIDI interfaces, audio interfaces, etc. for Mac OSX
Discussion related to installation, configuration and use of MOTU hardware such as MIDI interfaces, audio interfaces, etc. for Mac OSX
Rich,
I'd be afraid it would be similar to the optical bays and switches a while back. You had a bunch which could do S/PDIF, but not ADAT, and stuff which couldn't properly handle 24bit streams and so on, whereas with cheap passive crap, it didn't matter (light was light). I suspect most digital stuff needs to interact and negotiate more and would need to know the specifics of the stream, even if all the pinning and electrical criteria was met. A better way to run, might be to just equip one of the machines with a cheap digital i/o capable card (or onboard if it's there), and run a digital audio link to the 2408. You'd obviously lose the flexibility of the 2408 on that one machine, but you would have a nice clean audio path to the same main outs (and ins) you were using on the real interface. S/PDIF i/o is becoming pretty common now, even with onboard sound circuits.
Good Luck,
George
PS- You're supposed to go from the Mac to the PC, not the other way around. (
just joking, I've had more Macs than you might guess)
I'd be afraid it would be similar to the optical bays and switches a while back. You had a bunch which could do S/PDIF, but not ADAT, and stuff which couldn't properly handle 24bit streams and so on, whereas with cheap passive crap, it didn't matter (light was light). I suspect most digital stuff needs to interact and negotiate more and would need to know the specifics of the stream, even if all the pinning and electrical criteria was met. A better way to run, might be to just equip one of the machines with a cheap digital i/o capable card (or onboard if it's there), and run a digital audio link to the 2408. You'd obviously lose the flexibility of the 2408 on that one machine, but you would have a nice clean audio path to the same main outs (and ins) you were using on the real interface. S/PDIF i/o is becoming pretty common now, even with onboard sound circuits.
Good Luck,
George
PS- You're supposed to go from the Mac to the PC, not the other way around. (
just joking, I've had more Macs than you might guess)-
gregwhartley
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I thought about this myself, since I have my 828 anchored to my rack and use my Traveler for mobile recording and studio stuff. I also use multiple computers for different projects and having spare fw plugs dangling out the back looks stupid. It would just make things a little easier and cleaner by having a three firewire port patchbay. Neutrik makes hardcore mountable firwire connectors. You could build a patchbay with those and a Raxxess panel with the holes you can punch out.
http://www.neutrik.com/images/ock/produ ... 914070.pdf
Greg
http://www.neutrik.com/images/ock/produ ... 914070.pdf
Greg
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