Topic: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

1. Slight possible caveat emptor? I am used to using my Digimax ADAT output into my RME HDSP 9652 seems to work fine... just plug a TOSLink cable from the out of the Digimax to the In of the 9652... yeah, you -can- use wordclock, but surprisingly, it works regardless...at least for me @ 44.1 or 48.

From the docs, I gather that the only way to use Babyface stand-alone as an A/D is to have TOSLink cables on -both- the input -and- output from the 9652 because Babyface can -only- get sync from a master device on it's ADAT -input-. True?

2. I plugged a guitar into the side jack and I expected to see the meters bob up and down with the input signal... and for that signal to show up on the TotalMix on one of the input channels. But nope. Is this just me being stupid... is there a 'trick' to making the 'guitar' input 'active'... or is this a problem with the unit?

TIA,

---JC

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

is there a 'trick' to making the 'guitar' input 'active'

Press the Inst button in Input channel 2 of TotalMix.

because Babyface can -only- get sync from a master device on it's ADAT -input-. True?

Yes. The Babyface needs a digital input signal to sync to an external master clock. If the Babyface is master it needs only the output. Anyway it needs a USB connection to a host computer to work (no stand alone operation support).

best regards
Knut

3 (edited by suntower 2011-07-25 08:50:00)

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

Admin Knut wrote:

is there a 'trick' to making the 'guitar' input 'active'

Press the Inst button in Input channel 2 of TotalMix.

because Babyface can -only- get sync from a master device on it's ADAT -input-. True?

Yes. The Babyface needs a digital input signal to sync to an external master clock. If the Babyface is master it needs only the output. Anyway it needs a USB connection to a host computer to work (no stand alone operation support).

best regards
Knut

Re. Instrument... Got it.

Re. ADAT sync... That's unfortunate. I understand that the BabyFace needs a USB connection to computer, but not being able to sync as slave without an input signal is a drag. Maybe this has to do with 'AutoSync'.

Perhaps in a future update you could include a 'Legacy' mode for people like me who sometimes just need to use BabyFace as an A/D... Frankly, I can't afford MADI and I use ADAT as sort of a poor man's MADI... to record in several rooms @ once. Works great up to 30m. Was hoping to make BabyFace part of that system when not being used live.     

Thanks,

---JC

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

How can any device ever be a slave without an input?
If you want to use only 1 adat cable and the babyface as AD it needs to be master and enslave the 9652 (which is easy). If that causes issues with other devices not being master any more, maybe solve that.
Or give more info about  your total setup.

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
BFpro fs, 2X HDSP9652 ADI-8AE, 2X HDSP9632

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

The BF will not work standalone - regardless of sync issues (or non-issues).


Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

I understand that the BabyFace needs a USB connection to computer, but not being able to sync as slave without an input signal is a drag.

No interface can sync to a digital master clock without an input. This is of course not possible.

best regards
Knut

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

Where you wrote: "No interface can sync to a digital master clock without an input. This is of course not possible."

FWIW: I've been doing exactly this---quite happily, with my Presonus Digimax for a -long- time. In fact, it -has- no digital input. I used to use a wordclock cable for a while, but I realised that it works with my 9652 as master even without it... just the ADAT out cable.

Anyway... Thanks.

---JC


Admin Knut wrote:

I understand that the BabyFace needs a USB connection to computer, but not being able to sync as slave without an input signal is a drag.

No interface can sync to a digital master clock without an input. This is of course not possible.

best regards
Knut

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

I've been doing exactly this---quite happily, with my Presonus Digimax for a -long- time. In fact, it -has- no digital input. I used to use a wordclock cable for a while,

The word clock connection is an input for a clock signal.

but I realised that it works with my 9652 as master even without it... just the ADAT out cable.

You should get a patent for this. I think the whole industry is highly interested in a technology to sync two devices without any digital connection from the master to the slave. The 9652 can run as master in your combination but there is no proper sync for the input less Digimax without a word clock connection. This is just a bad digital setup (Kids! Don't do this at home!).

best regards
Knut

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

Ah... sarcasm... it knows no cultural boundary. Kinda makes one feel that 'we are all one people'.

But there's no reason to be snarky. I wasn't trying to be difficult. And maybe I'm the dumbest guy out there... I'm... a -musician- after all.

I was just telling you my empirical experience. I thought it would work the same way with Babyface (and in fact that was one of the reasons I -bought- Babyface--for the ADAT output) because it -does- work as I described with my Digimax. I had a -reasonable- expectation based on my previous experience. Obviously I was too uneducated to know 'that's not possible'. I just plugged it in and it worked. Without wordclock. End of story. If you scoff, you're welcome to come see a miracle in action next time you're in Seattle.

So I need a 2nd ADAT cable to do what I want with Babyface and that's all that matters... to -me- at this point.

---JC



Admin Knut wrote:

I've been doing exactly this---quite happily, with my Presonus Digimax for a -long- time. In fact, it -has- no digital input. I used to use a wordclock cable for a while,

The word clock connection is an input for a clock signal.

but I realised that it works with my 9652 as master even without it... just the ADAT out cable.

You should get a patent for this. I think the whole industry is highly interested in a technology to sync two devices without any digital connection from the master to the slave. The 9652 can run as master in your combination but there is no proper sync for the input less Digimax without a word clock connection. This is just a bad digital setup (Kids! Don't do this at home!).

best regards
Knut

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

It will "work" - i.e. you will get incoming audio. But you will also get clicks due to an incorrect sync setup. To avoid that, make sure only one device in your setup is running on internal clock, and all others sync to it.


Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

Hey JC
Maybe Knut was having a little fun, but we are all trying to help here. It is still not clear to me if you get it 100% now. Once you do it is easy, if no gremlins....Musician here too, who can fortunatly do with 1.5m adat cables :-°

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
BFpro fs, 2X HDSP9652 ADI-8AE, 2X HDSP9632

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

I understand... no problem. At the risk of sounding -whatever- RME has a reputation with -everyone- I know as:

'Great product, but they tend to talk down to their users'.

Actually, I'm toning it down a -lot. I've gotten that from people in US, CA, IE, UK... So I probably came into this expecting the worst. Sorry.

I'm not trying to be difficult. I just thought -everyone- was able to do what I do.

I have a DAW with a 9652 in one room and then I run a Frontier Design Tango in another room and 2 Digimaxes in 2 other rooms... They are between 5 and 30 meters away from the DAW. I use these $6 optical switches to select inputs to the DAW as needed.

I've been doing variations on this for -years-. I know -exactly- the kind of dropouts (clicks) to expect with ADAT and I usually -do- use BNC wordclock cables for sync.

BUT... All I'm saying is that, even if I -don't- I routinely record drums (6 mono inputs) @ 44.1 on one of the Digimaxes---over a $20 100' TOSLink cable from MonoPrice with -no- other sync and there will be -no- noticeable clicks... at least the tracking I do for perhaps 20 minutes.

If it's supernatural, I'll call Rome in the morning. I may have been stupid, but one reason I bought the Babyface (besides needing a laptop interface) was that it's the only relatively inexpensive A/D with ADAT... and I -thought- it would work the same way as the Digimax and Frontier... ie. I could use it as another inexpensive A/D for recording out in my garage.

Being good engineers/scientists I figured RME would like to know this... just to explain the miracle.

I will experiment with using the Babyface as master clock. Failing that, I'll get another $20 TOSLink cable and try that. And if -that- doesn't work? I'll ask God to intervene (again).

Best,

---JC

vinark wrote:

Hey JC
Maybe Knut was having a little fun, but we are all trying to help here. It is still not clear to me if you get it 100% now. Once you do it is easy, if no gremlins....Musician here too, who can fortunatly do with 1.5m adat cables :-°

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

Hi,

suntower wrote:

I've been doing variations on this for -years-. I know -exactly- the kind of dropouts (clicks) to expect with ADAT

With correct sync setups, there will be no clicks at all with ADAT setups...

BUT... All I'm saying is that, even if I -don't- I routinely record drums (6 mono inputs) @ 44.1 on one of the Digimaxes---over a $20 100' TOSLink cable from MonoPrice with -no- other sync and there will be -no- noticeable clicks... at least the tracking I do for perhaps 20 minutes.

If your audio card syncs to an incoming ADAT signal (slave mode), everything is fine. No additional sync required. You will see the card showing a constant "Sync" for ADAT in. With the card set to Autosync, this is a correct setup. With the card as Master, it is not. You will see ADAT showing "Lock", which indicates the presence of a signal at a sample rate which is not in sync with the internal clock. Of course you can record without correct sync, and of course you will get music, and maybe the clicks will be inaudible and drowned in the percussion, but the setup remains incorrect from a technical point of view.


If it's supernatural, I'll call Rome in the morning. I may have been stupid, but one reason I bought the Babyface (besides needing a laptop interface) was that it's the only relatively inexpensive A/D with ADAT... and I -thought- it would work the same way as the Digimax and Frontier... ie. I could use it as another inexpensive A/D for recording out in my garage.

Of course you can. There is no special way the other devices will "work" here - sync setups need to be correct regardless of which device you are using.
So yes, you can use it as an AD. And yes, you can use it alongside an ADAT device, and simply have the BF sync to incoming ADAT, in which case the inbuilt AD will also work with the same sample rate and be in perfect sync...


Being good engineers/scientists I figured RME would like to know this... just to explain the miracle.

I don't see any miracle, to be honest.

I will experiment with using the Babyface as master clock

May I ask why? There is simply no point in doing so...

There are some fundamental misconceptions here which I think might need clearing up, and that is just matter-of-fact...

First of all, what kind of standalone-capabilities did you expect from the BF? You said "that the only way to use Babyface stand-alone as an A/D is to have TOSLink cables on -both- the input -and- output from the 9652 because Babyface can -only- get sync from a master device on it's ADAT -input-. "
Does "standalone" refer to it running on internal clock here?

Or are you expecting the BF to act as a standalone converter connected e.g. to the 9652, in place of the Digimax? That simply won't work, because the BF will not work standalone at all...

Also you commented that the BF "not being able to sync as slave without an input signal is a drag"
This simply makes no sense technically... What (if not a digital input signal) would the BF "sync to as slave"? Please explain what you are referring to. I believe there is another fundamental misconception here.

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

14 (edited by suntower 2011-07-26 08:40:41)

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

Hi Daniel,

Man, this has spiraled out of control... whether I have a misconception or not, all I care about is my application...

BACKGROUND
I have my -main- DAW in a control room in one corner of the house. It's a Win7 Sandybridge CPU with an RME 9652. audio gets -into- the 9652 from 3 ADAT inputs...
Digimax #1
Digimax #2
Frontier Designs Tango 

The 9652 acts as master clock @ 44.1 (none of the A/Ds go beyond 48)

When I initially hooked everything together, I connected coax cables to the wordclock BNC connector on each device.

At some point, I had to unplug one of the Digimax A/Ds for some reason and when I re-connected I forgot to re-connect the coax (wordclock). And yet... it still seemed to work OK (and no, not just for drums... for -everything-.)

I have -another- room (shed) I record in which is 30m away. What I used to do is run an audio snake... which is a pain. But a friend told me that, despite what I -thought- was a 5m limit on TOSLink cables, he was running a 100ft cable---without problem. So I got a 100ft cable from Monoprice and ran it to that room. I took one of the Digimaxes out to the other room, plugged the TOSLink cable to it and et voila it worked---with no wordclock cable. And by 'worked' -again- I record 20 minute takes of bass, guitar, drums, whatever and I don't hear (or see in the waveforms) problems. Whether this -should- work or not is irrelevant to me. This method -does- work for me with the Frontier Tango and/or the Digimax.


WHAT I WANT TO DO
I had hoped to do something similar with the Babyface. So by 'stand-alone' I do -not- mean that the BabyFace would not be connected to a USB port. I realise this is not possible. By 'stand-alone' I mean that I thought I could take my laptop and the Babyface out to the shed and...
1. Hook 2 mics to the BabyFace
2. Hook a TOSLink cable to the ADAT -out- of the BabyFace
3. Hook the other end of that cable to the ADAT -in- of 9652

...hit the Record button on the DAW and people start playing into the mics hooked to the BabyFace 30m away.

When I tried doing that, it did NOT work. I got no sync. I suspected a bad cable, so I substituted the Digimax and it -would- record.

So... since you say that the above should -not- work, I figured I would try setting the BabyFace as Master clock and the 9652 as Slave.

OR I was going to try hooking a -2nd- TOSLink cable from the BabyFace -in- to one of the unused 9652 -out- and keep the 9652 as Master---just so that the BabyFace can get sync from the 9652.

If you have better suggestions, PLEASE let me know.

Thanks!

---JC

15

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

suntower wrote:

WHAT I WANT TO DO
I had hoped to do something similar with the Babyface. So by 'stand-alone' I do -not- mean that the BabyFace would not be connected to a USB port. I realise this is not possible. By 'stand-alone' I mean that I thought I could take my laptop and the Babyface out to the shed and...
1. Hook 2 mics to the BabyFace
2. Hook a TOSLink cable to the ADAT -out- of the BabyFace
3. Hook the other end of that cable to the ADAT -in- of 9652

That works if you set up TotalMix correctly to send all ADAT input channels to the ADAT output directly. Maybe you had the optical output set to SPDIF mode?

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

suntower wrote:

Man, this has spiraled out of control... whether I have a misconception or not, all I care about is my application...

Sure, but the one may affect the other, so I am trying to get possible misconceptions out of the way. No point presenting readymade solutions without providing some technical background, IMHO...

At some point, I had to unplug one of the Digimax A/Ds for some reason and when I re-connected I forgot to re-connect the coax (wordclock). And yet... it still seemed to work OK (and no, not just for drums... for -everything-.)

Have a look at the card's settings dialog. If one or more of the ADAT inputs show Lock instead of Sync, you will know that the sync setup is technically incorrect. You are free to continue working like that, but there will be clicks at some point.

I took one of the Digimaxes out to the other room, plugged the TOSLink cable to it and et voila it worked---with no wordclock cable. And by 'worked' -again- I record 20 minute takes of bass, guitar, drums, whatever and I don't hear (or see in the waveforms) problems. Whether this -should- work or not is irrelevant to me. This method -does- work for me with the Frontier Tango and/or the Digimax.

It will "work" in terms of audio transfer. If the card is set to Autosync, it will also work correctly in technical terms. If not, see above. Whether or not you mind is your choice, I just want to state facts....

WHAT I WANT TO DO
I had hoped to do something similar with the Babyface. So by 'stand-alone' I do -not- mean that the BabyFace would not be connected to a USB port. I realise this is not possible. By 'stand-alone' I mean that I thought I could take my laptop and the Babyface out to the shed and...
1. Hook 2 mics to the BabyFace
2. Hook a TOSLink cable to the ADAT -out- of the BabyFace
3. Hook the other end of that cable to the ADAT -in- of 9652
...hit the Record button on the DAW and people start playing into the mics hooked to the BabyFace 30m away.
When I tried doing that, it did NOT work. I got no sync.

See MC's comment, that would explain the lack of Sync (or incoming ADAT). Just for a test, try closer to the other computer with a different cable. But make sure you have the Optical set to ADAT. Or connect to the card's first optical port and set that to SPDIF mode in the settings window.

Also, as you know, the BF is not a standalone converter. So it does not know what you want it to do. All the Digimax was taught to do is to take a mic signal and send it straight to ADAT.
The BF is a computer interface, so it is primarily designed to send incoming signals to he computer (via USB and the driver) and feed the outputs with signal from the computer. If you want to have it feed mic inputs to ADAT channels straight away, you need to tell it to do so, and I'm not sure you did.

So besides making sure the output and input signal have the same format, you have to make sure there is a signal actually going out of the BF, either at the ADAT or SPDIF channels in Totalmix.

This is not an issue of Snyc or Master/Slave capabilities primarily.



Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

OK... we're getting there. We're not there yet... but we're getting there. smile

We have signal! I can plug a guitar or a mic into Babyface, run a TOSLink -out- to my main DAW RME 9652 -in- and record. I'm not hearing or seeing any obvious clicks/pops/etc. However, I'm getting some serious latency... ie. the recorded track is delayed perhaps 100-200ms. My guess is that this is just more education I need. My 'test' was simply playing 1/8th notes for 10 minutes to a click off the monitors in the room 30m away... that 30m may in itself be a big part of the latency. big_smile

I was able to get signal by routing the output of AN/2 (instrument) to output ADAT 3/4. Previously, I had -thought- that 'AS 1/2' referred to ADAT 1/2. Apparently not?

QUESTIONS:
1. What exactly -is- 'AS 1/2'?

2. The 'Sync' light does not light up on the BabyFace and there is no 'Lock' displayed on the software settings and this is -normal- unless one has an ADAT or SPDIF input signal, right?

3. What is the 'DIM' button for?

OK, that's it for now.

---JC

PS: Some hopefully constructive criticism on the docs for management: The guy who wrote the big 'QuickStart' is fantastic. Sadly, I don't think he's the guy who wrote the rest of the manual, because the rest the full manual needs help. (Pun intended). The rest of the manual was written by computer types and it may have all the information in there somewhere, but it's far from clear. And it -needs- a lot more specific examples.  I'm taking the time to mention this because of Page 57:

'Using the Matrix is a breeze.'

When I was 14 years old my writing teacher would -hit- me if I tried writing a condescending sentence like that. It's -not- a breeze. It's a complicated program. Which is fine. Now you may be trying to make it self-evident and as easy to use as possible, but it's simply got too many features to be considered 'a breeze'. You guys make the best products, but hubris is not a good idea for technical docs.

18 (edited by Masaaki 2011-07-27 08:06:49)

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

@JC,
Why you can't buy another 100ft TOSLINK cable and connect to ADAT In of the Babyface for sync signal input?
You have another computer to connect to the babyface at the reomte site to feed the power, right? Then, you should have full control of syncing BF and routing (TotalMix). Am I missing something? When you hear the 100ms latency (that's terrible, and unusable), are you monitoring from the BF, or from the PC with 9652?

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

I do have another TOSLink cable I'm going to hook up. smile

But I think the delay I'm hearing now is not because I -need- that input cable, but rather I think there is something else I still haven't figured out about how TotalMix works. I tried looking @ the RME Youtube channel and I didn't yet see one -specifically- for BabyFace. I know TotalMix is mostly the same in all versions, but there -are- differences.

Thanks,

---JC

Masaaki wrote:

@JC,
Why you can't buy another 100ft TOSLINK cable and connect to ADAT In of the Babyface for sync signal input?
You have another computer to connect to the babyface at the reomte site to feed the power, right? Then, you should have full control of syncing BF and routing (TotalMix). Am I missing something? When you hear the 100ms latency (that's terrible, and unusable), are you monitoring from the BF, or from the PC with 9652?

20 (edited by Masaaki 2011-07-27 08:40:17)

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

If you use 44kHz sample rate, with ASIO buffer 4096, the round trip latency is close to 200ms. What's your ASIO buffer setup for BF?

21 (edited by suntower 2011-07-29 05:56:05)

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

Little help while waiting for 2nd cable...

suntower wrote:

1. What exactly -is- 'AS 1/2'?

Is this just 'ADAT 1/2 Out'?

suntower wrote:

2. The 'Sync' light does not light up on the BabyFace and there is no 'Lock' displayed on the software settings and this is -normal- unless one has an ADAT or SPDIF input signal, right?

suntower wrote:

3. What exactly is the 'DIM' button for?

Thanks,

---JC

22

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

1. AS 1/2 is the - obvious - abbreviation for an output that can handle both ADAT and SPDIF signal. 2. Yes. 3. I'm speechless.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

MC wrote:

1. AS 1/2 is the - obvious - abbreviation for an output that can handle both ADAT and SPDIF signal. 2. Yes. 3. I'm speechless.

Now -this- is the RME I remember. wink

1. Wasn't obvious to me... I guessed this was the case, but wondered if there was not more to it because I can get signal at the output meters ADAT 3/4, 5/6 and 7/8 but not output AS 1/2.

Any idea why?


2. OK.

3. Me too... but not in the way you mean, of course. Again, there are lots of features in RME products where a button does more than one thing so it seems reasonable to ask. And 'DIM' is -not- mentioned in the manual.

So... again... what precisely does 'DIM do?


Thanks,

---JC

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

suntower wrote:

And 'DIM' is -not- mentioned in the manual.

HeadScratch
Try page 47... fryingpan

"Dim. The volume will be reduced by the amount set in the Settings dialog (F3)."

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Re: Two Babyface Noob Questions: Stand-Alone, Guitar Input

Thanks for pointing that out.

You win... it's definitely -there-. Right on page 47. You bet. You're right! You couldn't -be- more right. I'm wrong. Sooooooo wrong on all this stuff.

Manual couldn't be better. Nope.

---JC