Panasonic Ramsa WR-DA7 hookup.

aurorasound

New member
I posted earlier on this forum about mixing boards and computer setups. I was looking at a behringer mx9000 for my post production recording needs. It sold. Well they have a Panasonic Ramsa WR-DA7 digital mixing board(I wanted to go digital all along) How do I hook it up to where it will work with a modern DAW(Adobe Audition, Premiere Pro(for video) or Pro Tools.) What I want it to do, is once all of the channels are recorded into the computer, I want to be able to mix with the hardware itself, also the audio levels for each channel coming from the computer during playback going to the meter bridge on the console. Can I do this just by simply connecting a serial cable to both devices? or is this going to require more of an advanced setup to work seamlessly with post production and have all of the mix get sent to the console. I have an external digital audio recorder ill be recording the final mix down to. PS. If possible, I'd like the same setup to be able to send out an 8 channel multitrack signal back to the computer of the final mix for 7.1. I heard it can do surround sound mixing and 5.1 is most common. I make the purchase on Tuesday. The primary use will be mixing audio and music for motion picture.

To better describe some possibly confusing aspects to my problem: If the audio track on the DAW is playing back on channel 10, the meter bridge on the hardware will show the output for that channel and the slider automation to function as needed along with the effects on the board and solo, mute etc. I want the hardware to control the computer software and play the audio from the computer. not the other way around.
 
Computer details: Windows 10, 32gb ram, nvidia quadro with tesla(i do some really heavy cgi and special effects.) onboard sound card, no serial, no midi, 8 usb ports. AMD 6 core cpu. (If just doing a serial port connection meets my needs, then ill be getting a serial adapter card) The way I was going to do it with the mx9000 board was I was going to connect a m audio delta 1010lt card to 8 channels of the mixing board, and the output from the mixer(8 channel out to the computer back into the card) this card also has digital audio i/o too. would it be an easier solution to just use a delta 1010lt card with the panasonic as well?
 
It sounds like you want to use the external mixer as a control surface. Each DAW will have its own set of instructions for how to make it work.
 
It's going to depend on what expansion cards the mixer has, if any. Without expanded digital I/O its not going to be much use with a computer.

If it has some kind of digital card, say ADAT, then you'd need the corresponding ADAT I/O on your computer. I think each card does 8 channels, giving you a potential of 24 channels of digital I/O between the mixer and computer. I'm pretty sure you could do 24 from computer to mixer and 8 to the recorder if you wanted, but I doubt the mixer is meant to do 7.1 given its age.

By comparison, Vegas Pro (and many others) can do 7.1 mixing better and more easily than that mixer, and you only need to solve the monitoring part of the equation. I think I would trust a modern high end 7.1 sound card over a decades old digital mixer for that.
 
I don't think the software for the Ramsa WR-DA7 would run on Win10. It's from the Windows 98 era...

That said, I've never tried it.

Anyhow, according to the docs, your mixer would need at least firmware 1.10 to work with a computer at all.

The software is based on MAX, a development environment from Cycling '74. The company still exists, is well-regarded and has a thriving community. Maybe search their forum?

Max 7 Features | Cycling '''74

And I don't even remember if this works at all on Windows. The serial port on the RAMSA is a Mac Din 9-pin port, running on a non-standard 125 kbaud speed. A lot of PC serial cards won't be able to do that. And what looks like RS232 (the 9-pin D-connector) is an RS485. Most PC cards can do that, but you need different cables as it is a current loop. Terminators and stuff like that.

But maybe there was Windows software I forgot about?

That said, I like the RAMSA. I'd prefer it over a Behringer. Not that I don't like Behringer, I just don't like their mixers, especially the bigger ones. They develop contact problems after a few years. Buttons needing to be hammered; faders needing to be moved 20 times before they stop crackling. Stuff like that.

You can find the manuals here:
PANASONIC RAMSA WR-DA7 APPLICATION MANUAL Pdf Download.
PANASONIC RAMSA WR-DA7 USER MANUAL Pdf Download.

When I did a short search for ""Windows 10" "RAMSA WR-DA7", only your thread at gearslutz showed up... :D
 
I ended up purchasing the RAMSA board. It has a MIDI I/O a built in SPDIF I/O and AES/EBU XLR Digital I/O. I tried the din to serial to usb and am getting a framing error on the board. Would a MIDI to usb cable work? I am looking more now to use it to control the DAW. I saw one youtube video of one working with pro tools with full automation, but no instructions or help on how to get it to work. I spend a lot of money on the board and want to use it. Hoping the MIDI to USB will work. if the DIN to SERIAL to USB setup will work, then how would that occur? Also I've been trying to find the software for the RAMSA and I cant find it anywhere. I downgraded the OS to Windows 8 as its much more fluid in day to day operation. Currently, I am sending an audio signal to the computer line in port through the mixer headphone port(super silly way of doing it, but working for recording only ok so far, just a ton of resteps for each channel.
 
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