Question for PRO mixing guys...

jkuehlin

jkuehlin

New member
Its a long shot to get an answer on this forum, but I thought I'd try...

Has anyone scaled a Pro Tools HDX system to 768 channels of i/o? I have 128x6 on the madi router matrix, so I'd assume its possible. But the HDX cards seem to max at 192 channels. I would like to have at least double the channel count. Does anyone know if the HDX cards can be re-chassied inside of a 6 bay Magma unit?

If it is the case where your HDX rig is maxed at 256 channels, how do you aggregate 2 computers to feed a single console with up to 512 independent channels?
 
Wow! I don't know the answer, but why would you even need that many i/o ????

Never mind. It was adressed to pro mixers....which I am not.
 
Well, sometimes I do like to put 75 microphones on my guitar amplifier and another 150 of them on my snare drum...I'd hate to miss a nuance :D

But I think that you're asking the wrong group of guys. At the Home Recording forums, I can't imagine that many (any?) of us have had any possible use or even fantasy of using eleventy billion mixer channels. Hell, I just bought my first 8-channel ADAT Lightpipe preamp and I'm feeling like pretty big stuff right about now.

Gearslutz is about the only place that I can think of off the top of my head that might have somebody that knows somebody that once read about 786 mixer channels in a magazine.
 
Your problem isn't the interface between the Avid Euphonics 5/Eucon hybrid desk and Pro Tools. Avid can help with that.

Much more difficult is fitting a 768 piece orchestra into a typical 12x12 home bedroom along with that mixer.
 
well for pro tools hd, you would use multiple computers+interfaces in your application. Your standard sampling rate should be 88.2-96Khz on each system. and they be tied by using ethernet connection with a software module called "Satellite Link" installed on each system. Your converters should be ran from a single master word clock and split with a word clock distribution box.

A typical set up is 32channels wide per computer @96Khz when you walk into a place that has one of these. Rarely I seen people use these with Madi at full channel count and if they do, they are tying 3 Dante systems and using them for broadcast and distribution and not for production.
 
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jkuehlin said:
Because I bought the mixer you see in the picture, and I want to use it.
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So you have a space that big in your studio...?
WOW!
It must be a REALLY big bedroom. :p

That looks like a video/film post-production studio...they always tend to have the mixers with massive channel-counts because they'll put every little sound on it's own channel. I also doubt they use 768 channels simultaneously. Odds are they are there for alternate mixes and other duties.

Anyway...I find it odd that you would buy a piece of equipment like that without first considering how it would/could be implemented in your setup....not to mention, you're focused on "I want to use them" as opposed to "I need to use them".
I recently picked up a more typical studio console to replace my old one...and before I pulled the trigger, I had some conversations with the seller, and I considered all that would need to be done to install my new console and tie it into the rest of my studio.

Why don't you ask the guys you bought it from how to use it....I'm sure they could help you out...or call some post facilities and ask them how they implement 768 individual converter channels....or contact the Pro Tools folks.
I doubt anyone here has ever exceeded even a 192 channel converter setup.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
Hey, I've got one of those. Picked it up cheap on Craigslist. PM me and I'll tell you what you need to do to get it all going.
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Rock on dude! I may actually know which one you got.

Where are you located? Do you by any chance happen to have an extra 524 unit? The 7.1 surround engine?? I'll pm you...

...I almost have it put together. I got the pilot engine up and running...after I picked up the Hewlett Packard Procurve 2530 switcher the modules worked like a charm.

I do have 2 fader modules with redundant static ip addresses...if you know how to change them, holler at me. I'm also having some trouble locking it to Nuendo 7.1 - if you have yours working with Cubase or Nuendo, let me know how you got Eucon working. I'm running workstation 3.2.2, and the wave icon shows up in the Remote Devices screen, but my DAW tracks list doesn't appear on the main pannel in the upper garage where you would assign them via channel select. I'm on El Capitan 10.11.6
 
Maybe I'm the dumb guy in the room, but I'm getting lost and having trouble walking the fine line between reality and parody.
:D
 
drtechno said:
well for pro tools hd, you would use multiple computers+interfaces in your application. Your standard sampling rate should be 88.2-96Khz on each system. and they be tied by using ethernet connection with a software module called "Satellite Link" installed on each system. Your converters should be ran from a single master word clock and split with a word clock distribution box.

A typical set up is 32channels wide per computer @96Khz when you walk into a place that has one of these. Rarely I seen people use these with Madi at full channel count and if they do, they are tying 3 Dante systems and using them for broadcast and distribution and not for production.
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Muahahahaha!! Avid Satellite Link. $750 well spent! Thank you thank you thank you thank you!! That'll get me to 1280 tracks.

I have a 8 fully loaded hd i/o boxes, and a madi i/o box on 3 cards...and was out of channels. Now I can keep stacking madi boxes on the rest of the computers.

I do have a 256 channel dante network in the B room (attached to the Nuendo Rig), but it doesn't mean shit because the Dante and Madi networks don't talk to each other. And you can't aggregate Pro Tools I/O into Dante based device if you're past v10, because avid still has not debugged the core audio driver on El Capitan.

I understand that you can merge the Dante and Madi networks via the SH612 madi matrix, but again that didn't help, because the ProTools platform forces you to choose either or.
 
miroslav said:
That looks like a video/film post-production studio...they always tend to have the mixers with massive channel-counts because they'll put every little sound on it's own channel. I also doubt they use 768 channels simultaneously. Odds are they are there for alternate mixes and other duties.
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You'd be surprised. I have the final dub masters for Divergent, Thor, Prometheus, Xmen, and a ton of others... There are thousands of tracks folded into the master sessions. And alternate mixes don't affect track count.
Anyway...I find it odd that you would buy a piece of equipment like that without first considering how it would/could be implemented in your setup....not to mention, you're focused on "I want to use them" as opposed to "I need to use them".
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The original implementation question had nothing to do with the console. It had to do with aggregating multiple pro tools systems on a machine network.

Why don't you ask the guys you bought it from how to use it....
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The mainframe came from Todd. They're gone. The surface came from Jay Leno. His crew has long disbanded. And it wouldn't have helped much. All cinematic post studios have pretty different workflows at this level.

I'm sure they could help you out...or call some post facilities and ask them how they implement 768 individual converter channels....or contact the Pro Tools folks.
I doubt anyone here has ever exceeded even a 192 channel converter setup.
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I used to work for Disney. Yes, I called some old friends out there. They have 8 computers with 192 channel setups, on each dubstage, and they aren't for looks. They tie them together with an ion system, but they're on a multi-room san based workflow like Universal, Dreamworks and Parkroad (that's Peter Jacksons studio). So they type of control they needed was a little different than what was necessary for me at the moment.
 
jkuehlin said:
Rock on dude! I may actually know which one you got.

Where are you located? Do you by any chance happen to have an extra 524 unit? The 7.1 surround engine?? I'll pm you...
Click to expand...

I don't know about you but I was joking. I wouldn't want to need that many channels of I/O.
 
I'm curious what's the need for all those channels and that massive rig...are you planning to open a video/film post studio and you're going to be mixing for the big studios that need that kind of capability...?
 
miroslav said:
I'm curious what's the need for all those channels and that massive rig...are you planning to open a video/film post studio and you're going to be mixing for the big studios that need that kind of capability...?
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For his mixer...Didn't you read the thread? ;)
 
Good point...I'll rephrase it. :)

WTF do you need a mixer that size for, with that many channels...unless you're going to open a video/film post production house? :D
 
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