2 Delta1010LT cards in same PC question

T

takk

New member
I have been using the two cards together for a while now without problems. The cards are connected via S/PDIF cable Card1->Card2 (sends timing data only) this keeps the tracks recorded simultaneously across both cards in sync when I record to Sonar.

Up until now I've been using Sonar's input monitoring to listen to the signals as they are recorded. This causes a little bit of latency and generally isn't much of a problem. But I am finding that when recording many tracks (especially drums) software monitoring through Sonar isn't really cutting it. Here's my question...

I know the Delta control panel allows you to set either the Outputs1/2 or S/PDIF Out to "Monitor Mix". This is done with virtually no latency. The problem is I can't use the S/PDIF Out/in of the cards and hear what's going into Card2 on my monitors hooked up to Card1. This is getting hard to describe. Here's the signal chain:

SM58-->MicPre-->Delta1010LT#2(analog input #5)-->Delta1010LT#2(S/PDIF Out)-->Delta1010LT#1(S/PDIF In)-->Delta1010LT#1(Analog Outs 1/2)-->Powered Monitors

I am using a digital coaxial cable for S/PDIF In/Out

Card2 has S/PDIF set for "Monitor Mix" and Card1 has Analog Outs 1/2 set to "Monitor Mix"

But Card1 gets no signal from Card2 when setup like this.

If I sacrifice my analog ins/outs instead of using S/PDIF it works fine. But that seems like a waste to me.

Anyone know about this?

- Takk
 
get 2 "Y" cables to use at your monitors input. Then come out of both breakout boxes channels 1 and 2 into the "Y's" at your monitors....
 
That's a good idea, I never thought of that. I still with I could get the other way to work though. For now I'll use your suggestion, thanks.
 
You don't need to externally sync delta cards (in windows XP I know for sure) all you have to do is go to the Delta Control Panel under the "Hardware Settings Tab" under "MultiTrack Driver Devices" one card to "Single and In-Sync" and and the rest of the cards to "Mulitple Card Sync". I have been using mine like that for over a year. No external sync needed.
 
amra said:
You don't need to externally sync delta cards (in windows XP I know for sure) all you have to do is go to the Delta Control Panel under the "Hardware Settings Tab" under "MultiTrack Driver Devices" one card to "Single and In-Sync" and and the rest of the cards to "Mulitple Card Sync". I have been using mine like that for over a year. No external sync needed.
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me too...but you cant monitor from both cards like that. If you have 8 tracks of drums going into card 1 and vox, guitar, and bass going into card 2, you cant monitor vox, guitar, and bass from card 1.

at least I have never been able to...
 
I don't see how you have it synced up would affect your monitoring? Once they are synced they are synced....
 
You should not use S/PDIF for synchronization. Those cards have word clock. With S/PDIF, the circuit to extract the clock is much more complex, and thus much more prone to timing errors. You should only use S/PDIF to synchronize devices that don't provide word clock inputs and outputs.
 
amra said:
I don't see how you have it synced up would affect your monitoring? Once they are synced they are synced....
Click to expand...

Im not sure if you are talking about monitoring from both here or not....from outs 1 and 2 on the first card...you can only monitor the 8 inputs of that card...from outs 1 and 2 on the second card, you can only monitor the 8 ins of that one...in order to monitor both cards on one set of monitors is to use outs 1 and 2 from each card, into a "Y" cable to each monitor...

if this is not what you were talking about....then NM...
 
thajeremy said:
Im not sure if you are talking about monitoring from both here or not....from outs 1 and 2 on the first card...you can only monitor the 8 inputs of that card...from outs 1 and 2 on the second card, you can only monitor the 8 ins of that one...in order to monitor both cards on one set of monitors is to use outs 1 and 2 from each card, into a "Y" cable to each monitor...

if this is not what you were talking about....then NM...
Click to expand...
Well, I can see how that could be the case, but then how does syncing them via SPDIF help this?

BTW, I set up the monitoring in the DAW App. You just choose a stereo pair to be your main outs, and use it to monitor all the outs from all cards...
 
amra said:
Well, I can see how that could be the case, but then how does syncing them via SPDIF help this?
Click to expand...

It doesn't. It has nothing to do with monitoring...syncing them just gets them working together. If you are using 2 cards at once...and you are using all 8 channels in the first card, and then a few on the 2nd card, when you hit record, you want all the tracks to start recording at once. When you are recording on a DAW, latency can be a common problem. If the 2 cards are not sync'd, they may not start recording at EXACTLY the same time....Meaning that if you zoom WWWAAAYYY in on the start point of the tracks...they may not start exactly at "0" or tracks from 2 different cards might not start in the same place.
 
Thajeremy is right. My question was really about monitoring. The confusion of the S/PDIF cables came in when I though a S/PDIF cable could be used to send the monitor Out from card2 to card1's S/PDIF In so I could monitor the input signals of both cards through the outputs of card1. I still can't get this to work.

I'll try the Y cable method, but I don't understand why I can't use S/PDIF to feed audio from one card to the other.

We got off-topic with the whole sync thing, I'm really trying to find a solution for monitoring.

Yes, I can use input monitoring in my DAW. But that introduces just a little bit of latency which could otherwise be avoided by using the Delta control panel directly for monitoring.

About word clock... Maybe that works with the two cards, but then why does M-Audio instruct to use S/PDIF cables for syncing the two cards?
 
takk said:
...Maybe that works with the two cards, but then why does M-Audio instruct to use S/PDIF cables for syncing the two cards?
Click to expand...

My understanding is that the older drivers didn't have the multi-card sync function and they haven't updated their site to reflect the changes...
 
takk said:
About word clock... Maybe that works with the two cards, but then why does M-Audio instruct to use S/PDIF cables for syncing the two cards?
Click to expand...

Maybe for the same reason they write buggy drivers and build FireWire hardware that malfunctions unless it is the first device on the bus (including when you attach it through a FireWire hub)? I kind of doubt they know any more about how their hardware works than you do. :D
 
thajeremy said:
If the 2 cards are not sync'd, they may not start recording at EXACTLY the same time....Meaning that if you zoom WWWAAAYYY in on the start point of the tracks...they may not start exactly at "0" or tracks from 2 different cards might not start in the same place.
Click to expand...

No, they will always start at zero. When they are not in sync, though, they will drift from each other. A difference in clock speed between the two devices of even 1 Hz (a small drift) will result in the devices being far enough from each other to cause a nasty glitch in the slower device within 10-20 seconds, as the software side of those drivers will read audio from both devices in a lockstep fashion.
 
dgatwood said:
No, they will always start at zero. When they are not in sync, though, they will drift from each other. A difference in clock speed between the two devices of even 1 Hz (a small drift) will result in the devices being far enough from each other to cause a nasty glitch in the slower device within 10-20 seconds, as the software side of those drivers will read audio from both devices in a lockstep fashion.
Click to expand...

Not always....before I got all the bugs worked out of my system...I have 2 Delta 1010's....I had tracks from 1 card starting at 0:00.000 and tracks from the second starting around 0:00.005 - 0:00.0012

from what you are saying, if they drift apart, does that mean that one has the correct tempo and one doesn't???
 
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