Setting up home studio problems

J

jamest748

New member
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Hi,

I'm setting up my home studio and have encountered a problem which someone might be able to help me with!

My signal path is:

Neumann U87 - Avalon 737 - Apogee PSX 100 - Marian Marcx - Sonar 8.5 - Marian Marcx - Apogee - Genelec Monitors.

The problem I'm encountering is between the Apogee and the soundcard. I've connected them via optical cables not sure whether it's ADAT or SPDIF but what's the difference?

I've set all the right settings (so I think!) on the Apogee and in Sonar I've set it to ASIO ADAT 1/2 (there are 8 channels of ADAT so I believe with this soundcard) but all I'm getting through the speakers is crackling.

Very confused and have tried everything in my knowledge to fix it but with no luck.

Here are some links to my soundcard and the Apogee:

http://www.marian.de/en/products/marc_x

http://www.apogeedigital.com/pdf/psx100_ds.pdf

Many thanks in advance for any help and advice.

James.
 
I should know what you mean but I'm not 100% sure.

In the soundcard settings there's an option to set the clocks automatically so that's what I've selected but there's also options for ADAT and SPDIF.

Is there something in Sonar that I need to adapt? I guess that's for the Sonar forum!

Cheers for your interest in the matter!
 
The units have to be synced together, with one acting as the master clock and the other connected units slaved to it.

There will be configuration options for this within your soundcard settings, and there are buttons on the front of the Apogee unit to setup the clock settings for both the AD and DA sections of the converter.

Often you can use the clock signal sent over ADAT... set the Apogee to sync with "DIG IN" on both the "A/D SYNC" and "D/A SYNC" sections and, providing both show the "LOCK" light, you should be good to go. Make sure that your soundcard is set at a sample rate that the Apogee supports. You can also sync the Apogee to the soundcard using the BNC word clock connections.

Alternatively you could use the Apogee as the master clock by setting "A/D SYNC" to "CRYSTAL" and "D/A SYNC" to "A/D SYNC" (which just sets the DA section of the converter to sync with the same source as the AD converter, which would be equally valid to use for my first example). You would then need to set up the soundcard to sync to the clock signal over ADAT, or again using the word clock connections.
 
Ah, great advice thanks I'll give it a try when I get home from work.

One more question, what's the difference between world clock and super clock?

I can just about follow what you're saying about the settings on the Apogee. Do you have one yourself?

Are the cables called BNC word clock connector cables?

Cheers!
 
IIRC, 'super clock' was a trade name for a (now defunct) proprietary word clock protocol that was only supported by certain hardware. I wouldn't worry about this for now.

Probably the best way with this setup would just be to clock it over ADAT. This is what I've always done with my stuff and its always worked fine for me... you only need to go into the proper clock distribution stuff if you're syncing up lots of gear, maybe with a dedicated master clock, or with video/timecode equipment, etc.I don't own one of those converters (I'm just working from an image off the net), but the general idea stays the same in any situation.

The connectors are called BNC connectors, whilst the cable itself is just standard coax cable (though it has to be 75-ohm). If you chose this option for hooking them up, it is important to remember that the cables have to be terminated with a 75-ohm resistor.

I've seen some hardware with inbuilt termination (usually enabled and disabled by DIP switches) so that you can conveniently just run a single length of cable between them, but I don't think your gear has this so you would have to properly terminate it and possibly a T-join to allow you to do this (or I suppose you could connect the terminator to the thru/out connector on the slave device... I don't have that much experience with setting up stuff like this).
 
Hi,

Ok I tried this out this morning and still no luck! :mad:
I've done what you've said but what's weird is that in the Soundcard settings I set Wordclock to ADAT input but when I open Sonar 8.5 it sets it back to default the Soundcard as Clockmaster. Can't figure it out, it's like it doesn't like the wordclock input from the ADAT of the Apogee.

Strange, I've set the Apogee to 44.1khz and ADAT Input/Output and DIG Sync for A/D and D/A oh and 24bit.

However, one thing I did notice was that my previous recordings in Sonar have been 16 bit. So...I converted them to 24 bit but still nothing!

Anyone local to me in Oxted, Surrey (UK!) wants to earn some money and fix this then I would be willing to pay!!!!
 
Unfortunately I'm a bit too far away, plus the M3 is probably going to be hell at the moment with all the people coming down to the coast for the nice weather :)

Err, just to run through checklist for if you setting the Apogee as the master clock...

On the Apogee...
A/D SYNC to CRYSTAL
Optical out to ADAT
D/A input to ADAT
D/A SYNC to A/D SYNC

With the soundcard...
Sounds like you already have this set up as it should be... ADAT input as clock source.
Within Sonar, make sure you are using the ASIO drivers.
Put the buffers up to something like 512 samples just to be on the safe side for now.
Leave the things about 'playback timing masters' at their default settings.


If you were up for it then I'd be happy to do a quick remote-desktop session and take a peek at your settings to see if there is anything glaringly wrong. Would only take a few minutes to check through everything :)
 
Ha, I appreciate the offer as I was one of those heading down to the coast but turned around when I saw the traffic and ended up in the pub garden instead!

I'm back now and getting ready for a birthday tonight but if you have a spare half an hour sometime that would be an excellent idea about remote desktop-ing my computer to see if there's anything you can see that I'm missing!

Cheers, I'll be in touch. In another post someone mentioned that the soundcard might only accept 48k and 24bit so I'd need to set the rest of the equipment accordingly.

Mske sense? So I'm guessing anything other than that format will struggle to play back.
 
Ok......just to update.....

For some reason, even when nothing's plugged into the Apogee, it is metering noise on the A/D section. Out of the 10 or so bars about 3/4 are metering.

So I plugged the monitors in and tried to hear what was coming through and it's just hiss. White noise.

But.......after taking the advice from here I've managed to get the output ADAT D/A working clearly but nothing for the input!

I've won half the battle. The next step is working out how to get the inputs to work. When I set the soundcard to take the clock from the ADAT source, and hit apply it stays. Then when I open Sonar it defaults back to the soundcard being the wordclock master. Very strange. It just defaults back and I can't stop it!
 
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