aggregate audio interfaces, Good or a bad idea? Or Adat?

[nagol5178]

I recently purchased the Saffire pro 40 which gives me 8 mic pre's. For drum's I wouldn't mind having 10. I have a fast track pro which has 2. That would make 10.

I set up an aggregate audio device in my audio midi settings on my iMac but when I went to use it with Logic pro 9 I got a crazy amount of latency or something was wrong. If I even played back a loop it would play a second of it and start cutting out.

Is this a a bad idea all together and should I just stick with the saffire and get an Adat device to add more inputs to it?? I could essentially do the drums with 8 mic's if I had to but it would be missing the extra condenser's I'd like to add to it.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of going adat? And what is a good adat device to go with the saffire pro 40 without giving me any issues?

Money isn't a huge problem. I mean I can't spend a ton of money but I would like something nice. I have noticed most people have the Behringer one. But Behringer is known for making some crappy stuff in my experience. But does Behringer make a nice adat unit? As I have seen some pro's are even using this Behringer device online.

I do have two, two channel mic pre amps that I use. Someone had said online that it's possible to add more inputs by using mic pre amps like I have. But how would that be possible? Because I still have to use the input to plug the mic input into the saffire pro 40?

And while we are here, a good kick drum mic recommendation would be awesome! That is the only mic I am missing for the drums. So far I have a combination of different dynamic and condenser mic's I have built up over the years. I bought a new sm57 for the snare drums.

The bass drum is one of the most important things to me as I do a lot of double bass type stuff. I have read that one can put an sm57 in front of the beaters and then put the kick drum mic in front of the kick drum to get a better sound also?

Sorry for all the questions but I just went into building a studio all at once and it seems as I buy one thing and get one thing done the next thing comes up and I have no idea what my options are.

If any mac users can explain to me how to use the M-audio and saffire pro 40 together that would actually be preferable as to buying a whole new device. But if it's going to cause latency then I don't want it.

Also, I have a high end imac. I have never not once had a latency issue, with the saffire pro 40 since I've gotten it or the fast track pro or any other audio interfaces I've used. I do have two more interfaces so that would add even more inputs but I'm too afraid to add them because I can't even get two working together!

 

[Steenamaroo]

I set up an aggregate audio device in my audio midi settings on my iMac but when I went to use it with Logic pro 9 I got a crazy amount of latency or something was wrong. If I even played back a loop it would play a second of it and start cutting out.

I have noticed in the past that aggregate device performance can be slightly lower than performance of a solo interface, but in my experience it was only noticed under extreme load.
What DAW are you using? Have you set up the appropriate buffer sizes etc for this new device?

I have noticed most people have the Behringer one. But Behringer is known for making some crappy stuff in my experience. But does Behringer make a nice adat unit?

The majority of people I've seen picking up the behringer were using it as line in to adat. Ie, they used it as converters.
Most people don't seem to use it for its mic preamps.

If you have spare preamps, you could use the ada8000 like this.

I do have two, two channel mic pre amps that I use. Someone had said online that it's possible to add more inputs by using mic pre amps like I have. But how would that be possible? Because I still have to use the input to plug the mic input into the saffire pro 40?

If those mic preamps are standard line out, you can't add them on.
Your saffire seems to have 8 mic preamps and 8 line inputs, but they are shared across 8 channels, so you can only use mic OR line per channel.
Your saffier has spdif in which is a stereo digital format.
If any of your preamps have spdif out, then you could use spdif to add two more channels to your setup.

The bass drum is one of the most important things to me as I do a lot of double bass type stuff. I have read that one can put an sm57 in front of the beaters and then put the kick drum mic in front of the kick drum to get a better sound also?

Yeah, sure you can. You can do any number of things.
You'll probably want to invert the polarity of one of the mics though, as they are on opposite sides of a sound source.

Hope that helps.

 

[TimOBrien]

should I just stick with the saffire and get an Adat device to add more inputs to it?? ....What are the advantages and disadvantages of going adat?

If you go with aggrigate devices you still have to worry about clocking them together or they will drift (every device has its own internal crystal clock heartbeat)

Go adat and the devices will just appear as ONE device running under one driver instance. It is the simple-ist way to do things and it'll just work.

 

[Steenamaroo]

If you go with aggrigate devices you still have to worry about clocking them together or they will drift (every device has its own internal crystal clock heartbeat)

This is as simple as clicking clock source in a list....

Go adat and the devices will just appear as ONE device running under one driver instance. It is the simple-ist way to do things and it'll just work.

but yeah, either an adat 8 channel preamp, or adat converters is probably the best bet.

 

[nagol5178]

Yes, I have set the buffer size right and it seems to totally confuse the computer. And we are talking a high end imac computer running logic pro 9. Since then I have read other forums on Google with people discussing this same situation and saying Apple has not fixed the bug yet. Certain interfaces running together in logic seem to do this.

I might get the Behringer thing but I only need two more Mic Pre's. I do have a zoom h4n which is a field recorder with phantom power. I may put the over heads into the zoom h4n and then sync that audio with the rest of the drum mic's and mix it down. It has two mic pre's on it and can be used as a separate device and will record at 24/96. So, I'm thinking I'm just going to use that and sync the audio.

This is why I want an electronic drumset so badly. I have superior drummer. It would be so much easier to do it that way. I do have multiple midi keyboards. Recently purchased the axiom 61 and I have multiple other ones. A lot of the metal stuff I play requires some pretty technical drum patterns that I can play on the drums myself, but have a harder time programming or going through it with a keyboard. Although it can be done with more patience.

I just purchased superior drummer. I was satisfied with Ezdrummer as far as sound but it would not let me map which midi key I wanted to be on which drum. So I had to spend the cash for superior drummer. And I also have a midi drum pad that uses drum sticks, a table top type midi drum pad which had a real electronic bass drum which I can hook my Iron Cobra's too. I get the most luck out of that. But it's still a lot harder and not as doable as a real drum set or a full size electronic kit.

I just haven't invested enough in drums. I have lived in an apartment for years. I just now got my first house and that is why building the studio has just now happened and now I'm having to get back into drums again.

The saffire pro 40... after having time to use that thing... wow. I mean just wow. The fast track pro never failed me but that saffire pro 40 is a really nice unit.

Although this is a home studio, when I go to the real studio I do use tracks that I record at home with certain things. Especially vocals. I seem to be able to make my vocals sound better on my own using my own compressor.

I kind of like the idea of using two saffire pro 40's. I read that one can be hooked to the other with no issues. The guys at forcsite have impressed me. I was going to go with the M-Audio 8r and I'm glad I went for the pro 40. It's not only better, it's cheaper with guitar center's sell they got going on right now. I only paid 400 dollars for it. The fast track ultra was 400 bucks!