RME HDSP9654 and Yamaha 01V96 V2

[mindbuzz]

RME HDSP9654 and Yamaha 01V96 V2

I took a serious financial plunge today. Decided on the 01V96. As much as I would like to be someone who can afford to get a Tascam DM3200, with a meter bridge, the selling price for the digital mixing console alone without the bridge is $1000 more than the Yamaha 01V96. I'm planning to rely mainly on the litepipe connection direct into the PC with an RME HDSP 9654. The RME HDSP/01V96 combo seems like an exceptionally good deal. Without the Yamaha expansion MY16AT card I should have 8 channels of ADAT, and I'll be able to expand later. The optical connections are a TOSLINK-style, which is kind of confusing to me because I talked to Ed B. at Yamaha who said that if they're TOSLINK, they're only 2-channel and not eight. And that would be a real disappointment if I can't run at least 8 at 16bit/44.1khz.

I also explained to Ed that I use Sonar 4 and was concerned about compatibility. He basically assured me that I'd be happy with the soundcard/mixer combo and could configure all my in's any way I want them in Sonar with the ability to run each channel to it's own track. He didn't really comment on Sonar compatibility issues. Since the release of Yamaha's V2 software I haven't read any complaints about Studio Manager not working properly in Sonar. Perhaps the bugs have been fixed in the updates since the reports of corrupted screens in Sonar 4.01... I installed 4.04 on my computer just this afternoon. Anyway, I'll find out soon enough when the mixer arrives Fed Ex. Should have it up and running end of next week.

And I'm sure I'll only have more questions as I begin to setup. I hear the manual is a real tome.

Another thing -- will I need word clock cables to run between my soundcard and my 01V?

Studio Connections Support in Sonar
http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=589844

Do you think I'd be better off integrating Cubase SX3?

I'll try to keep this thread up to date as things progress.

 

[mindbuzz]

I'm talking PC-based recording.

I originally had an Edirol DA2496 which worked great, and I was hoping that Edirol would go PCI with another box later on and run mores fixes on their multi-channel drivers. But as things are right now, they went the USB 2.0 route with their flagship UA-1000 and didn't provide much more in terms of upgrade support for my PCI drivers.

Since then I've outgrown my 8 channel input patchbay. And by "outgrown" I actually mean I broke it; but what the hey, I know enough now to build my own PC and am ready to kick it up a notch. So that's what the mixer is all about.

Anybody who wants to go digital should look at their PCI options first if they have an extra PCI slot, I think, simply because it's the fastest and most direct route into your computer. Firewire is slower than PCI.

So those of you with Delta 1010's, that's the right track. But I think M-Audio bandwagon at the home recording level just isn't the best way to go.

http://www.rme-audio.com/english/hdsp/index.htm

RME. Now these guys are Germans, sure. But they're really good people. I called their US support number with all kinds of pre-sales questions, and they were really helpful. The HDSP 9632 is an analog input card. I'd get that over the Delta 1010 anyday. Just read the specs. The rest of their product line kicks butt too.

Personally, I'm going lightpipe with this Yamaha combo.

HDSP 9652. It's all about the "Zero CPU Load."

 

[mshilarious]

RME has very nice products if you're going lightpipe.

TOSLINK is a connector type. It can be 2-channel S/PDIF, or 8-channel ADAT, or 4-channel ADAT @ 88.2 or 96 kHz. I can't remember the name for the latter standard.

Anyway, the 01V96v2, based on the Yamaha website, clearly supports the ADAT protocol. I don't see where it supports the higher sample rate transfer via ADAT though.

The ADAT protocol includes a clock signal.

 

[Giganova]

I think that an RME lightpipe card makes more sense in combination with an analog board and an ADAT interface. That would give you the best of both worlds. It much cheaper, too. Instead of an expensive digital mixer you could get a much better sounding analog board. Just my 2 Cents.

 

[dcwave]

What analog board? A low end Allen and Heath is one that comes to mind but the new Yammy digital boards sound pretty good. I don't know if I would say much better. What other ones come to mind Giganova?

I think the better question is what is the mixer doing for you? Headphone mix? Mixing out of the box? Lots of synths needing inputs? Lots of pre amps?

 

[mindbuzz]

TOSLINK is a connector type. It can be 2-channel S/PDIF, or 8-channel ADAT, or 4-channel ADAT @ 88.2 or 96 kHz. I can't remember the name for the latter standard.

Thanks! I knew it was a connector-style. And from what I've read I was almost certain it would do 8-channel at 16/44.1.

Anyway, the 01V96v2, based on the Yamaha website, clearly supports the ADAT protocol. I don't see where it supports the higher sample rate transfer via ADAT though.

The 01V96 supports the 4 channel at 24/96 too, according to Ed Blackmore at Yamaha. We'll find out for sure sometime next week, hopefully.

The ADAT protocol includes a clock signal.

So that means I won't need a 2 BNC cables, right? Dang, I bought a pair thinking I'd need them. I can return them if really don't need them.

 

[mindbuzz]

I think the better question is what is the mixer doing for you? Headphone mix? Mixing out of the box? Lots of synths needing inputs? Lots of pre amps?

I do headphones Yamaha RH5-Ma's for light work and ATH-M40fs's for isolation. And right now I have a pair of monitors (M-Audio BX5A pair) on order and shipping with the board.

MIDI synths, I have one Casio board. An old CT-700. Don't think you'll find those around anywhere, but it works as a MIDI controller with 61 keys. I wish I could figure out how to get a wheel modulation effect into the mix, but I can't figure out the command settings to set it up. And I don't know what to get in terms of a surface controller for the wheel mod effect. Wouldn't know where to start. Or even if I need a surface controller. If I could use the mouse I would. Anyway, that's just an aside thing.

...The soft synths like VSampler sound awesome in the mix, but I could never play them very well live because, the way I had it set up with the Edirol DA2496, the little bit of latency I got from the PC would throw me off. So I would use it in playback and then quantize.

The rest of my gear is pretty much all analog. Most of the time it's just me. Other times I get up to 4 people playing here at a time. Guitar and vocal mostly with a little percussive (djimbe or tamborine or whatever). And then I synth all other drums/piano/effects with loops, etc. Although later on down the road any of my drummer friends who may want to record will want to do live drums. But I'll have to work my way up to that.

I also do an analog line-out to a dual cassette deck, and that's pretty fun to mess with every once in a while. Maybe one day I could hook up one of those DJ turntables Mike-D or Fatboy Slim style and figure out how that all works. Like that's ever gonna happen.