Newbie setup help PLEASE!!!!

[spmonkay]

Thanks for the help! I will have a look into all the advice and keep trying things out! Its a pretty big learning curve for me! I will get there but really appreciate all your help and advice!

Thanks

I jave an apogee word clock card, a couple of questions, do I need to spend a lot on a word clock bnc cable will any one do the job? Is it better to have the d8b set as master or slave?

thanks again

Steve

[spmonkay]

Would this work?

https://uk.rs-online.com/mobile/p/coaxi ... e/4097238/

[angelotaylor]

Would this work?

https://uk.rs-online.com/mobile/p/coaxi ... e/4097238/

Yes.

[angelotaylor]

I jave an apogee word clock card, a couple of questions, do I need to spend a lot on a word clock bnc cable will any one do the job? Is it better to have the d8b set as master or slave?

thanks again

Steve

Ok. This question - is not so simple, therefore let me cut it on more simple parts. For correct answer, You need know some technical things, about processes, which runs with digital audio. The first thing you should pay attention to is and it is very important, is SOUND - IS REALTIME PROCESS!

First, did You know, what sychronisation is?
Second, what type synchronisation do You know?
Next - What did You know about, how to work DAC and ADC? What is sample rate, and what is for?

Ok. In simple example.
For example, You need to recording Your voice with the microphone, with the digital recorder (computer, or e.t.c.)

You connect Your mic to analog input of Your D8B, or computer audiocard. Signal from Your mic - it is continuous ANALOG DC voltage. It is not a digital signal yet.

When this analog signal come to Your ADC, ADC make some quantity measures with some freq in 1 second. We call it freq, as sample rate ADC make 48 000 measures of continuous analog signal in one sec. It cut the signal to 48 000 DC fragments, and place it to special digital buffer as massive of 48 000 DC levels. Then place it in file, block by block! Fragments, that do not fall between the measurement cycles, are lost forever! This process - take some time. This time we call as latency!

When Yor DAW play some tracks, which You are recorded before, it read frome files block by block Your digital signals. When You use some plugins - it is also need some times for processing, and make extended latency, which You need to compensate, and You push to latency compensation button in Your DAW. But, computer - can not to sync all Your process all the time the same, with same quality from the CPU platform reason. And, it is newer depend frome CPU power and memory capacity. In this case, You need external sync generator with high quality clock. If You dont have a Apogee Big Ben, You need to discover for best synchronization host, observing all Your equipment You have yet. And make as clock master - best unit! Sound result will demonstrate really difference results of sound quality with the difference sync hosts! In your case, I would assign a D8B as master clock, because it have a Apogee Word Clock Card - special unit for HQ synchronisation! But excellently better solution - it is external clock, as Apogee Big Ben, or Antelope Audio Isochrone Trinity! (https://en.antelopeaudio.com/products/i ... e-trinity/)

Clock - directly global affects all processes in the system. This affects their accuracy in time! This is very important and will affect the result sound quality!

About the CPU audio processing:

Just look: Most digital outboard audio hardware - constrain with DSP chips, but not with CPU units. Why? Because constrain and architecture differences between CPU and DSP. Simple explain of it, we can show with example with PC architecture: it have a CPU, chipset, memory, and operation system separately in separately components. We are need some hardware time interrupts for make its working, and it need a very considerable time. But DSP have it "all in one" only in one chip, and many more less interrupts time, actually, tending to zero time! This is a serious limitation of the CPU architecture. Globally, CPU - not designed for real-time tasks! Now, You see, what is difference between CPU processing, and DSP with actually real time interrupts. Your PC will he'll never make it faster, than DSP, regardless of its power. It is actually really important for audio processing things. Most DSP - is very special devices, for special processing purposes only. Reverbs, for example. Or accurate mixing! ...Or accurate modulation effects.... Or any processing! Any modern DSP, will make it faster and better, than any "universal multicore CPU". It is funny, BUT IT IS THE OBJECTIVE TRUTH!

In serious big studios, You will newer find Apple Logic, Cubase, or Presonus Studio One DAW`s, as a master DAW. You will find a small parts of VST plugins also! All serious producers works with analog equipments, or big Avid Pro Tools hardware DAW - its is industrial reference! PC based DAWS - it is for home use only, or non-industrial use. Ok. In Russia, in Moscow we have big musical studio, it is call as Mosfilm Studios (https://music.mosfilm.ru/en/studio-2/). Just look for equipment studio list! Did You see "Apple Logic" here? "Cubase Pro"??? Or any other "modern famous DAW", or non DSP based plugins??? And will NEWER SEE! And look: all D8B effects - is DSP-based also! It will not working, without DSP cards!

...As You see, nobody in serious musical industry, use Logic, or Cubase for serious music production, and nobody use internal clock for equipment syncs... ...I use Cubase as midi seq only! Not any audio processing from this DAW, exclude some VSTi SYNTHS, and only TWO VST, FabFilter 2, and Autopanner! I dont use DAW software mixer for any audio processing, exclude outputs of VST synths to ADAT ports! That's is! I hope, I give You usable information, for Your technological evolutioning!

[Y-my-R]

To answer what Steve actually asked in the last question:

Cheap Word Clock cables work out "most of the time", but sometimes there's quality issues with how the cables were assembled, which could result in the cable picking up too much interference and messing with the transmitted clock signal, which can lead to additional jitter, that would not be present with a better cable.

There's ALWAYS some jitter, regardless of the quality of the clock generator. But the goal is to minimize it as much as possible. Better quality cables can help with that.

So, would you likely be able to get the D8B to lock to your audio interfaces word clock signal with that cheap cable - yeah, most likely. But there's a potential that you might get more jitter/interference with the clock signal, which would have a negative impact on the audio quality. If you don't really know what it sounds like if you have a connection with a lot of jitter, you might not even hear it right away. It's not like noticing "oh, there was jitter!". It's more subtle than that.

So, if you just want to get it all set up and working, a cheap word clock cable should do the job. Once you get serious enough about the whole thing, where you notice quality differences between your mixes and others, and can't figure out what you did wrong... that's when I'd start looking into how good your word clock generator (e.g. in the audio interface or in the D8B) is, and if it's necessary to invest in an external Master Clock Generator (e.g. Big Ben... or something like the Lucid unit I'm using... Aardvark used to make one, etc.), and better quality cables.

My recommendation to get started, would be to get that cheap cable and get it all to sync/work together and take it from there.

About the opinions Angelo shared... back in the 90's and early 2000's, Pro Tools was IT for sure, and all the pro studios did use that. Things changed a lot since then, and "pro studios" have been shutting down everywhere, and more and more productions get done at home... sometimes using Pro Tools, sometimes other DAWs. Nowadays, it's a personal preference.

Pro Tools, IMO, is still garbage when it comes to composing electronic music with MIDI. It's possible (Angelo is proof of that), but a PITA, compared to using other DAWs for MIDI based composing.

Pro Tools, however, has some of the fastest workflows for recording bands. So, if my business was to record bands for a living, I'd probably use Pro Tools for that. (You really only take advantage of that, once you have dozens of Pro Tools shortcuts/key commands memorized, and can fly through a session mostly without touching the mouse).

...but I don't record bands for a living. So, I sold the (DSP based) Pro Tools HD system I had many years ago.

In fact, I had two systems. A Pro Tools HD|2 system I got free when I worked for Avid (the 96 I/O converter I had sounded horrible - much worse than more modern budget audio interfaces), and another HD|2 system from when I worked for another well known audio company, that I got free when they threw it out, because it was a PCI-X based system. It only worked with G5 Mac computers (or PC's with PCI-X slots), and that just wasn't doing what other "native CPU" based systems could do by now, when equipped with an Intel i7 processor (or i9 by now).

It's true that latency is an issue - and you're likely to run into this. Your MOTU interface will probably have a round-trip latency of between 8-13 milliseconds. Probably fine if you get it to work at 8 ms... but if you try to record a drummer and do software monitoring at something like 13 milliseconds, it might throw the drummer off a bit.

Because of that, I use the PreSonus Quantum interface, that gives me less than 1 ms latency. Nobody will able to tell the difference between that, and a DSP based system when it comes to latency. So, DSP is not necessarily the answer.

For people who don't mind being stuck on older version of the software, and not being able to use modern plug-ins, etc. (the FabFilter stuff is actually really good, and used by a lot of Pro studios), that's all good. But most people moved on to either newer Pro Tools HDX or "Pro Tools Native" systems, or just moved away from Pro Tools altogether. It's still the "industry standard" for "Professional Studios" that record bands as their main source of income... but such studios are getting less and less. And Pro Tools has long been outdone by other DAWs, when it comes to features that are more important for "at home" songwriters and home-producers. Pro Tools just isn't that practical for that.

...and for what it's worth, I had Grammy-nominated co-workers and was one of the guys authorized to pick up "celebrity" and endorsed artist calls when doing Tech Support... a lot of these well known cats use different DAWs to write music. One pretty famous dude even used Garage Band as his main DAW (...and still called in with questions constantly... sigh...), where he wrote and "prepared" all his songs, before taking them to a "real" studio to get produced properly.

Long story short, I wouldn't get too hung up on any of this, and just make work what you got. You don't have to get the best thing "on paper" right away, to start using your gear and make awesome music. Some of the most productive times in my life were, when I had to sell all my gear (long story) and had only a laptop and a portable audio interface to go along with it. I wrote/recorded more songs with that than I ever did, when I had access to a full studio...

So, while it might have a positive impact on the last bit of extra sound quality, if you get that Master Clock Generator, awesome converters, a DSP based system to avoid latency... and...and...and... I'd just start out with using what you have, and start doing what's most important and what this is all about: Write and record some music.

If you DON'T invest in an external Master Clock Generator, then I'd recommend to use your MOTU interface as the Master, and the D8B as the slave. The MOTU clock is newer, so I'd expect it to be better (lower jitter). But experiment with both, and listen if you hear a difference... and I bet that you will not hear it. It takes quite a bit of experience to notice this sort of thing, so I don't think it's all that important if you're just getting into it more seriously.

Here's an article that is trying to evaluate if you need a Master Clock or not... basically, the conclusion is, that most of the time, in a simple "Digital Pre-Amp/Line-In unit + Audio Interface" setup, it's best to use the clock from the unit you use the inputs on, since this creates the least sync issues/jitter (if I remember it right - didn't read in years):

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques ... ster-clock

So, per this article, if you were to use the D8B's line-inputs and Pres primarily, you might want to try using the D8B as the clock master, actually. But I'm sceptical when it comes to such an old clock vs. something newer. So, just try, and trust your ears.

A Master Clock starts making a lot of sense, once your setup gets more complex, and you need multiple units run of the same clock. I dodged it for MANY years, and eventually gave in, more for the convenience of things, than for the sound, really.

Having said that, plenty of former co-workers were SWEARING that imaging and jitter improved tremendously, when they added a Master Clock... but that was the same guys who couldn't tell what's a 44.1 kHz vs a 96 kHz recording in a blind test shootout we did at the company back then (I couldn't hear it either, which is why I don't mind working in 44.1 kHz, still - 48 kHz is more common if you do audio for video, btw. Otherwise, I'd stick with 44.1), so I wouldn't take this all that seriously.

Long story short... just get the cheap word clock cable for now. You can worry about all this other stuff once you're knee-deep in producing music for television or when things are taking off in one or the other way for you (Good luck with that... most of us never make it to that point... that's why I'm just in "industry guy" who works behind the curtains).

Even then... a lot of the stuff you hear on the radio nowadays, are home-productions. Heck, even a Madonna album from the late 90's (forgot which) was some dude who produced it all at home... I think with Logic and something like a Echo interface or something. It's really a pretty flat playing field by now. And I've been in this industry since the 90s.

Core message: Just get it working first. Worry about the extra bit of sound quality, etc., later.

[angelotaylor]

To answer what Steve actually asked in the last question:

Cheap Word Clock cables work out "most of the time", but sometimes there's quality issues with how the cables were assembled, which could result in the cable picking up too much interference and messing with the transmitted clock signal, which can lead to additional jitter, that would not be present with a better cable.

There's ALWAYS some jitter, regardless of the quality of the clock generator. But the goal is to minimize it as much as possible. Better quality cables can help with that.

So, would you likely be able to get the D8B to lock to your audio interfaces word clock signal with that cheap cable - yeah, most likely. But there's a potential that you might get more jitter/interference with the clock signal, which would have a negative impact on the audio quality. If you don't really know what it sounds like if you have a connection with a lot of jitter, you might not even hear it right away. It's not like noticing "oh, there was jitter!". It's more subtle than that.

So, if you just want to get it all set up and working, a cheap word clock cable should do the job. Once you get serious enough about the whole thing, where you notice quality differences between your mixes and others, and can't figure out what you did wrong... that's when I'd start looking into how good your word clock generator (e.g. in the audio interface or in the D8B) is, and if it's necessary to invest in an external Master Clock Generator (e.g. Big Ben... or something like the Lucid unit I'm using... Aardvark used to make one, etc.), and better quality cables.

My recommendation to get started, would be to get that cheap cable and get it all to work sync/work together and take it from there.

About the opinions Angelo shared... back in the 90's and early 2000's, Pro Tools was IT for sure, and all the pro studios did use that. Things changed a lot since then, and "pro studios" have been shutting down everywhere, and more and more productions get done at home... sometimes using Pro Tools, sometimes other DAWs. Nowadays, it's a personal preference.

Pro Tools, IMO, is still garbage when it comes to composing electronic music with MIDI. It's possible, but a PITA. Pro Tools, however, has some of the fastest workflows for recording bands. So, if my business was to record bands for a living, I'd probably use Pro Tools for that.

...but I don't. So, I sold the (DSP based) Pro Tools HD system I had many years ago.

In fact, I had two systems. A Pro Tools HD|2 system I got free when I worked for Avid, and another HD|2 system when I worked for another well known audio company, when they threw out the PCI-X based system, since it only worked with G5 Mac computers, and that just wasn't doing what other "native CPU" based systems could do by now, when equipped with an Intel i7 processor (or i9 by now).

For people who don't mind being stuck on older version of the software, and not being able to use modern plug-ins, etc., that's all good. But most people moved on to either newer Pro Tools HDX or "Pro Tools Native" systems, or just moved away from Pro Tools altogether. It's still the "industry standard" for "Professional Studios" that record bands as their main source of income... but it's long been outdone by other DAWs, when it comes to features that are more important for "at home" songwriters and home-producers. Pro Tools just isn't that practical for that.

...and for what it's worth, I had Grammy-nominated co-workers and was one of the guys authorized to pick up "celebrity" and endorsed artist calls when doing Tech Support... a lot of these cats use different DAWs to write music. One pretty famous dude even used Garage Band as his main DAW, where he wrote and "prepared" all his songs, before taking them to a "real" studio to get produced properly.

Long story short, I wouldn't get too hung up on any of this, and just make work what you got. You don't have to get the best thing "on paper" right away, to start using your gear and make awesome music. Some of the most productive times in my life were, when I had only a laptop and a portable audio interface to go along with it. I wrote/recorded more songs with that...

So, while it might have a positive impact on the last bit of extra sound quality, if you get that Master Clock Generator, awesome converters, a DSP based system to avoid latency... and...and...and... I'd just start out with using what you have, and start doing what's most important and what this is all about: Write and record some music.

If you DON'T invest in an external Master Clock Generator, then I'd recommend to use your MOTU interface as the Master, and the D8B as the slave. The MOTU clock is newer, so I'd expect it to be better (lower jitter). But experiment with both, and listen if you hear a difference... and I bet that you will not. It takes quite a bit of experience to notice this sort of thing, so I don't think it's all that important if you're just getting into it more seriously.

Here's an article that is trying to evaluate if you need a Master Clock or not... basically, the conclusion is, that most of the time, in a simple "Digital Pre-Amp/Line-In unit + Audio Interface" setup, it's best to use the clock from the unit you use the inputs on, since this creates the least sync issues/jitter (if I remember it right - didn't read in years):

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques ... ster-clock

A Master Clock starts making a lot of sense, once your setup gets more complex, and you need multiple units run of the same clock.

Having said that, plenty of former co-workers were SWEARING that imaging and jitter improved tremendously, when they added a Master Clock... but that was the same guys who couldn't tell what's a 44.1 kHz vs a 96 kHz recording in a blind test shootout we did at the company back then (I couldn't hear it either, which is why I don't mind working in 44.1 kHz, still - 48 kHz is more common if you do audio for video, btw. Otherwise, I'd stick with 44.1), so I wouldn't take this all that seriously.

Long story short... just get the cheap word clock cable for now. You can worry about all this other stuff once you're knee-deep in producing music for television or when things are taking off for you (Good luck with that... most of us never make it to that point... that's why I'm just in "industry guy" who works behind the curtains).

Thank you so much for this great addition to my information!

[spmonkay]

Thanks a lot for the info from some people who know a lot more than I do!

To be honest in some ways id like to utilise the d8b because I think ive go distracted with all the bells and whistles you get with daws!! Where with the D8b your kind of restricted! I honestly think music nowadays is a lot less interesting and I'm wondering if its because its all there, all you need and more! You can cut and paste, correct mistakes etc and I think you'd probably find a lot of the best parts of songs in the past were probably formed from mistakes! I go back to, say, pink Floyd dark side of the moon! They didn't have a daw then but wow what an epic album with some incredible sounds and production. I think sometimes less is more! When you have so much available at your hands it can stifle your creativity.

Ive been thinking Id like to mainly give the d8b a crack with very little use of the daw for this exact reason, free the creativity and go a bit old school. So if that's the case could somebody explain to me how that would work regarding how would you record a track? Like I said ive never used a d8b so not really sure how it works in terms of where the track is recorded too! Does it record to the d8b hard disk and then you somehow move that to the daw after do you setup for the recording goingthrough the d8b and into the daw on a track? I think im a little confused of the process! I will basically be recording guitar, bass and some synths and drums from my Maschine mk3 which I could do from my laptop into the d8b or directly into the daw!

Without sounding like a complete fool!! Which I probably have 10 times over , Im used to just working direct into a daw.
I used to use a fostex 4 track a long time ago!! Like I said this is a learning curve for me!

Just to give a bit of background, ive been a few bands since the early 90's, had a couple of our songs sky sports surfing program, that's about the only claim to fame! My main influence is 90's rock bands, pearl jam, soundgarden, blind melon etc..... and my thinking is a lot of there early stuff was probably recorded on a d8b or similar. My musical influence is probably the sort of thing I write. Hoping this may explain or give some kind of idea of what I would like to achieve.

Thanks again for all your advice ive learnt an amazing amount from this project already!

[Y-my-R]

If you want to go for an old-school 24-Channel mixer and 24-Track tape-machine workflow, then I'd suggest to look for a Mackie HDR, and ditch the computer/DAW altogether.

The D8B doesn't have a built-in recorder, like some modern digital mixers do. But there's a 24-Track digital recorder hardware unit, called the HDR 24/96, that was designed to be the "recorder unit", for a D8B based studio system (plus, there's some other variants of compatible recorders, such as the MDR, SDR, etc.).

So, if you want to get away from the DAW, and go with the old school workflow, getting a compatible Mackie recorder unit might be the answer. Great sounding and well integrated 24-Track mixer/recorder combo.

And some of the recorder units also allow you to connect a monitor, and use some basic editing/arranging features on the recorder, that work similar to how they work in a DAW on a a Mac/PC.

...but there's no MIDI sequencing (other than some automation recording), so... DAW-less isn't the answer for everyone, I guess.

You could treat your computer/DAW as just another musical instrument that you record to your 24-track through the D8B in that case, instead of using the DAW as the "central" of your audio setup.

If you don't need to have the computer be at the center, then an HDR/MDR/SDR may be just the answer for you.

Very "old school"

[spmonkay]

How about this??

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mackie-SDR-2 ... Swz8teckE5

[angelotaylor]

How about this??

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mackie-SDR-2 ... Swz8teckE5

I think - it is good choice!