RADAR ADA II & HDX Integration Questions
 

Hi, I’m trying to figure out how to get my AES lines into my new HDX rig. Details follow. I will try to detail the configuration and a little background too. In advance, any help or insight is appreciated.

I’ve been running PT Vanilla for years with a Radar 24/Studio connected to a pair of Lynx Aurora AES16e PCIe cards. It is a workable solution but it’s a hack, latency with Native systems is always a challenge and I’m just sick of it. I plan on taking the Radar Studio I’ve been on out of the picture and use it for remote gigs exclusively.

I’ve invested in an HDX card for my cheesgrater MacPro and a pair of RADAR ADA II units giving me 48 Analog I/O (AD & DA). With one Radar HDX MADI card (basically an SSL DeltaLink brain) in just one of the ADA IIs, I should be able to setup all 48 channels of I/O utilizing both DigiLink ports and some MADI cables.

Topology for single HDX card in MacPro (sorry, this is verbose and very descriptive):

DigiLink Port 1 - HDX Ch 1-32: MacPro->HDX Card-> DigiLink Cable 1 - ADA II HDX card in ADA II #1 (port a) -> MADI to ADA II #1 (gives me access to RADAR ADA #1’s 24 channels on HDX 1-24 leaving HDX 25-32 open and unused)

DigiLink Port 2 - HDX Ch 33-64: MacPro-> HDX Card -> DigiLink Cable 2 -> ADA II HDX card in ADA II #1 (port b) -> MADI to ADA II #2 (gives me access to RADAR ADA #2’s 24 channels on HDX 33-57 leaving HDX 58-64 open and unused)

All fine and good, but I still need to integrate my 16 channels of AES digital into that setup. I have HDX 25-32 open on Port 1 and HDX 58-64 open on Port 2. Is there a way I can split MADI somehow and utilize an AES interface to plug in my AES to those unused channels.....

Or must I bite the bullet and get another HDX card and an Avid I/O with two AES 8ch cards in the back?

Thanks for reading and any thoughts or suggestions.

Re: RADAR ADA II & HDX Integration Questions
 

You do have a PT HD or Ultimate License to run the HEX card right? Vanilla won’t work with the HDX card, you need a HD license.

Re: RADAR ADA II & HDX Integration Questions
 

Yes, I do have an Ultimate license.

Re: RADAR ADA II & HDX Integration Questions
 

Great. Just wanted to make sure :-)

Re: RADAR ADA II & HDX Integration Questions
 

There are ways to do what you want but I can’t think of any that will be as cheap as another HDX plus interface.

Euphonix and SSL used to make MADI routers. With MADI you can do “substitutions” for every 8 channels which allows you to inject other audio into the MADI stream. In your case, you need to replace the 4th and 8th group of 8. If you aren’t used to Euphonix System 5 hardware, that would be a hard one to maintain. The SSL MADI X8 is a lot easier to understand (But you still need to convert your AES to MADI first with a stand-alone converter)

RME still makes MADI routers and AES/MADI converters where you can do things like this.

But at some point you will cross $4500 with these solutions and then it’s just cheaper to go with HDX + interface.

Re: RADAR ADA II & HDX Integration Questions
 

BScout, this is kinda what I figured but I didn’t want to miss something obvious that was free-ish. I sincerely appreciate you helping me out.