Quote:
Originally Posted by Sheldon Radford
Hi Brad,
Great to see you on the DUC. Thanks for contributing!
Well, this is uncharted (and untested) territory but let's go there and see what happens...
In theory, it can be done...with caveats. One major limitation to "Y"-ing the outputs (using a passive BNC T-split connection, I'm assuming) is that it cuts the effective snake length in half. So max 250 feet using high quality cable. Also, the cable on both sides of the T-split needs to be the exact same length in order to minimize reflections (curse you laws of physics and transmission lines!). So even if the backup FOH Rack rack was located next to the Stage rack the same amount of cable is needed as the longest run.
Things would look a little weird on the backup FOH Rack as well. It wouldn't know there's a Stage Rack due to the single-ended snake connection, but it would still get the audio. There'd be no gain control, either, as that's controlled by the master FOH Rack. But in theory it all would work and you'd have a redundant record rig.
An alternate arrangement would be to forego the redundant snake option and simply use the second snake output from Stage Rack to feed the slave FOH Rac, since audio is present on both snake outputs at all times. The advantages to this approach are that separate cable lengths can be used for the main and backup runs, and no T-splits are involved.
Again, all of this is speculative and untested. Do not risk a major recording event (or your career) on it! 
Sheldon |
Has anybody tried this approach of a second FOH rack for redundant recording? Can a second FOH rack be used as a slave, without control surface attached, to access inputs 1-48 into a 2nd Pro Tools HD recorder?
If I recall I saw a thread earlier stating that while the signal on the digital snake from stage to FOH is not madi, it can be converted to optical and back on an RME madi splitter. So my question is can the RME madi splitter be used to split to 2 FOH racks for redundant HD recorders?