Aggregate Device, Maxxed Out I/O

[MSFilmScorer5]

*Cue Suspenseful Music*

Greetings!

I am new (as a user) to this forum but I'm fairly familiar with the community. I have been a Pro Tools user since 7.4 with my 002. I was ecstatic when 9 was released and open to 3rd party interfaces. I am currently running 9.0.6 and I know am reaching the full recording and mixing potential of PT so much so that HD | Native is becoming a consideration. Here's the issue though:

Avid claims that it will support 32 inputs, which I assume is true seeing as I cannot test it. I have a X32 Rack running channels 1-16 to ADAT Ins 1 and 2 on a Focusrite LS56, then the LS56 and a Steinberg MR816x run to two of my 4 available firewire 800 ports. Everything clocks correctly, etc, etc. Obviously with this setup I had to create an Aggregate Device; however, the aggregated device recognizes all potential 44 inputs although gear is only plugged into 4 inputs.

When I choose the aggregate device in PT it lays out the inputs as follows:
LS56 Analog inputs (1-8)
LS56 SPDIF (9-10) *unused*
LS56 ADAT 1 (11-18) -> X32 Channels 1-8
LS56 ADAT 2 (19-26) -> X32 Channels 9-16
LS56 "Loopback" (27-28) *unused*
MR816 Analog Inputs (29-36)
MR816 ADAT (37-44) *unused*

Even if I make the SPDIF and "Loopback" inactive, remove them, or try to reorder them, PT still forces them to be recognized as 9-10 and 27-28. This causes me to only be able to use 4 of my 8 analog inputs on my MR816 which is completely unacceptable. Heck, I'd settle for losing inputs on the X32 before losing the MR816.

Why is there no way to get 32 inputs of your choosing regardless of what's recognized?! If PT would acknowledge that I've disabled those inputs I could assign those 4 to analog channels 5-8 on the MR816. This last 48 hours has been extremely frustrating seeing as I would prefer not to track in cubase and then transfer everything over to PT as I've done before.

So Avid, why did you lie and advertise this mindblowing customizable I/O change when, in fact, it's useless if PT determines what your maxxed out configuration has to be.

SB: I also own an Eleven Rack so if there is a fix to this issue, I would gladly sacrifice two of those X32 channels coming through ADAT to incorporate my 11 Rack into this aggregate device.

[Darryl Ramm]

Ah but Avid did not lie about clearly stating they do not support aggregate IO except for adding Built-In Output to a device... which it sounds like you know.

Generally aggregate IO is so bad you should not be using it unless it's with a vendor that goes out of their way to support it. And your Eleven Rack should be connected up as an outboard effects box using S/PDIF or AES/EBU to your interface.

Besides that you want help... I don't have a similar setup in front of me mown, but what OS X version are you on, aggregate IO configurability changed, actually got more user friendly and confusing at the same time in recent OS X releases. Post screenshots of your aggregate IO setup and your input, output and bus IO pages and you might get somebody who can help. And why don't you just start by putting the MR816 first in the aggregate device?

[Avid]

Pro Tools has never supported multiple interfaces and isn't advertised as having that capability. Aggregate Audio is only used to combine Mac input & output so you can use both (since Pro Tools only uses 1 device at a time).

See http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/FAQ/en383491

[MSFilmScorer5]

I am seeking a workaround for this or a referral of any products that have 4 ADAT inputs and can connect to PT as a single device through FW or USB. OR...is it worth upgrading to PT HD with my setup? Is my setup HD compatible? Hmmm.

Setup Details:
2009 Mac Pro / 3.32 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon / 32 GB Ram / OS X 10.8.5
Steingberg MR816 (FW400-800) / Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 (FW400-800) / Behringer X32 Rack (ADAT Channels 1-16 to LS56)
Pro Tools 9.0.6 LE

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by MSFilmScorer5

I am seeking a workaround for this or a referral of any products that have 4 ADAT inputs and can connect to PT as a single device through FW or USB. OR...is it worth upgrading to PT HD with my setup? Is my setup HD compatible? Hmmm.

Setup Details:
2009 Mac Pro / 3.32 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon / 32 GB Ram / OS X 10.8.5
Steingberg MR816 (FW400-800) / Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 (FW400-800) / Behringer X32 Rack (ADAT Channels 1-16 to LS56)
Pro Tools 9.0.6 LE

Good to see this thread is open again, and hopefully you can get some help here.

Pro Tools HD will not help you at all unless you are going to switch to Digilink (Avid or third party) interfaces, they aggregate at the physical hardware level, not CoreAudio Aggregate IO. Very very different. Pro Tools HD software with CoreAudio interfaces behaves exactly the same as Pro Tools standard. If you need lots of IO with good stability and has to work with Pro Tools, then HD software and Digilink hardware (including Focusrite RedNet) is the way to go today.

Going Digilink requires a HD software licenses and that's going to cost you thousands of dollars more.

If you like Focusrite stuff and want to go HD then you you can put together very nice setups using Rednet devices that support Digilink (as well as Dante and even Thunderbolt like the Red4 Pre) or Digilink to Dante boxes (like the HD32R) and the RedNet 3 has lots of ADAT. But all this could rapidly become a mess, maybe more for folks who like the idea of RedNet/Dante and see this as a way to get there. Still I'd consider it.

I'm wondering if you could do what you need with just a Red4 Pre via Thunderbolt and Pro Tools standard? Maybe use the analog IO for some of your connections. (Red4 Pre is on my want list, I don't have one).

Other things to look at are the UAD Apollo Thunderbolt interfaces... that support thunderbolt chaining and some of the MOTU Thunderbolt interfaces (I'm less familiar with those). Usual warning with UAD applies, if you like/want to use, and pay for their (very good) plugins then get an Apollo. Just be aware of the addiction, cost and DSP count issues there

[MSFilmScorer5]

I took an initial interested to the RedNet devices prior to getting the X32 Rack. I will look into those. Dante was also another option I thought about. My live rig (stationary at venue) is an Allen & Heath T112 running Dante into DP. The rig I'm working on now is for smaller projects and a faster workflow because I still end up importing all of my DP stuff to PT to work.

Anywho, here are some screenshots of what I was referring to earlier. Notice how the inputs that aren't being used were disabled in one case and completely deleted in the other but nothing changed in the pro tools layout. If there were a way to trick pro tools to realizing nothing is in 9-10 and 27-28 then I'd be golden.

Pro Tools IO Disabled Unused 1.jpg

Pro Tools IO Disabled Unused 2.jpg

Pro Tools IO Deleted Unused.jpg

[Darryl Ramm]

The screen shot attachments don't work. Try agai using the paperclip icon on the editor to attach the screenshots. Ideally GIF or PNG image files of the relevant windows/panels at full screen resolution.

[MSFilmScorer5]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

The screen shot attachments don't work. Try agai using the paperclip icon on the editor to attach the screenshots. Ideally GIF or PNG image files of the relevant windows/panels at full screen resolution.

*fixed*

[Darryl Ramm]

Yikes, you know you can pull the IO page down (grab tab at lower right corner) to expand it to see everything at once.

And screenshots for Output and Bus bit most importantly the Audio/Midi Setup Aggregate IO page... and what version of OS X you are running...

[MSFilmScorer5]

What happened? Were they extremely large? They were small on my screen sorry. I'm running OSX 10.8.5 on a Mac Pro. I'm searching focusrite forums to see if loopback can be disabled. If all else fails I guess I could always gain at least 2 of my 4 lost MR816 inputs back by sending the signal to the LS56 through SPDIF.