Pro I/O

[steve78]

I have a Digidesign PRO I/O box, (as per label on the bottom of the unit) and I am wondering how in the world to hook it up into a system. It is a 2 ch audio in/out box with a clock sync and a video sync. It is a 1 u unit, black in color. The back has 2 Male, and 2 Female xlr connectors as well as the sync BNC connectors. The port for connecting to a computer is a standard serial DB25 connector. I am wondering if I am suppose to just hook it to a serial port, and then just go or what. I want to hook into a TDM system to use as a master L/R mix down bus. I am going to be running Pro Tools 5.3.1 on my Mac G4 running os9.

If any one has used this box and knows anything about it, please let me know, since I can't find anything on this anywhere.

steve

[John_Toolbox]

The quick answer is that it won't work with your system. I'm pretty sure this box is older than pro tools III hardware. Couldn't tell you what card you'd need to use it, we're talking about early 90's nubus system. It really isn't worth messing with. Using it to fill an empty rack space is probably the most practical use for it.

If you want cheap I/O for a 5.1.3 system, look for a whiteface avid 888 on ebay, that will give you 8 ins and outs, your choice of analog or AES/EBU.

[milesofwire]

That I/O was for the Sound Tools system before Pro Tools even existed, I actually had a Sound Tools system many years ago.
The card that it hooked up to was called the Sound Accelerator Card, Which Toolbox was correct, was nubus and also would not even run in a Power PC Mac, In other words; It is super old.
You could hang onto it for many more years and it might end up having historical value, really...

[steve78]

Thanks Guys,

That is alot of help, now I know what in the world it was used with.

[steve78]

On a different note, I have 2 of the Avid 888, and 2 of the Avid 442. I am curious if there is a Y cable to hook 2 of the boxes into 1 DSP card, or do I need to run a DSP card per box?

I know that the number of DSP cards depends on the amount of plug in's I want to run and so on, depending on how much DSP power is needed. For the most part, I plan to use this system mainly as a recorder and play back, since I have a complete analog studio set up with out board gear and a nice soundcraft 1624 recording console. I plan on doing the mixes all on the console. The only thing I don't have as of yet are the actual DSP cards. I have a G4 with os9, and I have a avid PCI extender box as well, so if I need a number of DSP cards, that is not an issue, I can just get a SCSI card for the computer and then I will have a bunch of PCI slots available. Any thoughts on this?

[milesofwire]

The 442 I/O is also a Nubus relic, the Avid 888's could be used but they are only 16 bit.
The "Y" cables are only compatible with the D-24, Mix Core, and Mix Farm cards.
Also DSP farms need to have a Revision QC / QE AMMC chip to work with a G4.
Furthermore, you cant run a system with just DSP Farm cards, you will also need a core card as well.

Your best and cheapest core card would have to be a D-24 but you wont be able to use the 24 bits with the Avid 888's.
The absolute el'cheapo route would be a Pro Tools III core which is only 16 bit but I would not recomend it.

The best legacy ticket especially when mixing externally is a Mix setup with 888/24's (the ones with 24 bit DAC's)

Im not familiar with the Avid PCI expansion chassis, it most likely is either a SBS or Magna chassis though..
Do you also have the host card?

Anyway, hope this helps...

[John_Toolbox]

The avid 888's actually have 18 bit converters(not much better than 16, but a little bit better). What makes them cool for the price is they will pass 24 bit digitally through the AES/EBU ports, so they can be used with better converters like apogee(if they have AES I/O) .

If you don't have any cards yet, your best bet is to buy mix cards. A mix core has DSP, which both the d24 and ptiii cores do not. A single mix core card with a Y cable will handle both of your avid 888's. You will also need 2 interface cables(DB60 to SCSI-2) in addition to the Y cable. Obviously if you have more than one card the Y cable is not a necessity.

If you need a SCSI card or some drives, I have an atto UL2d and 2 9 gig digidrives for sale. Also probably have an interface cable or 2 I could spare.

[steve78]

This is great. I am starting to figure this out.

I have done a little reading on digi site in their legacy documents area, and from what I have read in there, I get the impression that as long as I have a core card like the mix core or d24, I can use any of the other cards like the mix farm, dsp farm, project disc i/o with either of the core card, it just depends what version of pro tools I have. Is this correct?

I have two versions of Pro Tools, 5.3.1 and 6.0, and I have both mac and windows for both.

[John_Toolbox]

The disk i/o is only useful as a core card in a ptiii setup. But yes, aside from that you can use mix farms or DSP farms or even more than one mix core, as long as you have one core card. Remember also that a d24 does not have any dsp, so if you have a mix core already the only function it will have is to add i/o.

[steve78]

Great, thanks for all the help, this is awesome.

Will the PTiii stuff work on pro tools 5.3.1?
Will any of the dsp or core cards support scsi drives? I have about 200gb of scsi drives that I was thinking of using on system.