Too many weird rig behaviours. HELP NEEDED!!!

[fradenigris]

Hello everybody,
my system

OSX 10.6
PT HD 2 8.1.1
Rosetta 800 with X-HD card
192 I/O
888 24

Setup 1:

Rosetta master clock to Core Card
192 to accel card
888 to 192 legacy port

Rosetta WC out to EXT clock in of 192
192 EXT clock out to 888

In ProTools Hardware Setup clock is set to Rosetta (shown as Digital 192) Internal.

Everything comes up fine and works ok except that every few hours I get the "A timeout occurred interacting with an audio interface" error. Not sure which interface is related to the problem. Only clue is that I get a "source to analog outs" Option led blinking on the Rosetta. A shut down of the unit is needed as well as a ProTools reboot.
VERY ANNOYING.

Setup 2:

Rosetta master clock to Core Card
192 to accel card
888 to 192 legacy port

Rosetta WC out to Loop sync clock in of 192
192 EXT clock out to 888

In ProTools Hardware Setup clock is set to Rosetta (shown as Digital 192) Internal.

Everything comes up fine but when selecting higher sample rates (88.2 and 96 kHz) the 192 looses the Loop Sync (led goes blinking) and emits clicks and pops.

Setup 3:

192 master clock to Core Card
Rosetta to accel card
888 to 192 legacy port

192 EXT clock out to WC in of Rosetta

In ProTools Hardware Setup clock is set to 192 Internal.

The Rosetta won't sync to the 192 (Narrow and Wide leds are off) and it won't pass any audio unless its Clock Source is not set to Ext.

Setup 4:

192 master clock to Core Card
Rosetta to accel card
888 to 192 legacy port

192 Loop Sync clock out to WC in of Rosetta
192 EXT clock out to WC in of Rosetta

In ProTools Hardware Setup clock is set to 192 Internal.

Everything comes up fine, Rosetta syncs to the 192 clock (Wide and Narrow leds lit on) but it won't pass any audio. Only the 192 and the 888 are working.

In the end, NONE of the possible Setups is working ok!

Tried trashing stuff, reinstalling ProTools, swapping cables, everything I could think of.
ANY SUGGESTIONS?
Thank you.

[notable]

Avid hardwAre often likes being the first device. I would try 192 Ist position and rosetta on second cable connection. Skip the 888 initially. Skip apogee clocking initially. Rosetta is ext. 192 is master.
On mac use 10.6.8
Repair permissions in drive utility.
See if that is stable. If it is ,
add 888 to legacy position and use t shaped wc bnc splits for clocking. If that kills it... Get a separate clock. I could sell you a very cheap aardvark that would go to all these unit simultaneously. I had a similar set up that sounded great and was stable for years. Good testing! Dan

[JFreak]

You need to know few things first.

888 is a 48kHz box, not possible to run higher sampling rates with that box.

888 needs 256x superclock which the 192 provides from the ext.clock output when you have set it to legacy port.

Rosetta needs normal 1x wordclock which you can steal from 192 loop sync output.

Think about these and keep the 192 as clock master and you have better chance to succed. And do not connect anything back to 192 loop sync input in this setup.

[fradenigris]

Thanks Janne,
I know about the 888 limitations.
What you suggest is exactly what I did in my Setup 4, but in such setup the Rosetta won't pass any audio!

[JFreak]

Are you sure you have proper settings in the Rosetta box? You can find those out if you only connect that box (wihtout 192/888) and test that the box passes audio both ways. I have one such box and it is not always the most straightforward to set it up -- sometimes you need to cycle through the settings even though something seems to be in the right setting, it sometimes is working after you set it up again.

Also, do you have V2 or V3 firmware installed? AFAIK, you need V2 for old system (therefore the box appearing as 192 digital) and V3 shouldn't work (box appearing as Avid HD Digital).

[fradenigris]

Rosetta is set up properly. When it's master it works both ways, when slaved it shows up as 192 Digital, syncs to the 192, but there's no way to make it Pass any audio. My guess is that its WC in is not right to accept Loop Sync out from the 192. Maybe I could solve that with a SYNC IO unit. But it would fine for me to just have the Rosetta as master clock and not having the Timeout error every three hours or so! That way (Setup 1 of my first post) system works fine but is just not stable

[notable]

Regretably, when I tried adding a SYNC Hd to fix inconsistent clocking and the annoying need to change my clock manually at the top of each session with a separate master clock (Big Ben) it didn't solve the issue either. It adds a new problem and doesn't fix the old. The new issue is ....When the pro tools software is on and the units are on but not in a session, the Sync HD goes nuts and chooses non-helpful (fractions of the previous rate) sample rates and the other units go haywire. The system already reacted badly when changing sample rates and would cause booting of sessions when I could see audio on the meters but not hear it coming out of the days and would only be fixed by restarting and deselecting the clock source. With the sync he causing strange clock rates between sessions the problem is aggravated. Are you guys using T connectors and terminators or just going directly into the word clock bncs? I'm hoping avid takes a look at their firmware for the sync units and adds a default that stays on the previous sample rate when it between pro tools sessions.

[JFreak]

Loop Sync is always 1x base freq AFAIK, so if you have 96k session then loop sync is 48k and your Rosetta assumes 96k -- therefore that won't work.

And... ext.clock is 256x superclock when legacy port is selected. Though in 96k session it is disabled, but I haven't tested whether ext.clock reverts back to normal or if it stays 256x when you have it selected. So, just to be sure, turn that to expansion port and ext.clock will act normal.

When you set it up for 96k you should leave the 888 box not connected and only think about what you do with Rosetta and Digi interfaces. You can daisy-chain them together or have them connected to different cards, that does not make any difference. Clocking though, well... you have tried almost everything but now in this (96k) situation it should be very simple: either Rosetta is the clock master and you feed its clock output to Digi box clock input (ext.input, not loop sync input) OR Digi box is the clock master and you feed its clock output to Rosetta clock input.