Pro Tools aggregate question
 

Hey everyone!

I'm trying to use a saffire pro 40, and a scarlette 2i2 with pro tools. It's not a problem getting them to show up and work together, it's just that things show up in a strange way in the i/o. With just the saffire, my "analog" section just shows the 8 analog inputs which is expected. When I use aggregate, everything gets labeled funny; numbers and inputs/outputs are strange looking with one stereo input being for example 1-2, the next set is 2-3, but they correspond to analog 1-2, 3-4, etc. some inputs will be spidf/adat corresponding to analog 9 and spidf 1. Everything just gets laid out in a funny way. Anybody know why this would happen? Is that just the name of the game when doing an aggregate? Having to rename everything and just find what belongs to what?

Thanks in advance!

Re: Pro Tools aggregate question
 

Ok, I can rename everything and it's fine in that regard; still not sure why it shows up and is labeled so funny, however I have a different issue which I'm sure was there from the start, but I just didn't notice.

My secondary device is popping and crackling. The saffire pro 40 is alright when recording with, but the scarlette 2i2 has pops and clicks when arming a track and playing through it. Anyone have any ideas as to why?

I have both clock sources in "audio midi setup" set to the same sample rate, and the scarlette has drift correction checked.

Re: Pro Tools aggregate question
 

Popping and crackling may be par for the course. Especially if there is no way of externally synchronizing the devices.

Avid specifically does not support aggregating drives like you are tying to use them. All they claim to support is aggregating Built-In output with other interfaces. How well this works is critically depended on the drivers, and some vendors do much better here than others (e.g. aggregating together MOTU drivers). I have no idea if Focusrite claim aggregation works with Pro Tools and their interfaces or not, and which ones, but since you are doing something Avid does not want to claim is supported in general they may be the best place to ask.

My starting assumption is what you are trying to do will not work well.

Reliable large IO counts are frequently best achieved by Pro Tool HD/Digilink devices or by say adding ADAT/SMUX preamps to existing interfaces that support ADAT/SMUX inputs. Since you have a Saffire pro 40, if you wanted to add to that IO the likely only thing I'd look at is an ADAT/SMUX preamp (or selling everything and getting a bigger interface, messing around aggregating a lowly 2i2 is likely a waste of time for any small return, and likely large pile of problems).

As far as naming Pro Tools can't reliably tell what is in your aggregate. Set up what you want in audio/midi setup. Try defaulting the IO in Pro Tools and manually editing to fix things as needed and then save that setup. Or start by loading the Saffire Pro 40 IO setup and edit that. Again not how I'd approach this problem.

Re: Pro Tools aggregate question
 

Cool! Thanks so much Darryl! I figured that was the case; Sketchy aggregation. I only needed one additional input, so I figured I'd try the scarlette since it was laying around.

Thanks again, Darryl!