Thread: Linking em up
View Single Post
  #4  
Old 11-29-2021, 09:56 AM
JFreak's Avatar
JFreak JFreak is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Tampere, Finland
Posts: 24,853
Default Re: Linking em up

Quote:
Originally Posted by martinh View Post
Hi, I have two IO 96 HD units and I wish to add two more. The manual is really unclear on how to do this without a second card or a y cable which seems impossible to buy.

Could someone who has been there and done it tell me the best way (if possible at all) to take me up to 32 (or 24) Channels of input on a Protools HD 8 system.
Manual clearly says that one card can daisy-chain two HD interface boxes, but only one OMNI in a system and no more, other boxes need to be other HD boxes. So anyway, if you need four boxes, you need two cards.

Connections are easy.

First be sure to have that ribbon cable delivered with your card, as you need to connect the cards together first. And be careful, you would think you connect A (core card) to B (process card) but it is just the opposite. It does not break anything if you do it, but your input numbers are wrong. So connect the ribbon from B connector on core card to A connector on next card, and so on.

Second you need to have two DigiLink cables from two cards to, say boxes number one and three. Then two short DigLink cables from box number one expansion port to box number two primary port, and same for boxes three and four.

Lastly you need word clock cables to create a Loop Sync between the boxes. There are two sets of clocking BNC interfaces in HD boxes, one pair for Loop Sync and another pair for external clocking. Here you only need Loop Sync. So first cable from box one Loop Sync output to box two Loop Sync input, and so on, until you close the loop by connecting yet another cable from box four Loop Sync output to box one Loop Sync input.

If you can follow instructions, this is all you need to have a four interface setup working (assuming all boxes, cables and cards are in working order).

There is no Y-cable for HD systems. It is always done the way I explained. The older blackface MIX systems had Y-cables, but those were 8-channel boxes (with capability of 16 inputs per card).
__________________
Janne
What we do in life, echoes in eternity.
Reply With Quote