Setting up outboard gear for the first time

[DerpSteps]

Originally Posted by nsureit

Keep in mind that you can’t use an insert in Pro Tools to route a track to the ASP-880 to use outboard gear attached to the 880. It won’t work that way. All your outboard processing must take place within the ASP-880 circuitry, then that processed signal will only route into Pro Tools as an ordinary input.

This is exactly what I was hoping to do from the start. I don't understand what it cannot be done in theory because there are ADAT in and out on both the devices.

So this means that I have to get another interface that has more physical I/Os or is there an ADAT device that is 'dumb' that I can use for this purpose to use in conjunction with the Symphony Desktop?

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by DerpSteps

This is exactly what I was hoping to do from the start. I don't understand what it cannot be done in theory because there are ADAT in and out on both the devices.

It cannot be done because you need matching pairs of Pro Tools outputs and inputs to run the hardware inserts between. Pro Tools has to be able to communicate with those IO, send signal out and read input from them. You do not have that here. The Pro Tools reference guide describes setting up hardware inserts fairly well.

And there is not ADAT in and out on both devices. There is ADAT out on the 880, it's going one way sending ADAT data to the Symphony. The 880 has no ADAT in, it has two TOSLINK ports, they are not in and out, they are both *outputs*... because it supports 8 channel S/MUX. The 880 knows nothing about what is going on here, it's just spewing data to Pro Tools. Pro Tools does not and cannot even tell what is there. If you wanted to do line level hardware inserts via ADAT you would need an ADAT based DAC to give you analog outputs from the ADAT out on the Symphony and then inset your outboard gear between those outputs and the line level inputs on the 880.

The mic inserts on the 880 are nothing but an analog connection between the mic preamp and rest of the analog circuit in the preamp. That's not the Pro Tools output and inputs you need, again Pro Tools cannot see any of that, it's all analog electronics in your preamp box.

As mentioned before, this stuff is likely not a good use of your time and you will likely get better sound, with a lot less hassle and less cost by using plugins. And many of the outboard gear folks try to start with is often just not that great. But hey if you have a few $100k of vintage outboard gear then by all means focus on connecting that up.

[nsureit]

Originally Posted by DerpSteps

So this means that I have to get another interface that has more physical I/Os or is there an ADAT device that is 'dumb' that I can use for this purpose to use in conjunction with the Symphony Desktop?

Remember, the ASP-880 in not an interface. It's simply an 8-channel preamp, and a good one at that. It can send signals to an interface, but can't receive any.

[albee1952]

A lightpipe preamp with both ADAT in AND out would allow you to create hardware inserts. One option that is a relative bargain is the Behringer ADA8200(don't scoff if you have not listened to one of these). Next up the "ladder" is the Focusrite OctroPre Dynamic(the non-Dynamic version lacks the ADAT input), but I think you might be hard pressed to hear a significant change in sound quality.

[Darryl Ramm]

And next up the ladder would probably be a RME ADI-8 DS Mk III. And I'd hope I'd be able to hear the difference between that and a Behringer. And since we are not actually going to blind test them I'll confidently claim I could

RME abandoned ADAT In on their nice 1610 Pro (arguably the replacement for the ADI-8) but kept ADAT Out. ADAT slowly giving way to all that networky stuff....

[DerpSteps]

Thanks for the info. I'm going to sell my Symphony Desktop and get the RME version ucxii that has a ton more ins and outs (same price) so I can run the Outboard gear. I'll switch from Pro Tools to Studio One so I can patch whatever ins and outs in the back and run the Faderport, which is way cheaper than the Avid hardware. From my understanding PT makes you run the same channel in and out and Studio One allows you to mix and match.

I've yet to hear a plug in emulation sound better than the Neve, API, etc that I have.

[Darryl Ramm]

Remember as you set up Pro Tools inserts (if you still want to use Pro Tools) you need to do that with matching I/O pairs. e.g. If you are using Output 1 & 2 to drive monitors then they are not available to use for driving hardware inserts, and input 1&2 are not available to assign as inputs to other inserts... but you can use say for regular mic inputs. This can eat some of your I/O... or would... RME's nice TotalMix can map DAW returns to outputs to adjust some of this, plan on spending a day or two playing around with it to learn TotalMix. And learn Total Mix for use with Studio One as well... it's really nice but maybe a little less obvious than the UAD Console on first use (??).

I'd encourage you to consider spending a bit more and look at the RME UFX+ it has more I/O, IEC power cable so does not need a power brick, 4 instead of 2 mic preamps (and they are nice preamps on both boxes), two independent headphone outputs instead of one, 8 line inputs (+ 4 mic/line/DI) and 8 line outputs vs. 4 line inputs (+ 2 mic/line +2 DI/line) and 6 line outputs , and MADI optical and coax if you want a lot more expansion in future, and it has dual in/out TOSLINK ports that the UCX II does not not (so can match the 880 if you want to run at higher clock rates).