HD i/o AES/EBU [encl] output not showing in Pro Tools I/o setup

[irispill]

Hey guys, Wonderting if someone could assist with this one.
HD i/o AES/EBU[encl] output not showing in Pro Tools i/o setup.

Digitest runs clean for the HDX card and for the HD i/o 8x8x8.

I am getting output on the spdif rca jack with the selection of “digital”. I am led to believe from the manual that I can independently access enclosure AES and spdif and receive and send on both of them simultaneously. Is this incorrect?

Please see screenshots from the pro tools I/o setup menu of both the input and output options currently available. The input section looks more like what I am expecting to see. ​

Thanks for your help in advance!

[Darryl Ramm]

Hi Welcome to DUC

The HD I/O can do up to 16 inputs and up to 16 outputs and no more. A limitation of it's Digilink based design. You configure what those 16 are in the Hardware setup dialog. e.g. At 44.1 or 48 kHz you have 8 ADAT channels on the digital card and 8 ADAT channels on the enclosure and capacity for nothing else.

Avid has a long long history of providing more I/O on a box than the software can actually use. Which can be nice for some flexibility, but you need to be aware of this and pay careful attention to what is actually supported.

[irispill]

Thanks so much for this information which is really good to know! But as to my original question trying to implement this set-up:



AES [encl] OUT to Grace DAC
AES [encl] IN from Lavry ADC
spidf [encl] OUT to Mytek DAC
8 analog i/o


I believe this is within the limits you mentioned but may be beyond the hd io capabilities?


I would like to run the fore mentioned digital signals independent of each other running the grace and lavry as my mix bus and monitoring on the Mytek.



It seems that the hd io can only output or input on one format at a time.



Could you advise please?


Thanks again!

[Farhoof]

This is indeed not possible. You can set the digital format to 1 type, either AES (xlr), spdif (coax) or spdif (optical).
For some reason on the output tab it's always called 'digital' and on the input tab it shows 'digital' + the actual format.

You can use an AES breakout cable to access the 8x AES IO, it seems unused? And set the digital format to spdif in the hardware setup to use the coaxial spdif.

[albee1952]

I think you want the lower(second pic) set of AES(the 4 pairs). The digital config needs to be done in the Hardware Setup page.

[irispill]

OK thanks so much guys! The manual documentation leaves something to be desired in terms of specificity on this issue and hardware max capabilites which you have clarified so thanks so much for that! We can use the db-25 aes to send to the Mytek as well.

Related question: if we are using AES [encl] does that replace db-25 AES 1/2?
The metering seems to indicate this.

Sorry, we are still waiting on the proper aes snake cable to test.

Thanks again!

[Farhoof]

Originally Posted by irispill

OK thanks so much guys! The manual documentation leaves something to be desired in terms of specificity on this issue and hardware max capabilites which you have clarified so thanks so much for that! We can use the db-25 aes to send to the Mytek as well.

Related question: if we are using AES [encl] does that replace db-25 AES 1/2?
The metering seems to indicate this.

Sorry, we are still waiting on the proper aes snake cable to test.

Thanks again!

No you can use both, you can assign the AES [encl] to a different output of the 16 IO options.

To clarify a bit more, the Avid IO has 16 output busses, but is has more physical output hardware which can be used, even at the same time, but you can only address 16 output busses at the same time.

So for example you can output 1-16 through AES db25 outputs (needs a second AES IO card), AND also copy output 1-8 to the analog output (or whatever output you want), AND copy another output to the Digital [encl] output, giving you in this case 26 outputs, but there are only 16 separate channels as the rest are doubled outputs.

Hold control on the output IO tab to assign multiple physical outputs. This doesn't work on inputs.