NOOB question on ADAT

[watig0t]

Hello all,

This is my first post. I've been reading a bunch on this site the last two weeks. I'm brand new to any recording and have never used protools. So forgive me if my question is an obvious one. Thank you in advance for any assistance and mercy.

I tried to add photos of my I/O settings so I don't botch trying to explain.
The question is, I can't for the life of my get my ADAT inputs to play through an output. I figure I must be missing something in the I/O OR focusrite control that's causing this.

I currently have an ADA8200 input to a Clarett 2pre. The two analog inputs in the clarett work just fine. I can hear play back through my monitors from the ADA8200 BUT it's not playing into my DAW.

Any help would be unbelievably appreciated. Thank you.

[Darryl Ramm]

Hi Welcome to DUC.

I'm not sure what "BUT it's not playing into my DAW. " means exactly, describe exactly what you are doing.

So that might well be OK... but to get the input from an ADAT input to one of the outputs you need to actually use the DAW to do that, like setup an audio track or Aux input that has its input set to and ADAT in and its output set to the output you want to use. And you need to have those tracks record armed or in input monitor modes to get signal in to them/hear anything. And you need to not be in "Low Latency Monitoring" more to actually hear anything through the DAW while recording/monitoring an input. And you are not describing any of that... so are you doing that? If all that is totally new to you you really should find a Pro Tools beginner tutorial on YouTube (or Groove3) to help get going with minimum hassle, there is just too much stuff to hope to stumble thought.

You also have hardware monitoring capability via Focusrite Control to connect the ADAT inputs to the outputs. You need to read the documentation for that or look at online tutorials on YouTube etc. But that's essentially bypassing the DAW.

ADAT ports showing up in the IO Setup pages does not mean they are properly connected. You have to connect the ADAT output on the preamp to the ADAT input on your interface, a "crossover" that some folks miss. Your ADAT box needs to be set to the sample rate that the session is using and the clocking between the boxes needs to be set up correctly, e.g. in this case since the interface has no Word Clock (WC) support or ADAT output, the ADAT box needs to be set to internally clock/be the clock master and the interface clocked from its ADAT input. Read all the hardware documentation, and understand what any status/clock lights are telling you.

[watig0t]

Hi Darryl,

Thank you for such a detailed response.

"I'm not sure what "BUT it's not playing into my DAW. " means exactly, describe exactly what you are doing."

I'm sure I'm not describing this the correct way. What I mean by this is, in the focusrite control, in my "hardware inputs" I have "ADAT 1" active. Say I strum a guitar chord I see the volume bar reading the signal and can hear the signal in my monitors. But the signal is not going to the software (daw) playback below it. Also, in this same section, this is only working as I described when "custom mix" is selected for the monitor outputs. ADAT's are greys out when I try to click them on "hardware input" I don't even know what custom mix means. There is no option I can find in the control to go into "custom mix" to see what that actually is. I will take your direction and research.

To the second part. My 1st and 2nd input on the interface works fine when recording. When I go to the ADAT inputs there is no signal. This is great direction, I'll research input monitor modes. I have read some on low latency monitoring so always have that off.

I do agree with you, there is way too much to just start from scratch and stumble upon. I definitely need to put the time in on the basics and I'll start on the equipment documentation.

From the research I have done, I've figured out (as you said) I can only use the internal clock from the ADA8200 and I have the 2pre set to ADAT and 48k just as the ADA8200 is.

Your response was very insightful, I'm going to study up on this. One thing that stood out to me is the "crossover" you mentioned. I do feel like I'm missing this. You nailed it on the head, connecting the ADAT inputs to the outputs. I'll be youtubing tonight.

THANK YOU DARRYL.

P.S- Again, attached a few snap shots incase I'm not explaining well.

[albee1952]

Some thoughts:
1-as Darryl said, clocking matters and setting everything to use the ADA8200 as the master is the only way IF(the big IF) you only have a single lightpipe "cable" connecting the ADA ADAT Out to the focusrite ADAT In. It looks like the Clarett does not have an ADAT output, so that rules out any other clocking scheme(set Pro Tools to use ADAT as the clock source(Setup>Hardware>Launch Setup App and look for clock settings).

2-Looking at your IO setup>Bus tab, I see many(all?) busses mapping to outputs. This is incorrect and you should uncheck every box except the one for Output 1-2. This is the main output(feeding your monitors) and this is the only path that should map to output. On this same chart, I see a path named ADAT and that is likely a mistake that should be deleted(click on it and then click on Delete Path).