Carbon Expanded - ADAT

[MarkH]

Does anyone know if in the future the Carbon Pre ADAT ports will be usable in a Carbon Expanded system? The documentation says they are not available to 'preserve bandwidth' but network bandwidth over 1Gb ports is nowhere close to being utilized if all analog + ADAT ports worked simultaneously. I suspect this is either an intentional decision made by the Product team to limit the I/O or there is some other limitation within the system.

[dominicperry]

Where does it say that? I can't find it in the generic Carbon documentation.
It makes no sense to put loads of ADAT ports on the Pre, and then not let you use them. As you say, there shouldn't be a bandwidth constraint with only 3 units.

Dominic

[MarkH]

Originally Posted by dominicperry

Where does it say that? I can't find it in the generic Carbon documentation.
It makes no sense to put loads of ADAT ports on the Pre, and then not let you use them. As you say, there shouldn't be a bandwidth constraint with only 3 units.

Dominic

Page 3 of the Carbon Systems Guide here.

ADAT I/O is not available in Pro Tools with Pro Tools | Carbon Pre when it is part of a Pro Tools | Carbon Expanded system. However, ADAT I/O remains available on the Pro Tools | Carbon primary device in a Pro Tools | Carbon Expanded system.

If you're using the Carbon Pre as a standalone device the ADAT ports are available.

[dominicperry]

That’s outrageous. £3000 for 8 channels of I/O.

I’d better check I haven’t given anyone bad advice - I made the assumption all ports would be functional. What a con.

Dominic

[MarkH]

Originally Posted by dominicperry

That’s outrageous. £3000 for 8 channels of I/O.

I’d better check I haven’t given anyone bad advice - I made the assumption all ports would be functional. What a con.

Dominic

It is shocking to be honest. And I don’t think it’s obvious to most people buying into Carbon Expanded and they’ll find out too late. I would love to hear from Avid’s Carbon Product Manager on why they chose to do this. There are many other interfaces on the market with all different host connection types that let you stack units for expansion whether Ethernet, Thunderbolt, USB-C.

[K Roche]

Well the Carbon originally came with two ethernet ports but could not use the second one until the Pre came out ?

I wonder if it might have something with the current AVB mapping ??

[nst7]

As was pointed out, you still have the adat ports on the main Carbon interface. With a fully expanded system of one Carbon and 2 Carbon pre's, that gives you a total of 40 inputs (not counting the talkback), all recordable with low latency.

If you were to be able to expand via adat on the pre's themselves, that would be an additional 32 inputs, making a total of 72 inputs. Not sure how that would work.

Keep in mind that besides using the adat when the pre's are in standalone converter mode, they are also available to be used when using the Carbon Pre natively as an AVB interface (though I have no idea what latency is like in that scenario).

[dominicperry]

Originally Posted by nst7

Not sure how that would work.

It would work by giving you 72 input channels. Why wouldn't it work? There's enough bandwidth.

I would tend to agree that there isn't enough DSP for 72 channels but if you use heavy plugs, there isn't enough DSP for 24 channels either.

Dominic

[eightamrock]

Originally Posted by MarkH

Does anyone know if in the future the Carbon Pre ADAT ports will be usable in a Carbon Expanded system? The documentation says they are not available to 'preserve bandwidth' but network bandwidth over 1Gb ports is nowhere close to being utilized if all analog + ADAT ports worked simultaneously. I suspect this is either an intentional decision made by the Product team to limit the I/O or there is some other limitation within the system.

I have been under the impression that this is no longer a hardware bandwidth concern. The issue is now on the software side, but there is no timeline to unlock it.

[MarkH]

Originally Posted by nst7

If you were to be able to expand via adat on the pre's themselves, that would be an additional 32 inputs, making a total of 72 inputs. Not sure how that would work.

Keep in mind that besides using the adat when the pre's are in standalone converter mode, they are also available to be used when using the Carbon Pre natively as an AVB interface (though I have no idea what latency is like in that scenario).

There's nothing obscure about 72 channels. RME, MOTU, UAD, Antelope, Yamaha, Focusrite, support upwards of 128 channels on Mac. The new DAD AX64 supports 256 channels. And it doesn't means one would use all 72 simultaneously. It would allow integration of more studio hardware, mixing console, whatever people want. This would increase the value of Carbon Expanded to the market. I really hope Avid doesn't hold back on enabling all the ADAT ports on Carbon Expanded.