Venue with MADI to Yamaha Console

[Kenmillerjr]

Hey guys....

I am wondering if any of you had a solution for something I had experimented with today. I have a VENUE FOH/Stage system with 2 MADI cards installed. I downed a DM1000 we have in the shop. I dropped in a MY16-MD64 card, MADI in worked great from the Venue. (Just always remember that beloved Word Clock. It seemed to have some jitter every once in awhile)

The problem came when I tried returning the output to the VENUE. This is the desired setup, utilizing the outputs on VENUE's stage rack. Since the DM1000 only has the capabilities of 32 channels in the card slots (16 per each card, 2 cards max) I was stuck trying to send the outputs to channels 49-64, since 32 was the max channel it would see on MADI.

I did get it to work, luckily. It is not ideal, but it seems to me Yamaha looks for the hardest solution for an easy problem. I output the mains via MADI channels 1 & 2, then just placed the OUTPUT coaxial from the DM1000 on the IN on the second MADI card on the Venue. I then reconfigured VENUE to see the second MADI card as "Input mode" and sure enough, the return was coming down those lines. I'm thinking about doing the same setup with a PM5D in the morning, and seeing if I have better luck using just one MADI card for both inputs and returns, since that desk is capable of more I/O in the card slots.

Has anyone else ran into this/found an easier work around? Either way, it is pretty slick, and is a very easy setup to administer.

[Chris Johnson]

The problem with the Yamaha Solution is that it requires you to have the right number of MADI EX cards after the MD64 in order to 'get to' channel 64... You aren't able to tell the card which 16 channels on the MADI stream it should output on. There are a couple of workarounds for this:
The first is to output from the DM1000 in another format such as AES and then convert that to MADI and inject it into the desired channel.

The second way, is to put a MADI router like the SSL MADI-X8 inbetween the 2 consoles and repatch the channels in the MADI stream on the output side.

[Kenmillerjr]

Chris:

Yeah, I discovered that problem after testing it the other day. I found some jank work-arounds, which hopefully if we ever need to use the MADI split to a Yamaha desk will suffice.

Thanks for mentioning the MADI router. I wondered if there was a device out there that would be capable of doing that.

[Chris Johnson]

Yes - the MADI-X8 is a rather unique and useful box really. I'm about to integrate one into a setup i work with in order to do some clever things with MADI streaming with the Venue.

I have an application where i have a Venue at FOH, a remote broacast/record room., a local record/tracks playback system and a MADI split for a stage console. In this situation i could plug the MADI in and out from the venue into an X8, then take the various feeds to different places over seperate connections easily.

For example:
I have a video playback world that needs to send me 10 channels of audio, and i need to send them 6 channels. Also, i need 4 channels returning from the local record/playback system, i need to send broadcast 4 channels in addition to the 48, and 6 channels to monitors as aux-back feeds in addition to the 48. With the X8, this can all be done with the 1 MADI card and some BNC/Fibre cabling. I can set it up as follows:

INPUT:
1-48: return from local playback system, 48-58: AV Input, 59-62: Local record return, 63-64: broadcast return
OUTPUT:
1-48: headamp output to Mons, BC, Record. 48-52: Broadcast utility feeds, 53-58: Monitor Aux Sends, 59-64: AV Return feeds.

Pretty cool, and all remotely configurable over the audio network!

[Kenmillerjr]

That is pretty kickin. I tried to imagine how that old-school analog setup would be, and my brain began to hurt. LOL