PT12.5.1 Control|24 192 Digital I/O not talking

[LarrySmileyEL]

Hey Everyone.

So, I set out to set up a legacy Pro Tools HD system for an education setting and I only had a minimal budget. I wanted to get the maximum bang for the buck. Connected to the Dell Precision 5820 workstation I have a Control|24 (I have two of them, however, one has a bad power supply unit in it with some bad faders - I'll probably part it out...), there's an HD Core card inside (I have two of them), a 192 Digital I/O that is the master of two 888|24 I/O (I have four of them in all), and I have 882|20 I/O, a 1622 I/O, an ADAT Bridge, and a USD Sync. There's an M-Audio ProFire 2626 on the system. I replaced a Tascam M-16 (24 Channel configuration, made in 1983) with this gear. Now.
From what I read this version of Pro Tools doesn't support this hardware so I bought a V-Control license and it appears to work well. PT 12.5.1 is the last version I got in what was supposed to be a perpetual license package deal for Pro Tools and Media Composer. When the perpetual license went away I stuck with what I had. And now I just bought all of this Pro Tools HD gear...

The Control|24, via ethernet into the network switch, does control PT. To a degree... What's NOT working is the audio facilities which of course are dependent on the I/O system - which Pro Tools doesn't see. When I look in Device Manager it shows the HD Core card (I installed the HD driver that came with the PT installer). When I turn on the system I follow the boot sequence - last 888|24 I/O in the chain (let it finish booting), power on the next 888|24 I/O (when it finishes booting, the previous 888|24 I/O slave-syncs to that one), then I power on the 192 Digital I/O which blinks through its boot process only to stop... No worries. Then, when I boot the workstation, the 192 Digital I/O finishes its boot process confirmed by the amber ring light around the power button going green when it detects the presence of the HD Core card/ workstation via a 10' DigiLink cable. These units appear to be talking. However...
When I run Pro Tools and try to set the Audio Engine for the 192, Pro Tools doesn't see it - it is not in the dropdown. I tried to run DigiTest. It doesn't see any of the Digidesign hardware. I sees ASIO units (ProFire2626, FL Studio, MPC) and Windows Default sound device.

Am I missing something?

[Darryl Ramm]

Avid TDM DSP cards are not supported in anything beyond Pro Tools 10 HD.

If you want to use DigiLink interfaces with Pro Tools 12 HD you need an Avid HD Native PCIe card, or HD Native Thunderbolt box, or one or more HDX PCIe Card(s). And you require a Pro Tools 12 HD (not standard) license, and be careful with upgrading beyond Pro Tools 12.6 to do that you'll also need a new Pro Tools HD 12.6 specific license and a DigiLink I/O licenses, at least up until Pro Tools 2022.6 when Avid overcame their temporary insanity and killed the DigiLink license.

[LarrySmileyEL]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Avid TDM DSP cards not supported in anything beyond Pro Tools 10 HD.

If you want to use DigiLink interfaces with Pro Tools 12 HD you need an Avid HD Native PCIe card, or HD Native Thunderbolt box, or one or more HDX PCIe Card(s). And you require a Pro Tools 12 HD (not standard) license, and be careful with upgrading beyond Pro Tools 12.6 to do that you'll also need a new Pro Tools HD 12.6 specific license and a DigiLink I/O licenses, at least up until Pro Tools 2022.6 when Avid overcame their temporary insanity and killed the DigiLink license.

This is really confusing to me. With what I have, none of it works together? We had a client who came in last month who had an old iLok with a 12.5 HD license on it and it was the same result. Are you saying I have the wrong audio card installed? In Device Manager it says Digidesign HD Core. Also, Where can I get an upgrade (I looked around the Avid site and could not see where I could get it...). Where is the disconnect - where should my focus be directed? I want to salvage as much of the hardware while sorting out this mess (I got in this mess listening to an AI bot...).

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by LarrySmileyEL

This is really confusing to me. With what I have, none of it works together? We had a client who came in last month who had an old iLok with a 12.5 HD license on it and it was the same result. Are you saying I have the wrong audio card installed? In Device Manager it says Digiesign HD Core. Also, Where can I get an upgrade (I looked around the Avid site and could not see where I could get it...). Where is the disconnect - where should my focus be directed? I want to salvage as much of the hardware while sorting out this mess (I got in this mess listening to an AI bot...).

A DigiDesign core card is a TDM card, always has been, it will not do what you are trying to do. I've described what you are doing will not work in the most fundamental way, and explained why and listed what hardware you would need to purchase to run DigiLink interfaces with Pro Tools 12 (or Pro Tools 11) and later. If you don't know what the products are I mentioned you should be able to Google them. The Pro Tools HD Native and HD Native Thunderbolt cards are already past their end of sale life but the only non-HDX option available if you need to use DigiLink.

I've not spend time going through other issues you might have. And you don't say what computer or OS version you hope to run this on.... there might be issues there.

If you want to set up and run this old stuff *you* need to become an expert on this, lots of info, especially end of support/compatibility stuff is findable with a google search, there are many threads on DUC findable about this stuff, most a decade or two old when folks were dealing with this. Findable with google search with a site: duc.avid.com qualifier. It's still going to be a PITA and I doubt is worth the effort.

Do you have a Pro Tools 10 HD license as part of your Pro Tools 12 HD license bundle? Look at the license in iLok License Manager. If so and you want to use this TDM hardware you should be been installing Pro Tools 10 on a suitable computer and OS version. But then what... you end up with old Pro Tools 10 and really under-powered TDM core card only DSP? Will the students want to use VIs? Modern Pro Tools? Other apps? Are they going to be well served stuck on Pro Tools 10? Or is this purely a tracking system?

If you really want to use DigiLink interfaces beyond Pro Tools 10 HD then find a cheap used HD Native or HD Native Thunderbolt card. The last thing I'd be doing is looking for HDX DSP cards if these are educational systems and you have a tight budget. Heck on a tight budget I'd be ignoring all this, sell all the DigiLink gear and start with a simple USB interface and a current version of Pro Tools Studio (no need for Ultimate for non-video/post work for education) hopefully at an educational or registered charity discount.

Maybe you can start with just using the 2626, maybe just with Pro Tools 12 HD as it is. If it works maybe just get going and working with students.

Unfortunately the 2626 is not a great interface and it's from M-Audio which was dumped by Avid. If it's showing up on your computer then you have that working now, so great, but it may be worth working out how far you can you update that computer to work with later/current Pro Tools releases? Personally with things M-Audio I'd give them away and try to find a better USB interface, maybe by selling off all the other interface gear.

Also, Where can I get an upgrade (I looked around the Avid site and could not see where I could get it...).

Avid Pro Tools software upgrades? For the Pro Tools software... should be offered in your Avid.com account, details on the Avid store or much much better (because of potential traps here) just call any Avid authorized dealer and talk to a sales rep. Make sure you understand differences between perpetual and subscriptions offerings.

Upgrades for the hardware? This TDM stuff is around 25 years dead. Avid's stopped offering upgrades I'm guessing around a decade ago. It's museum-ware. (And heck I collect old HP computers and calculators so not using that term as pure negative).

Where is the disconnect - where should my focus be directed? I want to salvage as much of the hardware while sorting out this mess (I got in this mess listening to an AI bot...).

I suspect the primary disconnect is you are likely going down the wrong path. What is the goal? Salvaging hardware for a museum or helping students with Pro Tools education? "Doing both" may not be a good answer. And assuming using older equipment and software helps save money is often just wrong. You have to look at the all up cost and what you are trying to achieve.

I keep running into these old systems that folks are tying to use for education, some seem to make sense, and some sure not. I don't follow how some of these old DigiLink systems really helps students... they might helps students at the high-pro end who might end up working in pro studio environments. But then I'd expect you likely want to be in modern Pro Tools at a minimum with HD Native or HDX. But maybe you can find situations/role models of folks who are doing what you want with the systems/hardware you want to use.. and pick the heck out of their brains.

There can be really great reasons for say established pro-studios to have a legacy HD TDM system laying around for accessing old sessions. And those places often have folks who know all this stuff backwards and have little problem maintaining it. And old-timers who cut their teeth on TDM systems and love this stuff might still have them running in their studios/private studios. Oh those TDM systems with big Magma expansion chassis and lots'o TDM cards, all neat stuff for folks who love them to keep running.

And well you decided to listen to the AI (artificial idiot), that's your decision. But yes I've asked Google Gemini and Open AI some Pro Tools questions recently and the answers were frequently horrifically bad. In some cases I could see where the AI was simply connecting the wrong dots, confused by basic terminology, completely clueless of course about anything it was pretending it knew. It's just throwing words against the wall.