hey! need help setting up new protools home studio

[haydenstudios1985]

hi, ive just upgraded from an mbox 1 to a digi003 rack coz i wanna record drums properly, used to run em thru a mixer n dump it onto 1track on the mbox but wanted more flexibility, havnt picked it up yet (takin ages to come in!) but want to find out one thing im not sure about- im going to get the focusrite octopre le with adat to get the other 8channels via lightpipe but want to know if i will need word clock to run them both? i dont know much about word clock and not sure if its a separate unit or weather i just connect the 2units together via their own word clock ports? or weather i wont need to worry about it?
any help would be much apreciated! thanks guys

[brandondrury]

im going to get the focusrite octopre le with adat to get the other 8channels via lightpipe but want to know if i will need word clock to run them both?

I don't own either unit, so I'm just spitting out concepts.

Signals with different converters will need a master clock of some kind. I would expect the Focusrite to have a clock as well as yoru Digi003. With that said, one will need to be set to slave. One to master.

I use S/PDIF with my Myteks. The Myteks are the master clock in my studio, but that signal is sent within S/PDIF somehow. (I still really don't understand how this works!) So, it's possible that you may be able to lock up the locks via ADAT Lightpipe. Your guess is as good as mine.

Brandon

[haydenstudios1985]

thankyou for your insight brandon,
that makes sense that the units would have their own word clocks built in, they definately have the ports for word clock just not sure how it all connects but if like i said before if you only have the 2units needing to be syncronized then you should be able to just link them together without the need for an outboard clocking unit (i would assume you would only need that if you were running 3 or 4 units that need clocking) but yeah sounds like the same principal as computers when your running 2 hard drives, to syncronize them you need to set one as master and the other as slave..

like i said havnt picked any of it up yet and am still trying to figure out if im going to need word clock in my situation, and if so is it as simple as linking the 2units together and setting a master/slave configuration?

any help or anyone with similar or the same set-up that can pass on some info/experience would be greatly appreciated..

thanks guys

[brandondrury]

i said before if you only have the 2units needing to be syncronized then you should be able to just link them together without the need for an outboard clocking unit

Well, it depends on how you define "outboard". An "outboard" clock isn't necessary required ever. But there needs to be one clock running the show. Because I have two Mytek AD96s and two Delta 1010s, I use on the Mytek's as my master clock for the entire system, but I could just as easily use the Delta 1010s as the master clock. Or I could buy a super high end clock like the Apogee Big Ben or whatever. You get the idea.

I just wanted to avoid any confusion with "external clock".

yeah sounds like the same principal as computers when your running 2 hard drives, to syncronize them you need to set one as master and the other as slave..

Sort of, but I'm not sure if the analogy is 100% perfect because you can run a harddrive in the Slave ATA slot just fine. If you lose the master clock in a AD converter, you are done.

Brandon

[haydenstudios1985]

thankyou for your help brandon i think ive nutted it all out, but now ive got another question- im now looking at the focusrite saffire pro 26 i/0 as my expansion chassis instead of the octopre le to run from the adat ports into the digi003 rack. obviously i wont need all the functionality of the unit- eg the firewire and spdif etc, but is this a better way to go if i can afford it? and also the plug-ins that come with the pro 26- are they compatible with protools? the only reason im looking at this unit is because the octopre isnt available in my country till march and i need it in a week!

any help would be appreciated!
thanks..

[Andrew07]

Stick with the Octopre. I have a 002 (dont think the 003 is different connector-wise) but you can ony use 8 channels with ADAT and 2 channels with SPDIF. It looks like that Saffire works with its own propietary software? Dunno how you can get 52 channels out of it too. The EQ and compression sounds OK live with the Octopre, but I think you can get nicer results with the stock plugins in Pro Tools LE for recording. So Id vote for whichever of the Octopre models DOESNT have onboard eq/compression and is just the preamps.

[brandondrury]

im now looking at the focusrite saffire pro 26 i/0 as my expansion chassis instead of the octopre le to run from the adat ports into the digi003 rack. obviously i wont need all the functionality of the unit- eg the firewire and spdif etc, but is this a better way to go if i can afford it?

I'd agree with Andrew07. I can't think of a good reason to buy 2 audio interfaces when you only only need one audio interface with multiple inputs. I'd stick with the Octopre.

Buy Focusrite OctoPre LE 8-Channel Preamp online at Musician's Friend

[ferguson66]

I bought the 003 rack and a Presonus Firestudio to ADAT 8 additional pre's. I did this specifically to record my drumset. Since we have similar set-ups and goals feel free to ask any questions along the way. I am pretty happy with the drum recordings I am getting now.

[brandondrury]

I bought the 003 rack and a Presonus Firestudio to ADAT 8 additional pre's.

Out of curiosity, why did you purchase 2 audio interfaces when you could have purchased one audio interface and one 8 channel preamp with ADAT Lightpipe outputs?

Brandon

[ferguson66]

My wife actually bought all of this for me for our anniversary. She relied on the guys at Guitar Center to get a good set-up. After I tried and tried to get the damn Firestudio to work with the 003 I took it back.

The guy I talked to quickly informed me that they both will not work together. So they exchanged it with a Presonus Digimax FS. So now I actually run the 003 and use the Digimax for my 8 inputs for the drums.

She did pretty good on everything else, Digidesign 003, Mogami gold cables, Audix mics. I was blown away with my gift to say the least.