Anybody using Behringer ADA8200 via ADAT for extra inputs?

The Lounge Other Gear
#22

Well for me personally, I work on computers all the time on audio stuff, so the little time I have for making music I like to work out of the box, but using a DAW to route the midi to everything. I just like to jam and the ability to record individual stems as much as possible is essential. Hopefully One day I’ll get the time & enthusiasm to actually mix finished tracks with the stems. Overbridge has been a marvel in this sense for me and opened a new level of stem recording. Once you have the stems, there’s no need to worry about all of the hardware related setup anymore. It’s really nice to have a clean DAW project with nothing but the WAVs.

As for interfaces, I sold the better ones I had with pre-amps and just got the old Motu 2408’s for just simple line ins. If you are just recording synths, it’s less relevant I think, it’s certainly good enough for my purposes and the results are suitable for itb processing/mixing. If I was making music for a living I would most likely feel differently. These days it’s all about enjoyment and hopefully no technical headaches.

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#23

Audient is great, incomparable actually . Had ada8000, at the time i thought its ok, my unit broke down after 2 years, power suplay, i fixed it and sold.
I would say good converter is worth the money, i tried hard to have good mixes, but you can’t if your takes are not healthy. How can you have nice highs, if the one you recorded are harsh? Same goes for everithing else.

#24

yeah you’re not wrong, no doubt. i’ve been eyeing the audient asp’s for a long time and have heard a LOT of good things.

#25

Had the same power supply issue with my ADA8000 but still went on to buy the 8200. I agree with everyone here who said that the preamps are pretty dull and also the gain control knob for each channel is hard to tame. it can get quite exponential at the top there. But If you are are on the budjet then it’s a legit way to route the Rytm to seperate channels in your DAW via the a small soundcard. (if you’re not using Overbridge that is)

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#26

I use ADA8200 with rme hdspe aio and it works flawless via adat. Best on a budget option

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#27

ADA8200 in my RME MultifaceII. Nothing to complain. Solid piece of cheap gear.

#28

I was in the market for an affordble ADAT expander last winter and after a couple weeks of reseach I ended up going for an M-Audio Profire 2626 instead, since (in the US at least) the price of a clean secondhand one is about the same as the 8200. Works great as an 8 channel ADAT expander, by most accounts it was solid as a Firewire 25/192 interface, but the big selling point for me was that it is the only ADAT expander I could find that completely bypasses the preamps when you patch into a line input. Since I got it specifically to add dedicated inputs for some of my synths, being able to completely disregard any question of whether the preamps sounded good was huge. Every other expander I saw in that price range passes the line inputs through the pres - not a huge thing but for me an interface should be as minimal and transparent as possible. I’ve had it racked up with a BLA modded Digi002r and it sounds great, the 002r sounds better but the difference is small. I used to have an M-box III and it didn’t even come close to the 2626.

The ADA8200 would have been my second choice based on the research I did (although there are some well regarded OLD ADAT expanders from the 90s that can be found really cheap, they just tend to be bulky and heavily used and are often input only or output only), just wanted to put the 2626 on the radar of people who are looking for an ADAT expander in this price range, since its a really good option.

BUT try to find one with the breakout cable included if you ever expect to run it as a firewire interface and use the S/PDIF and MIDI i/o, because they’re not so easy to find on their own. If you only plan to use it as an expander then that doesn’t really matter and might even save you a bit of money.

#29

I use one to extend the line inputs into my Apollo 8. For line level stuff it works well, though you’ll have to find unity gain on those pre-amp gain knobs, no way to circumvent them.

If I would want to add mic pres, I’d go with something else, Audient or beyond. But for line ins it’s good enough.

#30

Damn thanks so much. I think this is the move, and yes this will be strictly for synth/line input addition as I can’t quite afford the Apollo x8 upgrade for now. I’d be well happy to avoid shitty preamps, so this is ideal. this is the one! I was going to just jump up to Audient to tide me over, but yeah… that’s money i’d rather spend on releasing my music for now. Thanks again!

#31

I was recently checking these out as an expander. It looks like the word clock is on the breakout cable as well.

I know you can use it without word clock as an expander, but word clock would be more reliable with less artifacts.

#32

I have a Quantum 2 Thunderbolt interface which I really dig. It has two sets of ADAT ins/outs.
I was able to use my old Motu 828mk2 and Fostex AC2496 to add 16 channels of incoming audio. The Motu can also double as 8 additional outs with some reconfiguring as well.

My problem is that I now have the studio running through an X32 rack which is far more elegant, though slightly slower latency, and want buy the expander S16, so am considering selling the Fostex/Quantum/Motu setup to fund.

Either way though, I am impressed by the reliability and longevity of ADAT. I have an old Alesis rack synth S4plus which even has ADAT for sending separate outputs built in.

#33

I have a Quantum 1 and a Quantum 2. I also have a 1st gen Scarlet 18i20 and recently purchased a Profire 2626. That gives me 28 1/4” inputs with the ability to expand to up to 44 1/4” inputs or 50 something overall.

The entire reason I went this route was because of the amazingly low latency of the Quantum interfaces. 2.7ms round trip with 50+ inputs and outputs just rubs me in the right ways :wink:

I also have a 32 channel Allen & Heath Gl2400 4 bus analog mixer.
My whole studio runs into 4 patch bays which go into the audio interfaces. I can either mix in the computer (add fx etc to each track) or mix on the 32 channel analog mixer or both.

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#34

You haven’t posted in “Your setup”, right? Please do :slight_smile:

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#35

Just to add to the original inquiry, I have this hooked up to an Audient iD14; couldn’t be happier for the price. Sound quality is plenty acceptable for my uses. I run the DNK individual inputs into it.

#36

:grin: I will once I’ve gotten the rest finished. I’ve been building some shelves to hold a bunch of synths and fx pedals. I’m currently designing and printing some “clips” that hold the synths to the shelves above my DNK and OT.

Here’s a teaser of the part I’m working on right meow.

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image3024×4032 3.16 MB

I cut a channel in the shelf above to accept an led strip I still have to make. There will be another shelf above with fx pedals etc…

To keep it on topic,
The Scarlett 18i20 works great as an expander as well. Have the 2 Quantum’s as an aggregate device with no latency hit when set up that way. BNC word clock cables run from each audio interface to the ADAT expanders and then I have one Quantum set as master and the other getting drift correction and clocked to the Wordclock input.

I still have room for two more expanders after the Profire.

Just waiting for the Profire 2626 to arrive (got it for $115).

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All of this working on my old as hell 2011 (bought it in 2012) iMac 27" :desktop_computer:
I did replace the hard drive recently on it with a 1TB Solid State Drive to be fair.

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#37

How does aggregated devices work? Do you get more latency than using one single?`

(Edit: I didnt read your post at first, so didnt notice you say you used aggregated devices)

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#38

You have to run them as aggregate but it doesn’t get a latency hit like a normal aggregate device.
I have them chained through each other and on the same thunderbolt port on the iMac.

In the universal control software you set one of them to be master and the other slave. Select internal clock source on the master and wordclock for the clock source on the slave Quantum. Then check drift correction on the slave device in audio midi settings (Mac Audio MIDI settinngs).

I believe on windows you’re forced to chain them with a BNC wordclock cable to use multiple interfaces (it’s the best practice on either system anyway).

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#39

Thanks. I gotta try this with my Firefaces. It will give me some more channels as i can use the Adat in and outputs on both cards. Now i have one fireface connected via adat to my Fireface. And a Behringer ADA8200.

Been looking at the Quantum 4848, but then i have to spend alot of money on new cables on top of the new interface. hehe.

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#40

I was gonna go that route too but I already had a Quantum and ADAT expander. It was cheaper to find a second used Quantum and another used ADAT expander. Also not to have to replace hundreds of dollars worth of cables with hundreds of dollars worth of DB25 snakes (after buying the $1300-$1500 4848).

Definitely try your multiple interfaces as aggregate before you invest in that route. The Quantum’s are designed to have up to 4 of them chained with no latency hit. I don’t know if it’s the same for your interfaces or not. Worth trying it regardless.

#41

It arrived. Haven’t ran audio through it yet but I finally got it set up to be an ADAT expansion.

I’m responding a sort of warning to those looking at the M-Audio Profire 2626 as expansion.

Had to dig out my really old 2010 13" MacBook Pro and downgrade it to Mavericks (OS X 10.9 ) to get the software to recognize the interface so I could change the settings. I actually downgraded to Yosemite first but the drivers didn’t work (even though they supposedly should have).
Downgrading OS X is a painus in the anus! Plus you have to have an old enough computer for it.

If you have a windows machine it might be easier. Once it’s done, you don’t have to mess with it ever again presumably.

Also make sure it has the breakout cable if you plan to use wordclock, since those are on the breakout cable and not the interface.

Just grabbed a MOTU Traveler MKI for $70 so I’ll see how that one goes once it arrives too. One more after that and I’ll be maxed out.

Quite the hodge-podge of interfaces I have for ADAT lol.

Quantum 2
Quantum 1
Profire 2626
Scarlet 18i20 gen 1
Motu Traveler MK1

What am I missing for my last one? haha

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