ADAT recording through the MMO card to a Mac

iLive iLive General Discussions
1

Hi,

Our church has a T-112 fixed format Surface and an iDR-48 MixRack. We have an MMO card that we currently use for Aviom monitors. It all works extremely well, and now we want to kick it up a notch with multi-track recording of our services.

Since our Port B slot is occupied by the MMO card, I don’t think we are open to options like Dante, correct? I think we are limited to what is on the MMO card, right? Please correct my understanding if I have this wrong.

I’ve been thinking of using the 3 x ADAT ports to send up to 24 input channels to a Mac for recording our Worship Band. We currently produce videos of our Pastor speaking, but we want to start including the Worship Band in the videos. We want to record multi-track and perform post production mixdown so the audio sounds great when streamed over the web. We don’t want to use a 2-track recording of the FOH mix that was used in the Worship Center. It just won’t sound right when played on a web browser. Plus, we won’t be able to do any editing to adjust levels, eliminate noises, etc. Common scenario, I would imagine.

Questions:

1). Is anyone doing multi-track recording with a similar iLive configuration? How is it working for you?
2). What outboard audio interface are you using to get ADAT into your Mac? What device supports 3 x ADATs in?
3). Can the 24 channels sent over ADAT be sent just after the initial Gain stage (before Trim and dynamics processing)?

I love to read. If anyone can point me to documentation or examples of using 3 x ADATs to record into a Mac, I would be grateful.

Kind regards,

Mark

Worship-Center.jpg
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2

Hi Mark,

To begin with, you’re correct in thinking that you can’t have the MMO & Dante in the same box. There aren’t enough slots.

We have a similar setup to you. When required, our iDR48 has a MMO, which connects via ADAT to a Alesis HD24 for multitracking. Whilst we could sync this data and mix-down for our stream, we came up with a much easier solution. We use a separate AUX send for the record out, then get our new volunteers to mix down the stream on the fly with an iPad. Works well for us.

To multitrack to a Mac via ADAT, you’ll need an interface of sorts. This also depends if you want all 24 channels of ADAT for recording. Presonus used to make the FireStudio Lightpipe, which was a great product. You might find some on eBay. I don’t know of any product with a similar feature set that’s available. There are a few 16 channel ADAT units on the market, but ADAT isn’t as popular as it used to be.

To multitrack to an external recorder, JoeCo have a nice unit that does 24 channel ADAT. Just need to sync the audio & video together in post. I wouldn’t go down the Alesis route for a new project in 2014. You also need to know that for a local output like ADAT, someone has to be near the recorder to press record (be it a Mac, JoeCo, or something else).

I would suggest that the best multitrack solution, in the long term, is to replace your MMO with Dante. Dante is awesome. It is networkable. Your FOH operator can control it from the desk, or from anywhere on the network. That will involve some tricks with Avioms to make them operable (or replacing them with the A&H stuff).

To see at which point in the signal chain you can take a direct out of your channels, read the firmware manual and download the iLive Editor and have a play. It’s all in there. The short answer is you can take the output at just about any stage of the signal chain.

You’ve also got to take into consideration the quality of your final stream. Due to our available bandwidth onsite and our stream provider, much of our stream mix is tainted by some harsh compression & EQ settings out of our control. We also use our downgraded stream as a friendly encouragement to our absent members that if you want the full church experience, come on in!

After all this, we chose our iPad solution. As I said, it works well for us. Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Michael