Gigantoad,

I realize these posts were from ancient history, but I am still struggling with the exact same issue. Were you ever successful in adding a second audio interface and using both of them with Ableton Live ? I have tried this confiuration using ASIO4ALL, and did not get the resuls I hoped for. I found with Windows 7, ABL 8, H8000FW, that the only working HW I/O configuration is with only the Eventide DICE driver selected, but I did not try multiple alternate ausio interfaces. It would be tempting to sell the H8000FW, but I’m very hesitant to jump into the H9000 after my experience with the H8000FW. For some reason, all the routing ‘limitations’ seem to interfere with my setup. I am an electronics engineer by trade, and I find the H8000FW to be very cryptic and also inconsistent. Unforunate indeed.

Hi Robert, thanks for for your explanation. Indeed that is pretty much what I came up with as well, except:

You are using only 2 analog inputs and that frees up the 2 slots on the main in to send another pair to DSP B basically. If you had to use all 4 analog ins though you’d be stuck with 2 channels total for both DSP’s just like me, allowing no parallel use.

Furthermore, as far as I know, you’d be stuck with presets that use only 2 channels of either DSP like that, so you won’t be able to use these 4-8 channel ones. I mean, you will be able to use them, but they won’t sound as intended. Or maybe I’m wrong and I just don’t understand how these DSP channels work. 

I find it unfortunate that it seems impossible to use the unit as both a firewire audio interface with all 4 analog ins and a full blown effects processor with 2 parallel DSP’s at the same time. I really think 16 main in channels would have helped a lot. Or remove these main in/out blocks entirely and let me route anything to anything, just like the product description says.

As it stands now I cannot use it as a DA unless I want to considerably limit the effects. So I really need to use another audio interface to handle my studio gear.