I’d like to ask some  rather basic questions.

I have Apollo X and a new H9000 … with a patchbay connected to the D25 analogue i/o, and the ADAT out to the Apollo. Apollo i/o via patchbay similar to your MacGee

Up until now I have really only used the inputs of the Apollo, mic’s, guitars direct or via an Fractal (SPDIF), and synths. Only outboard would be a pedal between synth and Apollo. UAD plugins if not using a DAW. I can still use the H9000 like a big pedal … instrument to analogue in to analogue out to Apollo with cables. Or instrument to H9000 analogue in to ADAT Apollo.

How are you sending stuff to the H9000 otherwise and getting it back … do you route things in Console i/o matrix, do you send things to a Cue channel and route that out to the patchbay (headphone channels?), do you use Emote instead or as well, or what … I’m sure this is very basic but I’m slightly overwhelmed and confused by possibilities …

Hey there. We have a lot of the same gear. How I have my H9000 connected to my Apollo x8 is 8 channels adat and 8 line ins DP25. My computer is modern and fast enough that I run a 32 sample rate and DAW monitor, negating the need to do anything through console. I have a 9000 with the screen but still use Emote 100% of the time. I work in Studio One and assigned a macro button to launch 8 stereo tracks of pipeline to my H9000 and an instance of Emote so it doesn’t take me 5 minutes to set up. My fractal also runs SPDIF and doesn’t meet the 9000 until its in a session. Ive used cue tracks in Console to do this, it works fine but I’m always sitting in front of studio one so its just not my workflow. I have my 9000 hard wired with an Ethernet cable. I had issues wireless. When it worked it worked but when it didn’t I wanted to die. After wiring its rock solid there. So in short, if you use the H9000 “like a pedal” as a single stereo channel, it would be a tremendous waste of resources. If you’re in OSX, you CAN create an aggregate device and have 16 channels USB, and I THINK another 16 between analog and digital but dont quote me. I’m on windows and honestly 8 stereo or 16 mono or combinations thereof for me is more than I typically use in a session as a home recording aficionado. Good luck and feel free to HMU with any other questions.