H8000 FW – I’m not a sound Engeenering I need connection help from any of the genius in this forum

[Davide Costa]

Whoever can help I'll pay a dinner!

I have been around to the forum to see whether I could catch some glimps for the problem I face (I believe I won't be the only one) and I got so scared with the expertise language which put me off since I generally get lost half way trough with sound Engeenering. Call me stupid if you want, I'll say you are right.

Going to the point I have bought a h8000fw, installed new drivers and connected via FireWire directly to my PC.

My sound card is a Fireface 400 also connected to my PC via FireWire.

Now how does it works??? My pc recognise the H8000fw but obviously the audio pass trough my fire face Asio panel.

How do I make the two things talking to each other so that I can have sound being processed by the H8000 which I can actually listen to?

Last night being taken from the excitement I did see some light and also got some glimps of the Eventide product doing this:

– connect analog output of fire face (channel 5 and 6) to analog H80000fw input (channel 1 and 2)

– connect out Adat of the h8000fw to the Adat in of the fireface

Obviously the entire sound of my PC was processed by the h8000fw but massive echo return was happening (in my ignorance I figure it out if the sound of my pc goes into the h8000fw to then bounce back to the fireface I may create a strange loop which is not right)

I run Sonar and it's now my understanding the software won't allow two FireWire device to be read at once.

My ultimate goal would be to work on my daw and routing, when needed, the sound trough the h8000fw recording the effect.

If that won't be possible my second goal would be to post processing the sound I have created later on trough the h8fw but still trough Sonar.

What connections is recommended and which set up I should follow?

In the mean time I will start again reading the BOOK (fatter than the yellow pages) to see whether I can take my graduation in rocket science.

I understand this is a beast but someone should tell me how to tame it!

Your sincerely,

Davide

[t_tangent]

Hi,

Not sure if I can help much as I havent used a Fireface 400 or Sonar, however the basic principles and routing should be similar for most gear and sequencers.

You say you have installed the Eventide Vice Driver and connected via Firewire which sounds fine. Worth mentioning here is that some people have experienced issues with syncing H8000FW to their DAW clock if using wordclock. In my case I do have wordclock connection between my H8000 and Sonic-Core audio Interface, but as I am running most tracks through the H8000 using ADAT I/O, so I have also set the Eventide driver to sync via ADAT.

I am pretty sure that you cannot run more more than 1 ASIO driver at the same time. This is a limitation of the ASIO protocol I think. The exception to this is Logic Audio (Mac only) which has something called an aggregate driver which does allow for running multiple ASIO drivers….or something like that. So in Sonar you would probably be best to use Fireface ASIO. Someone correct me if I am wrong, but I would then route from Sonar tracks via the Fireface ADAT which should allow a max of 4 stereo channels I/O depending on the H8000 presets and routing. These can be set up as insert effects or as send and returns which I would think you can do from the Fireface panel, and then within Sonar, but this would be better explained by a fellow Fireface and Sonar user. As mentioned above I tend to use ADAT for routing tracks in and out of
my DAW unless I am running some external gear directly into the H8000
where I also have a couple of Analog I/O channels hooked up to the studio patchbay.

Also worth mentioning is the Routing Utility V2.81 for Windows which is available to download from the bottom of the Support page 

http://www.eventide.com/AudioDivision/Support/Harmonizers%20and%20Rack%20Products/H8000%20Series.aspx

This makes changing routing setups within the H8000 very easy, but you will need a midi or serial port connection (midi connection is much quicker of the two.) Also make sure you set it correctly, a description on how to do this is in the manual, and also in Routing Utility V2.8 User Manual

I hope that helps to some extent but perhaps someone else can give more details and/or accurate info 🙂

Cheers

t_t

[Davide Costa]

Thanks for the direction.

I will test your advise and I will post again

Cheers

[tomo88]

Davide,

I use a FireFace 800 and an H8000FW.  There are many ways to connect them; I'll tell you what I do, which works well for me.

I use Fireface as the primary interface to the outside world and I use the H8000 as an effects processor.  This means that although the H8000 has great I/O abilities I don't plug anything into it except the Fireface.  I connect the FireFace to my system with the FireWire cable.

I use ADAT to hook the H8000 up to the FireFace.  This means two cables: one from FireFace ADAT 1 OUT to H8000 ADAT IN, and one from FireFace ADAT 1 IN to H8000 ADAT OUT.  These are fiber optic cables and you have to find ones that seat properly in the H8000, which has a socket configuration that many cables don't work well with.

I use the FireFace as the master digital clock in the system with the H8000 set to slave.  I use a pair of clock cables to connect the FireFace clock out to the H8000 clock in and vice-versa.

I use the FireFace Matrix to route eight channels to the FireFace ADAT OUT.  This sends digital audio to the H8000.  I pick up eight channels of return from the H8000 in the same way.

Since your FireFace sends all 24 channels up to your PC through the FireWire link, you have access to the H8000 return audio the same as any other FireFace input.  Depending on how you set up your audio software and the FireFace matrix, you can use the H8000 as a preprocessor (effecting the audio before your software sees it) or as an effects loop (send and return from your virtual mixer console).  I use both depending on the project.

One of the great things about using the FireFace and H8000 in this manner is that it is easy to record both a dry (unprocessed) input and wet (effected) input at the same time, to spearate tracks.  That way if you are unhappy with the H8000 settings during a recording session you still have the original source material and you can just send it through again (guitarists call this re-amping).

[Davide Costa]

Thank you for the post, very clear and very usefull.

This is exactly how I would have liked to set the all connections up but I failed…..

First thing to say about this set is how to connect via midi the HFW to the FF (in my case 400 model).  I don't know about the 800 model but mine has an obscure little connection I have never seen (help would be apreciated).

What I have tried to do is, to make speak via midi the two components, connect them via FireWire. In this way they recognise each other and I can set the clock of the HF as internal. The good thing about this I can change the rate automatically from my pc ( or, I'm not sure right now, whether the HF actually even change it automatically  when I change it in Sonar).

Coming back to your set up if I connect the two adat In and Out I don't know why but, when in Sonar I insert the "external insert", giving the path for the In and Out signal it doesn't get the Sound In.

First of all a bit of complain to Eventide about the digital connection. They are bad and loose at least for my model. At any small movement of the unit the cables drop out……above all the FireWire connection.

So far this is how I set the HF:

Analog In for HF to Analog Out for FF

Adat Out for HF to Adat IN for FF

Firewire from HF to FF

In Sonar I usually create a bus and insert the External Insert directing the signal In Analog and the Adat Out.

It works but I can see how much I miss from the petential of the Adat In and Out set up you have suggested.

Is there anything, in terms of, routing I may have missed for not having the Adat In signal working?

All the best and thanks for your post

Davide

[aboullon]

Hi Tom,

I've been reading and following what you have been suggesting on how to hook up the
H8000FW to the FireFace800 and I want to thank you for that. I have one
question, I recently purchased two Distressors from Empirical labs and
would like to know what would be the optimal way to hook it up between the
harmonizer and the fireface. Your input is greatly appreciated.

[tomo88]

From the website it looks like the Distressor is using balanced analog I/O.  I would connect the ins and outs to the XLR ins and outs on the Fireface.  The FF Matrix allows you to route the audio any way you want — before the H8000, after the H8000, in parallel, etc.  The Eventide does great A/D conversion too, but I find it is easier to route things around with the FF.

In general I avoid effects with analog interfaces.  I believe that once I get the audio into the digital domain I want to keep it there until it is ready to go to the amp/speakers.  But at the end of the day whatever sounds good to your ear is fine.

[aboullon]

Thanks Tom! Really appreciate  it.

[aboullon]

Reading your note again I was curious about something you said. What do you mean that you avoid effects with analog interfaces? I am also a little new with all this and I am trying to get the best info in this sea of noise. Also, what websites you can suggest that can give us more insight of what we have discussed about routing, analog vs digital, balanced inputs, etc?

Thanks again!

[tomo88]

To go from analog to digital (or the other way 'round) you have to go through an A/D converter.  This process is lossy.  Really good A/D converters (like the ones in the H8000 and the ones in your FireFace) minimize this loss, but the conversion is still imperfect.  I prefer to get my signal from the (analog) instrument into the digital domain as directly as possible.  Once the signal is in the digital domain, I keep it there until I'm ready to hear it.  The cool thing about digital is that you can move it around and manipulate it in many different ways without introducing noise or degrading it.

Sorry, I don't know one website that teaches you everything you might want to know.  There are how-to book and magazines devoted to many different aspects of electronic music production that are worth reading.

[aboullon]

That makes perfect sense. The more straight the analog signal goes to the digital the better. I was messing around with the Fireface 800 matrix and the Eventide and I came with some challenges. How do you program the fireface matrix in order to use the eventide connected like you suggested through firewire, adat and clock rme as master? I apologize if it sounds very general but I cant figure it out. I use outs 1, 2 and 3 for my monitors and I connect a mic in the front to pick up the sound from my guitars amp. Is it better if I connect the guitar straight to the fireface to use the eventide or picking it up from a mic? thanks in advance

[aboullon]

I got it to work! The adat cables where damaged. Thanks again for all your help.

[tomo88]

Last part first: When I want to capture the whole sound of my guitar amp and cabinet, I will plug the guitar into the amp and use microphones plugged into the FireFace to record.  I've used the classic technique (Shure SM57 right in front of the best speaker) but I prefer to use a large-diaphragm condenser mike several feet away.  If I'm using digital effects, I'll plug the guitar into the FireFace instrument input (#1) and then use the H8000 and DAW to process the sound.  I'll usually record the guitar without any effects or processing on one track, and the effected sound on another track.  I will also run the guitar amp like an effects loop from the FireFace: guitar in to the FF; out the FF to the amp instrument input (through an impedance-matching box); out the amp preamp output; back to another FF input.  This gives me real tube-amp distortion.

[tomo88]

First part next: Let's assume you have your guitar plugged into the FF instrument input and the H8000 connected via ADAT 1.  In the FF Matrix, all of the 24 FF inputs show up as the rows and all of the outputs show up as the columns.  To connect an input to an an output you click in the box at the intersection of the input row and the output column.

To send the guitar to the H8000, you connect the Guitar row with the output column for the first ADAT channel (out 13).  

In the FF Mixer, you should see the guitar input signal in the first mixer channel in the top row when you play the guitar.  When you send that input to the H8000, you'll see mixer channel 13 at the bottom of the mixer (third row) show activity too.  If your H8000 is producing output, you'll see that show up in mixer channel 13 on the first row.  (The second row has the return from your DAW software, via the firewire link to your PC.)

To listen, plug in headphones to the FF, and use the Matrix to assign an input to the headphones:  Channel 1 to listen to your raw guitar, or the first ADAT channel (13) to listen the sound after it's been processed by the H8000. 

You don't have to do anything to send the inputs to your DAW; all inputs go up the firewire link (this is configurable in the fireface settings application).  But to connect a return from your software to a FF output you have to use the matrix to set it up.

If you want to mic your amp instead, you do the same thing I've described above…just use the microphone input ( I use in 7-10 on the front panel) instead of the instrument input (in 1).

[aboullon]

Amazing! Great information! Yes, the process of capturing the sound directly from the amp is what I tried and works fine, specially using two different mics to capture different levels making sure not fall into phase cancellations.  Now, I will also try this week the other ways you mentioned, specially the one using the amp as an effect loop which sounds interesting by getting a tube amp distortion. Question, what DI box are you using to regulate the impedance coming out of the amp? I saw the Hughes and Kettner Red Box Classic DI. Thanks for the detailed matrix connection explanation btw, it really helped me understand the simplistic of it. Also, do you have any recordings you would like to share for me to listen. I would really like to see what people are doing with this incredible machine. Mine is in soundcloud at soundcloud.com/alboullon. Is mainly electronic but soon I will start recording some guitar using the Eventide. I use Ableton Live as my DAW.

[tomo88]

I use a couple of different Ebtech devices for impedance matching.  I use the Hum Eliminator if the levels are the same on both ends, and I use the Line Level Shifter if they are not.  These are passive devices that don't require batteries or (yet another) transformer plugged in somewhere.  They are solidly built and work well for me.  I got mine from Amazon.com.  I looked at a number of different products but the others seemed oriented towards folks who worked more in the analog domain.

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