H9000 – Pro Tools AUX IO over USB

[montroserecording]

hey y’all. on an HDX system and using all 64 of my IO already. considering an h9000 and it would be ideal to use the H9000 over usb for midi implementation and extra IO.  has anyone tried this to see if it works properly?

[tbskoglund]

Sure, that will work. You’ll need to create an aggregate device that combines your HDX system and the H9000 USB Audio. Then you will have access to the USB I/O on the H9000 from Pro Tools: https://cdn.eventideaudio.com/manuals/h9000/2.2.11/content/setup/usbsetup.html#using-the-h9000-with-your-existing-computer-audio-interface

[montroserecording]

right- but in pro tools you can use AUX IO to route computer audio (internal or usb etc) without using an aggregate device.  this is usually much more reliable – I just wanna check to see if anyone has used the H9000 in this way before buying

 

[tbskoglund]

I see, I wasn’t aware of that. But yes, that should work fine since the H9000 USB Audio will work like any other core audio device.

I can try this out and get back to you sometime soon if nobody else has experience with this.

[montroserecording]

sure that would be awesome but im also assuming it will work great – might be cool if eventide made that that recommendation a part of the manual if it works properly.  you have to turn hybrid engine on in pro tools and then aux io becomes available in the IO window.

[montroserecording]

heya – so I have a 9000R here in the studio to try this out with and I can not for the life of me get the unit to sync up without a huge delay.  is this a USB problem dealing with the pro tools delay compensation?  I think I’ll need to take the unit back if this is unresolveable

 

[tbskoglund]

Hi again,

Just to confirm, the issue is that you are experiencing a lot of latency with the Pro Tools Aux I/O and H9000 usb audio?

How much latency?

Can you do a simple test with just a thru algorithm in an FX Chain and pass audio (a click or short sound) through the H9000? You should be able to measure the amount of latency that way.

Does the amount of latency change when you use a higher sample rate?

Does the amount of latency change when you adjust the Pro Tools hardware latency settings?

I don’t have any experience using the Aux I/O feature in Pro Tools, so I cannot comment on how that may handle latency. You may want to check some Pro Tools forums for further troubleshooting advice.

 

[montroserecording]

heya –

 

yes pro tools aux io with h9000 through USB.  clocking the h9000 with a wordclock cable from my lynx aurora.

 

im out of the studio for the day but i did simple through algorithm tests and it was in the neighborhood of 2600 samples.  it was also not compensating for my pro tools playback engine delay which was set to 1024 samples.  when i changed the buffer size smaller, the latency changed accordingly.  i did not test for different sample rates but think this would also change it.

i tried to setup pro tools aggregate device but i couldn’t pass audio through usb.  gave the error that usb clock was off.

 

[tbskoglund]

Looking into this further and it seems that AUX I/O does not use latency compensation and also adds additional buffering on the inputs/outputs: https://avidtech.my.salesforce-sites.com/pkb/articles/faq/Auxiliary-IO-Frequently-Asked-Questions

The H9000 itself does not introduce much latency, you can find the latency specs here: https://cdn.eventideaudio.com/manuals/h9000/2.2.11/content/setup/DAWLatencyCompensation.html

I assume that this extra latency introduce would be an issue with any USB Device being used with AUX I/O.

Fixing the USB clock error on the H9000 is not difficult, instructions to do that can be found here: https://cdn.eventideaudio.com/manuals/h9000/2.2.11/content/setup/usbsetup.html#changing-the-usb-audio-sample-rate

The clock error will be resolved by toggling the sample rate of the H9000 USB audio device or the aggregate device in the Audio MIDI setup settings on your Mac.

I would also suggest that you may be better off using the analog/digital protocols on the H9000, or investing in the PTHD card for the H9000 to integrate it into your HDX setup.

There are many ways that the H9000 can work in any setup, I’d be happy to help provide further suggestions/instructions if you can let me know what your rig consists of and how you’d like to use the H9000.

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