Profire Lightbridge and Cubase 4

[Blackwater]

Hello all,

I'm continuing to have major difficulty with clicks and pops hapening randomely on playback and during record.

Set up is as follows:

24 channels of adat lightpipe from Sony desk into Profire lightbridge.
Out of profire lightbridge into Cubase 4 via firewire.
Out of cubase via firewire into profire lightbridge.
Out of Lihtbridge via adat lightpipe to the Sony desk.
Clocking using wordclock from Hedd 192 into the Sony.
Out of Sony into self terminating Profire lightbridge.
Computer is a brand new dual core 2.54 processor w/ 2 gig of ram.
These are happening when I'm set at 64 buffer or 1024 buffer it doesn't help.
M-audio told me I needed a dedicated firewire card instead of using the main one off the motherboard so I spent the $50 and the clicks were more frequent and distorted. I have never had this issue before switching to the new set up.

My client called me on it yesterday and it was very embarrasing to say the least.

Any help would be much appreciated,

Chris

[feyshay]

It appears that you are internally clocking your M-Audio device or you are clocking it to the Sony.
Thus, you do not have your clocking of digital devices synched properly. Or you have a daisy chain going on.
Why don't you run another digital output from your HEDD into your M-Audio device. Thus, your Sony and M-Audio device would both be clocked to the HEDD.
That should take care of the clicks, I would think.

[Blackwater]

Thanks.
My M-Audio lightbridge set to clock via external wordclock. You are right in that I am clocking the sony from the HEDD and then going from the Sony out to the M-Audio in. This has worked in exactly the same manner for the last 6 years when I was using an MX-2424 as my HDR. Not sure why it would now start to be a problem.

[feyshay]

Originally Posted by Blackwater

Thanks.
My M-Audio lightbridge set to clock via external wordclock. You are right in that I am clocking the sony from the HEDD and then going from the Sony out to the M-Audio in. This has worked in exactly the same manner for the last 6 years when I was using an MX-2424 as my HDR. Not sure why it would now start to be a problem.

Hmm. I've daisy chained in the past without difficulty. I have somewhat of a similar setup. I use an Apogee mini-me to clock my MOTU Traveler and KSP8.
The KSP8 is connected by ADAT to the Traveler.
BTW--there is another post on this forum about someone getting clicks/pops with a lightbridge, I think.
Give my suggestion a try to see if it improves the situation.
Of course, make sure everything running at the sample rate.
I was very tempted by that HEDD, but for now am sticking with my current setup. How do you like that device?

[Blackwater]

Thanks,

I'll try it tonight and let you know.

The Cranesong Hedd 192 is always strapped to my 2 bus. Always! Depending on the music my settings change greatly. Very easy to over use the box. Go for it. They don't lose their value and I hardly ever see them up for sale used. Although I haven't looked for one in about a year now. I want 3 more by the end of 2008.
When I take it off the 2 bus I get weak in the knees and feel as though I might vomit. One of the best purchases in 5 years. Way better than my choice to switch to a PC.



Peace,

Chris

[Blackwater]

Switched over to clocking w/out daisy chaining and I still have clicks and pops!
Shit... This is pissing me off. Seems if I switch to internal sync in the M-Audio Control Panel and open up cubase and play a project and then close the project and switch to word clock sync in the control panel that when I open up projects after that that the clicks and pops are gone. FREAKY!

[Killahurts]

Chris,

Have you tried clocking the Lightbridge from the ADAT input (from the Sony)? I always had to do that when I had a MOTU interface, even though it had a WC in.

This thread kind of scares me because I got a Profire Lightbridge for my new Mac Pro a few weeks ago - it's been working perfectly stand=alone, but I haven't tried to clock it externally yet. That was going to be this week, and I plan to hook it up to the Sony console as well

[RWhite]

I feel your pain! I just got the Profire last week and have been trying to clock it of my ad-16x into Pro Tools. Clocking off of adat or word clock is fine at 44.1 but I can't get it to clock off of word at 88.2. Then, sometimes when I clock via the adat connectionat 88.2 I get strange digital artiifacts all over the place (sounds like aliens making love in the background - although not half as sexy) - of course sometimes it sounds just fine. Then, it looses clock all the time during play back (I use Spdif into a Lavry da10). It will also loose clock momentarily anytime I turn on a light switch elsewhere in the house or turn on a piece of gear in the studio (all my rig is on one outlet). Then I have this problem where I fire everthing up and make sure the Apogee is putting out 88.2 and that the Profire is synced to it. I try to open up a Pro Tools session recroded at 88.2 and will get a message saying "the current playback engine doesn't support a 44.1 sample rate." What the hell does that mean?

So, this being my second M-audio interface (I know, I'm a fool for buying a 2nd, but it was the only thing with 16 adat ins into Pro Tools), I can only conclude that M-audio simply makes horrible products. I've set up plenty of digital systems before and know that I have the clocking wired right in this scenario, it should just work. And it should work all of the time, not be really picky about time of day and how many lights are on in the house. It seriously stands in the way of music creation when it takes 20 minutes to fool it into opening a session or get it to record without aliens eating potato chips in my ear.

Sorry to rant all over your post becuase I know that this isn't at all helpful in your situation, but I needed to get the rant out and warn others considering the Profire Lightbridge.

Again, I feel your pain.

[Blackwater]

Yea man, I hear ya. Some sessions it's fine and then all of a sudden it popsville!
Don't be sorry, I'm hoping someone from M-Audio will realize that the product has problems. I'll try clocking via the Adat and see what happens. I don't want to do that though. Just bought a Lucid clock that I really want to use. Does M-Audio have a bad rep for shit like this? They should.

Chris

[bit mangler]

Do you have any IRQ sharing issues?

[Blackwater]

Do you have any IRQ sharing issues?

?????

Please continue. What is this you are refering to?

Thanks,

Chris

[bit mangler]

Chris,
Go to : START --> RUN --> type "msinfo32" --> OK --> Hardware Resources --> IRQs

Select your IRQ list here.

cut n paste your result.We'll go from there

I'm assuming you're on Windoze .IRQ is Interrupt Request ...simply put it is a method of managing priorities

[smack]

Dear RWhite,

If you are drawing so much current from the wall that your wordclock is dropping out when you turn on a lightswitch, then what other anomolous issues are you having that are likely due to unstable voltage/current?

Perhaps you could warn others about the dangers of home fires, blown circuits, and plugging your entire studio into a single wall outlet while your at it?

[Blackwater]

Well I am giving up.

There was nothing concerning IRQ's that posed a conflict. I checked it out with M-Audio and the computer's IRQ settings are fine. iw wasn't sharing an IRQ # with anything else.

So I have gone with the RME card that does 24 adat I/O. After mixing all day today since 8am I can report that I had not one single pop or click and I was ecstatic when I finished tonight. So was the client.

Not to bash M-Audio because I know that some people are having good luck with the lightbridge, but it did not work for me and I am wicked happy to see it go back to the store. (never again will I buy, I hope, another M-Audio product though)

I want to thank Warren from Frontend Audio for coming up with the RME idea!!
All is finally well.

On a side note, I mixed with the ADAM P33A's today and will let you know my findings in some ADAM thread at a later date.

YEE-HAA!

Chris

[RWhite]

Originally Posted by smack

Dear RWhite,

If you are drawing so much current from the wall that your wordclock is dropping out when you turn on a lightswitch, then what other anomolous issues are you having that are likely due to unstable voltage/current?

Perhaps you could warn others about the dangers of home fires, blown circuits, and plugging your entire studio into a single wall outlet while your at it?

I'm not so sure that that's the issue, but I thank you for your insight into the electrical wiring of my house. It's nice to know that someone with no knowledge of my set-up can be of such help from so far away.

If you must know, I only put everything on one circuit while troubleshooting to make sure that there weren't any grounding issues causing the sync failure. Also, the problems occur when only the interface, computer, monitors, and clock are powered. I have drawn much more current than that with no problems (or blown breakers, mind you) so I don' t feel that it's an unreasonable amount of stress to put on my electrical system. It seems obvious that there is an electrical problem that is occuring, but if I'm foolish for running the above units at the same time, then I am equally foolish for running the dishwasher and a spaceheater at the same time. Don't worry, the only time I run everything at once is when it's well below zero and I'm doing some Foley work in my kitchen.

All the same, I will glady post a PSA about home fires as soon as I cause one. Personally, I think that it gives my music that extra edge knowing that it is being created in a manner that is so dangerous to myself an others around me. If that's doesn't fulfill the rock 'n' roll spirit then I don't know what to do. In the meantime; I welcome any helpful suggestions as to the solution for the problem.

[Blackwater]

[kenn.michael]

How was your Lightbridge connected to the computer, with a 6pin to 6pin cable or a 6pin to 4pin cable?

If it is a 6pin to 6pin, then make sure to NOT have your Lightbridge connected to AC power. Let it be bus-powered from the computer. This got rid of clicks and pops for me. I'm successfully clocking the Lightbridge to an external source.

[danny]

michael has what I've been told is the correct answer to this problem.

my experience with profire was total frustration.
I had two of them. The first one was defective right out of the box. It went into auto firmware update mode and never returned. The second one gave lots of clicks no matter how I clocked it to/from my SSL Alpha-Link AX, but I didn't know the thing about bus powering then. In any case I decided I could not run my business based on such an iffy piece and also went the RME route. I wasn't really comfortable doing this over Firewire in any case. AND the fact that it is forbidden to hotplug the Profire on penalty of frying it is lame as hell. Kind of consistent with the bus-powering rule in a perverse way...

I'm through with M-Audio too, except that the comments & reviews on their Sputnik mic I'm hearing are unqualified raves. PAR's Dr. F. Bashour had it in the ballpark with his Stephen Paul modded Neumanns, C12, etc. I ain't heard it yet, but I'm curious!

[Blackwater]

RME is the way to go. Still no problem with it and I've been using it daily for at least 6-7 hours at a shot. M-audio should have been more open to the fact that my unit might have been damaged. Instead blaming my computer setup and software has made me cringe every time I here there name. No excuse for poor support.

[danny]

I had a hell of a time even reaching their support and when I did they weren't very good.

[Blackwater]

You never know. Some people have good luck with it. I think the problem lies with Clocking from an external source but that is purely my opinion. When I tried clocking internally things seemed a bit better but not cured by any means. I switched to clocking everything from an external clock before getting rid of the lightbridge and still had major issues. Then I went with the RME card and haven't had any problems for months now. I hate to say it but M-Audio.

[shanabit]

M-Audio gear SUCKS IMO. I wouldnt give money for it for nothing.

[LX3]

Originally Posted by Blackwater

You never know. Some people have good luck with it. I think the problem lies with Clocking from an external source but that is purely my opinion. When I tried clocking internally things seemed a bit better but not cured by any means. I switched to clocking everything from an external clock before getting rid of the lightbridge and still had major issues. Then I went with the RME card and haven't had any problems for months now. I hate to say it but M-Audio.

Similar problems here with a Lightbridge, attempting to transfer audio from an HD24. Works, but every track has a click every five seconds or so. (So, effectively, it doesn't work).

That's with the Lightbridge set to receive word clock sync on the first ADAT input.

On a hunch, I set the Lightbridge to internal clock and ran wordclock on BNC from the Lightbridge to the HD24XR, and set the HD24 to external clock. Then it worked.

So, as far as I can make out, the Lightbridge will not sync to its ADAT inputs properly. At least, mine won't. In fact, I suspect that the LB may always be stuck on internal clock, regardless of how you set the control panel options. In many situations this makes it close to unusable, because using the Lightbridge as the WordClock master for a system is frequently not an option.

Sorry, but no big surprises, just big disappointment. In ten years since I first got one of their Delta DIO2496 cards, to the Octane, the MicroTrack, I have never run across a piece of M-Audio kit that worked properly.

[dlmorley]

Mine has been fine since I sussed it out.
I would rather a PCI card, but am on iMac.
I will probably get a Mac Pro at some point and hopefully find a good PCI card then, but for the minute, my Lightbridge is working absolutely fine (externally clocked from my SSL converters)

[LX3]

Originally Posted by dlmorley

Mine has been fine since I sussed it out.
I would rather a PCI card, but am on iMac.
I will probably get a Mac Pro at some point and hopefully find a good PCI card then, but for the minute, my Lightbridge is working absolutely fine (externally clocked from my SSL converters)

Is your LB clocked from the ADAT inputs? (i.e. not by BNC word clock)

If yours works okay in that configuration, I would assume my Lightbridge is faulty... I'll do some more testing when I can face it.

If I could get it working reliably that would be great. Still, I never get this much trouble with other manufacturer's hardware. Sorry M-Audio, but it's true.

[dlmorley]

Originally Posted by LX3

Is your LB clocked from the ADAT inputs? (i.e. not by BNC word clock)

If yours works okay in that configuration, I would assume my Lightbridge is faulty... I'll do some more testing when I can face it.

If I could get it working reliably that would be great. Still, I never get this much trouble with other manufacturer's hardware. Sorry M-Audio, but it's true.

Mine is clocked via word clock. Not sure if or what happened when I used adat. I can try that and see.

[edwinhurwitz]

Originally Posted by LX3

Is your LB clocked from the ADAT inputs? (i.e. not by BNC word clock)

If yours works okay in that configuration, I would assume my Lightbridge is faulty... I'll do some more testing when I can face it.

If I could get it working reliably that would be great. Still, I never get this much trouble with other manufacturer's hardware. Sorry M-Audio, but it's true.

I have a Lightbridge that I have clocked from both w/c bnc, spdif and ADAT and it's been fine.

The Presonus unit does look a little more robust, but the M-Audio does have s/pdif as well, which is nice. I don't understand why they have to have a vulnerable firewire port though. I haven't had any trouble and apparently current macs won't but it's still a pretty bogus thing in this day and age.

Edwin