DSD with Pyramix/Magma portable

[Dr. Fred]

Hi!

Rather than purchase a Merging turnkey server-size PC, I seem to be moving towards getting the laptop/expansion chassis solution. But not the simple "one-slot" Magma chassis--one of their larger ones.

Has anyone tried multi-channel (two Mykerinos boards/8 channels) of DSD recording using a four-slot Magma expansion chassis? I'd probably want to have three Mykerinos boards, and a dual SCSI board. (This assumes the laptop can support a second LCD monitor with "extended desktop" mode.

I know I can do eight channels of DSD with the standard server-size PC solution, because I've done it, using equipment nicely loaned to me by Merging US. But that solution isn't too portable; I used it on a week-long recording session in June, and did eight tracks of 176.4 kHz, and would consider that much equipment too much to lug around day in and day out.

I already own a four-slot Magma box, and am therefore considering the possible economies..

Thanks!

"Dr. Fred"
Dufay Digital Music
Audio Media
Pro Audio Review

[Roland Clarke]

Merging told me that the spec for multichannel DSD only requires the use of 2 Mykerinos cards. Therefore using them on a laptop should present no difficulty. Unless you are using a lot of heavy plugin's two cards should provide you with all the power you will need for the type of recording work you are doing. Dual monitor thingy on a lap top is probably a different issue. My Pyramix is mounted in a rack mount case, (if cost is an issue, you may find this as cheap a way to go) and I only use one monitor when recording. Dual monitors I feel are realistically required for editing, but on the recording front especially if you are interested in recording 4/5 channels of sound only shouldn't be any trouble on a single monitor system. You can in the setup dialogue for Pyramix specify where the overview is positioned, and in that scenario I have it placed under the waveform window. Even in a rack configuration the pyramix is not really bulky. Another small flight case to carry a TFT screen and the mouse and keyboard and you are away! Good luck.

Regards


Roland

[Dr. Fred]

Hi!

Well, it's like this. For use with the Genex A8 and D8 converters--which I have--the DSD communication must be via SDIF. And for eight channels, yes, you need two Mykerinos cards. But would you want a Pyramix system set up with only SDIF i/o? What about AES/EBU? What about the possibility of S/MUX over glass fiber?

And let me tell you, cabling up my review system--which has the two SDIF and one AES/EBU cards, takes about half an hour! And you have to pay close attention, or you mess up. Both the Genex and Mykerinos have DB25 ports, but each supplies breakout cables with XLRs. Add in sixteen BNCs, and you've got quite a rats nest of cabling, which must be redone each time one does a remote recording.

MADI is the answer, of course, but as of today, that would entail inserting a Euphonix converter in line--more monkey business.

Genex hinted to me that they may be offering some sort of proprietary MADI-esque system for interfacing their converters to the outside world (like wouldn't everything on a single glass fiber be really nice?) which they may introduce at the LA AES convention. We shall see.

I also don't know if Pyramix's MADI implementation supports DSD. Claude? Nic? Alan? Anyone?

Until these details are sorted out, I'm holding off on any purchase. Life is too short to spend it connecting cables.

As far as the laptop solution is concerned, I do not want to have two systems. I already own a nice new 18." NEC LCD monitor and figure the laptop would provide the other one. Are you telling me there are *no* ways to get "dual head" capability from a high-end PC laptop? Macs have been able to do this for years. I even have a little $150 PCMCIA card which gives dual-head capability to my '98 300 mHz "Wallstreet" Mac PowerBook, but I'm sure there are no PC drivers for it. And even my old 1990 Dyaxis computer has always had extended desktop mode. But I confess I don't know the PC world at all; Pyramix is my only reason for switching away from Apple after all these years!

The "Merging PC" which was supplied to me is in a 28" deep server form factor, has a horribly noisy fan, weighs so much it's really hard for one person to hoist it up onto a table, gets really hot despite the fan, etc., etc. Are you saying you've got your Pyramix system set up in a much more "manageable" piece of computer hardware?

Thanks for your input!

"Dr. Fred"

[Roland Clarke]

Bearing in mind your Spaghetti problem I would buy a rack mount pc and intall it in a flightcase together with your Gennex converters. That way you could keep them permanently "hard wired". Sure its going to weigh in around 25kg, but thats not bad, and probably less than the console or the monitors. With two systems you are going to be costantly re-plumbing your converters, unless you have two sets. I'm sure that you can get dual head cards on a portable, but with the sphagetti problem and the having to wire dual heads I don't personally think its worth it. If you are really committed to keeping your Merging computer, just buy the rack case and have your local computer expert re-case it for you.

My sytem is dual head graphics, its just for ease of use that I use one monitor for location recording. I plug the other one in when I get home.

Just for a point of reference, the latest PC's are approaching twice the power of the top of the line G4's.

Regards


Roland

[benoit]

Hello Dr. Fred,

I've been travelling & recording with a pyramix rack-system for 2-3years; thanks to the practice, I can setup a 48-tracks live-session within less than 2 hours, mics, preamps, cabling, monitoring & line-check included! (no time for spagetti though).

I've been looking into a laptop-solution from time to time, but compared then the gain of weight and place with the rest of the equipement - the story ending most of the time with the buy of a new nice mic...



Benoit

[Dr. Fred]

Hi, Roland and Benoit!

Thanks for all the advice--which seems to be anti-laptop. There are two more issues complicating my decision.

First, I've just written an article about a U.S.-made product--a piece of furniture called "AcoustiLock" made by Noren Products in California, which is basically a huge custom rack (the sort of beautiful wooden one you see in world-class studios) which has the added feature of *completely* eliminating all the noise produced by anything you put in it and *also completely* dissipating all the heat produced by the same gear, even though it's locked up tighly inside the huge and very expensive ($4,000 US.) box! Right now, that's where the Merging PC, the converters, and the Glyph hard disk chassis are housed.

Obviously everything would have to be taken apart to do a remote session, so this is not a viable alternative. However, I see no other solution if I were to keep the Merging PC, because it's SO noisy.

That's the main reason I'm hoping the laptop solution can be worked out. I also own a particular "legacy" ATTO pci dual SCSI card featuring a strange "high voltage differential" protocol which enables me to remote the SCSI drives up to 100 meters away. I've used another Mac DAW (MOTU) this way for over three years now--and that one I do with a Mac laptop/Magma chassis combination. I have sets of 20 meter cables installed in two different editing locations in my studio--running down to a machine room in the level below the control room, and the whole system works flawlessly. I also have another set of cables for use on remotes.

Basically I've found this sort of setup to be very useable for remote<-->studio work (although the MOTU DAW is useless for editing, of course), and if I can just subsitute a different laptop and DAW system for the MOTU/Mac one, then I believe I'd be happy.

I just can't stand the noise the Merging PC makes, and can't imagine a PC this large which would be much quieter. The amount of noise my Magma four-slot expansion chassis makes is definitely bearable.

And, again, as far as my "spaghetti problem," I'm really hoping for Genex to solve this within the next couple of months. I've been running hundreds of meters of single and double glass fiber on my classical music recording sessions since 1988--since I usually remote the mic preamps and converters, and have sent get 8 channels of 96 kHz data sent over a double glass fiber run back when I possessed two Merging Sphynxes and four Merging Onouris boxes. I no longer have that equipment, but I now have similar gear which I have used with an Apogee Trak2 employed solely as an eight-channel 96 kHz AES/EBU to ADAT-ODI converter, and then transmitted and received the data via some custom little boxes like the Onourises.

So I'll keep waiting, and hope I'm not the first one to try something like this!

Does my reasoning make better sense now?

"Dr. Fred"

[Roland Clarke]

I understand fully what you are getting at, but I guess benoit and I are discussing real world solutions. Yes you can run Pyramix on a laptop, yes you can probably get a dual monitor option, yes you can use 3 Mykerinos cards to give you AES/EBU outs as well. But your option is very expensive, complicated, and limits options. I applaud anyone using hi-res recording and DSD, but more often than not the limitations on location recordings are things like the mics, traffic noise, and if you are lucky enough air noise. Having done many years of location recordings myself I find the accoustics of the monitoring rooms (usually a vestry, or canteen, or worse corridor) have a much greater impact than a little machine noise. You can get a quieter fan for a PC, and if you extend both your keyboard and monitor leads if you really need to, you can place your computer in the next room, or hallway. On location its perfectly feasable to work with one monitor only, yes two is nicer, but not worth the hassle for the benefit. When I work on location, I try to keep it really simple. I take very basic notes, these can now be put direct onto Pyramix, my take is, if I'm doing too much with the equipement, and recording side, I'm not listening to the performance. I respectfully suggest that even at $4,000 that cabinet could cause problems. Computers generate a lot of heat, especially the latest faster machines. That heat has to be dissipated somewhere and there are real benefits to running computers as cool as possible I would personally be loathe to install my system in this.

Regards


Roland

[Dr. Fred]

Hi, again!

The coolest thing about that expensive rack cabinet is that, inside, the gear actually runs *cooler* than it does sitting out on a tabletop! There's a digital thermometer, mounted inside the front door, top left, and for the past month it has tracked the ambient temperature of my room within a degree or two. And it's always *cooler*! I guess that shows that the heat *is* getting out, back to warm up my room! (It's done through some sort of patented heat pipe/convection process.) I wish I could justify its purchase..

re: my impractical non-real world requirements. I guess it's different strokes for different engineers. I guess all I can say is that I've done nearly 1,000 commercially-available classical recordings since the early seventies, and usually work alone. Quick setup time, the use of fiber optic snakes (to get the digitized mic preamp outputs from one end of a French cathedral back to the sacristy, for example) etc. are very important to me. The ability to keep a certain amount of my frequently-used equipment (monitoring gear, mic stands, copper cables, etc.) in Europe--so I can fly with only the mics and a minimum of recording gear--has always been part of my modus operandus.

Also essential is the ability to do my editing in a quiet environment. I agree with you that most monitoring situations we classical music freelancers use are not very desirable (how's about directly above a noisy cheese factory in Schlierbach, Upper Austria, for example, while recording a Baroque group at the local monastery!) But when I'm back home, at least I can pretend I have some control over my acoustical surroundings.

Let's see what Genex and Merging can come up with together concerning an effective multi-channel transmission protocol for DSD, shall we?

Even at my age, hope springs eternal!

All best wishes,

"Dr. Fred"

[Silas]

Hi Dr. Fred and All,

I have just come back from a session where we recorded to a Toshiba Satelite laptop & single Mikerinos Magma chassis running Pyramix 4.0.20 SP2. It was only stereo 24/88.2 but the system worked flawlessly. The artists couldn't believe it when after the first break they came back and we had edited the opening of the movement they just recorded for playbacks. The laptop is very quiet-just some intermittent chatter when the boot drive is accessed. The magma chassis had a scsi mechanism in it (room for two) which made its fan cycle a bit but we were recording to an external scsi drive remoted (as far as we could get it). Then on breaks we would drag copy to firewire connected directly to the laptop. The main snag at the moment is that all of the DB25 I/O available from the daughter cards has nowhere to live on the Magma. I understand that Merging is working on this. This solution is by FAR quieter than the big rackmount turnkeys that we both have and fits in a large laptop case...There is a way to hook up another monitor to the Toshiba-I haven't tried it so I don't know how flexible it is. I look forward to see is multitrack DSD is possible on a laptop-I think Merging is really on to something with this setup. C-Tech also has a luggable that definately can do DSD but is still about 35 lbs. and has some fan noise. Paul tells me they are further refining this with the possibility of a motherboard heat sink instead of the large fan-potentially very quiet.
Also FYI Kingston / Storcase is now making external 2 space rackmount dual and 4- bay removeable firewire, SCSI and IDE with scsi interface systems. I have put a few together with fast mechanisms and they are very rugged-7 yr warranty-single or dual channel. The Kingston products are by far the best for our applications in my experience. The removeable trays are almost universal among other DAWs and Video systems now.

Regards to all,

Silas

[DougA]

silas says
"The main snag at the moment is that all of the DB25 I/O available from the daughter cards has nowhere to live on the Magma. I understand that Merging is working on this."

With all the orifices filled, is there a solution for desktops?
With the physical slots availible on the MB,
I'm thinking of expanding to more cards, but where can I put 'em?
Really do not want to go to the expense of a PCI extension chassis for a few slot openings if there is a "better/other way".

[Dr. Fred]

Greetings!

Doug from Houston wondered about how to deal with all the Mykerinos DB25 i/o connectors in a Magma extension chasis. With all due repect to Nancy at Magma, and Claude at Merging, this should not be a Magma issue.

Indeed! This is the stupidest "feature" of the Mykerinos cards, which have obviously grown from 8 tracks of AES/EBU at 44.1 kHz to many more tracks of 192 kHz via the same protocol, without much (apparent) thought given as how to connect it efficiently. Three cards have the possibility of giving us *nine* DB25 connectors (and all their crazy fanouts) to deal with!

Except for MADI, of course.

If you noticed my previous complaining posts about this same subject, you'll have also noticed that I'm waiting on a combination MADIesque solution from Genex and Merging--which would be far simpler than putting a Euphonix AES<<-->>MADI box between Mykerinos and Genex.

PLEASE, GUYS (in Switzerland), let us know your thoughts on this BIG PROBLEM!

It is entirely possible to have one single glass fiber connector carrying all available MADI channels (as you already theoretically offer). But what about 192 kHz and/or DSD. Aye, there's the rub!

"Dr. Fred"
trouble- maker for efficient cabling schemes

[Brent@SSD]

Chaps,

Just concerning the ongoing debate regarding MADI and in/outs, I heard from a lil bird that SONY will be releasing a remote box based around the DMX R100 architecture. In essence a rack of AD/DA's with a madi out, (is that like the Euphonix box?). And since Merging have already dealt with that protocol it should surely only be a matter of time before that becomes a remote box for Pyramix! Simple MADI DC, two connections and loads of ins and outs that you can string over a long distance, Id say that would be handy for location work.

[Dr. Fred]

Thanks, Brent and Silas.

Glad to hear that it can be done, and that someone is thinking logically.

Will this Sony product be introduced at the LA AES? Website links yet?

Curious--but many of us take our converters more than seriously, and wouldn't think of getting another set just to get the MADI outputs (unless they're great converters, of course!)

All best wishes,

"Dr. Fred"

[Rubato]

Dear Dr Fred & others-

Am looking forward to using a laptop PMX system in the near future (provided it works well, of course). Any further developments since August when this thread was last active?
\
ML

[benoit]

I had the oportunity to test one of the few prototypes available of this new sony unit, called SIU 100, and even if some things don't work like they should (remote-control of the preamps, for ex.). it's a cool piece of gear. You can fill it up with merging's madi interface, AES/EBU, adat, analog I/O (with or without preamps), total 8 boards + sync board per unit, and it integrates very well with pyramix, plus has good audio specs, and one will be able to remote it per pc-software very soon.
I have a pdf for the ones interested.

Cheers
Benoit