Could someone explain to me what you can do with ADAT?

Ashkenazy · Post by **Ashkenazy** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 10:23 am

I don't understand what you can do with ADAT. You can't connect it to a Dolby receiver. So how can I hear the sound from the ADAT?

aMo · Post by **aMo** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 10:36 am

ADAT gives you 8 channels of digital sound in 44.1/48Khz, or 4 channels in 96khz.
You can connect the optical ADAT to a ADAT interface, which in effect gives you up to 16 analog I/O in 44.1/48Khz, or 8ch in 96Khz on a Pulsar...

ADAT was originally made to use with analog recording machines that recorded 8 tracks of digital audio on a video-cassette (looks like normal VHS, but has a higher standard on the tape itself).
Now people use it to add analog I/O to their soundcards etc. and to add Digital I/O to for instance samplers that has adat I/O (which means you can connect a sampler to your Pulsar, and get 8 channels digitally transferred to your Pulsar).

[ This Message was edited by: aMo on 2003-07-17 11:37 ]

Ashkenazy · Post by **Ashkenazy** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 10:43 am

So you can transmit analog as well as digital signals through ADAT? Or am I wrong?

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 10:49 am

ADAT transmits only digital audio.
Afaik, ADAT stands for Alesis Digital Audio Transfer.
http://www.alesis.com/support/faqs/index.html

[ This Message was edited by: at0mic on 2003-07-17 11:53 ]

Ashkenazy · Post by **Ashkenazy** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 12:03 pm

What's the benefit of ADAT? You can't connect it to your Dolby Receiver, so how can you hear the sound comming out of ADAT?

borg · Post by **borg** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 12:18 pm

first of all, you need something that can receive and/or transmit ADAT signals. this means stuff like a digital mixer, AD/DA convertors like A16, noah, sampler, pulsar in another computer,... anything that has the ADAT spec.

so, if you have this equipment, you can connect whatever soundsource in sfp to the ADAT output module (mixer, synth, other i/o module), or integrate the ADAT input in SFP. make the physical connection from the ADAT out to your other equipment which supports ADAT, using 'lightpipes' small cables transmitting the 'red laser light' signal, which carries your eight channels.

like this you have your pulsar hooked up to another audio device.
that's it, something like your normal analogue out, which doesn't make a sound on itself either, not?

_________________
andy
 the lunatics are in the hall 

[ This Message was edited by: borg on 2003-07-17 13:20 ]

[ This Message was edited by: borg on 2003-07-17 13:23 ]

Ashkenazy · Post by **Ashkenazy** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 12:49 pm

O.K. so now you have this beautifull multitrack digital sound, but you also want to hear it.
My dolby receiver has a Coaxial In and an Optical In for Dolby Digital Surround sound, but it has no ADAT In.
So how can you hear this Digital ADAT Sound? Because I reckon that in the end you just want to hear the sound.

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 1:06 pm

To hear your ADAT sound, connect it to an A8 or A16, which converts ADAT to analog.

To hear Surround through your Dolby encoder, load the 'Digital Wave Source' which can only be connected to S/P-DIF. S/P-DIF can be transmitted over 'coax' as you call the input, or optical. The optical S/P-DIF uses same cable as ADAT, and Pulsar can switch the optical I/O between ADAT & S/P-DIF - see Samplerate View, lower left corner. In a digital audio transfer system, you always need a clock master & slave, I think the Dolby Encoder will easily slave to Pulsar. Check out its manual.

Ashkenazy · Post by **Ashkenazy** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 1:41 pm

This is strange, so you have Digital ADAT sound, but when you want to hear it you must first convert it to analog sound. Then this ADAT doesn't have any benefit at all, because in the end you still get to hear analog sound. Why should you have this ADAT if you can't maintain the sound quality when you want to hear it. You might just as wel use the analog output of the soundcart directly without routing it through the ADAT, since this gives the same quality in the end.

Dolby Digital isn't converted into analog sound, so this is real digital sound quality.

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 1:59 pm

FYI, you can't hear 010101010111010001010110 bits'n'bytes, you can only hear airpressure variations within 50-15.000Hz.

ADAT's just an easy means to transport 8 audio channels over one cable.

Ashkenazy · Post by **Ashkenazy** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 2:42 pm

Of course I understand the digital information has to be translated before you can hear it.

To my point of view you can actually do all the mixing with the Creamware Soundcart itself (mixing, adding effects, etc.), so it's not really necessairy keep all channels seperated and and connect it to an expensive external mixer, when the soundcart can do the mixing itself.

aMo · Post by **aMo** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 2:52 pm

Think in reverse, you can connect external hardware via seperate channels which has been through an AD-converter (Analog to Digital) into your software mixer.
Or if you have a sampler with ADAT output you can do the same, but the signal then is always digital.

borg · Post by **borg** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 2:56 pm

you CAN do your mix in sfp and send two, eight, sixteen or more audio channels to the outside world, but you will need adat to do this... no way around.

or do you want sixteen jack holes in your pci card? people may like to use sfp as a big synth archive and record various instruments at the same time to, lets say, pro tools, or analog tape/desk, on different channels...
so many other applications...
i for instance, use A8 to have a stereo and two mono outs in addition to analog i/o, and also to integrate my two rack mount fx units into sfp if i need to... wouldn't all be possible without adat.

welcome to creamware sfp's routing functionality. if you don't need adat, maybe you will be happy to have spdif, or just analog stereo... if you DO need adat, well, the holes are there. you just need to plug it in.

maybe i misunderstood, but if you're after 5.1/dolby surround, you wanna try these:
http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... 31&forum=1
http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... 50&forum=5
http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... 52&forum=3

_________________
andy
 the lunatics are in the hall 

[ This Message was edited by: borg on 2003-07-17 16:15 ]

Ashkenazy · Post by **Ashkenazy** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 5:53 pm

Thanks for all your very interesting replies everyone!
ADAT gives a lot of possibilities of integrating many external devices digitally and connecting to many external devices digitally.

[ This Message was edited by: Ashkenazy on 2003-07-17 18:59 ]