Benedikt:

Hello and welcome to the Self-Recording Band podcast. I'm your host, Benedikt Hain. If you're new to the show, welcome. So stoked to have you. If you're already a listener, welcome back. This time today, we're gonna talk about something technical again, but it's like, Malcolm just said it before the show. It's like incredibly simple and at the same time, kind of complex, or like complicated,or sounds complicated, but it's something that you absolutely need to know about. And I think most of you have... thought about that before or ran into this issue. And we're talking about ADAT or SPDIF connections, which means when you need more inputs or outputs into your computer from your interface, but you don't want to buy a new and bigger interface, what can you do, right? So ADAT and SPDIF is a way to expand your interface and get more ins and outs. And we're gonna explain to you how that stuff works, how you know if that is the option for you. and what you need to know about it, like what gear to buy. And yeah, we just try to keep it as simple as possible. It's just so you know how to use it. You don't need to know all the ins and outs. But yeah, let us help you expand your current setup to get more inputs and outputs and save some money. And I'm doing this with my friend and co-host, Malcolm Owen-Fluddigan. Hello, Malcolm, how are you?

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Hey Benny, I'm good man, how are you?

Benedikt:

I'm good too. Thank you. I already realized while I was reading for my notes that this is gonna be more complicated than I hoped it would be. But we're gonna get through.

No, it's something that I think a lot of people ran into or will run into eventually when they're trying to record more channels at the same time or give their bandmates individual headphone mixes or something like that. So I think this is actually overdue. We should have talked about that a while ago.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Yeah, very useful feature.

Benedikt:

Yeah, exactly. So we'll get to that in a second. But today I have something for our banter that it's really exciting. So about five minutes before I before we started this recording today here of the episode, I got an email from the guys at Studio Scene, which is an event that's going to happen in Germany in October and precisely on from October 17th to October 19th, 2023 at Messe Hamburg, Germany. And this is gonna be a really cool event. There's gonna be more than 30 master classes and audio workshops with absolutely top tier professionals. And Makam and I, and Wayne and Thomas, and the whole team at the Suffer Green Band, we're gonna be there as well. And I got an email from them that the ticketing, the early bird ticket order process has started. So you can actually go to their website now and purchase tickets. And they also officially released the list of confirmed guests now. And I'm going to tell you real quick who you can expect there. So that's

Malcom Owen-Flood:

I mean I haven't seen this email so I'm yeah

Malcom Owen-Flood:

I'm this is I mean I know some of the names I think because you had a rough idea of who some might be but I'm yeah so excited.

Benedikt:

Yeah, I think there might be even more, but so far it's, so far the people who are gonna be there and who are gonna host those workshops and that you can learn from and connect with and network with are Jason Joshua, who's worked with Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, Rihanna, you know, all kinds of like Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, like it's an incredible credits list. So he's gonna be there. He's a well-known, we're a very well-known engineer and producer from the US. Then Chilled Simamon is gonna be there. She's worked with Alex is on Fire, Alice Cooper. She's originally from Germany. She's a Juno Award nominee, which is like, I think the biggest Canadian award thing that you can get. Yeah, she's gonna be there. She's worked with, yeah, Alice Cooper, Alex is on Fire, Three Days Grace. Amazing, amazing engineer, producer. Then, Vorrent, you are just gonna be there from Produce Like a Pro. I think most of you listeners will know who he is. He's worked with Aerosmith, The Fray, James Blunt, and he obviously runs Produce Like a Pro. His YouTube channel has over 700,000 subscribers, so he's a very well-known name, and just a really cool guy.

He's gonna be there and host workshops. Then Hans Martin Buff is gonna be there, another German producer, engineer. He's worked with Prince, The Scorpions, Peter Gabriel.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

That's huge.

Benedikt:

Absolutely huge, absolutely huge. So he's going to be there, super awesome dude as well. He's writing for German recording magazines, like Sound and Recording. I think he had a column there for a while. And from what I've read there, he seems to be a cool guy as well. I don't know him personally, but I think it's going to be fun. Then Moritz Enders is going to be there, another German one. The Germans will know the artists he's worked with, such as Silbermund, The Inter Sphere, a lot of chart. Yeah, you know, successful charts, records. Then who else is going to be there? Quarterhat is a German producer and songwriting duo. They've also worked with like, who did they work with? Vincent Weiss, huge German artist. Mark Foster, huge German artist. So yeah, the list goes on and on. There's a couple of others too, but these are sort of the biggest ones on this list now. And I think you can already see that this is going to be very cool.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

going to be wild. Ha ha.

Benedikt:

Absolutely wild. Yes, Stefan Beitke is going to be there. He's a mastering engineer, a very well-known mastering engineer, and he's going to do workshop on mastering. And so, yeah, all of this is going to take place from October 17th to October 19th, and the Suffragating Band team will be there as well. It's not quite sure, or not officially, what we're going to do there, but we're not going to be guests. We're going to do something there as well. So yeah, just keep following us, keep listening to the podcast, and we'll let you know what exactly we're going to do. But we're going to be there. There will be some, something will happen. And some of the people from that list that I just read will eventually appear on that podcast. That's something I can also already say. So this is going to be super exciting.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

If somebody told me when we started this podcast that I get a trip to Germany to go meet like, heroes of mine,

Benedikt:

Yeah.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

pretty, pretty excited guy. So this is cool. I'm really excited. Hopefully some of the self-recording band community wants to go check out this event and we can all hang out together. definitely want to meet up with anybody that happens to be coming to Hamburg for that weekend.

Benedikt:

Absolutely, like a Self-Recording Band meetup would be awesome. It's kind of central, you know, it's central Europe So I hope that not only Germans but like anyone somewhat close Will show up there and

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Mm-hmm.

Benedikt:

yeah, let's let us know if you're going there. Let us know because if we know Who to expect and how many people will be then we can plan things maybe or just like that That would be that would be good for us to know if you just shoot us an email at podcast at the Self-Recording Band and at the Self-Recording Band.com and just let us know if you're gonna if you plan on being there. And yeah, then we can work something out. So the options for the tickets now, I have to say that though, because they asked me to say it on a podcast as well, because we're like partners with them and promote that event. There's a link that's gonna be in the show notes that if you just go to your podcast app, or if you're watching on YouTube, then just go to the description and then you find the link where you can pre-order your tickets. There's an early bird ticket right now that I think is... Let me see what it says there. There's an early-bird ticket with master class access that is limited to 50 tickets, so get them fast. I think this is a cheaper option than buying it later, but it's limited to 50. Then there is, you have the option of a three-day ticket, a two-day ticket, or a one-day ticket, and then one three-day ticket, including the master classes. And if you only go for a one or two or three-day ticket, then you can purchase the master classes or access to those separately later if you want to. but like the cheapest or best deal would be the three day early bird ticket including all master classes. Just go to that link, check that out, and get your ticket now. And then if you follow this show, you're gonna hear more and more things about this event and what we're gonna be doing there. All right,

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Yeah,

Malcom Owen-Flood:

I mean, real quick, I just want to say, because if you live in North America like I do, it might seem like there's just no, you might not consider going to something like that, because it's a long ways away. I get it. But events like this are like the best networking opportunities

Benedikt:

Yeah.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

I've ever experienced in my life. I've gone to things like this. events like this, we didn't get to go to the same one. I went to a summit, recording summit in Vegas, and I made lifelong friends down there and connections that I've worked with ever since. So, I don't know, if you're into the recording world, you should really consider this, because this is gonna be an amazing event. That lineup's crazy. It's good people that are putting it on. We get to be involved, obviously, so it's gonna be a great time. Really, really consider it, I think, if you're taking the series.

Benedikt:

Absolutely agree with that. And I forgot a very important thing actually. It's not only those workshops and master classes, it's like a whole exhibition sort of thing where there is the world's top audio brands are gonna be there and present their latest gear. So that's part of it too. And yeah, it's more than 30 master classes and workshops. It's not only the master classes, but like smaller workshops at the booths of these audio brands. So that's a part of that too. It's not only like an educational thing. So it's a whole. like big event.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Yeah, there's going to berepresentatives from all of the recording brands that we use and like, and then there's going to be these producers and engineers, not just the ones that you just heard about. There's going to be people like myself and Benny that are going there to hear from these people. So it's like a whole network of peers. And then you know there's going to be a bunch of bands going as well, just for... the musical side of things and learning about recording and stuff like that as well. So it's gonna be a total networking hub.

Benedikt:

Absolutely. And one final thing, catering is also included. I just

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Sweet!

Benedikt:

see. So, yeah, if you buy a ticket, you get food and drinks and all of that. And it's like actually really good catering, so I know that they're the partner there. And there's an after show party as well. Also, you get access to that too. So, it's a networking thing really, and it's an all inclusive thing.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Yep.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

When my band toured Europe and we hit Germany, we could not believe the food that we were being given at our shows. And

Benedikt:

Yeah.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

the accommodation and the hospitality of the German people is so incredible. I think any Canadian listener right now that just heard there's catering at an event is like, really?

Benedikt:

Yeah.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

That's possible? Well, yeah, the rest of the world, they're really generous.

Benedikt:

Yeah, American bands tell me that all the time, too. And that's one reason why they love touring Europe so much. It's normal for us, but apparently not everywhere in the world. But like, yeah, but that's yeah, that's just in this case, it's a little it's a little more than what you get in a typical show, I guess. So they

Benedikt:

really they they've organized something really great there.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Fantastic,

Benedikt:

So, yeah.

Benedikt:

Hope to see you all there and if we, again, if we know how many of you are gonna be there, then we can make some plans and we'll definitely try to meet and hang out and maybe do something cool together. We'll see, let us know. All right, on to today's episode, I guess. Let's do it, right?

Malcom Owen-Flood:

let's do it.

Benedikt:

Cool, so back to the topic of like ADAT and SPDIF. If you just started on your recording journey, you probably started with a small interface. Most people do. Like one that has only a few ins and outs, maybe just two channels or maybe an eight channel thing. I remember I started with an eight channel personas interface, but pretty soon I ran out of channels because I wanted to track a full drum kit and add room mics or track a band live. And like eight channels only got me so far. And if you only have a smaller one, then you're even more limited in that regard. And also another challenge that might come up is that you might want a separate like individual headphone mix for everyone in the band or for every performer. And maybe the, the number of outputs of your interface is not enough for that. Now, I remember back then, I remember thinking that I just have to upgrade the interface and get a bigger one or back in the day, actually there was, I had a fire, what was it called? Firewire was the thing. Yeah.

And you could not only expand those through ADAT or SPDIF, but you could daisy chain two of those interfaces. And I was wondering if I should get a second one or like, I remember being confused about that. And after doing some research and the same is true today, the cheapest and easiest option is, if your interface allows it, is not to buy a bigger interface or a second one, but just to get a device, an additional preamp or an additional box that has preamps and outputs and its own converter that is not an interface. that you can connect to your interface to expand its ins and outs, like to get more inputs and outputs. And you do that through ADAT or SPDIF. And usually ADAT is the thing. SPDIF is just an extra thing that most people don't really use, but we're gonna explain it in a second too because your interface probably offers it. So, now onto like what it is and how it actually works, because that might sound confusing to you.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Yes. Yeah, you have to have spent some time looking at the back of your interface, probably. And we've actually had a couple episodes like this where we draw attention to maybe the buttons that you've just ignored on your interface. If you don't know what they are, like the polarity switch button, like a pad button. We kind of have gone through these things. But for some reason, we've always skipped the ADAT SPDIF option. And that is partially because some interfaces don't have it. It's not like a universal thing, but a lot do. So I'm glad that we're covering it. And just to put into perspective how good of an option this can be, you can find, I mean, budget versions of ADAT preamp systems for like 400 bucks Canadian sometimes. You know, like a brand new Focusrite one is like 650, I think, or something like that. Maybe I'm wrong on that. But compared to like, so an eight channel, ADAT interface from them is, yeah, you're going to spend under a thousand bucks, where if you went and got an eight channel interface, not ADAT preamp, and we're going to clarify the difference there a little bit, but like from Universal Audio, you're going to spend like three to four thousand dollars. So it's like less than 25% of the price most of the time, which is incredible.

Benedikt:

Yes.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

and you don't have to get rid of what you're using, you're just adding onto it. So it really is cool. But if you look at the back of your interface and you wanna find out if you have something like this, what you're gonna be looking for is labels, either ADAT, optical, in and out, or SPDIF. I think those are kind of the three most likely things you would see on the back of your interface where a Toslink ADAT cable looks like this little weird square that you would plug in. where SPDIF generally looks like RCA plugs. Like think of an old TV plugging in your first Nintendo 64. Those cables.

Benedikt:

Yes, exactly. Now the difference between those and the old RCA cables is that both ADAT and SPDIF are digital signals. It's not an analog signal. We're gonna explain

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Mm-hmm.

Benedikt:

why that matters in a second. But yeah, you're gonna see those two things usually if your interface offers that option that you can add more ins and outs, you're gonna see one of those two, or like both of them at the back. And let's talk about what it actually is. So the definition and why it's called ADAT. is that ADAT stands for Alesis Digital Audio Tape. And this goes back to early 90s where hard drives were pretty expensive. So recording on hard drives was not really a thing. So, but digital recording already was a thing. And so instead of hard drives, people recorded to tapes, but stored digital data on this tape, like video tapes, we adjust tapes basically. And those were connected through optical cables. and that was where they invented this, the standard. And still to this day, it's called ADAT, but it doesn't stand, like, the name still stands for Alesis Digital Audio Tape, but today ADAT just means this type of connection. This is what it's being used today for, and it's just the name state. So the cable itself and the connector itself is called TOSlink, so if you see that, that's the square one. TOSlink, ADAT mean the same thing. And what you can do over that, cable, the optical cable and this connection is you can send digital audio with up to 8 mono channels and up to 48 kHz sample rate. So it goes both ways, it's ins and outs. If you double the sample rate, you get half the channels. So if you go from 48 to 96, you can still send 4 channels over the same cable.

And if you go to 192 kHz, then you get 2 channels. And so most people use it for like an 8-channel additional connection, and they just use 44.1 or 48 kHz there, but you could use higher sample rates, but then you get less channels. And it's a digital signal, and that matters because you need to understand that all goes back to understanding what an audio interface actually is, like the all-in-one interfaces, that it's like multiple components built into one box. And these external devices that we're talking about, the external preamps, as people often call them, They have multiple components in them too. They have the actual preamps, which are the mic inputs or the instrument inputs or the line inputs. They have amplifiers that turn those, those are the preamps that turn those mic signals into line signals. And then they have a converter built into it, just like an interface that converts it to digital. And then that digital signal can be sent over the ADAT or SPDIF connection to your interface. The difference to an actual interface is that it doesn't have the actual interface part to your computer, but your interface

has. And the reason why these external preamps are cheaper, despite being kind of the same thing, is that the actual interface part that connects your interface to your computer, if that is missing, that means they don't need to build the software for it to control it. They don't need to worry about the drivers and latency and all that sort of stuff. And that's why those products are significantly cheaper than the actual interfaces, because the interface part is missing. Other than that, they look pretty much the same. And they do kind of the same thing. They amplify your signals and they convert it to digital, but they don't send it directly to your computer, but to the interface.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Yeah.

Benedikt:

And there, they get some, like, not some, they, the interface, your actual interface, sees those signals, and then your computer sees both of those things as one big interface. And the actual interface handles those additional ins and outs. That's how it works. So you only need one interface, and you can then add additional channels with a device that's a lot cheaper there. And for your computer it just looks like one big interface. And whether or not you can use that and do that, and how many channels of that you can handle, depends on your interface, because that has already built in an interface, a card, a chip, that is designed to be able to like, send whatever, 20 channels or 24 channels or something to your computer, even if it only has eight inputs or something, but the channels in the interface are already there in case you wanna expand it. And that's why you see product names like the Focusrite Scarlett 1820. If you look at the Scarlett, it has eight inputs and 10 line outs. So why is it called 1820? That's because you have 10 additional digital inputs, eight ADAT, two SPDIF, and you have 10 additional line outputs, like digital outputs through the same connectors. And so

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Yeah.

Benedikt:

the 810 suddenly becomes an 1820. And that's why it's called that. So without an expansion, it's just eight and 10. But if you add, for example, the Scarlett Octopree, then all of a sudden you have more inputs and yeah, and the interface is built to be able to handle that from the beginning.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

really cool. Just turn a little box into a big box, just one little piece of hardware. Very handy. And going back to why they're so much more affordable, yeah, like Benny said, they're also missing their interfacing connectivity digitally to a computer. So it's missing that, but it's also missing generally any hardware or analog outputs as well, because it receives signals through microphones, but then it's... transfers it to digital to send to your master interface. It doesn't have to worry about outputting to speakers or monitoring controls, like volume controls, headphones. You know, it doesn't need any of that stuff.

Benedikt:

Yeah, true for the headphones, not necessarily true for the rest because like for example the Octopree has I have to look it up but I think it has outputs as well doesn't it? some that have ins and outs. Yeah the Octopree has eight inputs and eight outputs Yeah, so you can't have and that's why I mean you're right about the headphones definitely, but it has outputs And it's different for it, not everything, not every preamp is the same. There are preamps that are exclusively inputs, but there are boxes like the OctoPre that have ins and outs, and that's why I was saying, like, if you need additional headphone mixes, you can use it, and I just said, they don't have headphone outs, but you can use those line outputs to connect headphone amps, and then you get the additional outputs, or like,

Benedikt:

you know, different sets of speakers or whatever. So, totally depends on the device, but yeah, that could be a reason for them being cheaper. There are high-end... preamps that are only preamps, but still a lot cheaper than the interfaces and they don't have one things like the Octopress. Yeah, the Octopress is an incredible deal. It's like eight outs and eight ins. And

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Yeah, that's a lot of hardware.

Benedikt:

yeah, exactly, exactly. Totally depends on the device. But yeah, you're still right. The headphone amps are expensive too and they don't have any. So yeah, the difference between ADAT and SPDIF is that, like, there's more to it, like of course the technical difference, but what you need to know is that ADAT can handle like eight channels. If there's two inputs and outputs, which is true for the Scarlett interface, for example, then you have 16. So, or eight at a higher sample rate. Sometimes there's just one and you can only have eight extra channels. Or like, no, I'm wrong here with the Scarlett. I think you need two, let me see. It's confusing because it's different for every box. But it usually

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Yes.

Benedikt:

says it at the back of the interface how many you can handle. I think I remember the Scarlett has more. Let me just check that real quick. But the difference is basically that no matter what, the SPDIF is two channels and ADAT is eight or more. And so you need to know that. And ADAT is usually optical, whereas SPDIF is this coaxial like RCA. sort of type cable, which is still carrying a digital signal, but it looks differently. And SPDIF is only used usually to add, so what would be a use case? So a typical use case for a SPDIF is an output where you might use your interface to capture the incoming signals and get them into your computer, but maybe you don't like the sound of the converter and you want a more high-end digital to analog conversion that goes to your speakers. So what you can do is then, You can send the digital signal coming from your computer to your interface. You can send that out of the interface via SPDIF to a hardware or to an extra like high-end two channel converter. And that thing can then convert to analog and send it to your speakers. That's what some people do where they want to optimize like their monitoring with a high-end converter, for example. That's an example there. Or you can get two extra channels of audio into your interface if that is enough and you don't need it. That's also a thing. But I think the monitoring thing is the typical application for this. Mastering people do this a lot and yeah. So you can do that

Malcom Owen-Flood:

so, I just want to circle it back again to kind of, I think the people that need this information the most, and I think that's probably somebody that's bought a smaller interface, like an Apollo Twin that I have right in front of me, where you just think, okay, I've only got two auxilars in, if I want drums, I have to buy another interface and like upgrade, but that's just not the case. I could just grab an eight channel ADAT preamp, go into my Apollo Twin, and now I've got 10 channels. I mean, which isn't, isn't oodles, but you can. definitely can pull off a drum kit, which is really cool.

Benedikt:

Yeah, yeah, totally, totally cool. And the thing is, the sad thing is there's some smaller interfaces, like the very small ones, two channels, the Apollo has that, but like some smaller interfaces don't give you that option. So you have to look

if it really, if you really can do it. I don't know if the small Scarlett, for example, has ADAC connectors. I would have to look it up, but

Malcom Owen-Flood:

I don't think it does, yeah. Like the small two channel Scarlett, I'm pretty sure doesn't. And that is, you know, kind of explains the difference between why an Apollo Twin costs so much more than the Scarlett.

Benedikt:

Yeah.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

It's because there's all this future proofing technology built into it to help expand as you need more channels. So

Benedikt:

Yeah,

Malcom Owen-Flood:

So, but you just, yeah, look at your interface, Google if you're unsure, does it have, you know, additional IO?

Benedikt:

Exactly, and I'm just looking at the back of the focus right here on the internet and in this case you see four of those Toslink things the square inputs are for the optical cable and the way they handle it here is that You have two for inputs, two for outputs, and if you want to do eight channels you just use one of them and if you want to use a higher sample rate then you can also do eight channels in this case at 69 kHz because they added a second one and that is only used if you want to use, if you want to have like a higher sample rate but still eight channels. So it doesn't give you 16,

Benedikt:

it just gives you eight but then you need a second AIDA connection to get four channels, five to eight. So you know it's always like eight channels max but Focusrite actually gives you the option to have a higher sample rate and still get eight channels if you connect like a second. second ADA cable here. That's just the way it works. Now, looking at this, I see another thing that we have to mention. At the back of your interface, you might also see something that says word clock out or in, or just word clock or clock or something like that. That is important because, as I said, your computer is seeing this system of these two boxes, your interface and the preamp or the expansion that you bought. Your computer is seeing this as one interface. It only communicates with your interface, and that handles the additional inputs and outputs. So you have to tell, first of all, you have to define what the master is. Like the terminology is

weird here still, but it is what it is. It's called master and slave. So one has to be the master, the other one has to be the slave. And the reason is that digital devices They, how do I explain this? So the sample rate defines how often per second an analog signal is sort of, how many, how do I explain this properly? It means that 44.1, for example, means that the converter is looking at, and that's a simplified version, but it gets the point across. The converter is looking at the analog audio signal 44,100 times per second, and then creates a digital representation of that. And, Although that is true for both devices if you set them to the same sample rate, they are not 100% exactly the same. One is going to be slightly faster than the other one. There's going to be an offset. It's never going to be exactly the same. So the part of the interface that controls how accurate that actually is, is called the clock. And you have to use the same clock for both devices so that they run in sync, that they are synced up and that there's no glitches, no clicks and pops. If you don't do that, If you don't define the master and the slave and you don't do the clocking properly, then both use their internal clocks and there's gonna be an offset and you're gonna notice clicks and pops in your audio. So you can transfer that clock signal over ADET. That's possible. It's just not as good or as accurate, but probably not an issue. So it's usually enough. You just have to define it on the interface or in the software, who's the master and who's the slave. But if you want to be a little more accurate, there's this extra input and output there that's called word clock. And that is, that's a B and C connection is what that's called. And that is more accurate. And if you prefer to do that, you can buy a cable for that and connect the two via that. And then the clock signal is gonna be separate from the digital audio signal.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Right.

Benedikt:

In my opinion, in most cases, not really necessary unless you have a bigger setup, gets more necessary with more things. but with just two things, you're totally fine probably just running the clock over ADAT. And yeah,

because that was something that frustrated me a lot back then because I didn't understand that and I had no idea why there were these clicks and pops everywhere and it was just because the clocking was wrong. I had separate sample rates on both things or I didn't define that or both

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Yeah.

Benedikt:

were running on the internal clock and that can be really frustrating if you don't know that this is the issue.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

It definitely can be, yeah. So to clarify just what you do need to do though, if you're not using a work lock cable, you'll just need to like first off assign and figure out what is your master, probably your interface. And then say you set that to 48 and you haven't set done anything onto your ADAT interface. Is that the terminology we wanna use, ADAT interface?

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Yeah the primary interface and our ADAT interface. Our ADAT interface, if it's at 44.1 and our primary is at 48, there's a problem. So we have to, they both have to be matched and we need to know which one is the master for the computer. And again, we know that terminology is very outdated. It just hasn't changed yet. So that’s just what its called.

Benedikt:

Yeah, totally. Yeah, that's basically all you need to know. And how to set it up is then really easy. You just get the right cables, the square TOSlink cables. You connect the two devices. Then you make sure that you have the same sample rate, that you have the master clock defined. And then it should show up in your interfaces software. You just should see additional eight or four or whatever the amount of channels you added. You should see those there. And then in your DAW, you still select the same interface. but all of a sudden this interface doesn't have just eight channels, but 16 or something. It's still exactly the same. Your DAW will still say focus right, 18, 20. I just keep mentioning that interface. I don't want to make, you know, I don't want to advertise this, but like, it's the one that comes to mind. Whatever interface

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Yeah.

Benedikt:

you have, your DAW will still say the same thing. It just will show up with more channels now, and you can assign those and just do it as usual. The thing to keep in mind also is that those optical cables, They actually transfer a light signal. Like there's no, there's not an electrical signal that's going through it, not a current, like not a voltage, it's light. And so that, and that means that, so there's an optical sensor and light going through, and you will actually see that if you push in this little like, the thing that covers the input that you see that there's light coming out of this, of this

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Yeah.

Benedikt:

input thing. And it's actually fascinating how that works, right? To me at least. But like ,like a but whatever it is a pulse so I don't know but for whatever reason it's possible to transfer data with a light bulb I don't know like an LED

exactly. That's what it is. But what that means also is that the cable length is limited. Because if you go longer than, they say 10 meters.

Benedikt:

Oh, sorry, 30 feet. You're right. You're right. Of course they are. 30 feet. Probably more than that, but you get the idea. 10 meters is like the maximum they say you can go. And after that, the connection is not as stable anymore. And I've actually run into that issue myself, so I tried to connect a preamp that was in the tracking room, and I tried to connect it through an interface that was sitting in the control room. And the cable, for whatever reason, they still sell these cables that are longer than that, but it didn't really work well. So,

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Right.

Benedikt:

and then I read it up and like 10 meters should be the maximum

Malcom Owen-Flood:

people, that's probably more than enough.

Benedikt:

yeah, exactly. And as always, the shorter the better. They are cheap as well. You don't have to go high end there. As always, like, that's the thing that you can buy. There's these like hi-fi crazy, you know, stores where you can buy an optical cable for hundreds or thousands of dollars, which is total bullshit. But because, you know, yeah, it is like, you know, for example, like, If it's audio cables, I can see that there's cheaper ones and more expensive ones. There's a lot that goes into that shielding and whatnot. But in this case, you're transferring ones and zeros. There's nothing about this cable that has to be fancy. It just has to

Malcom Owen-Flood:

One thing I wanna point out that just kind of occurred to me that people maybe didn't realize is that it doesn't matter if you're using two different brands here. So if you have the two brands we've been using all episode, a Universal Audio interface, and then you buy a Behringer, or sorry, I changed brands. Well,

Behringer ADAT interface. you can use it or if I get a Focusrite ADAT interface, I can use it. Like as long it's all just about the connectivity, it doesn't matter if you're using different brands.

Benedikt:

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, glad you brought up a different brand there now. Yeah, I kind of feel like I've made up for my focus right bashing that I did in the past on this episode.

Benedikt:

No, yeah, totally right. That's important to know because then you can even save more money because if you look, that's actually crazy. If you just need more ins and outs and you don't need a higher end thing or if it's maybe just to capture demos or whatever. You can get like, let me see what this Behringer AIDA thing costs. I mean, their interface, it's just kind of crazy. The 1820 interface is only like 260 euros, but they're, yeah, and they're ADA, ADA sort of expansion. I mean, not even that more cheap and like that, that more affordable, but because it's already that cheap, it's like 219. But

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Yeah.

Benedikt:

think about if you have an Apollo or something good or you have the Focusrite or something else, you can get an additional eight ins and outs for like 219 euros or like, I don't know, what's that in Canadian, 300 or something. 350

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Yeah.

Benedikt:

or something like that. So that is pretty incredible. It's like 8 mic preamps. It's got line. Does it have outputs as well? I don't even know but you get you get yeah It has eight line outputs eight mic preamps and the built-in converter for that amount of money. That's kind of insane. So

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Very, yeah, pretty darn cool. Yeah, an affordable way to get up to drum capabilities of multi-tracking or live bands, whatever you're trying to do that just needs a high channel count. This is definitely the most affordable way to get there usually.

Benedikt:

Totally. And side note, if you are one, and I know that there's a few listeners who are that, if you are one of those people using a digital mixing desk as your interface, then there might not be the option built into it, but you can get cards for that. So if you, for example, if you have the very popular Behringer X32 or the Midas M32 or something like that, I know a few of our listeners who have that, you can buy an ADAT card, just stick it in. to the back of the mixer, the card is like 240 I see now, and that gives you additional inputs. And now, yeah, and now you can have more ins and outs, and you can record more ins and outs, and so there's a way to expand your digital desks as well with the same technology. You might just have to add a card like that.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Yeah,

Benedikt:

Yeah.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

yeah, there you go. And yeah, I know there's, I wish I got more savvy to this earlier because it would have come in handy a few times in my life. But like, you can just rent one of these as well. You know, if you only do drums once a year, you could just rent one for next to nothing, plug it in, and you got enough IO for the weekend to do your demos or whatever to send it back. You know, it's like, it's just really handy. Or you just have an extra big session coming up. grab a few extra ADAT channels, build it into your existing rig, and you're off to the races.

Benedikt:

Absolutely. And also, what's also cool is that you can not only get more channels, you can add a different flavor as well. So your problem might not be that you need more channels, but you might want to experiment with, I don't know, a feature that your interface doesn't have. And then there are cool options like, let me just look at a few common ones. I know that Audient, for example, has one, has a preamp that, an eight channel thing. that gives you an impedance control where you can select different impedance for different mics or just change the color, like the way it sounds. There is like tube preamps or hybrid sort of things where you can blend a tube. Or, you know, you can experiment and add new sonic flavors to your setup if you want to do that. That can be pretty cool if it's not just about the channel count, but you just need two really high-end channels, for example. There might be options for that. And if you look at like just the list, I've just had the German Thomann website here, there is like 197 preamps available and lots of them have an ADAT connectivity and so you can just add something to your existing interface and ecosystem and just create a more flexible, more fun sort of recording system for yourself. So I think that's really cool too. Exactly. Good. Anything else we need to mention here? I think that's pretty much it, right?

Malcom Owen-Flood:

No, yeah, I think this was more of like a, just a raise awareness kind of episode of like, hey, we want to make sure people know this exists because I've definitely seen people like sell their interface and buy a more expensive one because I think that's the only way forward to more channels and sometimes there's just an easier way. So keep that in mind, it could be the answer you needed to get a higher track count. It's not as scary as it sounds.

Benedikt:

Yeah.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

And yeah. It's a really clean setup. I love that it's just like, you know, a cable or two rather than a huge XLR snake feeding the two interfaces. It's yeah, it's really nice.

Benedikt:

I just wanna mention one more thing here for, I know that there's the, we have the beginners and the typical surf recording bands and like hobby producers, but we have also some professionals listening to this or some just more ambitious or people willing to spend a little more or upgrade their system. And I just wanna say one thing back to this bit of conversation. One thing that I've personally tried and absolutely love, and it's a good example of just a use case for that, there is... a box called the RME-80i2. RME is like a well-known brand that makes interfaces. And the 80i2 is just a digital to analog converter. It's not a classic interface. It just converts digital to analog and then outputs it to your speakers. Very high-end, very, very awesome sounding converter that a lot of mastering guys use. Not crazy expensive compared to other mastering converters. It's like 1200 bucks. But you connect that to your existing interface via SPDIF, for example, and then you can still have the ins that you use. for headphones and stuff or a second pair of speakers, but your main speakers would then be connected to this thing. And it sounds absolutely incredible. And there are some boxes like that. And that's just in case you're wondering what you would use this bit for, that's a typical use case.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Yeah, yeah, my Kemper has a SPDIF in and out as well. So I could send like an amp NDI tone to the computer with just the SPDIF connection if I wanted to.

Benedikt:

Yeah.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Yeah, just a couple use cases. And you made me think of one more clarification that

Benedikt:

Mm-hmm.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

I think we should address. Because we keep saying this is a really affordable way to get cheap eight channels, preamps or whatever. And that's usually true, but you also like ADAT and SPDIF aren't inherently worse. Like you can get really high end preamps as well in that realm and get like top of the line professional preamps that you use ADAT connectivity. So it's not just like a consumer option by any

stretch.

Benedikt:

no, absolutely not. And yeah, thank you for saying that, absolutely not. That's again, because the connection doesn't matter. It's just ones and zeros. What matters is the quality of the preamps and the converters. And then it's just sent back and forth between the two devices, but that doesn't really matter. But people might be confused because we usually associate the RCA inputs with like, you know. home sort of consumer audio equipment. But that's not the case here because we're not dealing with an analog unbalanced signal that's noisy, we're dealing with digital signal, it's just some connection. And

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Exactly.

Benedikt:

you see on that RME thing, for example, it has actual analog RCA connectors too because Hi-Fi people use that thing as well.

Benedikt:

it has that too actually. But it also has, it actually even has a remote which is also really nice. But mastering people use it too because it sounds so great. And then it has the same looking input, but that's a spittiff next to the other ones. And you

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Gotcha.

Benedikt:

can also connect it via USB and use it as an interface, but then you'd only have outputs. You have no inputs. So if you're only mixing and never recording, or if you're only producing beats on your computer and you only need monitoring, then something like that could be an option. But if you're recording, you couldn't use this high-end thing. You'd have to choose between that and another interface and or you can combine both if you use the spdiff thing That's why it's there.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Yeah, absolutely.

Benedikt:

Just if you didn't yeah, if that if that was confusing to you or if you You know, you might have to go back and listen to parts of this episode again while you're setting up your system. At the end of the day, once you understand what's actually going on, it's as simple as connecting the two devices, like getting the right device, connecting them with a cable, making sure that the same sample rate is set on both devices. One is the master and then you're ready to go.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

that you'll be controlling it, any digital aspect of it via your main interface software.

Benedikt:

Yes.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

That's still the same hub for you.

Benedikt:

Yes, totally true. Totally true. Cool. Um, yeah. Thank you for listening. I think that's it.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Yeah, thank you guys. See you on the next one.

Benedikt:

See you next week. Bye.

Malcom Owen-Flood:

Bye.