Advice on what to do first with a d8b

[captainamerica]

thanks for DIY link doktor1360!

[Y-my-R]

Thanks very much again, Doktor, for sharing more of your experience with recording to CF cards on the HDR and that it is likely related to PIO4 mode! I’ll have to read up on that a bit to understand what that does… but for the most part, am thinking that I’ll just change the boot drive in the HDR to a CF that I can easily access from the outside (but maybe via the floppy slot instead, since the back of my HDR isn’t easy to get to - it points down on my studio desk and would require crawling, a flash light and reaching into a narrow space. The back of my D8B rack unit, on the other hand I can walk right up to, since I left space behind my desk). My HDR hasn’t let me down when I needed it, yet, but the MDR I used to keep in the rehearsal room ALWAYS gave up when I needed it most, requiring me to get to the OS drive… so, I want to pre-empt that on the HDR. But I don’t use it often (…again, mostly a DAW guy), so it isn’t that urgent. I’ll take my time with the upgrade… since that’s just a few days out, I’ll at least wait for Black Friday, to see if any of the stuff I’ll need goes on sale

The only thing that bothers me about the spinning drive in the drive bay of the HDR, is the noise it makes. So, if a CF card doesn’t work out in there (…but maybe it does for some?… I guess that discussion is still ongoing), I’ll see if a different SSD drive and SATA/IDE adapter would give me better success than what I tried before. But at least the drive bay is easy to get to from the front. Anyway… I’ll wait for the consensus on that on here, and if anyone has a working combination of controller card and recording medium to use in the drive bay (…anybody out there who’s got that working?!?).

As for the Cranborne R8 - awesome that this works out for you, and your response doesn’t really help to calm my itch for one, hahaha I don’t have anything in 500 Series format, yet, but it would save a lot of space. I wanted to go that route for quite some time, and the ADAT optical on there should help to integrate it nicely with the D8B (one of the I/O cards on the D8B routes through my digital patchbay) and also with my “analog” patchbay. It’s just always that if I’d calculate the ratio of money spent on new gear vs. songs I finished, each song is INSANELY expensive, hahaha. That’s why I’m holding off… but I know that eventually, I’ll cave in and will get one!

I’m aware of DIYRE and use their little SB2 analog summing mixer (that’s what the 16 analog outputs from my audio interfaces are normalled to on the patchbay). I’m terrible at soldering, though, so I bought a pre-assembled unit (…although, after I opened it and took a look, I think I would have still managed to put THAT one together… simple enough). I can solder if I need to fix bad contacts or to do little projects, like adding an external speaker out to little combo amps or something (see below)… but assembling a 500 Series unit would be WAY too challenging for me (…or at least for my level of patience… I can already see my first such project hitting the wall and shattering into a million pieces, hahaha)!

I also looked at the OX, but that’s another piece of gear that I can't justify the expense for (yet - but I DO want one!). I have a JCM800 (2204 from 1984... but with horizontal ins) and two Peavey 6505+ heads that I’d “like” to drive a little harder, sometimes… So, a good load box would be nice (I used to have a Marshall SE100, but it didn’t bring the level down far enough). I went a different route for practicing at home, instead. I modified two Peavey “Backstage” 30 Watt solid-state combo amps with external speaker outs (that defeat the built-in speaker), and each has an ADA “Split-Stack” 2x12 connected to them (one with 2x Vintage 30’s, the other with 2x EVH versions of Greenbacks, pulled from a 5150 MKIII cab). I go stereo-out from my pedal board (incl. a Blackstar Pre-Pedal with an AX7 tube in it, that’s basically the pre from their HT-Metal head, from what I understand) into the two Peavey combos to be able to play in Stereo. Sounds way better than I expected, and if I want, I can still get the walls to shake I’m primarily playing metal, so, the solid state power amps in those Peavey combos are fine for that (they “chug” just fine, hahaha).
I do have somewhat of a live-room, but I can really only use it to drive an amp hard, when my neighbors are at work, hahaha (I work from home). I sometimes do so to re-amp stuff, but always feel kinda bad when I do, and try to keep that to a minimum. I do still have another Mesa Recto 4x12 and that EVH cab that I use for that, but the EVH now only has the original speakers from the ADA cabs in it… and they suck (Celestions, but tiny magnets and break up really ugly when driven hard).

Anyway… sorry, got a little carried away with the guitar-talk… but guitar is my main instrument. And if any of you ever said “GUITAR AMP!!” to a metal guy, you’re probably familiar with those wide eyes and the exited, endless gibberish that comes back as a response - so, that’s me right now, hahaha

Alright… curious to hear if anyone got a CF or SSD working in the drive-bay of the HDR or MDR. Soon after Black Friday, I’ll be taking a screwdriver to mine

[spynmaker]

I'm a guitar guy too so I totally get you! Lol. I've been playing through plugins lately,
I'm a country guy so overdrive and clean is pretty much it for sessions or recording for most studios these days.
Every now and again we get a little crazy.
I'm getting ready to open my HDR up, I believe the hard drive has died (error 43 and it has a brand new battery) so CF card to start with on the OS I guess.

[doktor1360]

Alright… curious to hear if anyone got a CF or SSD working in the drive-bay of the HDR or MDR. Soon after Black Friday, I’ll be taking a screwdriver to mine

I'm gonna assume you're referring to the 'external' drive bay of the HDR... so yeah, take a closer look at that pic of mine, Y-my-R... it's got a removable 128SSD (SATA II) - 15+ hrs record time available after formatting if memory serves correctly. I also have a 32GB CF card on the backplane that it uses for booting... not a mechanical hard disk in sight, The parts to all this stuff are in the BOM I included, too. All the disassembly-reassembly stuff I'm sure you're more than capable of handling.

An interesting point w the SSD's is that I used various vendors 128GB drives, from SanDisk to some generic disk of unknown origin, and they ALL formatted and passed the battery of read/write testing the unit uses. So, you can theoretically use any 'cheap' SSD, as long as it's SATA II...

Anyone, in reality, with a phillips head screwdriver, the parts, a bit of patience / pragmatism and a mechanical aptitude can do this. The most difficult issue from my experience is navigating thru all the various parts (motherboard, hardware, screws, etc) that have to be moved and/or removed out of the way to expose that bottom cavity of the case unit for the first time - that's usually 'fun'. Once that's accessed tho, it's just electronics 'surgery' and can be repeated a bit more quickly time-wise if/when necessary...

These upgrades are pretty cost effective, too... more stable 'bang for the buck' over the long haul with this gear. The total cost of investment over the long haul is outstanding - around $100 USD or less, depending on what level of mods are applied...

Of course, for the transparency of things:
[Standard Mgmt Disclaimer] - "Your actual mileage may vary..."

[spynmaker]

Thanks Doktor for all the help. I have another question.
Have been working on my “old” CPU just for probox power because I want to use the main CPU just for big projects, and I unhooked the motherboard and the sparkle power supply fan is not coming on. I just tested it a couple of times real quick but didn’t want to leave it on. Does the fan just come home when it’s hot? It’s been really chilly here so I was assuming maybe that’s why it wasn’t coming on.
Any info would be greatly appreciated! Again lol

[doktor1360]

Thanks Doktor for all the help. I have another question.
Have been working on my “old” CPU just for probox power because I want to use the main CPU just for big projects, and I unhooked the motherboard and the sparkle power supply fan is not coming on. I just tested it a couple of times real quick but didn’t want to leave it on. Does the fan just come home when it’s hot? It’s been really chilly here so I was assuming maybe that’s why it wasn’t coming on.
Any info would be greatly appreciated! Again lol

That's interesting... I've never actually noticed to be honest... conventional wisdom would say that's probably a correct assertion. Just run it for about 20-30 minutes or so, it should get warm enuff that the fan would then engage under normal operations I would think. Due to ambient temps in your environment, if it's chilly to where it's keeping the power supply within normal operating temps the fan may very well not engage - I don't know this to be 100% true in this case. However, personally I'd just run it and keep an eye on it, check on things every 15 minutes or so... in that interim, at the first sign(s) of anything funky happening (besides your project *winks*) shut that mf'r down and immediately check the power supply... for obvious heat radiation. It's a standard MOSFET controlled switching power supply (albeit old as hell) so I'd think it should trigger a fan if/when the MOSFET was driven into saturation. That's the design, to mitigate these potential thermal related problems. In truth, that's about as far as I can (and will) speculate based on face value...

Just post any issues you have here, and they'll get corrected. This community has a very high success rate in those regards...

You know, the usual transparency stuff here:
[Standard Mgmt Disclaimer] - "Your actual mileage may vary..."