NOOB Questions

[Salrus]

I am in need of a cheap mixer that has AES/EBU in and out and found a used D8B and before i buy it i got some noob questions

1a.Can the add-on Tape in out cards be used for in out so i can have AES channels in and out and use them for as i would a normal mixer (like a VLZ)?
1b.if yes to 1 can the channels be mapped to the hardware faders or are they only for the analog in and out?

2. Can you gang channels to make stereo faders?

3a. is there a way to tell what version the CPU is by looking at it or do you need to open it?
3b. is there anything that the old cpu cant do that the new cpu can or is this not really something to worry about?

4a. beside ram what else is needed to get D8B 5.1?
4b. the board is licened for plugins can i get the keys for them off of the gui or do i lose them if i upgrade to 5.1

Sorry for all the dumb questions and i hope you guys are too annoyed with these noob questions

thanks
Salrus

[Crash]

Welcome to the forum. You may want to look over the database, it is a wealth of information.

http://www.sonido-7.com/d8b/index.html


1a and b. There are 4 I/O slots on the console that can take the four different I/O cards (AIO.8, PDI.8, DIO.8, OPT.8). There are foul layers to the console as well, with the top layer being Mic/Line, layer 2 Tape returns, as well as an F/X return layer and a masters layer for buss outs and virtual groups, etc.

2. Yes you can make stereo channels with lots of linking options in regards to pans, aux levels, bus assigns and what not.

3a and b. I am not sure that you can visually look at a CPU and tell what is under the head. I wouldn't be concerned about that. I have an older CPU and my rig is loaded down with plugins and I have never had an issue. Just make suer the RAM is maxed out at 256meg which is the most that the console will recognize and you should be good to go.

4a and b. Mackie is not generating new codes at the moment for V5.1 as the computer they use for that cratered. It appears they are not in any hurry to get it going agin if at all. I am not sure if the plug in coeds are in the same boat as the OS but if you have the plug in code info. I would keep track of it.

You might want to also see if the console you are considering has an Apogee clock card installed. The factory card had no word in or out to connect to outside digital gear and the Apogee cards are hard to find and expensive.

http://www.mackie.com/products/d8b_v5/r ... el_io.html

[Salrus]

the d8b has the Apogee clock card in the sync slot a analog io (i guess aio.8) in the alt io slot and the 3 tape io slots have pdi.8 cards
and the os is 3.0 it seems

so what i am gathering is i can use it as a basic 24channel AES mixer witch is what i want the words tape io concerned me

thanks
Salrus

[Crash]

I have had 24 channels of external preamp on the other end of the "Tape I/O" in a live situation. It doesn't know what is on the other end so just think of them as "I/O" as opposed to having to use the word tape.

[Salrus]

two more Dumb question
did D8B 3.0 use box codes/auth codes?
and was there ever a 4.0?

sorry to keep bothering you guys
Salrus

[Crash]

There was no version 4.0. Mackie claimed in their marketing propaganda that version 5.1 was so awesome that they decide to skip right over a version 4.

There was no authorization code for version 3 that I recall. There was still the plug in codes but not for the OS itself. Version 5.1 was the first paid upgrade of the OS hence the code to unlock.