Have to start D8B aprox. 10 times

[Brad Martens]

Yes , I believe Eric Russ has a card cage , but I am not sure about the PCB attached to it, I will contact him and see. I did not realize there was a pcb attached to this cage. Do you know if it is physically attached, or is it attached through a wire harness and located inside the board @ a different spot?

[Crash]

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

There is a picture in this link.

[topdiggy2]

I know this is a few weeks old...but, it may be easier just to replace the entire back section. I had to do this on one of mine and its really easy. its like a total of 5 screws on the back of the sides and the entire back comes off. Thats it. Just disconnect a few ribbon cables and the whole back comes right off.

[Y-my-R]

...and here I go again, resurrecting another old thread to chime in with my similar experience:

My d8b, too, will not sync to external clock, unless I leave the unit running for about 15 minutes to warm up first, and then connect the word clock cable.

Internal sync always works right away. I have to disclose, though, that my d8b didn't have a sync card installed when I bought it, and when I received the Apogee Sync card that I bought separately, two components fell right off the board while taking it out of it's anti-static bag. I soldered those components back on.

First I thought I had ruined the card with a shoddy solder job, since it wouldn't lock to external sync... but while troubleshooting another problem with a non-recognized DIO.8 card, Crash helped me out by suggesting to let the unit warm up for 10-15 min if the card is not recognized.

When I couldn't get external sync to work, I figured I'd try the warm-up suggestion that helped with the other card... just booted up with the word-clock in cable disconnected, and letting the d8b flash the ? and * for 15 min. Connecting the word clock cable after that so far always resulted in an immediate and reliable sync to external.

If I try to connect the word clock cable sooner after booting up, the incoming word cock is either not found at all, or just jumps between "Lock Error" and "Locked" in fairly fast succession.

I hope the warm-up workaround will continue to work for me, but if not, at least I have a second unit I use as a control surface (with a ProBox), that I could part out to try another card cage.

Just thought I'd share... maybe the "let the sync card warm up for 15 min" might help someone else on here.

Oh, and for now, my word clock source is an M-Audio Octane Pre-Amp... I'll get better stuff once I know I can rely on the d8b and that it makes sense in my workflow... but for now it's a super-simple setup with nothing else connected digitally.

[FrankH]

If I try to connect the word clock cable sooner after booting up, the incoming word cock is either not found at all, or just jumps between "Lock Error" and "Locked" in fairly fast succession.

I thought I'd add to this as a potential alternative. I boot my D8B into External mode all the time and occasionally I'll get a situation where the entire meterbridge goes dead while the software metering in the GUI will display everything correctly.

This drove me batty until I started experimenting with boot sequencing. I use an external clock (Symetrix GENx192) and an old MOTU 2408/PCIe-424 in a Mac tower with the D8B (booting with a template set to External Sync).
After much fiddling, I found this sequence gives me a clean, meters working, boot 95% of the time:

• Power up the MOTU 2408 (set to WordClock In)
• Power up the GENx192
• Power up the Mac. Important: do not touch the keyboard or mouse until after:
• Powering up the D8B

I've talked about this before and I'm certain there is a hint of VooDoo involved here because many D8B users start with powering the D8B first without issue. But in my case, that doesn't work...and the sequence above does.

While this is not the same issue you have, I'm thinking perhaps you might consider experimenting the power-on sequence rather than disconnecting a cable every time you boot. Who the hell knows? It might work.

[Y-my-R]

Thanks for the suggestion, FrankH!

I would, of course prefer it if I wouldn't have to disconnect/reconnect the word clock cable every time I boot, so I'll give this another shot (can't right now, because the desk's already warm, so from my experience, it would find the word clock right now anyway, if I'd shut down and try again).

As part of the troubleshooting, I had previously tried to have the desk set to external sync when shutting down (keeping the WC cable connected), then starting everything else first and and the d8b last - just as you suggest. I guess when I tried this before, I always got "Lock Error" after starting, but I guess I was never patient enough to wait and see if it eventually finds the word clock (after warming up), and started toggling the word clock settings, and sometimes all kinds of other settings in the Digital I/O tab... this always resulted in a few random peaking meters that I couldn't get rid off without restarting, so I thought it's not the way.

I'll leave the WC cable connected when I shut down later tonight, and will see what happens if I boot the d8b last this time.... and if it doesn't find the WC right away, will just let it sit with everything connected, and try to time how long it took for it to get recognized (if it gets recognized).

I'll report back what I find. Earliest by tomorrow evening.

Thanks again for all the help and suggestions!!

[phantomrage]

Do you all leave the external word clock on or turn that off also?

My big ben never gets shut off and has its own ups. Never had a issue with my d8b.... just a thought.

[anyhorizon]

You don't need to disconnect the wordclock, just have it turned off until the d8b boots and you see the flashing */? then turn the clock on.

Peter

[Y-my-R]

Thanks for the feedback, Phantomrage and Peter/anyhorizon,

I don't have a dedicated word clock generator (yet). My WC source is the BNC WC out on my M-Audio Octane for now while I'm evaluating if the d8b does really fit into my workflow. The WC connection is terminated via a T-piece and 75 Ohm Terminator at the Octane end, since it wouldn't lock without that at all. (For anyone interested, I'll explain a bit more later, what my intention with the d8b is, but will stay on the WC topic for now, so you can choose if you want to read the more detailed explanation later or not).

Well, the WC out on the Octane goes to the d8b, but the ADAT optical cable still goes directly to my audio interface, since I need to use that every day. I only have analog inputs connected to the d8b right now, and then send the d8b mix from the S/PDIF out of the d8b to the S/PDIF in on my audio interface (since they're both locked to the same source, this works just fine).

So, the Octane just makes sure that both, the d8b and my audio interface receive word clock from the same source (d8b from the word clock cable, audio interface from the ADAT optical input).

While the d8b still warms up, I usually already use my audio interface. And to get that working right, I also have to follow a certain boot order, which means that the Octane (which acts as the WC generator) has to be already on, before I add the (still optional) d8b. Otherwise, it would of course make perfect sense to just turn on the WC generator at the right time, instead of disconnecting/connecting the cable all the time. So, yeah, I'm totally with you, Peter. It's just not practical for me to turn on the "WC generator" this late in the sequence, at this point.

Having said this, I just tried what happens if I leave the WC cable connected to the d8b, and just wait if it eventually locks t external, if I wait long enough. It was interesting... first I only got "lock error", and the more time that passed, the more frequently the d8b switched between "Locked" and "Lock Error"... to eventually stay on "Locked". To my surprise, relatively quickly, after about 6 min, 30 sec. I can live with that! I also didn't get any stuck meters, since I didn't mess around with the settings in the meantime, so GREAT, I don't have to fiddle with the WC cable every time I boot this up. I think I'm good with how it is now

For those still interested why I'm even posting here, if I have the d8b connected in a way that doesn't do it's capabilities justice:

I had a Mackie Control and 2 extenders for the longest time, but was always annoyed with the useless meters in that LCD display. Knowing about the d8bBridge and ProBox projects, I checked on the status, saw that the ProBox is now really a serious option, and then looked for a "bad" d8b... and found a guy who sold me two bad ones together for $200.

I know computers well, so I got one of the CPU's working with a little troubleshooting. So, essentially I ended up with an awesome control surface (via ProBox), and an extra mixer I wasn't really planning to buy. And because of this, I'm now trying to figure out if this actually fits into my workflow.

I've been doing everything in the box for nearly 20 years now - but I still miss working with a Split/Inline console (nothing fancy, but the last analog desk I had was an Alesis X2, along with a few ADATs). So, my thinking now is, if I connect all my analog sources to the d8b first, and get an audio interface that can handle 3xADAT optical, while having a separate dedicated d8b to control all the "in the box" stuff, I'll get the best of both worlds... an "Inline" mixer just like back in the days, and a matching control surface companion, that lets me continue everything I was doing before. I guess I just like faders and meters. The whole "in the box" thing still gets me lost, because I can't really see everything that's going on the way I'd like to.

Having said that, I don't really plan to use the pre-amps and analog paths on the "working" d8b. Right now, I'm considering to get an Audient ASP880 (since it's decent and has inserts that can be "misused" as line-inputs, bypassing the pre-amp), and if I like it get another one or two... and keep the M-Audio Octane for the Alt Outputs. RME just came out with the new Digiface USB, which has 4x ADAT optical on it, so this would be perfect.

After checking that all my DIO.8 cards are the 24-Bit versions, and understanding that the Alt Out truncates the "quiet" 8 bits and makes it 16-Bit on Windows when routing the Aux channels to them (not sure if that applies to me, since I'm on Mac), I figured that this might be a pretty awesome "hybrid" setup.

But of course only, if the d8b is running reliably, and also, if routing everything through the DIO.8 isn't making it too complicated to keep on top of the signal flow.

Long story short, while it's pretty silly to operate a working d8b with only a single 8-channel ADAT pre, it could be pretty amazing with 32 quality Pres via the ADAT input, and having 24 Tape returns via ADAT optical as well.

I realize that it doesn't work quite like that, since I'd be using the Tape Returns for tracking already, and would need to use the same ADAT inputs on the d8b for what's actually coming back from the computer... BUT, I have an old M-Audio Digipatch digital patchpay, than can be programmed to recall all kinds of digital routings at the push of a button. So, this will be one of the next things for me to try... how the d8b reacts when changing a patch on the digital patchbay. I know enough about digital sync, to prepare this in a way where everything would always run off of the same clock... but the momentary drop of a few samples while syncing, might just cause everything to freak out, and the faders to hang, etc.

Anyway... everything I'm doing right now, is to figure out if my "big picture" idea of how to use the "working" d8b would actually make sense. (I'm already sold on the Control Surface portion with the ProBox).

And with all that explained, I just received all the optical cables I need to try out what happens when integrating the patchbay... should be fun.

But when it comes to the topic of this thread... without stable word clock it's all meaningless. That's why I was trying to get that sorted first.

Sorry for the monster post... but maybe one or two of you still found this interesting enough to follow along

[Y-my-R]

I just learned something new about the issue I described in previous posts to this thread, that I thought might be interesting to others as well...

I still had the problem where my d8b would only sync to external clock after waiting for several minutes, but sometimes it just wouldn't. So, this wasn't very practical.

After doing the basic troubleshooting (cleaning and reseating all ribbon cables, taking the unit apart a few times), and not overcoming the problem, I just found the culprit for my issues, while trying to figure out something else:

In my case, it was the DIO-8 card in the 17-24 slot that caused the problem. If I remove this card, the d8b syncs to external clock immediately. It's not the card itself either, though (I have 6 DIO-8 cards in total, and swapped them around). For me, it's about not having a card in that slot... then the d8b syncs to external just fine.

I cleaned/reseated all the ribbon cables going to the card cage already, so it's probably not that. I think I'll be OK with fewer ADAT I/Os, since I'm not typically using the d8b as a central audio hub in my system (more like an aux mixer for my old synths, and the remaining ADAT I/Os are enough for that), but I use it mostly with the ProBox as a DAW controller.

Nevertheless, I thought my experience might help someone else troubleshoot their external word clock sync issues. I'd suggest removing ALL card except for the Apogee clock card first, and checking if it syncs to external word clock, then. If so, try adding cards one-by one after restarting, and see where the problem gets re-introduced.

Hopefully, this helps someone else as well