D8B 5.1 + M-Audio Lightbridge + PC + Cubase Studio 4 -

[Rutah]

I have just gotten myself into a mackie d8b and lightbridge. I use cubase studio 4 and am having trouble setting it all up. I know next to nothing about the D8B and am having trouble getting Cubase to accept sound from the lightbridge.

Set up as of now...

1. Mackie D8B 5.1 lightpiped into lightbridge and Apogee Wordclock into Lightbridge.

2. Lightbridge firewired into PC with current 64 bit drivers. Moniters out of lightbridge.

3. Cubase studio 4 - Devices - M-Audio FW ASIO - All lightpipe ADAT inputs and outputs are inactive except the SPDIF Ins are active.

My question is how do I get these inputs active? Or is there a betterway to rout everything?

I have input on my D8B on my meter bridge but no sound from the monitors. However I get sound from my PC playback.

Any help is awesome!

Windows 64 Service Pack 1, AMD Phenom 9550 Quad-Core 2.20gh, 6.0gb Ram, Mackie D8B V.5.1, M-Audio Profire Lightbridge 64 bit driver, Cubase Studio 4, BCF2000, M-Audio Axiom 25,

[Petersueco]

Hello Rutah, welcome to the forum.

To get sound from the d8b you have to connect the monitors to the Nearfield or Main outputs located at the back of the console.

What optical cards do you have installed in the d8b?

Any card in the Alt slot? Do you have the Apogee Clock Card installed?

What do you mean with getting the inputs active?

Let us know some more about your setup, that way it will be easier to help you.

Peter Holmquist.

[Rutah]

As far as output sound goes I have one pair of M-Audio Bx8a's that I use for my pc and would also like to use for the D8B simultaneously. Is that possible? or do I need seperate monitors for my D8B?

I have 3 Apogee Digital I.O. cards in my D8B lightpiped to my M-Audio Lightbridge.

In the ALT slot I have a PDI 8 card. Not sure that I need that.

Apogee Word Clock card installed running out to my lightbridge.

The lightbridge is Firewired into my PC.

I am using Cubase Studio 4. When I try to assign my tracks to a lightbridge channel in Cubase I only get a No Bus - Sterio in Left or Right. Not an option to assign an optical channel. When I open my Devices menu in Cubase my ASIO says that all optical in ports are inactive except the SPDIF left and right outs are active but not the ins.

What I would like to do Idealy is input into D8B lightpipe into lightbridge - firewired into PC/Cubase then operate cubase with D8B. Using the D8B iguess as a pre VST to the input into cubase. Is that realistic? Or what would be the best suggested format to run the D8B with my PC?

Thanks for all of the help!

Ohh yea my lightbridge settings are Sample rate 44100 buffer size 128 samples. Active ports Coaxial in (spdif) ADAT 1-4 in active ports - Sync Source wordclock in - analog output / mirrors spdif output - channel ordering spdif channels first.

[anyhorizon]

Have you added new busses in Cubase's Device Manager and activated them so that they are available as ADAT ins and outs? I have SX3 but I think the procedure is similar. It's something that you have to physically do. It's not automatic.

Also, Dan Worley tried a Lightbridge for a while and found that it was a little flakey. That situation may have changed with new drivers. Dunno.

Peter

[fishtail]

As Peter has mentioned, you will need to create busses, and for your three cards that means 24 busses. Once you finish you can set up a template that has that routing system that you can use whenever you have a new session.
What is your ad/da setup? Are you using the D8b as your converter?
The PD8 card is VERY handy, and if you are using an external converter than it will be helpful in your routing if you are doing external processing, or if you have any digital verbs of decent quality. They are returned on the third bank of the D8B. You can set up the routing of those in the setup menu.
I would suggest you look through the data base and look at the patchbay/workflow setup that Peter/anyhorizon has set up. It is very useful for getting an idea of how you can take your gear and getting yourself setup for optimum performance. Once you get the hang of the routing you will find that it is actually very intuitive and quite a breeze to patch around.
If you don't have any external ad/da yet, I would advise you to save up for that as part of your setup, as that will help increase the clarity of your work. Although the converters on the D8B are fine, they are older technology and there is much better conversion available.
Marco

[Rutah]

Well I think I am at a standstill for the moment. The guy that I bought my D8B/Lightbridge from had it fully functional with protools the way that I want to set it up with my Cubase. I did not get the adaptor for the mouse/keyboard to plug into the back. It is the 5 pin din single input. I have had no luck finding a 5 pin din single male into a dual female ps/2 adapter anywhere even on line. Mackie doesnt even sell them. its hard to navigate the screen without mouse/keyboard. Any suggestions where to find one?

As far as cubase goes I just created the mono busses 1-24 and now they are active in my ASIO however I have movement on my D8B input meter and movement on my lightbridge but Cubase is not picking up the audio.

I have not even looked into AD/DA yet. Ill have to do some reading. As far as my audio goes all of my work is digital into my PC via a tascam us-122... the D8B is my newest peice of equipment.

Thanks again guys for your support!!! I am sure that I will have many more questions!

[fishtail]

okay, this is frustrating, i know, been there, still visit that place from time to time. It will sort itself out bit by bit.
So looks like the d8b is outputting to your lightbridge, thats good...and you are getting signal into the d8b from cubase. Can you monitor the signal from the d8b? Hook your speakers up to the main or control room outputs and have a listen. I would suggest that you really dig into the manuel if you haven't already, so you know what the functions and routing of the desk are.
If signal is present then we can go from here. I have never used or seen the lightbridge so I have no experience there.
Not sure what you mean by the mouse/keyboard din plug, the dual adaptor is for midi routing. You should be able to get a mouse and keyboard setup easily enough. The midi adaptor might be harder, and that might require you making your own which others have done in the past.
Try the next step and let us know where you are at.
M

[Rutah]

Ok update. I have my moniters plugged into Nearfield as the manual suggests. I have signal going into Cubase and is visible now on my audio channel. I can hear all of my PC's audio thru my D8B /lightbridge set up. I can see audio on my D8B master and channell 24 - 25 in stereo during playback from my PC.

New problem and I know its got to be something easy... I can not hear direct monitoring from my D8B. I can see it on the control panel... it records as wav in cubase but I can only hear it during playback after it is recorded. I need to be able to hear it as I play for obvious reasons. Argg Im so close

Thanks again you guys are amazing!

[fishtail]

Glad you are getting closer.
Okay, lets assume you have some gear hooked up, and you are running a signal into your D8b and into channels 1 and 2 into the first bank. Play your source and check your levels on that bank. If you are running balanceed xlr lines in then press the two preamp switches down. Make sure that the L/R buttons are lit, if they are line levels you only need to adjust the preamp gain at the top of the channel strip. Once you know that your signal is getting in, arm the tracks and assign them by going to the fat channel and pressing the assign button for each channel. You can assign and input to ANY channel, thats the beauty of the routing. So lets assume you assign channel 1 to 1 and 2 to 2. In cubase y0u should now see signal to those tracks. At this point the D8B as done the Ad conversion and is sending it to your lightpipe via lightbridge into CBase. You will have to arm the track in Cbase in order for you to monitor it. If the signal flow is functioning correctly you will now be able to switch to your 2nd bank and monitor through channels 25/26. If you have made it to that point you will hear some terrible phasing, which then you will switch off the l/r buss on channels one and 2 so you can hear what is being recorded after the cbase. Not sure if cubase has an auto input monitor preference, you can look for in the menus, but I believe it must.
You should be able to hear it while auditioning your tracks.
Not sure how much digital experience you have, but try and keep your levels at around -15 db in your gain staging both in cubase and d8b. Your mix will thank you for it later. Remember, yellow is the new red when it comes to digital signals.
Keep at it.
M

[Rutah]

Yay! Thanks for all of the help and support! Tracking has finally begun!