I am getting a second UR824 and I am wondering if I can clock it over the ADAT cables or if it is recommended that I clock it over the Wordclock BNC cables. In one better than the other? What do I do???
Havenāt had to connect two ADAT units together yet so Iām a little in the dark. Thanks!
Join the club! I really think Steinberg could usefully provide much more clear information about using more than one UR824 together.
You donāt need to use wordclock with two 824s, you need two ADAT cables. If you look through the threads here, youāll see that this makes one unit your āmasterā and one your āslaveā. Youāll need to set your slave unit to ADAT on the front panel.
What caused me grief was the fact that you need to prepare your slave unit BEFORE you connect it via ADAT to your master. You do this by using the DSP Mix software, not Cubase. You need to route the inputs to ADAT outputs and then save the settings. There are threads here that explain that.
so what is the point in plugging both units into USB at the same time then? i dont get it. why cant then just act as two standalone units that are driven from the same Steinberg driver. The manual talks vaguely about two units in āstandaloneā configuration but its just one line. i noticed that when i added the second UR824 via usb then in Cubase under the driver settings it had a second tab for the second ur824, the same as the original tab. So the driver sees there is two UR824s connected. i dont get why they cant just both come in.
or even further once both are connected via USB and you are making changes to routing etc in the dspMixFx what unit the changes are being made on!???
I can see I wasnāt clear about the usb connections above. What follows is from memory (Iām not at my units).
Connect ONE ur824 to your computer using a usb cable. Donāt load Cubase, load the dspMix software. This allows you to save various settings for the 824 unit. Using dspMix, route the inputs of this 824 unit to its ADAT outputs. You can save this configuration in dspMix, and this will be remembered by the 824 unit.
Set this unit to ADAT, not usb.
Switch off this unit and disconnect from the usb cable connecting it to your computer. This unit is now, as per the discussion above, your āslaveā unit.
Your other UR824 is going to be your āmasterā unit - i.e. the unit that has the sole active usb connection to your computer in due course. With both units off and disconnected from your computer, connect them together with 2x ADAT optical cables. (ADAT A out from one to ADAT A in on the other, and vice versa).
With both units connected together, switch them both on and connect your āmasterā 824 to your computer via usb cable again. The front rotary selectors on both units should be showing ADAT for your slave, and USB for your master.
Now open Cubase (not dspMix). With a bit of luck and a following wind, you should find you have sixteen inputs to play with.
The routings you set on your āslaveā machine will persist until you actively alter them again using dspMix.
heya man your summary is brilliant. Many thanks for taking the time. Im sure many others doing searches on this forum will appreciate it over time as well. If only it spelt things out like this in the Steinberg manual!
umā¦for the point above where you say āUSB for your masterāā¦do you mean āINTERNALā? theres no USB setting on the front of the UR824ā¦
basicially the second 824 is just a analog to ADAT converter. theres nothing special or magical about the two working together. And no need for it to be a UR824. it could be focusrite or any other brand doing it.
Thanks for the answers guys. It sure would be nice if you could use the built in DSP fx like the reverb, compressor, and eq on the slave UR824. iām sure you could set it ahead of time and use it that way but that would be pretty pointless. Seems like the DSP is just sitting there. Or am I missing something?
thereās enough DSP on your master unit to have your comps/reverb etc on all the channels coming into it via ADAT so youāve got 24 input channels with full DSP.
Probably my mistake. I presume you can have reverb on all 24 channels as its a send FX rather than the insert eq and comp. I never use the inserts so Iād no idea it was 8 only.
hi just wanted to thank you plectrum i got the two working together following your instructions exactly. thanks for taking the time to post them! happy!!
And why steinberg does not have professional support !!!???
Why can not anyone in Steinberg answer such questions? Wanting to contact them by going to the support tab all links send me to this forum where is no reply ?! Itās ridiculous!
Said that it is a more expensive company and theoretically better than others like PreSonus or Focusrite.
It should just work.
I think I will give this interface back.