The Raydat and all other HDSP/e cards do have Totalmix FX with the added functionalities, but without the actual effects.

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

It's all a bit confusing, "FX" to mean no effects on some units but on other there are.

So now there are 3 recent generation internal cards, HDSP (totalmix), HDSPe (totalmix fx, but with no actual effects units) and a pure digital MADI card with full effects.

There's a BabyFace that has some effects on DSP but not reverbs as I read it but what about the BabyFace Pro?

I get that the mixer is DSP but having the " FX" moniker is rather confusing and requires one to read the manual to actually know the difference.

The Digiface says explicity it has no effects but has a Totalmix FX mixer, again confusing but at least it is stated on the product page.

Would I be correct that besides the pure digital MADI card that the only units with Effects are the Firewire versions?

And as I said I use (but don't own) the babyface (MK1) and it has on board reverb and delay, just not with an Ipad.

Sorry, I have no clue what you really want / require.

> So how would TotalMix work with the RayDAT in the case of outputs from the DAW,
> i.e. how many returns would be available?

The RayDAT has 36 Hardware Inputs and 36 Hardware Outputs
Inputs:   4 x ADAT = 32 Channels IN @44.1/48
              1 x AES/EBU = 2 Channels IN
              1 x SPDIF I/O = 2 Channels IN
Ouputs: 4 x ADAT = 32 Channels OUT @44.1/48
              1 x AES/EBU = 2 Channels OUT
              1 x SPDIF I/O = 2 Channels OUT

In TotalMix FX the
- upper area "Hardware Inputs" represents the input channels of recording interface
- middle area "Software Playback" represents audio coming from Windows OS (Youtube, etc)
- lower area "Hardware Output" represents the output channels of recording interface

Audio coming in via "Hardware Inputs" is always being sent to DAW Inputs unaltered.
This is the case no matter what routing you perform in TotalMix FX.
You can bypass any form of TotalMix FX routing by using the quite new "DAW mode", to make all routing in the DAW.

TotalMix allows you to perform any to any routing, i.e.
-   to make an individual Mix of
       - Hardware Inputs and
       - Software Playback Channels (what comes from Windows OS)
    for each of the Hardware Outputs
-   to use loopback recording function by
       - routing every Hardware Input and Software Playback channel to an Hardware Output
       - enable "Loopback" on that particular Hardware Output
     then you get this Mix on the corresponding Hardware Input of that Hardware Output

I still don't know what devices you want to connect or what you finally want to achieve.

It might be a good idea to make yourself familiar with the basic operation of TotalMix, to get a better understanding about the flexibility of TotalMix FX, what it can do for you, so that you can ask maybe more specific to the capabilities of the product. Here in my blog you can find a list of actual RME Tutorial Videos, which are excellent:

http://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/inde … al-Videos/

When it comes to the point of Roud Trip Latency (what the driver tells the DAW, if you look values i.e. in Cubase), then you will discover, that i.e. UFX / UFX II / UFX+ are already very close or even better compared to the RayDAT PCIe card, which still needs a preamp or converter conneced via ADAT, where you need to add the latency of AD/DA conversion additionally.

See here this table:

I think the RayDAT could be a good product, as you simply need many channels and something
which sends the Music digitally to digital Monitors.

What I do not understand yet, why you need to many hardware channels.

If you want to mix tracks internally in the DAW, then you can add and mix tracks as you want,
without needing an enormous amount of input and output channels.

And if you need high quality reverb and delay effects, then you would most likely choose a VST for that inside of the DAW.

Months ago the TM FX Effect quality became a facelift, so that they became better.
You can use them i.e. to make it more comfortably for a singer to sing in by adding reverbs directly at the recording device,
which is far easier than having this to do with the DAW and to route if from there to the phones channel on the device.

But if you mix and master songs in the DAW, then I would use different effects in form of VST.

> I don't use the Creamware effects since I'd have to mix in realtime

I mean VST effects in general no matter which vendor.
What hinders you to use VSTs as FX effect and to mix in realtime ?
What is the alternative to that ?

> and just use a send in Cubase to export mixdowns

Sorry but this I also do not understand ... what has a send in cubase to do with mixdown ?
If you have a mix, i.e. with using VSTs as effects ...
If I have my final mix with the effects in each of the tracks as required, then I do the mixdown to a file on the PC.

If you should have issues with CPU power, then you can workaround this:

1. I.e. in Cubase you can freeze tracks, so that i.e. a virtual instrument with add. VST effects is precomputed wave
but you are still able to adjust the Volume and the Pan in the mix.

2. You can use Effect Sends in Cubase where you have i.e. one particular FX, could be a reverb
and then you can use this Reverb as send effect in each of your tracks.

3. if you want to export mixdowns (plural) .. what does it mean ? Usually I mixdown a completely mixed project in total.
Do you have a special requirement as you say mixdowns ?
Do you mean grouping of instruments in a particular Project ?
You can i.e. in Cubase send several tracks into a group.

Sorry, but you still don't have me at the point where I understand
- your workflow and
- your requirements for so many output channels.

Would be kind if you could maybe raise an example and explain what you intend to do.

For nearly all of my home projects (Guitarrists) I have perhaps 10-20 Tracks in a project, also 2-3 virtual instruments,
but I only require 1 stereo output for the Monitors and maybe 1 or 2 headphone outputs.

I am mixing everything in cubase and am using VST effects (compressor, eq, reverb, delay) and also do the mastering.
Because of lazyness often in the same project (the mix).

> Using a Send in Cubase allows you to export the mix, i.e. render the file without playing it back.

Dont get this point. When you export a mix then it is very quickly calculated without any playbacl.

> I don't record (or freeze) anything since I need to be able to change and alter notation in the Key Editor of Cubase.
> Also, the reason for so many DAW returns is due to the fact that I'd like to separately compress everything
> without having to use MIDI CC's.

I also do not get this point .. if you do not want to freeze, then simpy dont do.
I dont understand what compression has to do with Midi CCs.
I dont understand your signal flow, sorry.
You make something very different to me, and I still do not see the key reason, why you do it this way, and what this way exactly is.

RME has no onboard DSP effects, but as far as I remember also with UAD its all not so wonderful to use DSPs in real time when mixing performance / delay wise. There were some limitations if I remember right.

I am not sure how many plugins you use that you really need DSPs ... CPUs are nowadays very powerful and the Sharks on  UAD cards are not that performant. Many people use native plugins without having sharks as "dongle".

TotalMix has FPGAs one for the mixer and one for the FX unit if there is one on the unit.
You can not download or execute VST effects on the DSP inside.
You can use the Reverbs etc for your headphone mixes and other outputs, but its only one "effect bus" where you can add all the TM FX effects which you have chosen to an output.

Otherwise somebody else need to look into this .. as I do not fully understand his questions / requirments.

Thank you for all the replies, it has helped very much.

Matthias, from what you have said I understand that I will have as many DSP mixer channels as potential analog outputs but which can be used to mix into stereo.

I was looking at the Motu A8 and while in a different class, I am not so concerned about EQ and the like as there is now the UAD Sattelite USB and for my purposes (VST Instruments) this setup I believe will work very well.

Having said that, if I were to obtain two or more RayDAT's, would that allow me more DSP based mixer channels?

From your response, submixing on all hardware channels is what I need but I feel it would be better to do on real hardware.

I've used old Creamware cards and seemed to obtain better dynamic range but this might be subjective but I know RME have the most stable, low latency drivers in the business and I can specify a DAW so no problem there.

Cheers

Maybe I understand you, maybe not, but if you were to mix inside cubase to stereo or all vsti's to a separate rme channel and mix that to stereo, that will sound identical (if you set all levels the same of course). Both the cubase and totalmix mixer are 100% transparent. Both have a dynamic range of +140db.
If you would use rme's analogue outs and feed them into an analogue mixer yes that would sound different (not better just different and not even that different if it is a good mixer).

No 36 mono returns (spdif and aes are separate). I would call them software playback channels (so 36 outputs for cubase, and also 36 inputs but I understand you don't need them) Adding another raydat will double it to some extent, but the mixers are separate (so 2 36 channel mixers) and you will have to feed the second mixer to the first with a cable (adat or spdif or AES) this will also give the clock sync for the 2 cards.

Yes the number for channels are identical to number of outputs but they can be mixed to whatever you want. IFAIK you can have 4 cards maximum but not 100% sure. This will also put a load on the PCIEe bus so it must be a decent PC. Last thing to keep in mind is that you can see only one mixer at a time afaik, they are all in the same window under different tabs.
Oh and I am not sure how many output channels cubase supports too, probably enough but do check!
Still I must warn you there is no difference to mixing in cubase or in RME totalmix.

I think we (the readers) are missing a point here. If you only use one digital out, you can get the cheapest second hand rme card, like the 9632 or a new AIO pcie or indeed a raydat (they all have better drivers then motu and I do have a motu too). You would have a digital mixer in cubase that can have 500 channels if you wanted. All with no fuss. Since you are using creamware which is older stuff I must assume you haven't tried mixing in a recent version of cubase. I have mixed in cubase and in total mix and it is all identical. Plus that the eq's and fx in cubase are better or at least equal to everything in totalmix.
In your previous post you mention lack of dynamic range in cubase. Is that your reason?
What are you mixing?
Just curious.
Cheers