ADA 8200 & UMC 1820

[Treblecock Studio]

Greetings!

 I have looked high and low for a defined answer on this topic and hope someone here has been down my path and found the answer.

I have the ADA 8200 sync setting to "Slave ADAT" in. 

Optical cables in and out to the UMC 1820.  I am using the internal clock from the UMC since the ADA is the slave. I have access to all 8 UMC inputs and the 8 ADAT channels from the ADA. They arm and record just fine.

Driver mode is set to ASIO in Cakewalk. Playback and record master is set to UMC ASIO Driver 1 out and in respectively. Sync in Cakewalk is set to trigger & freewheel.

Problem is with monitoring the ADA Channels.

I have good headphone monitoring for the 8 UMC inputs but have to use "Input Echo" on the 8 ADAT channels to get headphone monitoring.  I have tried running everything on both the 44100 and 4800 sampling rates with no difference.

I have a heavy workload on most projects so I cannot drop my buffer size lower than 512. This causes waaaay too much latency in the monitoring to effectively record.

Surely these units were made to play nice with each other, no?

[msmcleod]

Normally, these type of interfaces have a routing application to configure this sort of thing - but it looks like Behringer have opted for a simple switch/knob on the front panel with the UMC1820 that simply switches between 1&2 or 1 - 8.

So it doesn't look like it supports real-time monitoring of the ADAT inputs, and given the approach I think they've taken, it's unlikely it'd be easy to do.  In other words, they're probably tapping the analog signal output from the preamp outputs and sending it to the direct monitoring circuit.  The ADA8200's output is already a digital signal, so it'd have to convert it back to analog inside the UMC1820 to allow this feature - something it won't be doing, as it'll be passing the digital signal directly to your PC.

I can't think of an easy way around this without buying extra gear such as a analog mixer with individual channel outs (using the mixer's preamps, and feeding the ADA8200's line inputs), or an additional DA converter to monitor the ADA8200 outputs using an ADAT splitter.   By the time you've bought either of these,  it'd have been cheaper to buy something like a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 which does support real time monitoring of the ADAT inputs out of the box.

I guess there's a reason why the UMC1820 is half the price of the Scarlett 18i20.

As far as them playing nice with each other,  the ADA8200 is really just an upgraded version of the ADA8000 - the only differences being the converters, pre-amps and the ADAT chips.

The UM1820 was likely developed by a separate team, and wanted to keep costs to a minimum - i.e. they've maybe not compromised on sound quality, but have compromised on features.
 

[Glenn Stanton]

yeah, i was looking at the 8200 as well to expand my 1820 but saw a number of reviews about issues with this pairing, and since the 8200 is only slightly cheaper, i just got the second 1820. the monitoring outs go into my mixer and then to the speaker switch as set #2, and normal out on first 1820 as #1. so a bit of extra work there but overall behaving nicely... 16 xlr in + preamps. but easier to connect and sync...

[Treblecock Studio]

Thanks for the responses. I bought the ADA with intentions of having more inputs for drums so I guess I will get my moneys worth by using it for Overheads. talkback and room mics to free up all 8 UMC channels.