Can I run two Presonus iTwo boxes at the same time using ASIO??

[Terry Kelley]

I have done many searches on this and the answers vary from no to maybe, to you might, but no one has said they've actually done it. I can certainly get an interface with several outputs but none (so far) have physical volume controls for all outputs, only the main stereo outs.

Has anyone actually run two identical interfaces using ASIO and had both usable at the same time so you could select all four outputs? I want to run two Presonus iTwo interfaces at same time for quadraphonic. I want to run two separate interfaces so I have a physical volume controls for front and rear. I might even consider going to three interfaces for 5.1 or using all four to six inputs.

Right now I can run two different interfaces but I have to run WASAPI Exclusive which I don't like doing and having to flip back and forth for recording or playback.

Has anyone actually done it? Maybe with some other brand? Focusrite? M-Audio, etc?

Edited July 14, 2021 by Terry Kelley

[Byron Dickens]

Short answer: No.

 

Longer answer: that's not how it's done. First, quadraphonic is obsolete. Second if you want to do surround sound, how you do it is with an interface that has multiple outs.

[Terry Kelley]

The validity of quad is irrelevant to what I am doing or my question.

So no means - you haven't done it or no, you tried and it didn't work or no, you heard it won't work?

Edited July 15, 2021 by Terry Kelley

[Byron Dickens]

ASIO is capable of only running one device at a time.

[Noel Borthwick]

It depends on the manufacturer. Some allow running two  interfaces of the same kind and aggregate the I/Os via the ASIO driver. Presonus allows it with some of their devices. MOTU, RME, LYNX all do.

 

[Byron Dickens]

You beat me to it. I got to thinking and realized well yeah some manufacturers have drivers that let you use identical interfaces together and the driver makes the computer see it all as one interface. So, as far as the computer knows it's only one interface.

Trying to kludge Rube Goldberg workarounds together is just going to cause headaches. Why not just make it easy on yourself and get an interface that has enough speaker outputs to do what you want?

Edited July 15, 2021 by bdickens

[Terry Kelley]

1 hour ago, Noel Borthwick said:

It depends on the manufacturer. Some allow running two  interfaces of the same kind and aggregate the I/Os via the ASIO driver. Presonus allows it with some of their devices. MOTU, RME, LYNX all do.

 

Thanks Noel,

I'll contact Presonus directly and see if someone can clarify which ones. I know I could just try it but I don't want to spend money unnecessarily.

[Terry Kelley]

1 hour ago, bdickens said:

You beat me to it. I got to thinking and realized well yeah some manufacturers have drivers that let you use identical interfaces together and the driver makes the computer see it all as one interface. So, as far as the computer knows it's only one interface.

Trying to kludge Rube Goldberg workarounds together is just going to cause headaches. Why not just make it easy on yourself and get an interface that has enough speaker outputs to do what you want?

I don't see where kludge and Rube Goldberg plays into this. I'm trying to do something and asking for input. This isn't a survey or test.

Edited July 15, 2021 by Terry Kelley

[Byron Dickens]

You asked for input.  I gave it: save yourself the headaches and use a device that is designed for what you want to do.

You want really what amounts to some version of surround sound. Well, the simple way to accomplish that is with a device that has multiple speaker outputs.

People come on here and ask about doing stuff in some back- asswards, overly complicated way. That's fine. If you don't know, you don't know. That's why you ask questions.

But what flabbergasts me is that when the practical guy like me who likes to do things the simple way comes around and says " that sounds like a lot of trouble, you could do this simple, easy thing instead and get the same results,"  they act like I've cast aspersions upon their ancestry.

[Terry Kelley]

It's not headaches. I'm doing something specific. It's ok. Don't worry about it.

[azslow3]

To use channels from different devices in parallel, they have to be synced. If that happens on hardware level, some software solution can be written to make use of it. Otherwise audio stream manipulations are unavoidable. Such manipulations eat the spirit of ASIO, it make no sense then (except in case some software support ASIO only, so there is no other way).

Hardware synchronization can be done:
* generic way using World Clock, as dedicated wire or as a part of Digital Audio connections (S/PDIF, ADAT, etc.). Your interfaces don't have them.
* proprietary way, somehow using existing USB/Firewire/PCI/etc. connections to the computer. I don't remember any entry level interfaces with multi-device ASIO drivers.

And so aggregating your interfaces into one ASIO for software which supports other driver frameworks make no sense. Any approach (there are several) will either re-code audio stream to sync (void ASIO benefits) or produce audio glitches (makes the result unusable).

Edited July 15, 2021 by azslow3

[Terry Kelley]

Hi pwalpwal, I had considered ASIO4ALL and might resort to it if necessary (and if it would work.) I could still switch to ASIO for recording on one interface.

Azslow3 - I think those are the key points. As Noel mentioned, some drivers might do it. I'll see what Presonus says.

Again, I was curious is anyone had done it and so far the short answer is no. Dang you Steinberg!

[John Vere]

I actually agree with what @bdickens   is advising. For the price of another "wrong" interface you could purchase a 4x4 interface like the Scarlett 4i4 or the Motu M4. Those are both solid reliable interfaces that have 4 outputs and not expensive.

I see another Presonus iTwo would be $230 ( can)  and the Motu and Scarlett are only about $75 more. 

If you need 4 outputs you should purchase the proper device. Simple logic and good advice. 

ASIO4all is bad advice. It is not ASIO, it is WDM mode in a wrapper. So your actually worse off than WASAPI which has much better performance. 

Edited July 15, 2021 by John Vere

[pcooke9]

If I understand what you're saying, the most important thing for you is to have PHYSICAL volume knobs to adjust stereo pairs individually, right? If that's the case, I use CbB with a Tascam US-16x08's eight outputs going into an old JamHub. Maybe it could work for what you want to do? I'm not using it for a quad/surround config, but rather to jam with each person having their own separate headphone mixes. It's really nice to be able to turn yourself up without affecting everyone else's mix.

Jamhub is discontinued, but the Roland HS-5 and the TC Helicon Blender are similar. The Blender is awesome. It has bluetooth mix control via phone apps. I ordered one recently because my JamHub's finally giving out, but it's been backordered for almost a month now. It's only $129 though, so I can wait.

http://www.jamhub.com/

https://www.roland.com/us/products/hs-5/

https://www.tc-helicon.com/product.html?modelCode=P0CPR

[Terry Kelley]

50 minutes ago, pcooke9 said:

If I understand what you're saying, the most important thing for you is to have PHYSICAL volume knobs to adjust stereo pairs individually, right? If that's the case, I use CbB with a Tascam US-16x08's eight outputs going into an old JamHub. Maybe it could work for what you want to do? I'm not using it for a quad/surround config, but rather to jam with each person having their own separate headphone mixes. It's really nice to be able to turn yourself up without affecting everyone else's mix.

Jamhub is discontinued, but the Roland HS-5 and the TC Helicon Blender are similar. The Blender is awesome. It has bluetooth mix control via phone apps. I ordered one recently because my JamHub's finally giving out, but it's been backordered for almost a month now. It's only $129 though, so I can wait.

http://www.jamhub.com/

https://www.roland.com/us/products/hs-5/

https://www.tc-helicon.com/product.html?modelCode=P0CPR

Hi Pcook9,

Separate volumes are one reason yes. There are a couple of interfaces that do have two headphone out jacks with volumes that I could use but I would prefer a more straight forward solution. Few if any have separate volumes for the line outputs unless I go to mixing consoles like the Behringer X32 et al. I'm also curious if this will actually work. 

I will check out the Tascam and JamHub combo and appreciate the input.

[Terry Kelley]

4 hours ago, John Vere said:

I actually agree with what @bdickens   is advising. For the price of another "wrong" interface you could purchase a 4x4 interface like the Scarlett 4i4 or the Motu M4. Those are both solid reliable interfaces that have 4 outputs and not expensive.

I see another Presonus iTwo would be $230 ( can)  and the Motu and Scarlett are only about $75 more. 

If you need 4 outputs you should purchase the proper device. Simple logic and good advice. 

ASIO4all is bad advice. It is not ASIO, it is WDM mode in a wrapper. So your actually worse off than WASAPI which has much better performance. 

Hi John,

Well, I can get used iTwo's in the $100 range. I have one now. Another $100 is cheap. The 1810C or 44VSL and various other 4 channel+ interfaces are in the $400+ range.

Next, few if any interfaces have separate physical volume controls for the line out without going to a true console style mixer. I will not have an audio chain without a volume control available. If Cakewalk/plugin and the interface(s) decide to go stupid I will have zero control over the volume.  That's never a good idea.

Next, I am running a Presonus iTwo and Behringer UCA-222 together now and they stay in sync but I have to run in WASAPI Exclusive mode. You lose the ability for other apps to share the interface (in the rare situation where I want to mix surround sound while watching a Youtube History of the Celts program. I have a USB 8 channel interface intended for movies and gaming and I get 8 separate channels but again with no volume control. It otherwise works great but it's 1/8" jacks and not balanced out. It's what got me thinking of multiple interfaces. Since I only need to run multiple outs during mix-down, ASIO4ALL might be a good solution. Latency won't really matter if I am not recording or live monitoring.

Finally, I am experimenting so while there are certainly other and probably more practical solutions, I want to try something. I know the first reaction is to try and drive someone towards some alternate solution but you have to consider if maybe the person is interested in the learning and experimentation. The question is the same. Will it work and has anyone done it. It sounds like it will with the right interfaces. I am waiting for Presonus to call me back. There are examples (as Noel noted) of people running at least two identical interfaces at one time (but no examples of more than two.) I'm not throwing money around but learning. And I might just have to buy a 4x4 interface and wire up a quick 4 channel balanced in/out volume control and be done with it.

 

Edited July 15, 2021 by Terry Kelley

[John Vere]

Sounds good. I never think to look for used gear. But interfaces become outdated so fast therefore I like to keep mine no older than 5 years. My Tascam us1641 is 14 years old and still has drivers that work. But last update was 2014 so that is going to die someday.

I have always bought interfaces with 4 outputs because of my set up where I use a small mixer for headphones. The small mixer ( Mackie mix 8 @ $ 80)  can also be run to a second pair of speakers and therefore has that volume control your looking for. So that's another option. Right now that's patched to a sub woofer I rarely use. But one thing for sure I agree that the reason I have that small mixer is due to wanting those physical controls handy. 

My Scarlett 6i6 has a software mixer and it's a royal pane to use. A lot of interfaces cheap out and don't have controls on the front panel. I avoid those. Give me lots of knobs I can see. 

I think the ultimate answer for your question is as Noel said and it really depends on the manufacture and the ASIO driver. I know I've read a few times of people using 2 Roland interfaces together. 

But getting back to using what you have, I still would avoid asio4all if you can as you really don't need to stack that on top of the already available WASAPI. We did some test a year ago and WASAPI is a very good alternative driver and you need not contaminate your audio system to use it.

I used to record our band and I would use WDM mode as WASAPI wasn't really there yet,  I used my Tascam us1641 and a Yamaha mixer that had 2x2 USB. Worked great gave me 16 analog inputs and midi...Used this set up for a long time without a hitch. I would easily switch back to ASIO for overdubbing etc. I often switched between WASAPI shared and ASIO when I was making tutorials but then discovered my Motu M4 has a loopback so I can use other apps with Cakewalk running now. So I think your easiest rout might be the 2 interfaces you have in WASAPI mode. 

[John Vere]

2 hours ago, pwalpwal said:

no it's not bad advice, i stated that it was a wdm wrapper... i've had years of great usage from that freebie, and it might just do what terry needs, without spending any money (quite important), sorry you feel so strongly about it ?

I have nothing against it if your using W7,  and 4 years ago I was using it on a W7 laptop exclusively and it was fine.  But WASAPI is integrated into windows and has made asio4all obsolete. We did some testing and WASAPI exclusive got better RTL on loopback tests than asio4all. Asio4all performance is just like WDM mode and WASAPI is more up to date with W10 inclusion. Both would require loopback testing and timing offset adjustments to work perfectly. If your not overdubbing it won't matter. 

I guess the only case where something like asio4all might work better is when an audio interface doesn't support WASAPI, like my 14 year old Tascam. Asio4all at least would show all the ins and outs. 

Edited July 15, 2021 by John Vere

[John Vere]

Out of curiosity I hooked up my Scarlett. You can see by the screen shots that in ASIO mode it took over from my Motu which I believe is Cakewalk's system of using Alphabetical order for in/out defaults.  Example " digital SPDIF" often takes over as the master bus output. 

But as you see in both ASIO and WASAPI Shared I can only use one or the other interface. 

But in WASAPI Exclusive I can easily use both.

[Terry Kelley]

10 minutes ago, John Vere said:

Out of curiosity I hooked up my Scarlett. You can see by the screen shots that in ASIO mode it took over from my Motu which I believe is Cakewalk's system of using Alphabetical order for in/out defaults.  Example " digital SPDIF" often takes over as the master bus output. 

But as you see in both ASIO and WASAPI Shared I can only use one or the other interface. 

But in WASAPI Exclusive I can easily use both.

Yeah, this is what I see too. So the question is if ASIO will enable two of the same brand/model interfaces. Right now with ASIO, all of my software will work at the same time as long as they are all set to the same sample rate and bit depth. WASAPI Exclusive locks everything else out but it's a minor inconvenience flipping things around as needed.

On a side note, I really appreciate your suggestion of the Mackie Mix 8. That little thing has potential. I'm reading the manual now. 

Edited July 15, 2021 by Terry Kelley