ADAT to ADAT - 2 sound cards - 2 computers

[beatpete]

Sell your other adat card and get Vienna Ensemble Pro. It's SUCH a much better solution (I've tried everything for years)

[Steve Fogal]

Like I said I've been researching & reading users of multi computer set ups for weeks now...from many different types and methods of acomplishing this and also from others who've tried many. Some free solutions some costly. VEP comes out among the top. Though with almost all solutions available there are some who have great success and are happy with their chosen solutions.

These past weeks I've learned a lot, beginning with knowing nothing about this. All opinions, experiences & explanations are of great help in understanding.

There are still things that are unclear. There's a lot of information from users to so called experts and even Ekard Doll (spelling?) in a Cubase forum contradicts the VST System Link manual...he says spdif is NOT recommended to use with it, while the manual states that spdif can be used. Some reports that only spdif optical will work with VSL while the manual says spdif optical or coaxial works but must use 'digital only' rca cables. Some say any 75 oam TV coax cable works as good with spdif coaxial. Of course ADAT has more capability than spdif though.

Another point in question is varying reports as to which versions of Cubase support VSL...many conflicts on this.....some say VST 5/32 and up, but I read something that VST 5/32 can only use VSL as a slave machine, not as a master machine. From what I've read it's in the freebee versions we get along with our Zoom H4's etc.

VSL seems good for those who want to use 2 indidual computers as simultanious working DAW's as how they wish, however I just read a user report that VSL'd machines cannot do a simultanious mix down of the combined machines. They need to effectively be 'bounced'.

For those who simply need more cpu/ram resources, vstack, VEP or FXT along with others fills the bill. If you have an older system FXT does the job while new machines and 64 but OS's may need VEP.

All in all a solution where you have all you need and in a single host where you can save the project in one host sounds the most attractive. Yet need to ask ourselves if we need more everything in terms of track count etc or just need more resources to run more VSTi's.

[Steve Fogal]

I bet the First thing you'll change is get rid of multiple keyboards/mice, then add your second PCs screen to your desktop

Have fun!

Yes, and there seems to be several solutions I've found in my research.

KVM switch to physically connect 1 keyboard/mouse multiple PC's. Reports that wireless keyboards/mice don't work well with it. You have to manually switch between comouters/screens. Not sure about multiple monitors to individual PC's.

Synergy, free software that does the same thing but without messy cables. Works with wireless set ups. No switching, just simply move your mouse curser between your monitors. Reports that it works with multiple monitors on each PC.

[Steve Fogal]

Hehe was researching on Google and stumbled upon my own thread

Update jan 2013 - my 2 DAW computers together (my quad core & older single core machines) connected via their own sound cards, just using 5-pin midi from master into slave, running some VSTi's, sending it's analog audio from slave to master. This worked so well as a VSTi machine (like any other outboard midi device) , that I decided to build another far more capable quad machine (a replica) to replace my old single core machine being it couldn't run as many VSTi's as I'd like.

I had tried experimenting using my ADAT connections between the computers via the Aark 24 cards, but couldn't get it to work for some reason. I'll try again at some point, along with experimenting with other methods that have been discussed in this thread. Using old standard midi and analog audio is fairly straight forward, though there are benefits between various methods of course.