DAW mixing chain / Cubase

I have a little complicated question - i know it is OT. Normally i work ITB with Cubase 6 and the FF400 Interface connected via Firewire. As i bought more outboard gear, my in and outs were all occupied. I included the external effects in cubase like a plugin (one cable to the effect and one back to the interface).
Now i bought a lunchbox stuffed with some 500 modules obviously. The lunchbox has two d-sub in and outs and 8 xlr connectors per in and output. Now i don't know, if it makes sense to simply buy a digital interface with 8 xlr inputs or is there any d-sub to digital converter? For instance i could connect an SM Pro to my FF400 via ADAT: http://smproaudio.com/index.php/de/products/studio-live-tools/ab8. Will this work?

I hope you have some ideas

thanks
weiss

Are you have in plans use them all at one time?
Sm Pro converters are weak you will hear the real difference vs ff400 inboard converters.
XLR connectors in the front panel are weak option too.
Patchbay is the cheapest and good solution, eventually look for better converter even used.

ln76d said:

Are you have in plans use them all at one time?
Sm Pro converters are weak you will hear the real difference vs ff400 inboard converters.
XLR connectors in the front panel are weak option too.
Patchbay is the cheapest and good solution, eventually look for better converter even used.

Click to expand...

Yes i want to loop them into cubase while mixing. What patchbay would you recommend?

You are moving up and your rig is getting bigger! First of all - congrats on that!

If you're asking if adding SM Pro would work - it would. No problem.
But do you want to add mediocre converter on the ins and outs of your good sounding analog gear?
It can be a quick fix, but I wouldn't stay on that unit longer than few months!

I think you have two options.
If you insist on having all your outboard gear permanently connected to your interface, and keep using it as external fx, than you'd better get a good converter. Not that SM Pro. That thing probably doesn't work on higher sampling rates than 48kHz and it's poor quality conversion.
The best route would be to ditch FF400 and get Antelope Orion (or similar, if exists) to get 32ch of good conversion in both ways.

The second option would change your workflow. Keep your FF400 but hook your ins and outs to the patchbay, and all your outboards also to the patchbay. That way you can daisy chain units you use and configure their routing per demand on each song you do. If you don't use ALL the units you have at the same time, this would be the cheapest option. You don't have to get TT/Bantam patch, some Neutrik with 6.3mm TRS (standard "banana") will do.

Thanks for your replies!

Well this sounds great, but a patchbay doesn't have digital outputs right?

weiss

weiss said:

Thanks for your replies!

Well this sounds great, but a patchbay doesn't have digital outputs right?

weiss

Click to expand...

Right If  you want to use simultaneously more than 8 inputs and 8 outputs you will need to buy A/D / D/A converter.
Patchbay only is useful for switching between the units and FF and you can easly make a chain between processors, eq etc.
For patchbay, simple neutrik would be sufficient:
http://www.neutrik.com/en/products/audio/patch-panels/1/4-patch-panel/nys-spp-l1
For converter you can look for used rme adi-8, sometimes they go cheap and are pretty good converters

Thanks for making things clearer now

weiss

Get a look at this one:

http://www.ferrofish.de/en/en-a16-adat.html

That's affordable and much better than SM pro stuff.

totoxraymond said:

Get a look at this one:

http://www.ferrofish.de/en/en-a16-adat.html

That's affordable and much better than SM pro stuff.

Click to expand...

+1 for the ferrofish! this is what i searched for!
thanks

If you have a good amount of analog gear, having a patch bay is invaluable.  The upfront cost is a little intimidating, but the ease of use is fantastic.  With everything on a patch bay you can string together any series of devices in a mixing or recording scenario in seconds.

While having each piece of gear on it's own virtual patch point in your DAW is cool, the latency when you build up chains of FX can really add up.

Some stuff to think about.

Thanks for this note. My approach was to permanently set specific I/O to the corresponding outboard gear and then select it as an insert in my DAW. This way i can create my chains without having to connect and disconnect cables