really stupid question here

what the hell is s/pdif and adat? the reason why i put it on the 4000 forum is because i see that it appears on the studio d version instead of the 8 outs on the studio a version... any feedback would be greatly appreciated... thanks in advance

Adat is 8 channel light-pipe digital out rather than the 8 channel analog out. S/PDIF is two channel digital out, usually conneted with a phono type connector.

okay so adat is just audio streams but converted to digital within the machine before getting to the soundcard/ daw right?

and s/pdif i still don't exactly understand what puropse it serves, is it something that accompanies midi for hosting and slaving through the mpc?

btw thanks for the reply...

s/pdif is the same as your Main Outs (L/R) except Digital.

minus wrote:okay so adat is just audio streams but converted to digital within the machine before getting to the soundcard/ daw right?
btw thanks for the reply...

Or it can stream directly into an Alesis ADAT recorder itself, or can go directly into a Digital
Mixing board that has ADAT ins. There are a lot of products that use ADAT lightpipe ins and
outs. You route a Part in the MPC 4000 to any one of these 8 ADAT outs.

Cheers...

Dave

[quote="minus"
and s/pdif i still don't exactly understand what puropse it serves, is it something that accompanies midi for hosting and slaving through the mpc?
[/quote]

It's an Audio thing. Midi doesn't go through it. You're probaby thinking of Yamaha's M-LAN
which can send both Midi and Audio digitally through the same firewire connection.

Ok.. for s/pdif here are 2 examples.

1). My MiniDisk has s/pdif in and out. I can connect this to the MPC4000 to send the
stereo output to my Minidisk in digital to record. Or I can sample off the MiniDisk via
Digital with the s/pdif IN's.

2). My Waldorf Q has s/pdif out. So if I have the s/pdif option on the MPC 4000, I can
take samples of the Waldorf Q directly in the digital domain, without being converted
to analog by the Q and then reconverting back to digital by the MPC, you can just
go directly from the synth to the MPC all in the digital domain.


Now's the hard part. Trying to figure out, how to afford them, after purchasing the
MPC 4000 Probably will have to be a while...


Cheers...

Dave

okay so with the adat thing is just a way of making the analogue to digital thing easier to export and import files/ sounds without the need for converters?

and the spdif thing, i can really see the use for this type of thing but why do we not see multiple inputs/ outputs for this? wouldn't it allow for some crazy sh!t to go down? and also does spdif do the slave & host thing like midi?

There is no A to D with ADAT. That's the beauty. Once you get the sample into the MPC it stays in the digital domain. When you send it to your Soundcard over ADAT, it's still digital. IT stays digital in your computer as well. No quality loss. Otherwise....if you go from the MPC analog outs to the soundcard outs you have two conversions there. D to A, then A back to D.

spdif does not do a slave or host thing. But on my setup, I have to set the soundcard to work on the SPDIF timing rather than the internal timing of the soundcard, or I will hear nothing. SPDIF is a pretty old interface. It was only designed to be used as 2channel. I think if you had 8 SPDIF output, you might have sync problems. Not that it couldn't be done, but it's just not accepted in industry. There really is no need for since you have ADAT....8 chan over one cable. What would the benefit of having 8 SPDIF connectors then? It would probably be more expensive.

minus wrote:okay so with the adat thing is just a way of making the analogue to digital thing easier to export and import files/ sounds without the need for converters?

It'snot realy an import/export thing, but a real time thing.

If you have a Mixing Board that has ADAT in, then you can use them the same
as you would the Analogue outputs. Select a Part to send it's sound to
"out 1" which will send it to both the ADAT OUT1 and the Analogue OUT 1
if you have both cards installed. This allows one to go directly to the Mixing board
digitally with no conversions and then can use the Mixing boards faders to control
the volume level.

If you have a 8 Channel Hard Disk Recorder that has ADAT in, then you can use the
Harddisk recorder to record the 8 signals in RealTime and then unpug the MPC
and "Remix" your track down to Stereo, all with the what was recorded, done directly
in digital with no conversions.

It allows you to pass the signal around digitally. You have 8 outputs that you can
route any of your parts to.

I don't have any Lightpipe equipment, so it's of no use to me, unless somebody wants
to donate me any


Just think of it as the same as the 8 Analog outs but Digital. So as long as the Digital
device understands and accepts ADAT Lightpipe.