Two audio interfaces possible on Mac?

Question

I'm a new Kyma user, and I'm trying to set up my Pacarana to use the Behringer firewire interface to send audio to the mac, but my Apogee interface to accept the input from that Behringer and otherwise handle audio, and to have both available in Ableton LIve. I tried setting up the Aggregate Devicein Audio/Midi setup, which I understand should work, but I'm having no luck in getting sound (although I can hear Kyma working with headphones into the Behringer).

Has anyone gotten something like this to work? I don't want to give up my Apogee just to use Kyma.Any suggestions would be really appreciated.

 

EDIT - I've got a Behringer FCA610, and an Apogee Symphony MkII. I don't have the Behringer directly connected to the Mac, it's connected to the Pacarana, which is connected to the Mac, but the Mac sees it through the Firewire daisy chain - I assume it has to, because the Kyma software won't have any output otherwise.

Comments

hi there. i can just verify!

i wanted to use the good converters in my metric halo interface.
i connected my mac (firewire) to the metric halo, then to my pacarana, then my pacarana to my tc-interface (impact twin)(is my kyma-dedicated audio-interface).
then adats in both directions from metric halo to/back from my tc. worked fine but just shorter times (like 1 hour once, then 10 minutes or just for a few moments) kyma started to behave strange, no sound on the outputs etc.

please let me know, if someone has experience with connecting firewire (to kyma) and usb or ethernet to a second interface. maybe that's how to do it to be able to use ableton at the same time as kyma? thanks lars

Answer 1

Hi David

 

Welcome to Kyma club! The pacarana/Kyma needs its own audio interface to operate (your Behringer) which is connected directly to the pacarana.  Your computer needs its own audio interface (your Apogee), plugged directly into the computer.  Aggregating devices I don’t think will work as this is a mac feature for collating two (or more) audio devices that are connected to the computer into one device (that is then accessible in Ableton/other DAWS)  – I think the behringer needs to be kept out the way of this (i.e. not connected to the computer) or the mac will take over the drivers and disable use in Kyma.   The connection between your behringer interface and apogee interface should be limited to audio only or digital audio, eg. ADAT.  What are the actual interfaces you have? That will allow an understanding of what is possible in your setup.

 

For an example, I use a Motu Ultralite for my Mac and a Motu Track 16 for my pacarana however they are connected via ADAT together.  So in Ableton, whilst I cannot select inputs/outputs of the Track16 directly (as you would if you had aggregated the devices), I can receive 8 channels of audio from Kyma and send 4 channels to Kyma (my Kyma audio setup preferences are set to input/output all via ADAT).  If you don’t have ADAT you can do the same using analog audio – of course you are limited by the number of in/out channels your interfaces allow.

 

I hope that helps a little – I found it a little confusing at first but once set up you can leave as it is….set and forget!

Comments

I've got a Behringer FCA610, and an Apogee Symphony MkII. I don't have the Behringer directly connected to the Mac, it's connected to the Pacarana, which is in turn connected to the Mac, but the Mac still sees it through the Firewire daisy chain. So are you saying that I should leave it that way, but connect the digital optical output of the Behringer to the Apogee? The Mac allows Kyma to work, since I can hear the output through the Behringer's headphone output, but I can't get the audio to show up in the Mac itself through the Firewire input.
And in Ableton or Logic, what would I select as the input and output devices in preferences?
And thank you so much for your help - this is driving me crazy trying to get it working.

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Hi David.  Yes, I believe that you shouldn't be selecting the Behringer at all on your computer or Ableton.  Leave that set to your Apogee and connect the two devices via ADAT (don't forget you'll need one to be ADAT clock master - I'd probably leave that to the Apogee).   
Ableton preferences: select the apogee as the interface and turn on the ADAT inputs and outputs (you may need to use the mac's audio/midi setup application to determine which channel numbers).

Kyma audio preferences (apologies I'm not in front of it now so exact terminlogy may not be right):
Set the Behringer as the audio device used.  Open the input/output routing screen and select the inputs and outputs to all be via ADAT (or some at least!)

Within Ableton you should then be able to send audio to and receive audio from Kyma via ADAT.  

It is all a little slow to get going and your Kyma journey may be frustrating at certain times but persevere...the rewards are worth it!

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This is really so helpful, I'll try it tonight. Thank you much for your help - as someone brand new to Kyma it's rather daunting to get started, and it is wonderful to know there are people like you in the community who will take the time to help a beginner.

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Thanks, Geoff! Welcome, David!
The Kyma audio preference options Geoff mentioned are in the DSP Status window (look under Audio Input and Configure). Please let us know how it goes, thanks!

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Hope you got it working!? And no problem..I'm still relatively new (<1 year) and asked many similar questions!

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I did get it working, thank you. Turned out it was a problem with the Behringer drawing power from the Firewire bus even though it was plugged in to AC power. Your suggestion of the ADAT connection helped me figure out what I was doing. Thanks again!

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Actually, I got it working with SPDIF, but I can't get it working with ADAT. There's no ADAT channels in the Kyma DSP Status window "Route output" menu, just analog and SPDIF. The Focusrite interface I'm using locked on fine with SPDIF but can't see any ADAT signal to sync to from the FCA610, so I think the Kyma software isn't using the ADAT outputs. Any idea what I might be doing wrong? I did select Optical out on the front panel of the FCA610.

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I don't think the FCA610 has ADAT (it has optical SPDIF [TOSLINK] and coax SPDIF).

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That would explain the lack of ADAT : ) In addition to SPDIF David you can of course you good old analog connections between your Behringer and the Apogee...

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You're correct, I was confusing the optical SPDIF with ADAT. Stupid mistake, but it also means I bought the wrong interface, unfortunately.