interface question

Question

I recently came across an old post in the Q&A that has intrigued me.  Here is a link to that post

https://kyma.symbolicsound.com/qa/2009/kyma-standalone-future-plans

This is the part of the post that intrigued me

A Pacarana + power supply a Fireware and a USB cable plus a small USB audio class compliant audio interface (for example the Zoom H1 recorder can be used as an Input/output device) will fit easily into a mid sized laptop bag together with a small modern laptop and you then could take your Kyma setup home whenever you like.

Is this saying one could use a zoom h1 recorder as the audio interface with the pacarana?  I'm thinking that can't be but I'm unclear.

Answer 1

The Zoom H1 does not show on the official support list (https://kyma.symbolicsound.com/configuring-audio-and-midi-interfaces/supported-interfaces/). However, I have a Zoom H2 (also not on the list) and just tested it.  The H2 does seem to work as a two channel interface. In my experience some two-channel USB audio class complaint interfaces work even when they do not show on the officially supported list.

One note though. I have had the best success by having the USB audio interface already plugged into the Pacarana and powered (where possible) before powering on the Pacarana. This was the case with the Zoom H2, which I was running off of batteries for the test.

Comments

Thanks for the response.  That's great info.  I am surprised and happy to hear this.  I've only connected to my pacarana through firewire as that seems to be more prevalent on the suppported devices page.  But I recently got a new laptop that has no firewire and I've been wanting to use it with pacarana but wasn't sure what interface to go with.  

I do have a class compliant usb interface (in this case a sound devices mix pre d) that I will test out.  Even if it is somewhat spotty will be great to have when wanting to go portable.

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You can continue to use your FireWire interface with the Pacarana even though your computer has no FireWire port. Kyma 7+ made it possible to use an Ethernet connection between the computer and Pacarana. The Pacarana's soundcard interface is independent of the computer-to-Pacarana connection. I use my Pacarana this way. The Pacarana connects to a FireWire soundcard, but connects to the Mac using Ethernet.

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That's great.  I was aware of being able to connect to paca with ethernet, but I didn't know if my firewire interface would work that way.  That means the only challenge I face is finding drivers for my audio interface on my new machine.  I use tc electronics impact twin, which I believe is no longer being supported by tc elec.  I have doubt whatever their last driver update was will work with a M1 mac.

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Your Mac does not need drivers for the soundcard that the Pacarana is using. The Mac does not use the Pacarana's soundcard as an interface. You need a second interface for your Mac, or just use its internal audio interface.

The network connection between the Mac and Pacarana is used for OSC and Kyma system communications, but not currently for Pacarana audio I/O. You will need an alternate way of connecting between the Pacarana's soundcard and your Macs, like ADAT or just use analog connections.

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What you're saying is that I don't need to install drivers onto my mac to use an audio interface with pacarana if I use ethernet connection between my mac and pacarana?

So in my situation, I could connect my macbook pro via ethernet to my pacarana.  Then, connect my impact twin to pacarana via the firewire connection.  I would then use the impact twin for audio output and midi input. My mac won't even see the impact twin so no drivers are needed.  

The pacarana won't have any issues connecting to the impact twin?  I recall when setting up my old laptop, I did install the impact twin driver but then I think I deleted it as per the kyma instructions?  I didn't know that the pacarana would just be able to recognize audio interface without installing drivers.

Really appreciate all the info regarding this.

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Q1. Correct, no Mac drivers needed. You mention in Q3 below that you used to delete the Mac drivers once the interface was set up. This was necessary because if the Mac had the FireWire drivers then it would attempt to grab the Impact Twin, and if successful, that would prevent the Pacarana from connecting. So even before Kyma+ you did not need a FireWire driver for the interface installed on the Mac.

Q2. Correct.

Q3. That's a good question. If the Impact Twin is like my old TC48 was then the interface remembers the last settings. If so your Impact Twin should connect like it did the last time you used it with the Pacarana. However if that is not the case, or you need to change settings beyond those available in Kyma, then you will need to somehow install the old driver on a compatible Mac. I used to use an ancient MBP running Lion when I needed to fiddle with the TC48.

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Copy all this.  I do have an older mac mini I can use to install driver onto TC impact twin if needed.  So happy to have a better understanding of how paca connects to audio interface.  Thank you!