My new to me RME HDSPe PCI express card arrived today! Since my Pulse 16MX isn’t here yet, there isn’t anything to connect it to. But since it includes a single line out jack on the card itself, I was able to at least install the card and drivers. This let me take TotalMix and setup Ableton Live. The Pulse may get here as early as tomorrow.
One struggle I’ve had with upgrading my studio is the whole battle between USB, Firewire, and Thunderbolt. USB has always gotten a bad rap for being less great for audio due to some fundamental tradeoffs in how it works. Often mentioned is that USB requires “polling” whereas something like Firewire and Thunderbolt do not. The reality is a lot more nuanced. When a standup company like RME says USB is plenty good, I tend to believe them. For my own gear, USB works but I have found Firewire is more consistent and have been using that for years now via a PCI Express card.
I still think Firewire is pretty wonderful though sadly Intel and Apple have replaced it with the much more complicated solution of Thunderbolt. As I alluded to in Studio Nightmares #1, on PC this has proven very problematic due to Thunderbolt 1 and 2 compatibility, not to mention the whole complicated mess that is getting a Thunderbolt solution working on PCs in general. This may be one reason many newer external audio interfaces have gone back to USB.
Initially my studio upgrade plans called for using a MOTU 64M. This is an external AVB/MADI to USB interface and would have been a great solution I think – were it obtainable. Sadly MOTU AVB gear has been very hard to find. Likewise, USB wasn’t something I wanted to invest heavily in given the above so perhaps this was a bit of a blessing in disguise. RME is about to release a new PCI Express card, the HDSPe AoX-M. Sidenote, RME could stand to have better product names for some of this stuff, but I digress. The AoX is a MADI and AVB (Milan) combo card. It nails all my use cases in every way except, of course, price.
For now, I managed to find a used RME HDSPe MADI card and while it doesn’t have quite as much I/O, I’m able to meet all my current requirements (including remote recording the piano, hopefully, but more on that in another Studio Nightmares). And notably it’s a PCI Express card, so no having to deal with USB vs Thunderbolt debates and debacles.
I don’t yet know how good the latency is going to be as I’m only able to get audio out of the stereo line out on the card from software sources. I can say however, after just a brief listen, I can see why folks rave about RME’s converters. It. sounds. beautiful! Noticeably better than the main outs on my MOTU 828 although I haven’t done a proper A/B to say for sure. I’m hoping the Pulse 16MX also sounds pretty decent given its converters, but we’ll see once that arrives!
Other than RME converters a lot of folks rave about TotalMix which is the software used to control the audio routing through the card allowing one to route the hardware inputs and outputs as well as the software channels (ala Ableton Live). While it’s not a holy grail, I have found it way way better to understand and follow than the MOTU828 or Saffire Pro 40 mixing applications. For one, I can name my inputs and outputs. Two, it’s easy to save and recall mixer configurations (and name them). Since I can’t yet route audio yet, little hard to say how well I’ll get on with it for more complicated things, but so far yeah I can see why RME gear is pricey.
This is probably a good place to stop for now, but still to come is discussing the analog patchbay, the Pulse 16MX, how I’m going to be wiring up the MOTU and that remote recording solution with the piano I plan on doing.
#StudioNightmares #RME #MADI
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