Let's talk USB hubs

[Alex Wild]

While not directly related to the OP's question, I want to let you guys know that I've had good results with a £4.99 4-way non-powered hub from Tesco, if you can believe it.

I only bought it the other day, on the off chance that it might work, as it was so cheap. I really wasn't expecting much, but I had it running an X1, Maschine AND Audio2DJ last night with no noticeable problems. Win.

[mostapha]

What on earth is everyone going on about? There is zero reason why you can't use 2 separate soundcards together, it makes ZERO difference providing you have a software system (such as core audio or ASIO4ALL) that allows you to combine sound cards.

Agreed. And I've done it.

Has anybody here ever actually run two of the same soundcards and had issues?

I have zero problems running multiple sound cards under Core Audio. That's the default setup for Pro Tools 10 (it adds an aggregate device called Pro Tools Aggregate IO during the install, which just adds all your sound cards).

Set your bit depth, sampling rate, and word clock source correctly, and things just work. At least…they work if the cards are all Core Audio compliant or have good Core Audio drivers.

It's standard procedure in the studio world. And, yeah, you might be thinking "but, wait, they all use Pro Tools HD and the Avid HD cards handle all that for you." Yes, that's true. In pro studios. But there are a lot of home/project/etc. studios that don't need to run PTHD and get perfectly good results out of just combining cards.

Most of them are Firewire in that context, which I think works better than USB, but USB is very capable of a good number of channels as long as you're not dumb about setting it up.

If I can ever afford the outboard gear I'm dreaming about, I'll buy a card that I don't think is going to be discontinued…and when I need more IO, I'll just buy another one and daisy chain them (it'll be firewire or thunderbolt) and I expect zero problems, especially considering the hackneyed stuff I did when testing PT 10. An FS Open, an Audio 2, my internal audio card, and both the soundflower 16 channel and 2 channel virtual cards all play nicely together. At low latency all things considered.

The only crackpot thing I've done that didn't work was daisy chaining USB hubs, which is one of those "if you do this, you deserve for stuff to break" kinds of things, but I wanted to see what I had to do to break it.

Low power port -> powered hub -> powered hub built into my monitor -> unpowered hub -> Apple wired keyboard w/ unpowered hub -> iLok made iLok authorization fail. Plugging it into the unpowered hub instead of the keyboard made it work again.

The other shit plugged in (at various points, I had a Maschine, a keystation 49, a trackball, a hard drive, an iPhone, 2 flash drives, and lpd8, and probably some other stuff) all worked fine, and the iLok gave it's "i work" status light…it just didn't actually work.

[deevey]

I have zero problems running multiple sound cards under Core Audio. That's the default setup for Pro Tools 10 (it adds an aggregate device called Pro Tools Aggregate IO during the install, which just adds all your sound cards).

Under core audio YES, aggregating 3 and 4 audio devices have had zero issues for me, but on a Windows box under Asio4all though was a different story.

[mostapha]

I'm confused.

Why the hell would you use a windows computer for music?

[MaxOne]

I'm confused.

Why the hell would you use a windows computer for music?

I admit... I lol'd

[nem0nic]

Look Moo... something SHINY!

[mostapha]

#WINNING

(seriously…PCs are all well and good, but if they can't do that………seriously, wtf?)

[dmsuperman]

Well if you want to get OS X running on standard hardware I'll gladly use it. I don't currently use windows because I like it. If I had it my way I'd be using linux, but none of the major software creators care about us linux folk

Plus, VDJ under OS X for some reason sucks at detecting BPM. Traktor isn't exactly what I need. I'm thinking about trying torq and/or mixxx again but I haven't had the time lately.

In the long run I want to get a huge soundcard and use it with a huge 6 channel mixer but I'm just trying to get by for now on the limited budget I have. We aren't all millionaires with tons of free time and money devoted to this craft. Mortgages and shit, yo.

I will investigate adding more USB ports to my laptop through some expansion slot, then if that fails the suggested hub. I'll get 2 Audio 2s and if I have issues...I guess I'll just return them and save up and wait to buy the audio 10.

[deevey]

If you have a PCIe expansion slot on your laptop, I'd go with a firewire if you can, your choice of reasonably priced sound cards goes up and the price down.

You can pick up a Focusrite sapphire pro24 for example with 16 in / 8 out for under 150 on ebay used these days or brand new for 240 new on Amazon which is a fair ol' bit less than an audio10.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Focusrite-24-Interface-SAFFIRE-PRO/dp/B002E2R81G/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1328202397&sr=8-3"]Amazon.com: Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 Firewire Audio Interface, (SAFFIRE PRO 24): Musical Instruments@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41sDx-urLjL.@@AMEPARAM@@41sDx-urLjL[/ame]

BTW I'm in no way a millionaire, and try to get by with DIY stuff and limited budget, but some things are just way too critical to the setup to just keep spending time trying to make things work (time is money too).

I was under the impression you already had bought the Audio2's, but as that isn't the case, measure twice, cut once as the saying goes.

[mostapha]

That costs more and has less IO than a pair of Audio 2s if he can get the aggregate to work.

The downside of sound card manufacturers* is that they count analog and digital IO together. IIRC, the saffire 24 is closer to 4 mono in/6 mono out, which won't run a mixer the way the OP wants.

If he were on Apple, Audio 2s would be the right choice. I'm not sure about on a PC, mostly because the only audio cards I've looked at in years are smaller (less IO), more specialized, firewire, or way more expensive.


(*): the funnier part is that no one has thought to release a sound card that just has 4 discrete digital outs and can interface with the DJM700/800/900/2000 & DB4 mixers. I think the fact that such a thing does not exist means that no one in the sound card world gives a shit about DJs and we're always going to be hacking together things like multiple Audio 2s.