RME Audio Fireface 802, User Manual

Page: 35 / 112

User's Guide Fireface 802 © RME 35
15.5 Various Information
The driver of the Fireface requires at least Mac OS 10.6.
Programs that don't support card or channel selection will use the device chosen as
Input
and
Output
in the
System Preferences – Sound
panel.
Via
Launchpad – Other – Audio MIDI Setup
the Fireface can be configured for the system
wide usage in more detail.
Programs that don't support channel selection will always use channels 1/2, the first stereo pair.
To access other inputs, use the following workaround with TotalMix: route the desired input
signal to output channels 1/2. In the channel settings of outputs 1/2 activate
Loopback
. Result:
the desired input signal is now available at input channel 1/2, without further delay/latency.
Use
Configure Speakers
to freely configure the stereo or multichannel playback to any avail-
able channels.
16. Using more than one Fireface
OS X supports the usage of more than one audio device within an audio software. This is done
via the Core Audio function
Aggregate Devices
, which allows to combine several devices into
one.
The current driver supports up to three Fireface 400 or 800. All units have to be in sync, i.e.
have to receive valid sync information either via word clock or by feeding synchronized signals.
•
If one of the Firefaces is set to clock mode Master, all others have to be set to clock mode
Slave, and have to be synced from the master, for example by feeding word clock. The
clock modes of all units have to be set up correctly in the Fireface Settings dialog.
•
If all units are fed with a synchronous clock, i.e. all units show
Sync
in their Settings dialog,
all channels can be used at once.
Note: TotalMix is part of the Fireface hardware. Up to three mixers are available, but these are
separated and can't interchange data. Therefore a global mixer for all units is not possible.
In real-world an operation of more than one Fireface 802 might be difficult. Each further unit will
lead to problems on the USB and FireWire bus, caused by the high number of channels. It
makes more sense to connect external converters to the ADAT I/Os of the 802, adding up to 16
channels of analog record and analog playback.