ADA8200 and UMC 1820 were getting on but it's looking like possible divorce!

[Nomiracle1]

Hi,
I wonder if annyone can help please? I had a Focusrite 18i20 which I paired with a Behringer ADA8200 to give more ins/outs for my synths and it was all quite happy until one day the ADA8200 stopped working so I changed the ADAT optical cables and all was fine, then.... it stopped again. I tried everything to get it working but to no avail so I thought i wonder if it's the interface that's causing it? So I bought a Behringer UMC1820 as I thought well , they're both Behringer what can go wrong? .....It never worked no matter what cables i used, which settings I had it on or anything else so I thought it's probably the ADA8200 that's given up the ghost so against my usual philosophy of never replacing failed gear with like for like I bought another brand new one! So now I've got a brand new 1820 and a brand new ADA8200 and brand new optical cables and guess what? Ok you win a goldfish! That's right, it doesn't work! I've tried absolutely everything I can think of but no matter what I plug into the ADA8200 via line in I get no sound, I'm using a midi keyboard to control various synths and the little signal light next to each channel lights up when i press a key but no sound at all. Also not all the time but occasionaly I'm getting a 'clicking' coming through the speakers when i switch the Optical/IO switch on the ADA8200 to 'on', this stops when i turn it off and sometimes stops on its own. I've tried putting the ADA8200 into both Master (ADAT) and Slave (on both 48 and 44.1 kHz and still nothing. I've tried every combination of everything and I've tried 3 sets of optical cables which have always worked for ADAT and I've put them out to in and in to out as they should be. The 1820 is working fine (as both of them should being a couple of days old!) on it's own through all input channels but I've had nothing from the ADA8200. I had some hair left when I started this but now I'm completely bald. If anyone could take the time to help me any advice would be absolutely gratefully received. Thank you

[GaryH]

@Nomiracle1 Where do your adat cables go from the 8200 out and in? I'm thinking its a clocking issue between the Focusrite/1820 and the 8200. that and the resolution of all those other devices being the same. You probably know the old trick of adat out to adat in (one cable on the 8200) 8200 set as master. It turns the 8200 into 8 di's essentially. 1 in to 1 out etc etc. At least you could get your Synth's into your device analog style. Maybe try it on the old one first

[Nomiracle1]

Hi,no I'm not aware of that trick I currently have the ins to the outs and the outs to the ins on both units so I think that you mean the way that i already have it but minus the 8200 going back in to the 1820? as in one cable from the 1820 'out' to the 8200 'in' ? Please excuse me if I've got that completely wrong! I won't try anything until you reply! The old 8200 now has another issue as somehow during me placing it in 'storage' one of the optical 'flaps'/'doors' on the 'IN' optical slot has broken off, there's no way anyone has touched it I just looked at it and it had gone! (This is my life......) anyway it means i can't test with it as the cable just drops out, i never realised that these 'flaps' hold the cable in.Anyway excuse me for sounding dumb but I await your reply and thanks again for showing interest.

[GaryH]

My question was how the new device connects to the new 8200, what you describe sounds like it is correct. More important there is the clock settings and slave/master settings of the 2 units. I would guess the 8200 as Master and 48K and then the 1820 set as slave 48K. It could be the 1820 has to be master and the 8200 as slave in your case, I am not sure of how that unit works. The basic point is making sure the resolution is the same on both and one is master the other slave. More than likely that is what you did before and have done already with the new things. The 1 cable business is just for the 8200 itself acting as a stand alone DI type device. You connect an optical cable from its in port to its own out port. It then acts like 8 separate direct boxes. Probably not a great solution in this scenario. I have a few 8200's but have not used them in a long while. I'll look at one more closely and see if something shakes out. I'm not sure that the optical door is critical, if it's not jammed and blocking the port it might still work. It can't be that 2 new devices won't work when 2 identical older ones did, there is a solution somewhere there.

[Nomiracle1]

Thanks, I understand what you mean now, yea i think I've got it all sorted as in correct cabling and master/slave order but I'm just confused as to why it won't work 'standalone' . I've since opened Ableton and plugged a synth into the first ADAT channel (Channel 11) and it works within the DAW when selected but when i look at all the other ADAT ports there seems to be 'noise' clipping through some of them and just 'green' noise coming through others when i have nothing connected to them. If i try plug the synth in to one of the others i have to turn it down as its making a horrific white noise type sound. I don't know if this is realated to the issue but I'm guessing it is. These are brand new as i say and I've never even turned it up, turned Phantom Power on or anything that may cause potential issues. I'm really confused but I'm going to order yet some more (better quality) TOSLINK cables today and see if they make a difference. It's really strange , I literally have the settings and cables as i told you with nothing else going into either the 1820 or the 8200 except for the synth that i try (and I've alternated this with different gear) and then the two main outs go to my Yamaha HS5's. It shouldn't be making any extra 'noise' and it should potentially work as an extra 8 inputs (as well as the extra outputs which i won't use anyway) i literally took both units out of their brand new packaging two days ago. So frustrating! But thank you again for your help and interest so far.

[GaryH]

@Nomiracle1 Try just connecting 1 Adat cable from the 8200 out to your 1820 Adat in. A Quick Look at the manual makes it seem like that’s all you need to get signals in. Connecting to the 8200 Adat in from the 1820 seems to say that the 1820 sends its outputs to the 8200 outs. I don’t think you need that if your monitor connections are now coming from the 1820.

[Nomiracle1]

Thanks I'll try that, yea my monitors come from the 1820, I even tried taking them from the 8200 but there was no sound at all. I'll try that in a few moments and let you know. Thanks again.

[Nomiracle1]

No joy with that, I can use it as long as i have a daw open and set up with the instruments on the right ADAT channels but even then after a while it crashes. This is driving me mad! Again thanks for your patience bud.