I'm having issues with the IF-AE/DM AES cards

[wm_b]

I have 4 of these cards. I want to use 3 of them with my DM4800. Two of them work great. The other two seem to have issues that when I assign anything to a bus assigned to particular outputs on the AES card all I get is digital noise. On one card it's 4 of the 8 (3 & 4, 7 & 8) channels and on another it's 2 (3 & 4) of the 8 channel that have this issue. I have tried swapping cables to no avail. I don't remember if I've tried swapping slots with the two working cards (I kind of don't want to mess with it). The cards with errors have been installed in slots 3 and 4. Same issues in both slots. I feel generally confident that the expansion cards are the issue and not the DM4800.

Another thing I've noticed is that the two cards that I'm having issues with don't look like they're the same revision board. One of them has some components soldered to the board with heatshrink around them. I bought these cards one at a time over the course of upgrading from a DM3200 some years ago. The last two cards were ebay purchases from Europe. I haven't compared them with the two working boards. I'm in the USA. Does anyone have any experience with these cards?

 

[wm_b]

I'm following up my own post with how things worked out. I was mistaken that the AES cards were bad. Not wanting to risk damaging one of my good working pair of AES cards (slots 1 & 2) I removed the card from slot 1 and replaced it with the presumed defective card that I'd recently replaced from slot 3. In slot 1 the old card worked perfectly fine. From other tests I knew the cables were good. Now I have confirmed that my assumed defective card was working fine in another slot.

Upon purchasing a 4th AES card that also wasn't working correctly in slot 3 or 4 I began to suspect slots 3 & 4 might possibly be the problem. Preemptively I bought one off ebay a couple weeks ago. Today, with a canceled session to free up some time I opened the mixer and replaced the original motherboard for slots 3 & 4 with the replacement. I don't know if it was reseating the cables or a truly bad board but I now have all the AES inputs and outputs working as expected on a 3rd card.

I had used slot 3 for some time for for either an AES card or a Firewire card. I used a setup with 3 expansion cards from 2014 until 2018. I was either using slots 1, 2, and 3 or slots 1, 3, and 4. Either way it was never a problem. It's possible that simply reseating the cables might have fixed things. In 2018 I dragged my DM4800 out for a few remote recording gigs. On one I had to roll it in the road case for a good 100 feet or more on kind of chunky pavement. It was after that gig that I start6ed having lines appear on my display. I'm wondering if that was the beginning of the problems. Otherwise my mixer has been flawless. Who knows how it will hold up going forward. It's so integral to what I do that having to work around the workflow I have now would be very costly. At least I still have a perfectly functional DM3200 for parts if I need to stretch it.

 

[wm_b]

Depending on when someone comes across this one person thread, I'll update it again. My previous assessment that replacing the PCB that has the card slots on it fixed the problem was incorrect. It did not. My testing was flawed. If I assigned 1 channel to all 8 busses then it worked as expected - all 8 busses would output the same signal via the AES card to the Motu and into Pro TOols. If I assigned another channel to 3 or 4 and 7 or 8 of the 8 busses it would become static on that newly assigned bus. As confusing as it is to communicate about, it doesn't work. It's not the AES cards, it's not the E903164-00B PCB as far as I can tell.

My current work around is using a DM3200 as a format converter using TDIF between the two mixers on those 8 busses and then AES from the Dm3200 to the Motu. Works perfectly but is also an excessive workaround. It's like having a smaller camper with a working bathroom to follow you around in your larger camper with non-working bathroom.

 

[Arjan P]

@wm_b Although you seem to be talking to yourself here, it is appreciated! To me, there is no relevance since I don't use AES cards, but I'm sure someone will find use in this information. Thanks!

 

[wm_b]

What might be relevant is in the future is that it appears that the problem isn't the specific aes cards and is related to the card slots 3 & 4. At the time I started the thread I thought it was specific to the aes cards. Despite the loneliness of the threads I've posted, I have been in contact with tascam and have even had some feedback from engineering.

If I don't just permanently move ahead with my over the top workaround I'll update this along the way if the problem and or a solution is identified. It's possible that other expansion cards would behave similarly. If I had them to try. Something I've never mentioned is that the input side of the aes card works fine.

 

[Arjan P]

the problem isn't the specific aes cards and is related to the card slots 3 & 4

Ah, indeed. Well good info anyway, for those with a DM4800, until it starts happening with the DM3200 slots 1 & 2 as well

 

[mixerizer]

hey there, are u still experiencing issues w ur aes cards? i have 3 working well in slots 2, 3 and 4 at the moment. cable length (total and individual), quality and ability to sample rate convert (for example turning on convert FS in the digital in 1 and 2 aes of the DM) appear to be important to aes slot behavior. what is your clock arrangement? mine is w the DM and the 112d both word clocked to a separate clock (in my case, an ADI-648). However, it also works w the DM as master clock source. good luck!

 

[wm_b]

I never did get it to play nicely. I have a spare DM3200 and used it as a format converter and bring the additional channels in via TDIF. It's a ridiculously silly way to do it but it works and I don't need to interact with it.

Could you elaborate on this? "for example turning on convert FS in the digital in 1 and 2 aes of the DM"... Mine are both set to off currently.

I run at 96k with an apogee big ben as my master for all my digital boxes. The whole configuration works well enough but I'm not that stoked on having a whole mixer dedicated to converting AES to TDIF. I don't think about it much unless there's some wonky clock situation and I have to lay on the floor to configure the DM3200 since it's up against a wall and the screen is somewhat pointed down. Ironically my DM3200 screen is perfect but my 4800 is streaked with lines. Fortunately I have a 2Seemy card and an external monitor. I really wish Tascam carried on this line. I'd love to see it updated with a better, bigger screen, and more modern DSP capability. I don't know what I'll do when it finally dies.

 

[mixerizer]

if you love using it, u will find a way!

the DM mixers seem to apply the FS convert setting more broadly than just the digital 1 and 2 inputs and outputs. by enabling FS convert there on the Digital page, it seems to also provide the same fs conversion on the AES cards.

basically, having three full streams of digital data (AES, TDIF, etc.) moving in both directions along the copper cabling often requires the mixer to reconcile drift between the 24 separate channels in each direction, all at once. otherwise, sample lock can suffer for channels or channel pairs (or cause other clock issues) - sometimes seemingly on random channel pairs, and often if each stream itself has many active channels at once. my own experience tells me its about throughput, both per stream and cumulative/total. The tolerance of the cable lengths and other physical aspects of the wiring etc is quite narrow when u r pushing that much audio and it can take a long time to figure out the cause of missing or scratchy audio pairs. obviously, with adat optical its a lot simpler to troubleshoot since you arent checking and rechecking copper wire pairs. For my AES cables, i now use 3’ db25 snakes after having audio issues (missing pairs, like you) when using 10’ cables on all three AES cards.

last, important to note that im running it at 48 khz - i will do shakeouts at 96 coming up, and keep u posted. i may have a similar experience to yours, as the issues above are going to have an even more narrow tolerance w twice the audio data being moved.

also - the replacement LED screens are really good, that has helped the life span of these mixers a lot. def recommend u grab one from luxdisplays. its a big refresh.

 

[mixerizer]

also also, in place of the 3200, could u use a TASCAM AES / TDIF converter like the IF-AE8HR? having to bend down to read it and take up that space w the mixer cant be your favorite workflow.

 

[mixerizer]

one more thing - take a look at the PROJECT / CLOCK page - i dont have mine checked but take a look next to D-IN1 - relationship to manual setup of AES cards etc is labeled here. i also remember reading about it during my prep for the AES installs. will explore more - good luck!

 

[wm_b]

My cables are redco built with mogami cables. They are 10 feet. I might be able to get by with 6 feet but that would have the cables hanging in the air. Anything shorter isn't really an option without a major physical rework.

My work flow with the DM3200 as a format converter is mostly transparent. I only have to manually change it when there's a clocking mishap or I have to change from 96 which is super rare. I'd say I have to touch the DM3200 maybe hew times a year. I will look into that format converter device. That would clean things up.

I looked at the Project/Clock page last night as well as the digital page. I don't recall just manually making changea to any of those settings in the past but in a couple weeks, after a slew of work I'll venture into it one more time. Most of the time I don't need to fill every bus going into the motu but the utility of having a fully mic'd drum kit, bass rig, piano, two guitar rigs and a b3 all pretty much ready to go is so handy.

 

[mixerizer]

for sure! good luck w ur experimentation w turning on convert fs.

i hear you about the cable length - for me it was a key issue in my troubleshooting.

and indeed, having to work around issues like unworkable channels etc is necessary at times, but if those affordances stick around too long it causes carpal tunnel of the musical mind