RME Digiface not loving Focusrite Saffire Pro

[Essex Boi]

I'm after some help from the wise folk on here with a problem that's driving me potty. Four hours last night and now three hours this morning. Argh!

Following advice on the forum , I bought a Digiface USB to connect a long in the tooth Saffire Pro to M1 Mac. Successfully installed the drivers and connected to Mac. Reconfigured Saffire Pro in Standalone Mode per Focusrite instructions and connected via ADAT in/outs to Digiface. Set audio in/out of Mac to Digiface.

Now to test. Start with basic playback over Apple Music. With TotalMix fired up there's a signal showing in Software Playback at the meters for ADAT 1/2. Similarly, in Hardware Outputs there's signal on the meter for PH. Hardware Outputs ADAT 1/2 assigned to Main Out in Control Room also shows signal. All as expected. However . . . while I get audio out of the headphone output of the Digiface, there's nothing from my monitors.

Mmmm. First thought was there's something going on with Software Playback. But . . . Test signal (DI bass) shows on the meters in Hardware Inputs and Main Out, but again nothing audible.

I've double checked cabling, power, etc. and the monitors are fine with audio from my CD player so it doesn't appear to be hardware. I anticipate it's a routing problem between the Saffire and Digiface, but I cannot fathom what I'm doing wrong. There are only two cables and signals are showing on meters as expected in TotalMix.

Any thoughts?

[Hugh Robjohns]

Clocking!

The first thing to check is the clocking. In the system you describe with just one ADAT device connected to the Digiface, you need to decide which device is the system's clock master, and everything must synchronise to that.

If the system isn't synchronised it won't pass audio over the ADAT interface.

If you're playing from RME into the Focusrite the latter must be configured to take its clock reference from the RME via ADAT or word clock.

[James Perrett]

Which Saffire Pro? My Saffire Pro 26io (the oldest one) would sometimes stop outputting audio for no apparent reason but input was always fine when used with Firewire. I now use it as the clock master with my Digiface USB but I only use the inputs so I've not tried the outputs yet.

[Essex Boi]

Thanks Hugh. I switched the clock source as you suggest, which didn't make a difference. But after another two hours of tinkering, the SP40 and Digiface are talking to each other.

In case others have issues with this combination of gear. The problem (for me at least) was with Focusrite's instructions for setting up the SP40 for Standalone AD/DA. In the screen shots showing the set up (on the website here)

https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/ ... one-Mode-

it shows hardware monitoring switched on (indicated by the blue buttons in the Focusrite MixControl). I turned them off and . . . bingo. Obvious really.

I'm so pleased it's all working. DPD have just delivered a Keylab 61 MkII. Fingers crossed I can hook that up without issue.

[Essex Boi]

Which Saffire Pro?

Hi James, It's a Saffire Pro 40. Now fixed by switching off hardware monitoring. I'm using the Digiface Internal clock, so hopefully everything will run smoothly from here. Well at least until I hook up another ADAT interface.

[James Perrett]

Yes, there's no need for the Focusrite hardware monitoring now that you have Totalmix.