Intel Fireface 800 - Manual

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 5 Important Safety Instructions ATTENTION! Do not open chassis – risk of electric shock The unit has unisolated live parts inside. No user serviceable parts inside. Refer service to qualified service personnel. Mains • The device must be earthed – never use it without...

8 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 1. Introduction Thank you for choosing the Fireface 800. This unique audio system is capable of transferring analog and digital audio data directly to a computer from practically any device. The latest Plug and Play technology guarantees a simple installation, even ...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 9 5. First Usage - Quickstart 5.1 Connectors and Front Panel The front of the Fireface 800 features an instrument input, microphone inputs and line inputs with gain pots, a stereo headphone output with volume pot, and several status LEDs. MIDI/I indicates MIDI data re...

10 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 5.2 Quick Start After the driver installation (chapter 10 / 20) connect the TRS-jacks or the XLR connectors with the analog signal source. The input sensitivity of the rear inputs can be changed in the Settings dialog (Input Level), assuring the highest signal to n...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 11 Optical cable for SPDIF and ADAT operation: OK0050 Optical cable, TOSLINK, 0.5 m (1.6 ft) OK0100 Optical cable, TOSLINK, 1 m (3.3 ft) OK0200 Optical cable, TOSLINK, 2 m (6.6 ft) OK0300 Optical cable, TOSLINK, 3 m (9.9 ft) OK0500 Optical cable, TOSLINK, 5 m (16.4 ft...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 13 CE / FCC Compliance CE This device has been tested and found to comply with the limits of the European Council Direc-tive on the approximation of the laws of the member states relating to electromagnetic compati-bility according to RL89/336/EWG and RL73/23/EWG. FCC...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 15 User's Guide Fireface 800 Installation and Operation - Windows

16 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 9. Hardware Installation Desktop Computer • Use the power cord to connect the Fireface with any suitable power outlet. • Connect computer and Fireface using the supplied 6-pin FireWire cable (IEEE1394a). In case your computer does not have any FireWire port, PCI-ca...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 17 10.2 Driver Update RME driver updates often include a new fireface.inf file. To prevent Windows 2000/XP from using an old fireface.inf, or to copy some of the old driver files, be sure NOT to let Windows search for the driver! Instead tell Windows what to do. Under...

18 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 11. Configuring the Fireface 11.1 Settings dialog - General Configuration of the Fireface 800 is done via its own settings dialog. The panel 'Settings' can be opened: • by clicking on the fire symbol in the Task Bar's system tray The mixer of the Fireface 800 (Tota...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 19 Buffer Size The setting Buffer Size determines the latency between incoming and outgoing ASIO and GSIF data, as well as affecting system stability (see chapter 13/14). Under Windows MME this setting determines the DMA buffer size (see chapter 12.3). GSIF and MME ca...

20 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME Word Clock Out The word clock output signal usually equals the current sample rate. Selecting Single Speed causes the output signal to always stay within the range of 32 kHz to 48 kHz. So at 96 kHz and 192 kHz sample rate, the output word clock is 48 kHz. SyncCheck...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 21 11.2 Settings dialog - DDS Usually soundcards and audio interfaces generate their internal clock (master mode) by a quartz. Therefore the internal clock can be set to 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz, but not to a value in be-tween. SteadyClock, RME's sensational Low Jitter Cloc...

22 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME Application examples DDS allows for a simultaneous change of speed and tune during record and playback. From alignment to other sources up to creative effects – everything is possible.. DDS allows to intentionally de-tune the complete DAW. This way, the DAW can mat...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 23 If several digital devices are to be used simultaneously in a system, they not only have to oper-ate with the same sample frequency but also be synchronous with each other. This is why digi-tal systems always need a single device defined as ‘master’, which sends th...

24 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 12. Operation and Usage 12.1 Playback The Fireface 800 can play back audio data in supported formats only (sample rate, bit resolu-tion). Otherwise an error message appears (for example at 22 kHz and 8 bit). In the audio application being used, Fireface must be sel...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 25 12.2 DVD-Playback (AC-3/DTS) AC-3 / DTS When using popular DVD software players like WinDVD and PowerDVD , their audio data stream can be sent to any AC-3/DTS capable receiver using the Fireface's SPDIF output. For this to work, the WDM* SPDIF device of the Firefac...

26 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 12.3 Low Latency under MME (Buffer Size Adjustment) Under Windows 95 or 98, the MME buffer size was nothing to worry about. Latencies below 46 ms were not possible. Meanwhile both computers and operating systems have become much more powerful, and with Windows 2000...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 27 12.4 Notes on WDM The driver offers two devices per stereo pair, like Fireface Analog (1+2) and Fireface Analog (1+2) MME . Fireface Analog (1+2) The devices having no MME at the end are WDM Streaming Devices . WDM Streaming is Mi- crosoft's current driver and audi...

28 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 12.5 Multi-client Operation RME audio interfaces support multi-client operation. This means several programs can be used at the same time. Also all formats, like ASIO, MME and GSIF can be used simultaneously. The use of multi-client operation requires to follow two...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 29 12.6 Digital Recording Unlike analog soundcards which produce empty wave files (or noise) when no input signal is present, digital interfaces always need a valid input signal to start recording. Taking this into account, RME have included three unique features in t...

30 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 12.7 Analog Recording For recordings via the analog inputs the corresponding record device has to be chosen (Fire-face Analog (x+x)). Apart from the three reference levels, the Fireface has no means to change the input level. This would make no sense for the digita...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 31 13.2 Known Problems If a computer does not provide sufficient CPU-power and/or sufficient PCI-bus transfer rates, then drop outs, crackling and noise will appear. We recommend to deactivate all PlugIns to verify that these are not the reason for such effects. Addit...

32 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 15. Using more than one Fireface 800 The current driver supports up to three Fireface 800. All units have to be in sync, i.e. have to receive valid sync information (either via word clock or by using AutoSync and feeding synchro-nized signals). • If one of the Fire...

34 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 17. Hotline – Troubleshooting 17.1 General The newest information can always be found on our website www.rme-audio.com , section FAQ, Latest Additions. The input signal cannot be monitored in real-time • ASIO Direct Monitoring has not been enabled, and/or monitorin...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 35 17.2 Installation After the driver installation the Fireface 800 is found in the Device Manager (< Settings/ Control Panel/ System >), category 'Sound, Video and Gamecontroller'. A double click on 'RME Fireface 800' starts the properties dialog. The well know...

36 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 18. Diagrams 18.1 Channel Routing ASIO at 96 kHz This diagram shows the signal paths in ASIO double speed mode (88.2 / 96 kHz). The devices available via the ASIO driver have been designed to avoid conflicts in normal operation, which is why the second ADAT device ...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 37 18.2 Channel Routing MME at 96 kHz This diagram shows the signal paths in MME double speed mode (88.2 / 96 kHz). The devices available via the MME wave driver have been designed to avoid conflicts in normal operation, which is why the second ADAT device has been om...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 39 User's Guide Fireface 800 Mac OS X – Installation and Operation

40 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 19. Hardware Installation Desktop Computer • Use the power cord to connect the Fireface with any suitable power outlet. • Connect computer and Fireface using the supplied 6-pin FireWire cable (IEEE1394a). • Power on the computer, then switch on the Fireface. Notebo...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 41 20.2 Driver Update In case of a driver update it's not necessary to remove the old driver first, it will be overwritten during the installation. Exception: driver update from version 1.0. Remove the former Settings dialog and To-talMix from the Login Items, and del...

42 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 22. Configuring the Fireface 22.1 Settings Dialog - General Configuring the Fireface is done via its own settings dialog. The panel 'Settings' can be opened by clicking on the fire icon in the dock. The mixer of the Fireface (TotalMix) can be opened by clicking on ...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 43 Inputs Input selection for the channels 1, 7 and 8. Channel 1 can be the front instrument input, or the rear TRS jack, or both simultaneously. Channel 7/8 can be the front microphone input, or the rear TRS jack, or both simultaneously. Level In Defines the referenc...

44 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME Clock Mode The unit can be configured to use its internal clock source (Master), or the clock source pre-defined via Pref. Sync Ref (AutoSync). AutoSync Ref. Displays the current clock source and sample rate of the clock source. Pref. Sync Ref. Used to pre-select t...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 47 If several digital devices are to be used simultaneously in a system, they not only have to oper-ate with the same sample frequency but also be synchronous with each other. This is why digi-tal systems always need a single device defined as ‘master’, which sends th...

48 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 23. Mac OS X FAQ 23.1 Round about Driver Installation The driver with the file suffix gz provided by RME is a compressed TAR archive. TAR bundles multiple files and folders into one file, but does not save memory space nor download time. Both TAR and gz are support...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 49 23.3 Supported Sample Rates RME's Mac OS X driver supports all sampling frequencies provided by the hardware. This in-cludes 32 kHz and 64 kHz , and even 128 kHz, 176.4 kHz and 192 kHz for the analog and SPDIF I/Os. But not every software will support all the hardw...

50 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME Multicard Operation OS X supports more than one audio device. Since 10.4 (Tiger) Core Audio offers the function Aggregate Devices , which allows to combine several devices into one, so that a multi-device operation is possible with any software. The Fireface driver...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 51 25. Diagram: Channel Routing at 96 kHz This diagram shows the signal paths in double speed mode (88.2 / 96 kHz). The channels of the second ADAT port have no function anymore in Core Audio, but are used by the hardware to transmit data at double sample rate. Signal...

54 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 26. Stand-alone Operation The Fireface 800 has an internal memory to permanently store all configuration data. These are: Settings dialog Sample rate, clock mode Master/Slave, configuration of the channels and the digital I/Os. TotalMix The complete mixer state. Th...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 55 27. Analog Inputs 27.1 Line Rear The Fireface has eight balanced Line inputs as 1/4" TRS jacks on the back of the unit. The elec-tronic input stage is built in a servo balanced design which handles unbalanced (mono jacks) and balanced (stereo jacks) correctly, ...

56 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 27.3 Instrument The instrument input of the Fireface 800 has been optimized especially for guitar and bass. A soft clipping function limits the level from –10 dBFS on, and offers tube-like distortion at full overload. The extra Drive stage adds even more distortion...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 57 28. Analog Outputs 28.1 Line The eight short circuit protected, low impedance line outputs are available as 1/4" TRS jacks on the back of the unit. The electronic output stage is built in a servo balanced design which han-dles unbalanced (mono jacks) and balanc...

58 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 29. Digital Connections 29.1 ADAT The ADAT optical inputs of the Fireface 800 are fully compatible with all ADAT optical outputs. RME's unsurpassed Bitclock PLL prevents clicks and drop outs even in extreme varipitch op-eration, and guarantees a fast and low jitter...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 59 Special Characteristics of the SPDIF Output Apart from the audio data itself, digital signals in SPDIF or AES/EBU format have a header con-taining channel status information. False channel status is a common cause of malfunction. The Fireface 800 ignores the receiv...

60 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 30. Word Clock 30.1 Word Clock Input and Output SteadyClock guarantees an excellent performance in all clock modes. Based on the highly effi- cient jitter suppression, the Fireface refreshes and cleans up any clock signal, and provides it as reference clock at the ...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 61 30.2 Technical Description and Usage In the analog domain one can connect any device to another device, a synchronization is not necessary. Digital audio is different. It uses a clock, the sample frequency. The signal can only be processed and transmitted when all ...

62 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 30.3 Cabling and Termination Word clock signals are usually distributed in the form of a network, split with BNC T-adapters and terminated with resistors. We recommend using off-the-shelf BNC cables to connect all devices, as this type of cable is used for most com...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 63 31. TotalMix: Routing and Monitoring 31.1 Overview The Fireface 800 includes a powerful digital real-time mixer, the Fireface mixer, based on RME’s unique, sample-rate independent TotalMix technology. It allows for practically unlimited mixing and routing operation...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 65 31.2 The User Interface The visual design of the TotalMix mixer is a result of its capability to route hardware inputs and software playback channels to any hardware output. The Fireface 800 provides 28 input chan-nels, 28 software playback channels, and 28 hardwar...

66 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 31.3 Elements of a Channel A single channel consists of various elements: Input channels and playback channels each have a mute and solo button. Below there is the panpot, realized as indicator bar (L/R) in order to save space. In the field below, the present level...

68 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME Please set Out 4 to a gain of around -20 dB and the pan close to center. Now click onto the routing field. You'll now see two checkmarks, one at 'AN 3+4', the other one at 'AN 7+8'. Click onto 'SPDIF'. The window disappears, fader and pan jump to their initial valu...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 69 31.7 The Quick Access Panel This section includes additional options, further improving the handling of TotalMix. The Master buttons for Mute and Solo have already been described, they allow for group-based working with these functions. In the View section the sing...

70 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME Mouse: The original factory presets can be reloaded by holding down the Ctrl- key and clicking on any preset button. Alternatively the files described above can be renamed, moved to a different directory, or being deleted. Keyboard: Using Ctrl and any number betwee...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 71 31.9 The Monitor Panel The Monitor panel provides several options usually found on analog mixing desks. It offers quick access to monitoring functions which are needed all the time in typical studio work. Monitor Main Use the drop down menu to select the hardware o...

72 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME Main Monitor Dim: Amount of attenuation of the Monitor Main output in dB. Activated by the Dim button in the Monitor panel. Stereo Pan Law The Pan Law can be set to -6 dB, -4.5 dB, -3 dB and 0 dB. The value chosen defines the level attenuation in pan center positio...

74 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 31.13 Menu Options Always on Top: When active (checked) the TotalMix window will always be on top of the Win- dows desktop. Note: This function may result in problems with windows containing help text, as the TotalMix window will even be on top of those windows, so...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 75 31.14 Level Meter The Fireface 800 calculates all the display values Peak, Over and RMS in hardware, in order to be capable of using them independent of the software in use, and to significantly reduce the CPU load. Tip: This feature, the Hardware Level Meter , is ...

76 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 32. TotalMix: The Matrix 32.1 Overview The mixer window of TotalMix looks and operates similar to mixing desks, as it is based on a conventional stereo design. The matrix display presents a different method of assigning and routing channels, based on a single chann...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 77 A gain field marked orange indicates activated mute status. Mute can only be changed in the mixer view. A blue field indicates phase inversion. This state is displayed in the Matrix only, and can only be changed within the Matrix view. Hold down the Shift-key while...

78 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 33.2 Selection and Group-based Operation Click on the white name label of channel 1 and 2 in TotalMix. Be sure to have channel 3's fader set to a different position and click on its label too. All three labels have changed to the colour orange, which means they are...

80 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME Recording a Software's playback In real world application, recording a software's output with another software will show the fol-lowing problem: The record software tries to open the same playback channel as the playback software (already active), or the playback o...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 81 Unfortunately, very often it is not possible within the record software to assign a different input channel to an existing track 'on the fly'. The loopback mode solves this problem elegantly. The routing scheme stays the same, with the input channel 10 sent to any ...

82 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 34. MIDI Remote Control 34.1 Overview TotalMix can be remote controlled via MIDI. It is compatible to the widely spread Mackie Control protocol, so TotalMix can be controlled with all hardware controllers supporting this standard. Examples are the Mackie Control, T...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 83 34.3 Setup • Open the Preferences dialog (menu Options or F3). Select the MIDI Input and MIDI Output port where your controller is connected to. • When no feedback is needed (when using only standard MIDI commands instead of Mackie Control protocol) select NONE as ...

84 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 34.5 Simple MIDI Control The stereo output faders (lowest row) which are set up as Monitor Main outputs in the Monitor panel can also be controlled by the standard Control Change Volume via MIDI channel 1 . With this, the main volume of the Fireface is controlable ...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 85 Examples for sending MIDI strings*: - Set input 1 to 0 dB: B0 66 40 - Set input 17 to maximum attenuation: B1 66 0 - Set playback 1 to maximum: B4 66 7F - Set Output 16 to 0 dB setzen B8 75 40 *Note: Sending MIDI strings might require to use programmer's logic for ...

90 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 35. TECH INFO Not all information to and around our products fit in a manual. Therefore RME offers a lot more and detailed information in the Tech Infos . The very latest Tech Infos can be found on our web- site, section News & Infos, or the directory \rmeaudio...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 91 36. Technical Specifications 36.1 Analog AD, Line In 1-8, rear • Resolution AD: 24 bit • Signal to Noise ratio (SNR): 110 dB RMS unweighted, 113 dBA • Frequency response @ 44.1 kHz, -0.1 dB: 5 Hz – 20.6 kHz • Frequency response @ 96 kHz, -0.5 dB: 5 Hz – 45.3 kHz • ...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 93 36.4 Digital Inputs AES/EBU - SPDIF • 1 x RCA, transformer-balanced, galvanically isolated, according to AES3-1992 • High-sensitivity input stage (< 0.3 Vpp) • SPDIF compatible (IEC 60958) • Accepts Consumer and Professional format, copy protection will be ignor...

94 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 36.5 Digital Outputs AES/EBU - SPDIF • 1 x RCA, transformer-balanced, galvanically isolated, according to AES3-1992 • Output level Professional 2.6 Vpp, Consumer 1.2 Vpp • Format Professional according to AES3-1992 Amendment 4 • Format Consumer (SPDIF) according to...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 95 37. Technical Background 37.1 Lock and SyncCheck Digital signals consist of a carrier and the data. If a digital signal is applied to an input, the re-ceiver has to synchronize to the carrier clock in order to read the data correctly. To achieve this, the receiver ...

96 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 37.2 Latency and Monitoring The term Zero Latency Monitoring has been introduced by RME in 1998 for the DIGI96 series of audio cards. It stands for the ability to pass-through the computer's input signal at the inter-face directly to the output. Since then, the ide...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 97 Therefore, in a digital loopback test a negative offset of about 3 ms occurs. This is no real problem, because this way of working is more than seldom, and usually the offset can be com-pensated manually within the application. Additionally, keep in mind that even ...

98 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 37.4 Number of Channels and Bus Load As explained in chapter 37.3, FireWire Audio does not reach the same performance as PCI audio. On a standard computer with modern single PCI bus, about 100 audio channels can be transmitted per direction (record/playback). Excee...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 99 37.5 DS - Double Speed When activating the Double Speed mode the Fireface 800 operates at double sample rate. The internal clock 44.1 kHz turns to 88.2 kHz, 48 kHz to 96 kHz. The internal resolution is still 24 bit. Sample rates above 48 kHz were not always taken f...

100 User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 37.7 AES/EBU - SPDIF The most important electrical properties of 'AES' and 'SPDIF' can be seen in the table below. AES/EBU is the professional balanced connection using XLR plugs. The standard is being set by the Audio Engineering Society based on the AES3-1992. F...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 101 37.8 Noise level in DS / QS Mode The outstanding signal to noise ratio of the Fireface's AD-converters can be verified even with-out expensive test equipment, by using record level meters of various software. But when acti-vating the DS and QS mode, the displayed ...

User's Guide Fireface 800 © RME 103 38.2 Connector Pinouts TRS jacks of analog input / output The stereo ¼" TRS jacks of the analog inputs and outputs are wired according to international standards: Tip = + (hot) Ring = – (cold) Sleeve = GND The servo balanced input and output circuitry allows t...