X-Spat Base Bundle and Digidesign ProTools
X-Spat Base, the bundle made up of the Spatialisation-X-Series card and the Rosetta 800/96, represents an ideal solution for all the Digidesign users who want to endow their hard disk recording system with an extended capacity for multi-channel production and better quality in the conversion of audio from analogue to digital and vice versa. Not to mention the extremely accurate low jitter clock of the Apogee converter, which we naturally advice you to set as the Master Clock of the whole system.
Unlike other software quoted in this manual, Digidesign products cannot “see” the X-Spat channels via Firewire, so it becomes necessary to operate a traditional connection between the two systems, using the standard ADAT TosLink. Therefore connect, respectively, the in out ADAT gates of the Digidesign system to the out and in ADAT gates of the Rosetta 800. Select ADAT as “Source to Digital Output” in the front panel of the Rosetta. Leave the selected “Option” as “Source to Analog Output”. In the “Hardware Setup” window of ProTools select “ADAT” as the source of external synchronization. In this way the 8 output channels from ProTools can be controlled via MIDI by the X-Spat Controller software. If you wish to record in the MIDI tracks of ProTools the MIDI messages corresponding to the trajectories generated by X-Spat Controller, you must use the IAC bus driver of the Core Audio Apple as a MIDI port outputting the X-Spat Controller.
Enable a MIDI track in ProTools to receive all the necessary MIDI messages of the Control Change type (consult the ProTools manual if you don’t know how to do it). Set the IAC bus 1 MIDI port as input for the channel and the MIDI port assigned to X-Spat as output MIDI port.
The configurations made possible by the combination of the powerful ProTools mixer and the X-Spat patch bay are infinite, therefore we will only analyze one example, which you can also find in the CD-ROM ‘A&G Software Collection’ and in the internet site of A&G at this address:
http://www.aegweb.it/html/html_interne/downloadsD.html
In the suggested ProTools Session, various audio channels have been assigned to 8 ADAT monophonic digital channels in output, and as many MIDI channels have been created to register the movements and positioning set through the Source Position Manager of the X-Spat Controller, possibly also the modifications of other available parameters in real time. You can set the patch bay of X-Spat in 5.1 or in any other way, from the stereo at 8.0, and listen to the resulting effect on the setup of your speakers, while you send the same thing digitally from Rosetta to a Dolby encoder, a digital multi-track recorder or even back to the mixer of ProTools, to use any codifying plug-in, through the 8 ADAT inputs of ProTools.
If you also have a Command8, you may use the other example at the page: downloadsD.htm - the session named XSpatCommand8Setup - in order to load a Preset for the Stand Alone operation of the unit in the Digidesign controller, via SysEx. Using the relevant switch, which is in fact called Stand Alone, you will be able to control both the ProTools software and X-Spat passing from one unit to the other by a simple click of the switch.
Each channel of the X-Spat offers at least 16 parameters that can be modified via MIDI in real time, excluding the coordinates of the source in the Source Position Manager, while the Command8, even when using the Bank function, only allows you to personalize 4 dynamic controllers and 6 on/off switches per channel. Therefore, by way of example, we have selected a Preset that controls the input volume, the LPF and HPF filters, the input volumes to SubMix A and the optional enabling at the highest possible value, of some algorithms that you can modify according to your requirements.
Follow the instructions at chapter: “Loading and Saving Presets with SysEx” of the Command8 Guide in order to load the settings in your controller. The data have been recorded on MIDI track number 9.