Chapter 7 - Digital Connections
From ADAT through the Q20 back to ADAT
When routing ADAT tracks to the Q20 to be recorded back to ADAT, how you go about it depends on whether or not you are using a BRC. If you have one or more ADATs with no BRC, then you simply connect the digital buss of the ADATs and Q20 in a loop (described earlier in this chapter).
With the BRC, you can select up to eight tracks of one ADAT to be output on the digital buss (which connects to all ADATs and the Q20 as described earlier) for track bouncing. In this situation, the BRC determines (by choosing your digital source tracks) which ADAT in the chain is transmitting. Only one ADAT can transmit on the digital buss at any single moment. All other ADATs are put into a Òdigital thruÓ mode, whereby they can receive all eight channels (even record them) and pass them along to their digital outputs without adding anything.
Although the BRC does not determine which tracks are going to the Q20, it does determine which ADAT is transmitting. Therefore, even if you do not intend to route the same tracks to the digital buss for bouncing (it is unlikely that you would want to do this at the same time, anyway), you must use the BRC to choose at least one of the tracks on the ADAT you wish to process audio in the Q20. The Q20 then intercepts any two of the 8 channels coming from the transmitting ADAT, and then processes them and routes them to the same or different channel numbers, to be recorded back onto another ADAT in the beginning of the loop.
This means that if you connect Q20 to the digital buss between the last and first ADAT in a
Example: LetÕs say you have four ADATs and a BRC. If you were to select tracks 9 and 10 (tracks 1 and 2 on ADAT #2) as your source tracks for digital bouncing on the BRC, you thereby designate ADAT #2 as the transmitter on the digital buss. Q20 can now intercept any of that ADATÕs 8 channels, process them, and output them back onto two channels, which connects back to the first ADAT in the chain. The Q20Õs output could therefore be recorded onto ADAT #1 and #2, but not ADAT #3. This is because ADAT #2 is not routing its digital input thru to its output, because it is routing its tape signal instead. If you wanted to record the Q20Õs digital output onto ADAT #3, the easiest solution is to swap tapes between ADAT #1 and #3.
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