Re: Quick and Dirty Bar Rig 2014 Edition
Silas,
In most redundant fiber systems (at least in telecom applications), both the Main and Standby (Aux) channels are both active. This is done on purpose so that if one of the lasers or detectors dies, the system will automatically switch over to the Standby (Aux) channel with very little latency (no signal loss). If this is the case in the Soundcraft system, the Mini-Stagebox Aux Tx signal should have the same audio as the Main Tx signal. Feeding it to a MADI card in the PC should allow the recording of audio signals collected at the Mini-Stagebox. Of course, signals feed directly into the board (e.g., wireless mics, MP3 player, etc...) will not be part of the data stream leaving the Mini-Stagebox.
This seems to be supported by the Mini Stagebox Users Guide text on the bottom of page 11 and figure on page 14 (http://www.soundcraft.com/downloads/fetchfile.aspx?cat_id=user_guides&id=4649) where they show two consoles being connected. The relevant text on page 11 says "It is possible to connect two different consoles to the MAIN and AUX ports, and provide a split of the mic inputs to the two consoles." Later, they discuss the problem of two boards trying to control the stagebox and say "With the optical version, this situation can be avoided by leaving the MADI IN optical port unconnected on whichever port (MAIN or AUX) that the 'slave' console is connected to. (See hook-up diagram on page 14)."
