Using the Kona as a System Audio Device

[Jeremy Garchow]

Yes it will. I never run System Sounds through the Kona for that and other reasons. Simply take the headphone out of your Mac and run that to your mixer if you need to listen to system sounds through your audio monitors.

Jeremy

[Sean Oneil]

Thanks, good to know. My Mac is in a machine room, so running an extra audio cable is not cool. But I can get a USB audio adapter and that will suffice.

Sean

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Sean ONeil] “My Mac is in a machine room, so running an extra audio cable is not cool.”

Got ya. We are switching to one of those in the next week and I will run across the same problem. What USB adaptor are you looking at?

[Sean Oneil]

I’ve had this setup for a long time now, I just rewired another room and wanted to omit the Mac audio cable.

This is the USB extender I use:
https://sewelldirect.com/usbextenderhub.asp

Don’t get it though. There’s no power adapter and I’ve had issues with it. That same website has newer and better ones (and cheaper).

For computer monitors, check here:
https://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&_trksid=m37&satitle=cat5e+hdmi&category0=

The black one you see listed a lot are the ones I’m using. They work with most equipment. Not all. Some monitors don’t like it. Some graphics cards (port 2 on an X1900xt for example) don’t like it.

Gefen and others make much more expensive extenders. But people have similar problems with those as well. For me it was worth testing the cheap ones first.

Sean

[Jeremy Garchow]

Ah. I thought you meant some sort of USB audio extender.

Jeremy

[Sean Oneil]

For USB audio I ordered this:
https://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=103&cp_id=10311&cs_id=1031105&p_id=1614&seq=1&format=2

Sean

[Arnie Schlissel]

[Sean ONeil] ” What if I’m mastering a tape with Final Cut, and a system sound occurs (new email, for example).”

Sean, I don’t suppose you know that it’s not recommended to check your email & surf the web while you’re laying off to tape?

Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/

[Sean Oneil]

Arnie, I’ve been creating broadcast masters almost daily for over 10 years.

Sean

[Arnie Schlissel]

Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound obnoxious, I was just a little shocked.

Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/

[Sean Oneil]

The email thing was simply an example of an unexpected system sound that could occur. For anyone who has to ask, I wouldn’t recommend running any program whatsoever during ETT.

That said, a person with experience who understands their system well is free to do whatever works for him or her. The mantra of not running other programs is old wisdom. Emphasis on the word “old.” Newer machines have multiple processors, faster busses, etc. So it’s generally not a problem. More importantly, during ETT, the RS422 deck control will report any dropped frames. So if something goes wrong, you’ll always know about it.

Sometimes you have to put things in perspective. Open up the Activity Monitor and look at all the background services and other things going on. If you have Xsan, or software RAID, TCP polling activity, etc. – all that stuff is far more disruptive than receiving a new email notification. There was a time in the Media 100 days where I had to turn File Sharing off. I highly doubt that most people are that paranoid now using modern tools. There’s nothing wrong with being too careful. But there’s also nothing wrong with working within the limits of your own personal expertise on what your system can and can’t handle.

Sean