# Word clock cabling



## Peter Emanuel Roos (Oct 3, 2004)

Hi guys (still no gals around),

Until now I had my 4 studio PC's neatly side-by-side, so the word-clock connection was easy to make. Now I am moving my 3 Giga PC's to a different room next to my studio room. My DAW stays in the studio and provides the word clock signal.

Can I just run a 10 meter coax cable from the Daw to the first Giga PC and from there link the others with T-splitter plugs and short cables?

In the DAW, can I just plug in one end of the coax cable, or do I also need a T-spitter there with a terminator on the idle port?

I am not so familiar with this kind of networking. I actually used to believe that these networks also needed to be "circular". I really hope not...

Since I have rented a former studio room, I have a cable tube in the floor that runs to the hallway/small room next to my room. The less cables, the better, because this tube is not very wide.

Hehee, btw: what about a wireless word-clock network?
(I still can't believe all this electro-magnetic stuff around us is really not harmful...)

Thanks for any comments,


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## Frederick Russ (Oct 3, 2004)

Peter Roos said:


> Hehee, btw: what about a wireless word-clock network?
> (I still can't believe all this electro-magnetic stuff around us is really not harmful...)
> 
> Thanks for any comments,



Rumor has it that it can scramble your brains like an egg, but as you can see here most composers are quite normal, thank you :shock: HA!

I wonder however about signal degradation in longer cables. You would think since its a digital signal that it shouldn't be a problem locking your audio to word-clock ... but ten meters? Hmmm - I'll check around with some audio guys about that. Anybody else?


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## lux (Oct 3, 2004)

as far as I know 10 meters can do well, without problems.

Luca


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## Peter Emanuel Roos (Oct 3, 2004)

Thanks,

Don't the bigger studios have building-wide clock networks? That would imply very long cables, I think.

Is daisy chaining the PC's OK? No need to make a ring-form network?


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 17, 2004)

The general rule is that you can safely run word clock about 20 feet, but you can run AES/EBU digital black around the block. S/PDIF digital black has a limit, but it's quite a bit more than 20'.

Digidesign 256X SuperClock can only go about 6'.


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## Frederick Russ (Oct 17, 2004)

OT: Why, if it isn't Mr Pro Tools himself! Welcome Nick.


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## pitchdrifter (Oct 17, 2004)

probably the safest way to run a good synchronizer and connect all your machines to that via wordclock (assuming you use say adat cards which mostly don't support much else than wordclock for larger sync setups).


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## Scott Cairns (Oct 17, 2004)

Hey Peter, here's a totally different suggestion; why not go the FX Teleport/Giga VST adapter route?

You could sell all the adat cards, sync boxes, whatever you have and be left with money left over for more sample libs.


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## Peter Emanuel Roos (Oct 18, 2004)

Hi Scott,

Until now I am working with Logic 5.5, which does not support multiple outputs for Teleport, so that would not be a "compatible" alternative for my current setup.

I currently use Teleport to run one impulse on an old Win2K server. Although it works very fine, with low latency and so, it seems that the additional network overhead counts as CPU activity in Logic, so it doesn't lower the CPU drain much.

I already have 3 Giga PC's networked with Adat, word-clock and MidiOverLan. They work very nicely. To expand my setup, I will probably check out the Giga VST adapter (I was beta tester, but got stuck with the Win2K server as only test bed). I do want to increase my track count as well as the number of online available instruments. Maybe I should also look into using other samplers and other connection options, via network. 

Anyway, the word-clock cable is now in place between the Giga PC's in a different room and the DAW in my studio room (I hope to post some photos soon). I have also added a cat 6 cable between these two room, to be prepared for a gigabit lan.

Cheers,


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## Scott Cairns (Oct 18, 2004)

Cool mate. Look forward to those photos.


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## Peter Emanuel Roos (Oct 18, 2004)

Hehe, I'm now at work in my "studio" and of course I forgot to bring my daughter's digital camera. Will try to do it tomorrow.


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## Herman Witkam (Oct 18, 2004)

Peter, that studio of yours, does it have a live room? :D


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## Peter Emanuel Roos (Oct 18, 2004)

My main room, which I officially use/need for my work (wink wink) is 5,5 x 5,5 meters. My DAW is quite quiet, so it is possible to acoustical record stuff in my room. There are other vacant studio rooms, so with longer cables I could use another room. It is a bit weird building that used to house a few small mastering companies. Double walls, 4-5 layers of glass etc. But I don't have enough furniture for proper acoustics. Anyway, I hope to post some photos on my website soon.

Regards,


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## Herman Witkam (Oct 19, 2004)

Well, I have quite a collection of ethnic wind instruments here and some percussion as well. I'm looking to sample those, or some of them.


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## Scott Cairns (Nov 9, 2004)

Hey Peter, not sure if you sorted out your cabling issue, there is an interesting thread about word clock, the cables, BNCs, connectors etc here;

http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index. ... #msg_22983

It also features input from Bob Katz himself.

Scott.


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## Peter Emanuel Roos (Nov 11, 2004)

Hey Scott,

I think I have it working very fine now, with a 10 meter cable from my DAW to the GigaStudio PC's in another room.

That link contains a great discussion, with many cool tips. I've bookmarked it and will try to run some oscilloscope tests on my Word Clock signal and the impedance of the cabling.

I am curious if the clock in my RME HDSP 9652 is good enough. I actually still cannot believe that you can really "hear" the difference between a good and bad clock. I'd really like to hear a demonstration of that.

Someone out there who can make some WC demos? 

Thanks Scott!

Peter


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## TeamLeader (Nov 12, 2004)

" I actually still cannot believe that you can really "hear" the difference between a good and bad clock."

Hi Peter, 

We have 3 Digidesign interfaces and and 3 of MOTU's top interfaces as well. All of them sound instantly better when clocked to our Mytek pieces. (By better I mean, imaging is far tighter nad you can defintiely hear into the mix better. Bass tighter too) All ever have to do for a test is pop the host program, in our case PT or DP from "internal sync, to sync to word clock and it is quickly apparent. (Of course this doesnt say much for the clocks on the interfaces I mentioned above, but then again the price points are different. 

Hope that helps.

Regards,
DLevy
mgr, Legacy Lab


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## CJ (Nov 12, 2004)

Mytek - sorry, is there more info on this :?:


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## TeamLeader (Nov 12, 2004)

www.mytekdigital.com

We have used Michal's ADCs and DACs for years now, and have several sets of them. Wonderful pieces. They are converters, but the built in clocks are stellar. So we keep a Mytek A/D on each of our main rigs and always feed WordClock from them, even when not cutting from those converters.

Regards,
DLevy
mgr, Legacy Lab


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## Herman Witkam (Nov 12, 2004)

David > The Mytek converters, in what quality range are they?


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## TeamLeader (Nov 12, 2004)

Herman Witkam said:


> David > The Mytek converters, in what quality range are they?



Hi Herman,

Most folks we know place them at the top with Prism and Lavry. Check out the list of engineers and producers that use their stuff. (found on their web site)

Regards,
DLevy
mgr, Legacy Lab


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## Herman Witkam (Nov 12, 2004)

Thanks. I was wondering why I couldn't a lot of dealers in Europe. I'll check it out.


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## Scott Cairns (Nov 12, 2004)

Yeah thats the first thing I hear about a good clock, tighter imaging, less fuzzy and tighter bottom end.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 18, 2004)

I believe that it depends on the ability of the equipment you're clocking to phase-lock to the external clock. Converters are supposed to be happier with their own clock, yet 'taint necessarily so.

What makes the biggest difference in my room is using distributed vs. embedded clock. Distributed is a noticeable improvement.


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## TeamLeader (Nov 19, 2004)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> I believe that it depends on the ability of the equipment you're clocking to phase-lock to the external clock. Converters are supposed to be happier with their own clock, yet 'taint necessarily so.
> 
> What makes the biggest difference in my room is using distributed vs. embedded clock. Distributed is a noticeable improvement.



Hiya Nick,

Glad to see you are here. 

What are you using for your house clock these days?

Regards,
DLevy
mgr, Legacy Lab


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 19, 2004)

A MOTU DTP - nothing fancy - but I clock it from a Waves L2.

(Good to see you too, David.  )


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## TeamLeader (Nov 20, 2004)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> A MOTU DTP - nothing fancy - but I clock it from a Waves L2.
> 
> (Good to see you too, David.  )



We use a DTP too, on one of the PT rigs, and feed it Mytek clock for stability. You know, I sorta forget about the DTP, cause it just sits there and does it's job year after year. Quite a blessed relief compared to lots of other pieces! javascript:emoticon('')

Regards,
DLevy
mgr, Legacy Lab


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 20, 2004)

Yup, it just sits there and works.

By the way, what's your opinion of the idea of using an active cheapo Radio Shack video distribution amp to spread S/PDIFs digital black to three sound cards? The Wavecenter cards in my Windows machines only have S/PDIF in, no WC, so I need two more of them.


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## TeamLeader (Nov 20, 2004)

"cheapo Radio Shack video distribution"

Dunno Nick. We use Zsys stuff for that. But I suppose if everything was true 75 ohm and perhaps equidistant cabling all might be well. What kind of power supply is used? Actually dont trust me at all on this. LOL! What have the daw-mac folks chimed in with as of yet? Or Bob Katz?

Regards,
DLevy
mgr, Legacy Lab


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 20, 2004)

73 de Ray wrote that it should be okay if the slew rate of the op amps is fast enough not to disrupt the clock. The circuitry is the same for video and S/PDIF, of course.

But in the meantime I bought a rack video distribution box for $30 from ebay. I figured that if it's in a rack, it's going to be better than Radio Shack.

Z-sys is OTT for what I need. I just need digital black distribution.

Lightpipe clocking, which is my other option, is against my religion.


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## TeamLeader (Nov 21, 2004)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> But in the meantime I bought a rack video distribution box for $30 from ebay.



Hey, might as well try it at that price. Hope it works peachy.

How much are single rack video patchbays these days anyways? Can they be normalled etc like audio?

re: radio shak. Our tech used to say at clinics, "two things you can buy at RadioShack. One, the old PZM mics, and then hotrod them to balanced, and Two - their analog RMS meters." (He was trying to be positive about the 'good' things at the shak. LOL)

Regards,
DLevy
mgr, Legacy Lab


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## Herman Witkam (Nov 21, 2004)

Like the PZM's. Great for speech and theaters. Has Crown been up to anything good lately?


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 21, 2004)

Note that this isn't a patchbay or switcher, it's a distribution amp. I think you realize that, David, but obviously the load would increase if I were to use anything passive, and it wouldn't work.

Herman, there's actually a mod you can do to the Radio Shack PZM to make it quieter. I forget what it involves, but it's pretty simple.


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## TeamLeader (Nov 22, 2004)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Note that this isn't a patchbay or switcher, it's a distribution amp. I think you realize that, David, but obviously the load would increase if I were to use anything passive, and it wouldn't work.



Oops, I should have been clearer. I was thinking about an issue here, and was asking that question cause your info had sparked an idea for our needs. Sorry Nick. My friends say I sometimes do that 'why didnt you know what I was thinking telepathy stuff". LOL!

Regards,
DLevy
mgr, Legacy Lab


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 25, 2004)

Follow-up: the video distribution amp works perfectly.

Four independent ins, each with four outs plus a loop-through is slight overkill for what I need, but WTF - it only cost $30 and now I can slap my inner thigh and brag about having more S/PDIFs than anyone else.


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## TeamLeader (Nov 25, 2004)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Follow-up: the video distribution amp works perfectly.



Very cool. What is the brand and model Nick?

Regards,
DLevy
mgr, Legacy Lab


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 26, 2004)

http://www.ese-web.com/247.htm

It has four 1x6 "sections," each with a pass-through for the input (which you could loop to the next successive input), so I'm even more heavily endowed than I thought.


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## TeamLeader (Nov 26, 2004)

Holy cow. Checked out the www page. Are there more of those available from your source?

Regards,
DLevy
mgr, Legacy Lab


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 26, 2004)

It was on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=3853303450&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... RK:MEWN:IT)

The auction is over, but it looks like they have more of them (ten serial numbers listed, only two buyers). You might try contacting them via that ebay link.


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## TeamLeader (Nov 26, 2004)

Thank you Nick. We will check it out.

Regards,
DLevy
mgr, Legacy Lab


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