word clocks

G

garf

New member
I was reading 'Mastering Audio by Bob Katz', and he makes the point that the PLL circuitry in our equipment is generally a poor second cousin to the amount of effor that is put into the rest of it. His suggestion for digital inputs is to also provide a word clock, because this being (I presume) a standard square wave its easier to detect and lock onto :confused: than trying to determine the start of the signal from the digital data input.

Has anyone tried this both ways? Or other opinions?
 
AFAIK, you have to have everything else in your signal path in excellent shape before you will have any chance of hearing the difference between wordclock and PLL sync, unless for some reason the PLL circuit is horribly bad. In other words, this is not an issue for most of us to lose sleep over.
 
Actually, adding a word clock is a pretty inexpensive way of making what often times is a very noticable imrovement in sound quality. This is actually especially true in a less than optimal setup. You could spend $500 on a Lucid clock and make a pretty nice little improvement to ALL of your tracks. What other gear affects so many inputs at so low a cost? :D
 
xstatic said:
...You could spend $500 on a Lucid clock and make a pretty nice little improvement to ALL of your tracks. What other gear affects so many inputs at so low a cost? :D
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Personally, I would spend that kind of money on a better microphone, preamp, or monitors, and I know that I would hear a more dramatic improvement in my results. I would venture a guess that most folks on this BBS (the lurkers, not the prolific posters) are in the same boat. I would hate to see someone who's struggling to figure out how to hook up his cheap Casio keyboard to his SoundBlaster go and spend money on a Big Ben or a Lucid, thinking he was all of a sudden going to somehow sound worlds better.

Crap, with a solid clock, is still crap. :p

There are some people for whom external wordclock makes sense. My guess is that it's maybe 0.1% of the people on this BBS. If you are among them, great for you! It means that you have the basics taken care of, and can concentrate on the finer points. The rest of us can find something better to spend our money on. I'm not saying that you're wrong -- just that the information is of limited relevance to most people.

garf, if you can give us some details about your setup, maybe we can help you to determine whether you're among the 0.1%.

Don
 
DonF said:
I would hate to see someone who's struggling to figure out how to hook up his cheap Casio keyboard to his SoundBlaster go and spend money on a Big Ben or a Lucid, thinking he was all of a sudden going to somehow sound worlds better.
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So would I, seeing that word clock is not required for that application :)
Crap, with a solid clock, is still crap. :p
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Absolutely. However, there are cases where a word clock makes a HUGE difference in sound quality. I have certainly found that to be true in my case; I found that using outboard convertors and a word clock made a HUGE difference in the sound.

There are some people for whom external wordclock makes sense. My guess is that it's maybe 0.1% of the people on this BBS. If you are among them, great for you! It means that you have the basics taken care of, and can concentrate on the finer points. The rest of us can find something better to spend our money on. I'm not saying that you're wrong -- just that the information is of limited relevance to most people.
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I would guess that it would be a larger number of people than you think. If you have the best digital gear, then perhaps a word clock will not be required as the internal clocks and sync mechanisms will work fine. For those of use who have middle of the road gear and more than 2 digital devices to sync, then a word clock can make a world of difference. I didn't really know what the problem was with my devices, but I knew I wasn't happy with the quality. Adding the word clock cleared it up tremendously.

For those who don't have digital devices (i.e., not using analog I/O but spdif/ADAT, whatever), you don't need a word clock at all.

Yes, it would help to know what Garf needs to sync, but I'm not sure he is asking for himself, I think he is just asking about something he read.
 
Heres what I have, a pair of Neuman 184, a Blue Blueberry, 2 Grace 101 mic pre's, and a Tascam CDR2000. I picked up a used Apogee AD500, which did not help the sound one bit. I had already spent quite abit of time getting mic placements right (egads, quite alot of reading & a number of posts to figure that out). I am getting good recordings, but am trying to get that last 10%. I am trying to figure out why the Apogee did not make a difference in the sound (sounded warmer, but was looking for clarity, not a tube sound). I figure it either had to be the clock, or the wall wart I am using to power it. So for the clock, I thought I might try an external clock to see if that would help the Apogee . (The Apogee is probably 10+ years old). All my recording is either harp, or acoustic guitar.
 
Just to clarify, I was thinking of using the external clock to the Apogee, and then the Tascam CDR. Normally I don't think I would bother if it was an Apogee Rosetta, but I do not think the clock in the Apogee AD500 which was a portable unit is up to the same standards.
 
I never really said that everyone should run out and buy a clock source. I agree that certain other things should be obtained first.

What I was really debating is the thought that everything else has to be A-1 in the chain first. A single preamp to a mic to a converter to a DAW application can benefit greatly from a good clock source. I just think its wrong to let people think that only high end users need the clock, or at least could benefit from it. To me, it's those people with the cheap converters who can actually achieve the greatest benefit from it.

But like I said, it doesn't need to be your first purchase either.
 
garf said:
Heres what I have, <...> Tascam CDR2000. I picked up a used Apogee AD500,
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For this setup I doubt you would need a word clock as the two should sync just fine. Disclaimer: I don't know either piece, but in my experience two units do not need an external word clock.

I do find it strnage that you have indicated that you did not find an improvement with the Apogee convertors. Maybe there is something else screwed in your chain that would need adressing first? I would think that you would hear a marked improvement with the better convertors.

My $0.02.
 
Digital gear seems to "sync" just fine. Wordclock distribution adds many more advantages than just "synching". Having a solid clock can make just a singal converter sound much better without any other digital stuff in line. That apogee certainly sounds pretty old. That may have a lot to do with any shortcomings it may or may not have.
 
xstatic said:
Digital gear seems to "sync" just fine. Wordclock distribution adds many more advantages than just "synching". Having a solid clock can make just a singal converter sound much better without any other digital stuff in line. That apogee certainly sounds pretty old. That may have a lot to do with any shortcomings it may or may not have.
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Well, there seems to be an ongoing debate about this (as per the thread cited above). I personally have not tested it a word clock with ajust my convertors, but I do know that adding a word clokc helped my gear a lot. Those more knowledgable that I have indicated that it was a sync issue between multiple pieces of gear. Then again, who knows. I can only relay my first-hand experience.
 
Well for the A/D converter I am probably in the mode of 'buy cheap, buy twice'. I also found a cheap word clock (an Alesis) on ebay that I am now waiting for it to ship. So when I get it, I will hook it up & post the result (assuming you can learn anything from a $58 clock). One other interesting observation is that about every 1 in every 15 songs I was getting the synch lost message in the Tascam. Thats when I started thinking about a word clock.

When I get my tax return I plan on upgrading the A/D converter. I ordered the 3DAudio ADC Cd that lets listen to all the converters you cannot possibly afford, but also has the Lucid & Apogee.
 
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