What a ridiculous experience this has been.
Background.
Im a hobbiest/project studio guy.
Ive been using a Yamaha AW4416 DAW as my recording environment driving Midi clock sync to a sequencer for programmed drums and the occasional additional virtual track or two.
An infuriating compatability issue arose with my sequencer app when i got a new PC. The old Steinberg printer port dongles dont work on the XP OS- so i could not stay with the old Sequencer version when my old PC hardware died.
OK- stenberg has given me good value for several years.
So, I upgrade to Cubase SX.- Audio now comes along with my "sequencer app".
So, I decide to take advantage and expand my system and get a sound card and sync the whole thing up via Wordclock ( I own a lucid genx). You can always find a use for some extra tracks right? Id want to transfer key tracks digitally via spdif so as to avoid an unnecessary conversion.
The M Audio delta 1010lt PCI card offered WC BNC I/O and Spdif for a very reasonable price. Perfect- right.
WRONG.
After a few days of mucking around it tuns out that my intention to simultaneously use WC in and SPdif out is not possible. The 1010lt design implementation precludes this.
Me to support rep: "WHAT? Thats crazy. That's the whole point of WC sync. "
Technical support rep: "The engineers are aware of the issue. Sorry man."
It was certainly reasonable to assume the card would have worked as intended. What's that famous quote about assumptions???
I can obviously go to another/few hunderd buck more expensive solution. However, all i really wanted was to get my sequencer back up. I wasnt intending/needing to upgrade the sytem in this way. Besides I ve got all the cabling in place and its not convenient to get at.
The alternative is to use the incoming spdif from the AW DAW as the clock signal for the PC card. I understand progam dependant jitter may result. I dont have the tools to measure it at the output of the card.
I dont plan to simultaneously record/perform ADC on both the AW DAW and the PC card. So, phase coherence issues during recording that have been described by Dan shoud not arise. However, its likely I will want to simultaneously:
1)do DA conversion on the card while...
2)transfering SPDIF from the card to the AW DAW while...
3)Doing ADC on midi virtual tracks coming into the AW DAW during mixdown.
I dont DAC the stereo bus at mixtime- I go digially into a finalizer for mixdown to a CD burner or hard disc.
In this secnario, based on what I've learned here, Im thinking that using spdif input clock versus WC may not be a big issue. I believe the only tracks that might be imacted by any spdif induced jitter are the tracks coming off the card that go through DAC during mixdown. The way I work these will be the lowest value tracks in the mix-and often wont even be used. (Use of digital I/O will be maximized).
Sorry if this post was a bit of a rant. I was pissed off when I started writing. However, there is a technical question or two at the end....
Is my thinking above correct or are there any issues i may have missed?
Its also the case that, during mixdown, the Spdif line carrying the clock from the AW DAW to the PC card wil not contain any program information. Does this mean the spdif-induced jitter on the clock received by the card is likely to be a non-issue?
Thanks in advance.
