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Author Topic: External Wod Clock (and hello!)  (Read 4390 times)

RobertKap

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External Wod Clock (and hello!)
« on: December 03, 2015, 12:07:40 AM »

Hey, there!

I've just joined the forum, having read & searched as "guest" in years past.

My career has been almost entirely sound for theater to date, and I'm very comfy there, doing both reinforcement and composition / playback designs.

I've joined R/E/P because I just became the owner of one of the Sony Oxfords - #49 of 50, the one from WTTW in Chicago. It's in great shape, and I'm super excited to dive in.

I'm writing with a very specific gear question. My insinct is that I should acquire a dedicated word clock for it, rather than clocking it to whichever MADI interface I decide to buy.

Questions:
1. Is that the right move?
2. I am assuming that there's a difference between the $1500 word clocks and the Sub-$400 word clocks out there. Is it a difference that I will notice, sonically, in an all digital system like this?
3. Anyone have any favorites in the low and or midrange category? I've used the Big Ben on theater systems before with some happiness. I'm seeing a lot of the Avid Sync and MOTU Timepieces kicking around ebay - would those be good options?

Thanks in advance
-Robert Kaplowitz
(Freelance Sound Design for theater - 20+ years, owner of the still-under-construction Nine Hostage Arts rehearsal & recording studio, Philadelphia: http://ninehostagearts.com)
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jaykadis

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Re: External Wod Clock (and hello!)
« Reply #1 on: December 03, 2015, 10:27:31 AM »

We've been running a DM-2000 locked to a Big Ben for some time. The sound of the DM-2000 alone doesn't seem to benefit from external clocking as its internal clock is solid. When we ran a Mackie D8B, its DACs sounded much better using external clocking. I would suspect the Oxford is closer to the Yamaha in that respect. Where I find the external clock is useful is with a complicated system of digital devices that benefit from clocking to the same source to keep everyone at the same sample rate with the push of one button.


We have an older Pro Tools AccelII system that's also clocked from the Big Ben and connected to the board via AES/EBU. I haven't experimented intentionally with using PT as the master clock but when someone changes the setup and Pro Tools switches to its internal clock there isn't any complaint from the DM-2000 but it can do SRC automatically so a careful listening test might reveal some subtle changes I haven't noticed.


I would suggest trying it first before you decide you need an external clock.

Fletcher

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Re: External Wod Clock (and hello!)
« Reply #2 on: December 03, 2015, 12:05:48 PM »

We used to clock our entire system off our RADAR... making it the master clock and all clocks followed its lead.  I don't recall what unit we were using for "clock distribution", it could have been a "Big Ben" [it might have been something made by "Lucid"... I honestly don't remember].  The clocking on the RADAR is about as musical as I've ever heard [though I did REALLY like the "Atomic Clock"... at the time it was like $10k and I couldn't rationalize the expense as the clock in the RADAR system got us well within 95% of the same place].

Don't know if this is any help or not...

Peace
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CN Fletcher

mwagener wrote on Sat, 11 September 2004 14:33
We are selling emotions, there are no emotions in a grid


"Recording engineers are an arrogant bunch
If you've spent most of your life with a few thousand dollars worth of musicians in the studio, making a decision every second and a half... and you and  they are going to have to live with it for the rest of your lives, you'll get pretty arrogant too.  It takes a certain amount of balls to do that... something around three"
Malcolm Chisholm

RobertKap

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Re: External Wod Clock (and hello!)
« Reply #3 on: December 03, 2015, 12:31:14 PM »

Hey, Jay -

Unfortunately, the Oxford demands an external clock - it was built at a time when that was a given.

Reading the manual this morning - they shipped it originally with an NVision NV5500 - I'm going to try and dig out specs on that, to do some compare & contrast...
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Fletcher

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Re: External Wod Clock (and hello!)
« Reply #4 on: December 04, 2015, 12:21:49 PM »

If it demands an external clock the the Big Ben probably isn't a bad option... the "Atomic Clock" and Bruno Putzey's "Grimm Audio" clock [Bruno has a technical forum here!!] are the two best I've heard... but the Big Ben will work if you're on a budget.

Peace
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CN Fletcher

mwagener wrote on Sat, 11 September 2004 14:33
We are selling emotions, there are no emotions in a grid


"Recording engineers are an arrogant bunch
If you've spent most of your life with a few thousand dollars worth of musicians in the studio, making a decision every second and a half... and you and  they are going to have to live with it for the rest of your lives, you'll get pretty arrogant too.  It takes a certain amount of balls to do that... something around three"
Malcolm Chisholm

duskb

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Re: External Wod Clock (and hello!)
« Reply #5 on: December 07, 2015, 01:27:36 PM »

The Big Ben is affordable and easy to use and since they have been out there for awhile probably easy to find used.

FWIW, I'm still using an Aardsync II and it works fine as well. I have never bothered to shoot out clocks but if you are fine working @48K and below these are cheap and relatively set-and-forget.
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Dusk Bennett
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Award Winning Engineering
www.duskbennett.com

Fletcher

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Re: External Wod Clock (and hello!)
« Reply #6 on: December 07, 2015, 06:04:32 PM »

Interesting thought Dusk... once I tried 96k I could never go back... but if you're into 48, then that could indeed be a highly viable solution.

Peace
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CN Fletcher

mwagener wrote on Sat, 11 September 2004 14:33
We are selling emotions, there are no emotions in a grid


"Recording engineers are an arrogant bunch
If you've spent most of your life with a few thousand dollars worth of musicians in the studio, making a decision every second and a half... and you and  they are going to have to live with it for the rest of your lives, you'll get pretty arrogant too.  It takes a certain amount of balls to do that... something around three"
Malcolm Chisholm
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