MOTU Digital Timepiece User's Guide download pdf (Page 22)

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101

INSTALLATION

WORD CLOCK DEVICES

Word clock is a timing reference for digital audio

devices. Word clock supplies common timing to

multiple devices so that they can be synchronized

with one another. We call a device that supports

word clock — i.e. it has word clock connectors on

it — as a word clock device. Here are a few

examples:

■ Digital mixers

■ Stand-alone hard disk recorders

■ Computer-based digital audio workstations

■ Computer audio cards

The Digital Timepiece supports two different word

clock formats: Word 1x and Word 256x. Word 1x is

an industry standard format and is supported by

all devices except several systems made by

Digidesign. Digidesign systems have their own

word clock format, Word 256x, which they refer to

as superclock, slave clock or word 256x. Always

connect Digidesign hardware to the WORD 256x

connectors on the Digital Timepiece. Connect all

other word clock devices to the WORD 1x

connectors.

How it works

When synchronizing two word clock devices, one

acts as the master and the other serves as a slave.

The slaved device follows the master to maintain

sample-accurate synchronization.

Word clock is a time base reference only, providing

an accurate measurement of the passage of time

and the speed at which samples should go by. Word

clock carries no address (time code) information

(e.g. “we’re at 1:05:33:14”). Therefore, word clock

by itself is not enough to synchronize two devices.

Time code is also required so that each device

knows where to go in time when you tell it to cue,

play, record, stop and chase. An example is shown

below in Figure 3-15.

Figure 3-15: How word clock devices synchronize with the Digital

Timepiece. In this example, the Digital Timepiece is both the word

clock (time base) master and address (time code) master.

Interestingly, though, the word clock master device

does not necessarily have to be the address master.

A word clock slave can be an address master, while

the word clock master provides the overall time

base. In the example shown in Figure 3-16, the

Digital Timepiece is the word clock master, while

the Akai DR8 hard disk recorder is the time code

master. This setup would allow you to control the

transports of everything from the DR8 front panel

(or a transport control surface connected to the

DR8).

Figure 3-16: In this example, the Digital Timepiece is the word clock

(time base) master and the Akai DR8 hard disk recorder is the address

(time code) master. This allows you to synchronize the DR8 with other

digital audio devices connected to the Digital Timepiece, while at the

same time controlling the transports of everything from the DR8 (or a

control surface connected to the DR8).

Digital Timepiece

Word clock

word clock device

Yamaha 02R digital mixer

Time code (LTC or MTC)

word clock device

(Akai DR8 hard disk recorder)

Digital Timepiece

Word clock Time code (LTC or MTC)

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MOTU Digital Timepiece User's Guide Page 22

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