Word Clocks

[Kris]

Can anyone help shed some light on this for me? I know that a good clock source will make a big difference to the way my gear performs and that it can even affect the sound of a mix. What I want to know is this, having read a bunch of stuff at various other forums, which clock would be the best to buy?

I don't necessarily want the biggest baddest but I do want quality. I've been looking at the Apogee Big Ben and the Antelope Audio OCX.

I currently have a Motu 828mk2 which supplies all my i/o, clock, timecode and midi needs. But in the never ending quest for that extra 2% I'm going to start re-building this part of my set up.

I don't have the money to try a bunch of solutions to find out which works best, I need educated opinions and then I can decide from there.

[chris p]

Hey Kris

Are you using the 828 to clock other gear, or are you simply looking to tighten up the 828's jitter?

[Kris]

For now, until I can relplace the 828 entirely, I'm just looking to stabilise it. I get a lot of chatter in Logic. Well, not "a lot" but too much that I notice it. Sometimes it records it and ruins a great take. Either way, I'm guessing a more stable clock will eliminate the problem and if not, well, it's still a good investment.

[chris p]

In that case, I highly recommend you read (if you haven't already) -

http://www.digido.com/portal/pmodule_id ... age_id=28/

esp the bits about always running on the internal clock if possible.

You might also like to visit -
http://blacklionaudio.com/828.htm

External clocks like Big Ben and so forth are really more for the situation where you are running more than 1 AD/DA. FWIW, in 49 times out of 50 when recording using Logic and my 828 and it goes all fTTzzsssshhhthp, I find the actual problem is core audio (=ram, processor speed & disk speed) and not the motu. The 828's preamps might be questionable, but its converters are actually pretty good and quite stable.

I know this isn't helping you choose an external clock, sorry.

[heathen]

Yeah Kris how much ram are you using and how fast is your pc or mac? Sounds like you need more grunt to me too,as I have the motu 828mk2 and have little trouble with it (some though still) Maybe get some cheap upgrades to your workstation. Are you using heaps of plugins?If you are it could be the cause. Buying a better clock is unlikely to help much,save your $$$ and get some better converters then you can clock your motu to that and use the adat or spidif i/o. I have mine set up this way with a Rosetta 200 clocking my motu and pc and I use the firewire port on the motu and it works great.Also clocking the motu from the Apogee makes a small difference to the motus sound but not enough to justify buying a big ben as well. Beef up your pc first though,I think.
Also when recording any audio tracks try disableing some plugins that may help in the meantime.

[rick]

clocks are important, but they are the LAST thing on the list of things to do to improve the sound quality , if you getting an unplayable situation with bunches of random clicks and spits, go right ahead and clock you self up err out...?
, but if your looking for the subjective tighter image more focused sound story..... well as i said the last thing to suspect is the clock

that said, i clock my room with the apogee clock

[Kris]

Thanks guys. I'll start with upping the ram. Obviously being the least expensive option it's a good one to start with. Converters will be next.

Cheers.