SPDIF, ADAT & Wordclock

krizrox · Post by **krizrox** » Tue Jul 16, 2002 10:34 am

All right, I'm freely admiting my neophyte-ness on this subject and asking, no begging, for help.

I have an A16 Ultra as well as (at least) one piece of SPDIF equipped gear in my studio. The A16 is connected to Pulsar via ADAT light cables. Now, if I send audio from the A16 to Pulsar, I understand that Pulsar must be configured as an ADAT slave, right? And, if I'm understanding correctly, if I want to send SPDIF audio to Pulsar, I need to configure Pulsar as SPDIF slave.

My question: can Pulsar be set up to accept both ADAT and SPDIF inputs simultaneously? If so, how do you accomplish this?

I swear, I used to be able to do this in 3.01 ver software. I must have been either very confused or something because nothing I've tried in SFP allows me to do both simultaneously. Any thoughts or suggestions?

One last question: does anyone know of a resource on the internet that describes, in laymans' terms, these very subjects? I'd like to understand more about these digital interconnects.

[ This Message was edited by: krizrox on 2002-07-16 11:37 ]

Post by **garyb** » Tue Jul 16, 2002 11:16 am

pulsar can be slave or master.some devices will not slave(many dat machines for example) and those MUST be master.only one device can be master at a time.as long as the clock is stable,(no intermittant white noise or "jitter")it doesn't matter who is who.

yes,you can use sp/dif and adat connections at the same time.

krizrox · Post by **krizrox** » Tue Jul 16, 2002 11:59 am

Hmmm - then why do I get clicks and pops on SPDIF signal when slaved to ADAT? Those same clicks & pops disappear when I change to SPDIF slave mode (but then I get noise on ADAT inputs). I must have something backwards, but what?

btw: I thought the receiving device was supposed to be slave? Or is this a misconception?

[ This Message was edited by: krizrox on 2002-07-16 13:00 ]

kimgr · Post by **kimgr** » Tue Jul 16, 2002 5:02 pm

When using S/P-Dif with Creamware cards, you should always set the card to slave.
EXCEPT: if you use a S/P-Dif loop on a second-generation card. (With a device that supports it.)
OR: if all your devices are hooked up to a common wordclock source.

If you have clicks on Adat inputs when slaved to wordclock, then there's something wrong with either your wordclock distribution or the device that's sending the Adat signal...

Kim.
_________________
Design & Media
http://www.d-media.dk

[ This Message was edited by: kimgr on 2002-07-16 18:03 ]

krizrox · Post by **krizrox** » Tue Jul 16, 2002 8:10 pm

Hmmm... I appreciate the responses but it's not helping. Maybe I didn't explain my situation correctly. I'll try again.

I have an A16 Ultra, Pulsar 2 with classic I/O and a JoeMeek stereo microphone preamp with SPDIF output (for example).

The ADAT outputs from the A16 are connected to Pulsar's ADAT inputs. When I configure Pulsar as an ADAT slave, audio from the A16 sounds fine but the SPDIF signal from the JoeMeek has pops & clicks. If I configure Pulsar as SPDIF slave, the signal from the JoeMeek sounds perfect but then the ADAT inputs sound bad.

Is my problem lack of wordclock? The JoeMeek unit does not have a wordclock input. Only a single SPDIF output connector. How would wordclock help me in this regard if I can't connect anything to the JoeMeek?

One last comment that just came to mind. I should probably re-verify this before I make the statement but I am 99.9% sure that I did not have a problem with an HHB CD player/recorder with SPDIF output. What I mean is, I can set pulsar to ADAT slave and run the output from my CD player and both work perfectly (with no wordclock connected to anything). But the JoeMeek doesn't seem to work this way (in fact, none of my SPDIF equipped mic preamps work like that). Why would the CD player work (without Pulsar slaved to SPDIF) and not the preamps?

kimgr · Post by **kimgr** » Wed Jul 17, 2002 1:23 am

In your setup you should set Pulsar to slave to S/P-Dif and A16 Ultra to slave to Adat. You do have both in and out connected to the A16, right ?
If you still have clicks on the Adat in's on Pulsar, then you have a defect A16 or optical cables. (Or both.)

Kim.

Post by **garyb** » Wed Jul 17, 2002 2:01 am

as with many sp/dif devices,it seems that the 'meek does not run as slave.if it does,i'm sure you must set it to slave manually(master is default).you cannot have two masters.(in life or digitally.you have a16 and the 'meek as master)

["The ADAT outputs from the A16 are connected to Pulsar's ADAT inputs. When I configure Pulsar as an ADAT slave, audio from the A16 sounds fine but the SPDIF signal from the JoeMeek has pops & clicks. If I configure Pulsar as SPDIF slave, the signal from the JoeMeek sounds perfect but then the ADAT inputs sound bad."]

if the pre won't be a slave,i'm sure that the a16 will.

[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2002-07-17 03:06 ]

felix o. · Post by **felix o.** » Wed Jul 17, 2002 3:32 am

i fiddeled a lot with synchronisation.

you should set up like kimgr said:

set pulsar to spdif slave
connect all in and outs of the a16 to pulsar
set a16 to pulsar slave

that´s it. be carefull not to power of the spdif source, since this is the MASTER. some programms crash when they loose digital sync.

devo · Post by **devo** » Sun Jul 21, 2002 11:47 pm

Just curious - did that solve the problem?

If I understand the last suggestions correct, Pulsar will become ADAT master automagically when it is configured to be SPDIF slave? If so, then that's a nifty feature.

krizrox · Post by **krizrox** » Mon Jul 22, 2002 9:42 am

Sorry for the delay in responding back.

Yes, your suggestions worked. Thank you so much.

If anyone knows of a good primer on this subject, please let me know. Thanks!