• From: Stockholm, Sweden
  • Registered: 2007-05-11
  • Posts: 87

Topic: ADAT and word clock how do they interplay?

So I have a setup that works really nicely so far but I'm not really sure I understand how ADAT and word clock interplay and what the benefits are?

My setup is a UCXII and an UCX. UCXII has clock source set to internal and the UCX clock source to Word. Between the two I've got a word clock cable and two ADAT optical cables. Works great, I get 8 in and 8 out from the UCX directly into the UCXII TotalMix.

I've never used ADAT before and something that I realized when I was hooking everything up and trying things out was that I'm not really sure why I'm using the word clock cable for the sync? It seems to be working equally good setting the UCX clock source to ADAT..

So my noob questions here are:

What am I missing here? Is using the word clock unnecessary in my setup? Or are there some benefits of letting the word clock handle the sync between the two interfaces?

Sincerely
LarsErik

Fireface UCXII & UCX , MacBook Pro m1, MacOS Sonoma
  • vinark
  • DAW Mastermind
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2009-06-05
  • Posts: 2,738

Re: ADAT and word clock how do they interplay?

No WC needed as you guessed. WC is needed in some stituations where there is no other solution.
It is not better then any other way of syncing and might be even a little worse in some cases vs optical.
There are advantages too but not in your case.

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
BFpro fs, 2X HDSP9652 ADI-8AE, 2X HDSP9632
  • From: Stockholm, Sweden
  • Registered: 2007-05-11
  • Posts: 87

Re: ADAT and word clock how do they interplay?

vinark wrote:

No WC needed as you guessed. WC is needed in some stituations where there is no other solution.
It is not better then any other way of syncing and might be even a little worse in some cases vs optical.
There are advantages too but not in your case.

Ok, thanks for clearing that out.

Fireface UCXII & UCX , MacBook Pro m1, MacOS Sonoma