Black Lion Audio 002 Mod - Possible to clock Digimax LT to the 002?

[nerogtr]

on a related but different thought: if i were to use an apogee big ben (or similar) and have it send the clock signal via BNC to the digimax, would the digimax pass the clock signal through the ADAT to the 002, or would i have to independently connect the big ben to the 002?

[amishsixstringe]

I THINK you'd have to use s/dif to connect to the 002R, because of the latency that would incur. At least it seems to me that it would take a little longer to pass from ben to digimax to 002r than from ben to oo2r and ben to digimax. I know the big ben has a s/pdif output on it. I have also heard about s/pdif sucking for clocking. Another reason the 002R sucks assholes. I'm not going to bother with the 003 though. I'm going after HD in a year. F all the spending a lot of money to make consumer shit work a little better.

Neil

[nerogtr]

Originally Posted by amishsixstringe

I THINK you'd have to use s/dif to connect to the 002R, because of the latency that would incur. At least it seems to me that it would take a little longer to pass from ben to digimax to 002r than from ben to oo2r and ben to digimax. I know the big ben has a s/pdif output on it. I have also heard about s/pdif sucking for clocking. Another reason the 002R sucks assholes. I'm not going to bother with the 003 though. I'm going after HD in a year. F all the spending a lot of money to make consumer shit work a little better.

Neil

i think i may do the same: instead of spending lots of money "pimping my le setup", i think im going to save and hopefully snag an HD system in the future.

[amishsixstringe]

Yeah...look around eBay. I'm seeing an HD2 rig with one 192 i/o and waves diamond bundle, buy it now 9,000 bucks. I can get 1,500 for a BLA 002R and a digimax. Or close to it at least. Leaves me needing close to 8,000. Or I could spend almost 3 grand on a Rosetta 800 and still be running LE. I think it's a no brainer, really.

Neil

[nerogtr]

Originally Posted by amishsixstringe

Yeah...look around eBay. I'm seeing an HD2 rig with one 192 i/o and waves diamond bundle, buy it now 9,000 bucks. I can get 1,500 for a BLA 002R and a digimax. Or close to it at least. Leaves me needing close to 8,000. Or I could spend almost 3 grand on a Rosetta 800 and still be running LE. I think it's a no brainer, really.

Neil

i think ive read around here that if you can score an old mix system really cheap you can get a really good deal through digi with a trade in. i dont know for sure how good of a deal it is though. also, if i were to stay with LE i'd also want/need to upgrade to the production package for increased track count and multitrack beat detective (which i really need). HD solves both these. Instead of trying to make my LE as close to a HD system as possible, I think I'll just save for the real thing. In addition to the HD system I will have to get a MacPro (another large expense) since I'm working off a powerbook right now. Oh money....lol.

[Brenton]

Howdy guys

I went through a similar issue when I bought a mini me a couple of years ago and wanted to clock my 002 to that instead of the digimax. I was looking for something that would convert spdif to wordclock and by chance at the studio I work at we had a "Midi timepiece" by MOTU no longer needed. It will lock to any sync type and then spits out wordclock.

So I record 18 tracks often with no problems.

Mini me spdif to 002 (PT synced to this). 002 spdif to midi time piece. Midi time piece word clock to digimax. Works a treat.

You might be able to find something that does this fairly cheap.

Hope this helps.

[loujudson]

Originally Posted by nerogtr

on a related but different thought: if i were to use an apogee big ben (or similar) and have it send the clock signal via BNC to the digimax, would the digimax pass the clock signal through the ADAT to the 002, or would i have to independently connect the big ben to the 002?

Yes, it will pass and good thing too as 002 has no clock input! I clock my Digimax from a Sound Devices 744 and Protools via ADAT. Works great.

[Rqrstudio]

off on a little tangent...
you guys who clock their
digimax to an external source,
Do the pres open up a little more
and make a huge sonic difference?
I know alot of the conversion sound
quality is dependent on the analog components
so i was wondering if only having a better clock
going on really affects the signal that drastically.

Anyways yeah HD is the way to go.

Im really glad i have the 002r with the mod though.
ill keep it around forever.
Seems like itll be really cool to have a portable awesome
sounding unit like this to take out with a laptop and
do some orchestral recording/weird location overdubs...etc

Cant really do that stuff with a big HD setup.

[Brenton]

Originally Posted by Rqrstudio

off on a little tangent...
you guys who clock their
digimax to an external source,
Do the pres open up a little more
and make a huge sonic difference?
I know alot of the conversion sound
quality is dependent on the analog components
so i was wondering if only having a better clock
going on really affects the signal that drastically.

Well I didn't notice anything but then I didn't do any ab comparisons because it doesn't matter to me. When I am tracking a whole band I can only run it in this configuration if I want to max it out (which I always do) and when I am overdubbing I only use the apogee convertors. Now that is a big difference.

[nerogtr]

Originally Posted by Brenton

Howdy guys

I went through a similar issue when I bought a mini me a couple of years ago and wanted to clock my 002 to that instead of the digimax. I was looking for something that would convert spdif to wordclock and by chance at the studio I work at we had a "Midi timepiece" by MOTU no longer needed. It will lock to any sync type and then spits out wordclock.

So I record 18 tracks often with no problems.

Mini me spdif to 002 (PT synced to this). 002 spdif to midi time piece. Midi time piece word clock to digimax. Works a treat.

You might be able to find something that does this fairly cheap.

Hope this helps.

do you find that the spdif is a stable way to be passing and transmitting the word clock? no jitter or anything? spdif just seems sketchy to me

[Snatchman]

What about getting BLA's "stand-alone" clock they are releasing soon? It should be as good as the modded clock on the 002s. ( I guess... ). It's supposed to be pretty well priced also!.......

[Brenton]

Originally Posted by nerogtr

do you find that the spdif is a stable way to be passing and transmitting the word clock? no jitter or anything? spdif just seems sketchy to me

Never had a problem. When I first tried it I set up 3 sm57s a couple of feet from a snare drum into the minime, digimax and the 002 just to make sure there wouldn't be any problems with sync or latency and it was fine.

[nerogtr]

Originally Posted by Brenton

Never had a problem. When I first tried it I set up 3 sm57s a couple of feet from a snare drum into the minime, digimax and the 002 just to make sure there wouldn't be any problems with sync or latency and it was fine.

ooo intersting- since you had the same kind off mic pointed at the same source going into 3 different preamps, and 3 different a/d converters, what can you tell us about the difference in sound between the 3 units?

[Brenton]

Well the 002 and the digimax convertors are in the same ballpark. The digimax was probably a hair better but really much the same. The minime was a big step up.

As for pres, well I only use the 002 pres for talkback or guides, too noisy for anything quiet. The digimax are good useable pres. The minimes are lovely clean quiet pres but I usually use other pres/channel strips and go line in for the conversion. I will use them with ribbons though as they have the most quiet gain of any of my pres.

[nerogtr]

Originally Posted by Brenton

Well the 002 and the digimax convertors are in the same ballpark. The digimax was probably a hair better but really much the same. The minime was a big step up.

As for pres, well I only use the 002 pres for talkback or guides, too noisy for anything quiet. The digimax are good useable pres. The minimes are lovely clean quiet pres but I usually use other pres/channel strips and go line in for the conversion. I will use them with ribbons though as they have the most quiet gain of any of my pres.

cool info, thanks for sharing. i've never used the minime before.

[Brenton]

[BezowinZ]

Some of this is going over my head, so I'm not able to pick my answer out of the information already shared.

I too am strongly considering the mod. I really need about 12 ins, but I can deal with 10. I'd be using the 8 on the 002 Rack(4 via external pre), and 2 on a digital pre(Art Digital MPA) via s/pdif. The Art Digital has ADAT in...

I've been told this will work, but nothing on how practical/reliable this would be. So, how reliable would ADAT be in using the 002 Rack as the master clock on the Art Digital?

Also, I planned on selling my Digimax LT thinking I wouldn't be able to sync it to the 002 Rack, but, would it be possible to sync it to the 002 Rack through the Art Digital, which has wordclock through?

[Duardo]

is the signal sent of the spdif cable sent the exact same way and encoded the same was as the word clock sent over the BNC?

No, the Word Clock signal sent out over BNC cables is not the same as the signal sent over a S/PDIF cable, which is the main reason this won't work. The reason that the Big Ben and Antelope DA clocks to work is that when you feed them a signal (whether it's S/PDIF or clock) they regenerate the signal and send it out on all of the connectors. If you feed it a S/PDIF signal it will pass that signal on through the S/PDIF out (reclocked) or if you feed it straight clock signal it will send digital silence out the S/PDIF jack, which the 002 will be able to clock to.

if i were to use an apogee big ben (or similar) and have it send the clock signal via BNC to the digimax, would the digimax pass the clock signal through the ADAT to the 002, or would i have to independently connect the big ben to the 002?

No, you'd definitely want to connect the Big Ben directly to the 002 via S/PDIF, as well as to the Digimax via WC.

I have also heard about s/pdif sucking for clocking.

It works fine.

-Duardo

[frans]

How about that?

http://www.mutec-net.com/ "Mutec distributor WS"

SPDIF in, wordclock out for 400.- Euro - if you need a heavier unit, get their "iClock"


So this is what I did:
-got my MOTU 828 BLA modded - had the same problem, it wanted to be master now
-the 828's SPDIF out feeds the Mutec Distributor WS and the wordclock feeds my Onyx 800R (8ch /w lightpipe ADAT outs) if I need it - works like a charm.
Hope this helps.

[nerogtr]

Originally Posted by BezowinZ

Some of this is going over my head, so I'm not able to pick my answer out of the information already shared.

I too am strongly considering the mod. I really need about 12 ins, but I can deal with 10. I'd be using the 8 on the 002 Rack(4 via external pre), and 2 on a digital pre(Art Digital MPA) via s/pdif. The Art Digital has ADAT in...

I've been told this will work, but nothing on how practical/reliable this would be. So, how reliable would ADAT be in using the 002 Rack as the master clock on the Art Digital?

Also, I planned on selling my Digimax LT thinking I wouldn't be able to sync it to the 002 Rack, but, would it be possible to sync it to the 002 Rack through the Art Digital, which has wordclock through?

to be honest, i have no clue if this will work at this point. there are a lot of conflicting views about how wordclock is passed in this thread so now im just confued . how do you like the Art Digital MPA though?

[jpace82]

It's strange to me that everyone is trying to figure out how to clock the digimax to the 002...yet my problem is trying to get protools(002) to clock itself to my digimax fs. I have all the adat optical cables connected properly, I go into the hardware setup and change the settings to adat and external clock optical, I make sure that protools and the digimax are at the same sample rate...AND THE SHIT STILL DOESN'T WORK! "Invalid clock, reverting to internal clock"

I wish I could figure this crap out so I can have 12 pre's.

[mark.james]

Originally Posted by Rqrstudio

off on a little tangent...
you guys who clock their
digimax to an external source,
Do the pres open up a little more
and make a huge sonic difference?
I know alot of the conversion sound
quality is dependent on the analog components
so i was wondering if only having a better clock
going on really affects the signal that drastically.

.

I have an HD system and a Digimax.. it was like night and day when I clocked the digimax to the 192...

[loujudson]

Originally Posted by nerogtr

After reading around GS about the Black Lion Audio 002 mod, I've been highly considering getting the mod done myself. Right now I have a 002 and a Digimax LT (connected via adat), with the Digimax LT as the clock source.

My question is, if I do the BLA upgrade, I'm obviously going to want to use the internal clock in the 002 as the master- so is it possible to use the Digimax LT with the 002 as the clock source? It only has ADAT out but has word clock in. Of course the 002 doesn't have a word clock out ...

I read through the thread - you do have to use the Digimax as the clock source - but have you tried it and found out which is better yourself? My BLA 002 is great on its own, but I have no problem at all using the Digimax LT as clock source when I need the extra inputs.

I have no idea if the BLA mod makes it a better clock than the Digimax, but the Digimax isn't bad so why get so worried? I am happy using the 002R BLA for playback and mixing, tho' - it is great!

[nerogtr]

Originally Posted by jpace82

It's strange to me that everyone is trying to figure out how to clock the digimax to the 002...yet my problem is trying to get protools(002) to clock itself to my digimax fs. I have all the adat optical cables connected properly, I go into the hardware setup and change the settings to adat and external clock optical, I make sure that protools and the digimax are at the same sample rate...AND THE SHIT STILL DOESN'T WORK! "Invalid clock, reverting to internal clock"

I wish I could figure this crap out so I can have 12 pre's.

i dont see why its strange- the point of the scenario was that the 002 hypothetically has the BLA mod (which potentially has a superior clock).

regardless of the clock setting, are you getting signal from your digimax? if not, maybe you have a bum adat cable. an invalid clock won't prevent you from getting signal from the digimax to the 002, you'll just have obnoxious pops and clicks among other issues. if you are indeed getting signal, then it has to be an issue with the pro tools settings or the digimax's sample rate. no signal at all might be an indicator of a bad optical cable, or an improper connection between the devices.

check setup-> hardware setup
-optical format = adat
-clock source = optical

and make sure the digimax's sample rate reflects the sample rate of the session. also make sure you're going into the 002's optical input, not the output.

i know these are simple things, but the connection and setup are very simple- you shouldn't be having any problems if everything is set up correctly.

Originally Posted by loujudson

I read through the thread - you do have to use the Digimax as the clock source - but have you tried it and found out which is better yourself? My BLA 002 is great on its own, but I have no problem at all using the Digimax LT as clock source when I need the extra inputs.

I have no idea if the BLA mod makes it a better clock than the Digimax, but the Digimax isn't bad so why get so worried? I am happy using the 002R BLA for playback and mixing, tho' - it is great!

i wasn't so much worried as i was curious. the point was that if i'm spending the money on the mod, will i be able to take full advantage of it. one could argue that if you're mixing ITB the clock is really only relevant to your monitoring, and wont affect your signal thats already been recorded (just how you hear it) and that where the clock really does matter is while recording during the A to D conversion (since the digital representation of the audio will actually be affected in a permenant way by the accuracy of the clock). i never ended up doin the mod so i have no idea which clock is better.