Can USD be used as a clock for 888, even if the serial cable is NOT hooked up?

[Mt.Everest]

To clarify I just did a session where the USD was "secretly" clocking the 888's. I say secretly, cuz it was in a different rack than the 888s and i didnt notice it. Also, in the session setup window there were no USD settings. Also, in the periphials preferences, the USD was not selected--just a standard generic MTC option was selected..

So I finally cchecked, and the USD has no connection to the mac or the MIX card.. It was simply feeding superclock to one 888.

Does that work? Would it have been better to turn the usd off and had the 888 go to internal? Does the fact that the USD was not being recognized by the software make using it to clock a mistake?
thanks
MT

[COCO]

Seems to me that's fine, just like clocking from any external source, like black, word, etc.. But that's just my gut.

[Rob Macomber]

Be Careful!! I do not reccommend doing this. If the serial cable is not connected, The USD cannot recieve commands from ProTools Software. You can very easily change the sample rate in Pro Tools to 44.1 and think that you are in 44.1....but the USD could still be in 48K!! OOPS!! If you want to work this way...you must always remember to check the little led for sample rate on the USD. (pain in the ASS)...and of course you cannot Sync the USD with PT without the serial cable. I would never work this way....it will only lead to potential problems.

R

[COCO]

but it will work, so your session was ok, MT?

[Mt.Everest]

yeah it seemed to work fine... The session sounded like ass tho. This probly had nothing to do with protools or the USD thing. i think the room i was working in was real bad, acoustically. But at the time, i was curious if i was screwing up the clock by using USD but not letting Protools know about it...
But again, im sure it had nothing to do with the horrible sound of that day...

Funny thing is, is before that day i have been using the aardsync for about 3 weeks everyday. that was the first day that i went back to the USD for clock, only because i forgot my aardsync. Who knows why, but that day, everything sounded like s*it to me...
MT

[supersonic C]

You got lucky. The USD can be a clock source for 888s, but not connected to the Mac can lead to frame rate/ SR issues and absolute sync is wobbly. Make sure you have serial connected from the PT card, and all will be fine. Clocking to the Aard is even better. Clock jitter & problems like that are usually noticed only when it is WAAAAY too late.

[Ask Otis]

Hey MT Everest, why don't you try reading the manual once in a while. Of course the USD can be used as a standalone synchroniser/time code resolver. That's why it has front panel buttons. The serial cable allows for direct communication into protools and for control from within protools but does not add any functionality to the unit. In fact I used it to lock an MPC2000 + kork D16 + StuderA827 when no other sync box was available.

But hey You already knew you could do that, right?

[ekuehnl]

Ever notice that the rude guy rarely has anything useful to add to the topic?

"The serial cable allows for direct communication into protools and for control from within protools but does not add any functionality to the unit." Umm, Otis, isn't this a contradictory statment?

Mt. Everest - There is nothing inherently wrong with clocking off the USD without a serial connection to ProTools. Of course, you do have to be careful about the samplerate issues. However, I believe (as many people on the DUC do) that the 888 sounds better without the USD so you'd be better off just turning it off.

[COCO]

Wait a minute. When did we come to the conclusion that the 888 sounds better alone? That's the opposite of what I've heard from people on the DUC. I'd like to hear more.
COCO