Apogee Big Ben and AD/DA 16 Clocking question

[Oneshell]

Hi everybody,
Is anybody on this forum an ace when it comes to clocking and non-Avid interfaces? My current setup is a 2012 Mac Pro with 1 HDX card using 2 Apogee AD16s and two DA16s clocked by Big Ben. I've been trying to control the sample rate from the computer as opposed to manually changing the sample rate on the Big Ben. Would it be counter-intuitive to clock Big Ben as a slave from one of my DAs as the master so the sample rate automatically conforms to the session? Or is my system suffering by not using Big Ben as the master clock, as intended?


Thanks in advance for any help

[joeldadrummer]

Good question, I've been wondering the same thing, and how to avoid manually changing the sample rate on the Big Ben for each different session.

According to apogee literature, they actually recommend using the big ben in this manner (slave) when using the newer Avid 'sync' clock (ie, sync is master clock, and WC output is fed to big ben, then big ben sends all remaining WC terminations).

https://apogeedigital.com/pdf/bigben_protools.pdf

Therefore I don't think it should matter that much if you make whatever interface shows up first in your ProTools system (I'm guessing the AD16's show up first as 192's?) the master clock (set to 'internal' in your session set up) and then send that WC out to the Big Ben to sync all remaining digital devices.

If you find another way to have Big Ben be the master but not have to change the sample rate manually (Maybe via SPDIF?) let me know!

thanks

[Darryl Ramm]

I doubt anybody can hear any difference from any of this.

But assuming you could, the Big Ben clocking from an interface is a fine approach if you want sample rate set by the session.