S/PDIF from Recorder to PC without Pops/clicks?

Have you clocked them to the same source?

Digital audio transfers must often be clocked, especially where one machine is slaved to the other with timecode. Check and see if there are connections on the gear for hooking up the clock of one to the other, and then slave one of the machines to the other's clock.

I'm guessing that if you're slaving the computer to the Roland piece via MTC, use the Roland as the master clock.

 

I think Les nailed it. Sounds like a clocking issue.

 

no, sync is for midi (midiclock), which is not the same as wordclock. clicks & pops are usually the byproduct of jitter, which happens when the wordclock source isn't that great. you lock a converter to a better clock or wordclock generator by either the s/pdif (using a good converter's clock) or the bnc connection for wordclock in to a good wc generator.


ml

 

Yeah - what they said I had the same problem with some ADAT transfers I was doing til I wordclocked everything up right. Suddenly, no clicks!

--chiba

 

>> you lock a converter to a better clock or wordclock generator by either the s/pdif (using a good converter's clock) or the bnc connection for wordclock in to a good wc generator.

You probably don't need a better clock source to solve your clicks. Your problem is apparently that you have two working at the same time. All they need to make a "click" is to be off from one another by one little sample every now and then. Most likely you just need to slave one to the other and the clicks will disappear.

If you can select an external clock source in one of your devices you can probably slave it to the other's clock. If your MAudio drivers or DAW software allows you to select SPDIF as the clock source instead of the internal clock of your computer, everything should sync up. Or maybe the Roland can slave to your computer. But not being familiar with either device or with Cakewalk, I'm not sure how it's done or if it's possible.

It's preferable to use the better clock source as the master... in this case, my guess would be the Roland.

 

also, in case you weren't aware, you don't lose the use of your s/pdif should you use it to lock to the connected device's clock. it still functions as a digital output.


ml

 

>>Isn't that what syncing is<<

No, as others have pointed out.

Syncing is using Time Code - SMPTE or MIDI time code - to have two machines start, synchronize and stop their "transports" (a holdover from analog days) at the same time. So, for example, if you started all your audio tracks at 1:00:00:00 on one machine, and wanted all the transferred tracks to start at 1:00:00:00, you'd be able to do that.

But the smallest subdivision of time code is one frame. One frame means one frame of video. Time Code was originally used to sync audio tracks to picture. One frame = 1/30th of a second (or 1/29.97th of a second if it's drop-frame video you're syncing to).

As you can imagine, in 1/30th of a second, there are literally thousands of samples firing away in digital audio.

The way to sync digital audio to sample-accuracy, so that everything is in phase, doesn't click or pop, etc., is to have both digital clocks running at the same micro-speed, and ideally, to use the same clock as the master.

Hope this explanation helps.

 

The issue is a lack of wordclock which is a necessary feature for digital transfers.

When two devices are linked through wordclock the sample rate is consistent from device to device, but you only need that if recording in realtime is a necessity.

Why don't you save your files to disk using the Roland and then load them from disk into Pro-Audio? If PA lacks the features you need (never used it) upgrading to Sonar4 is affordable--$149.