User Manual

232
Synchronizing WaveLab Studio to external devices
Introduction
It is possible to synchronize the audio playback in Wave-
Lab Studio to incoming MIDI Time Code (MTC).
Ö For MTC sync to be possible, you need to have a MIDI
Interface installed and working!
MTC sync
MIDI Time Code provides timing information, so that each
time position coincides in the master (the other recorder,
MIDI sequencer, etc.) and the slave (WaveLab Studio).
However, there is still one problem: Even though Wave-
Lab Studio starts playback of an audio file at the exact
correct position, it cannot affect the timing of the audio file
once playback is started. At that point, the playback of the
audio file is only dependent on the clock on the com-
puter’s audio card.
Let’s say you are syncing WaveLab Studio to a tape re-
corder providing MTC. As the clock on the computer’s au-
dio card and the internal clock of the master (in this case
the tape recorder) are not synchronized, the audio file(s)
played back by WaveLab Studio and the tape tracks will
inevitably be drifting out of sync after a period of time.
The solution is to not only synchronize WaveLab Studio,
but also the audio card! This means that you need:
• A synchronization device that can send both MTC and word
clock.
• An audio card that can read and synchronize to incoming
word clock.
With this setup, the master device sends MTC into Wave-
Lab Studio (ensuring that audio playback starts at the cor-
rect time position) and word
clock to the audio card
(ensuring that audio playback continuously follows the
master device.
Setting up
1. Make sure the desired Montage or Wave window is
active.
This is important, since each Montage or Wave can have separate Sync
settings.
2. Pull down the Options menu and select Preferences.
The Preferences dialog appears.
3. Click the Sync tab.
!
It is worth noting that without using a word clock
based system, it is possible to synchronize WaveLab
Studio with another device for a shorter period of time.
Exactly how long depends on a number of factors,
such as the overall stability of the system (using an
ADAT as master will provide higher stability than using
an analog tape machine for example) and the length of
the audio files played by WaveLab Studio, etc.
Also note that if a project involves using several differ-
ent types of machines as the master, the result (the
length of time synchronization is upheld) is likely to
vary in an unpredictable way. For best results when
using synchronization without word clock, it is recom-
mended that you use a fixed (and relatively stable)
setup during the course of the project.