fighting the war against jitter

[signorMars]

i have just about wrapped up mixing on an album and have spent far more time than i would like pulling out small clicks and pops in the tracks. i am running 2 delta 1010s synced through SPDIF recording in Cubase. the pops show up almost exclusively in tracks recorded during overdubs, and are just loud enough to hear, similar to a dust particle on a vinyl record. i'm pretty sure this is jitter/clock error induced, so, bearing in mind that no, i cannot upgrade my converters to apogee or any of the badass $8000 converters, what can be done to minimize or prevent this? i'm not so keen on editing one wavelength out of half my guitar tracks for the next couple years. at what price point do external clocks actually start being worth it?

[Phiz]

Why aren't you using the Wordclock In/Out BNCs? It is very likely that you'll lower your jitter by using those.

[Jeff White]

http://www.blacklionaudio.com/microclock.html

[signorMars]

my understanding from the manual is that the 1010 can sync to word clock, but cannot generate it. the word clock out is more of a thru i guess.

[RodC]

With my Deltas I Dont sync through cables. In the new drivers there is an option for multi card sync. I'm at work now and I dont have the exact option at hand. I think its something like Multi internal.

I'll get a screen shot when I get home.

[palinilap]

my understanding from the manual is that the 1010 can sync to word clock, but cannot generate it. the word clock out is more of a thru i guess.

The Delta 1010 can send Word Clock and can be the clock master. This is explained in good detail on pg. 44 of the manual.

With my Deltas I Dont sync through cables. In the new drivers there is an option for multi card sync. I'm at work now and I dont have the exact option at hand. I think its something like Multi internal.

I'll get a screen shot when I get home.

Multiple Card Sync is for when you have at least one Delta with no S/PDIF or Word Clock connections, like a Delta 44.

[RodC]

Multiple Card Sync is for when you have at least one Delta with no S/PDIF or Word Clock connections, like a Delta 44.

Thats it, but I thought it should be used anytime you have a group of delta cards to avoid using cables to sync them.

[Ryan Silva]

What about a 'Masterclock'? I thought I saw a Lucid for $600 used on ebay. I have never worked with external clocks before, but I am sure someone will corect me if this is not a valid bit of advice.

[b3groover]

My guess is you need to up your buffer latency when doing overdubs and the clicks will disappear. I don't think it is a clock issue; it is an issue with your computer not being able to keep up with all the data.

[palinilap]

Multiple Card Sync is for when you have at least one Delta with no S/PDIF or Word Clock connections, like a Delta 44.

Thats it, but I thought it should be used anytime you have a group of delta cards to avoid using cables to sync them.

According to pg.21 of the manual only Delta's that don't have S/PDIF or Word Clock connections should use Multiple Card Sync. For two Delta 1010's they recommend synchronizing through S/PDIF or Word Clock.

[Babaluma]

i've had similar clicks recently after running the same computer with glitch free audio for many years. i've decided it's due to my hard drives being six years old and nearly full!

[FNM]

My guess is you need to up your buffer latency when doing overdubs and the clicks will disappear. I don't think it is a clock issue; it is an issue with your computer not being able to keep up with all the data.

+1

I had this problem some years ago with my delta 1010lt when I first started using it and I believe that's what fixed it.