TopicPosted on 12/28/2015 at 14:59:07Focusrite Clarett 8Pre X - Does this signal chain work?
Hello interwebz browsers, I hope you can answer the question I have on this signal chain (I'm not the best when it comes to signal chain, especially with ADAT and word clocking... But I hope to get a good answer!). Now, prior knowledge:
I'm a senior in high school and have a little home studio, it isn't much, but it gets me by and I can make music without many limits. Since college is approaching around the corner, I have taken it upon myself to upgrade a few pieces of equipment. My goal is to hopefully to use a rack so I can get more control over my cables and the move to college is more condensed.
Now at guitar center, I was talking to one of the employees about audio interfaces (my mom happened to be there, it was a day of shopping and I needed to pick up some XLR cable for one of my pre-recorded college auditions video so I can freely move around my mic) and I mentioned about Thunderbolt interfaces and how I was debating on USB or Thunderbolt connectivity. My mom is now forcing me to go thunderbolt... Now it is time to change the setup I originally was going to get. But I am now more confused than I was before on how I am going to chain everything together. Since now I must go thunderbolt, this screws up my original set up. But hopefully someone here can answer whether or not I am doing this chain correctly:
Hopefully this signal chain works... And another question. Do I use the Word Clock out on the Big Ben and chain it back to my interface? I'm unsure of what happens next if my supposed signal chain was to work. Do I need anything else to make this chain possible? I don't mind spending a little bit extra to make this happen, but my goal is to not walk away from this broke.
Thank you so much for the time you spent reading and answering this.
-Ryan
David_Focusrite
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Member 10 years ago
2Posted on 01/08/2016 at 14:52:14
Hi Ryan,
First, your mom sounds super cool with insisting that you go Thunderbolt with the Clarett... Go Mom!
This should actually be a straight forward sync with the easiest method being making the Big Ben your Master Clock device. You can then sync all other devices to the Big Ben via Word Clock (BNC) since all devices have Word Clock In on them and the Big Big has (6) Word Clock Outs.
A bigger question would be at what stage would you like to use which converters. Obviously if you are sending audio from lets say the ASP800 to the Clarett via ADAT, then the A/D takes place on the ASP800 then the D/A takes place on the 8PreX to play out to your speaker monitors.