MOTU Traveler-mk3 User Manual page 31

Mac
FireWire
FireWire
FireWire Word Clock Out
FireWire Word Clock In
FireWire
Word Clock Out
FireWire Word Clock In
FireWire Word Clock Out
FireWire Word Clock In
Figure 3-21: Connecting multiple Traveler-mk3 interfaces (or other
MOTU FireWire audio interfaces) to a computer.
Multiple interfaces cannot be bus-powered
Do not run the Traveler-mk3, UltraLite or other
bus-powered interfaces under bus power with
other devices on the same FireWire bus.
Multiple interfaces in MOTU Audio Setup
MOTU Audio Setup displays the settings for one
interface at a time. To view the settings for an
interface, click its tab as shown in Figure 3-22.
Figure 3-22: To view the settings for an interface, click its tab.
I N S T A L L I N G T H E T R A V E L E R - M K 3 H A R D W A R E
Synchronizing multiple interfaces
Mac OS X provides an advanced, flexible driver
model that allows multiple Core Audio drivers to
be active at one time, accessed by multiple
applications simultaneously. For example, you can
run both FireWire and PCI audio interfaces at the
same time, accessing all of their inputs and outputs
from your host audio application — or even
multiple applications — simultaneously.
A by-product of this more flexible model is that
For two
multiple devices must be synchronized to one
interfaces,
another in order to remain resolved to each
slave one to
the other.
another. Without synchronization, the audio
streams going to each interface might drift with
respect to one another. For example, the audio
You can probably
get away with
tracks playing back through the Traveler-mk3
daisy-chaining
three interfaces, might drift out of sync with the audio tracks
although a word
playing back through your 2408mk3 PCI interface.
clock distribu-
tion device is
Synchronizing them to each other ensures that they
recommended.
remain as tightly and continuously phase-locked as
if they were one unified interface.
This is risky. A
word clock distri-
bution device is
There are two ways to synchronize the
highly recom-
mended.
Traveler-mk3 with other devices, as discussed in
the following sections: via the driver or via word
clock.
Resolving to other Core audio drivers
The MOTU FireWire driver has the ability to
resolve to other Core Audio drivers. This allows the
Traveler-mk3, and other MOTU FireWire
interfaces, to resolve to other audio interfaces
running simultaneously on the same computer,
such as the Mac's built-in audio, a PCI-424 core
system, or even 3rd-party interfaces, without the
need for external word clock connections between
the devices. Doing so ensures that audio tracks
being played or recorded by your MOTU FireWire
interface will not drift apart from tracks on the
other device during long playback or recording
passes.
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