User Manual

WAVELAB
27 – 650 Synchronizing WaveLab to external devices
Introduction
It is possible to synchronize the audio playback in WaveLab to incoming
MIDI Time Code (MTC), or via the ASIO Positioning Protocol (for sample
accurate sync).
• For MTC sync to be possible, you need to have a MIDI Interface installed
and working!
• For sync to ASIO Positioning Protocol, you need compatible audio hardware
with a built-in time code reader.
See “Sync to ASIO Positioning Protocol (APP)” on page 656.
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). However, there is still one problem: Even though Wave-
Lab 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 to a tape recorder providing MTC. As
the clock on the computer’s audio card and the internal clock of the mas-
ter (in this case the tape recorder) are not synchronized, the audio file(s)
played back by WaveLab and the tape tracks will inevitably be drifting out
of sync after a period of time.
The solution is to not only synchronize WaveLab, 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 WaveLab (ensuring
that audio playback starts at the correct time position) and word
clock to
the audio card (ensuring that audio playback continuously
follows the
master device.