MOTU Micro Lite [119/166] Ltc mode

SYNCHRONIZATION

119

10 To stop striping, click Stop.

You can stop striping at any time.

Of course, if you want to stripe a tape and meanwhile get

on with other work, you can quit ClockWorks. Striping

will proceed in the background.

Striping SMPTE on a multitrack tape deck

The goal when striping SMPTE time code is to generate an

error-free signal strong enough for reliable lockup, but not

so strong that the SMPTE bleeds through to adjacent

tracks.

There are several ways to handle this. One way is to leave

an empty track on your multi-track tape deck as a buffer

between the SMPTE and other tracks. With a buffer track,

SMPTE can be recorded at very strong (“hot”) levels

(above 0 VU) without risk of bleedthrough.

If your tape deck has no tracks to spare, a good level at

which to record is around –3 VU. That is, the VU meter for

the SMPTE track on your tape deck should read –3 when

you stripe the SMPTE. This records SMPTE that is hot

enough for reliable lockup and weak enough so that it will

not bleed into adjacent tracks. -3 VU is only a rule of

thumb, though, so don’t hesitate to use other levels if they

work better for you.

LTC MODE

In LTC mode, your Express interface locks to incoming

SMPTE time code received on its SMPTE IN jack. But LTC

mode differs from LTC QuikLock mode (page 43) in

several signiﬁcant ways. In LTC mode, your Express

interface:

■ Emits regenerated LTC on its SMPTE OUT jack

■ Analyzes incoming time code and responds in several

useful ways, depending on what happens to the incoming

time code

■ Measures incoming time code with an extremely

accurate internal clock to see how fast or slow it is running

and displays the results in the SMPTE Reader window in

ClockWorks