This is another story I’d been meaning to tell but never got around to it.
Sweetwater is a music technology retailer, specializing in high-end gear at reasonable prices. Not just musical instruments (which are available for much lower prices elsewhere) but professional recording equipment: effects racks, mixers, microphones, sound cards of all types, etc. They advertise in TapeOp quite a bit with testimonials about how great their service is and how their staff is so knowledgeable!
Hells Bells, I’ll let them tell you: this is copy & pasted directly from their site…
…when you call Sweetwater to talk to your Sales Engineer, you talk to your Sales Engineer, not get stuck in some frustrating, labyrinthine phone system. The only thing computer-like about our Sweetwater Sales Engineers is their encyclopedic knowledge of music technology equipment. When you have questions about your gear – when you want to know how to interface your equipment with the rest of your setup or need to figure out the best sync box for your system – your Sweetwater Sales Engineer can discuss your options with you and help you make the best choice for your gear. Call us now and experience the kind of in-depth, specialized knowledge Sweetwater is known for.
I’ll try and spare you the boring, nitty gritty details but the dilemma in my home studio was being able to simultaneously use multiple digital devices of differing interfaces. You see, when you record digitally, you’ve got to have the devices “locked” or in synchronization. If you record with digital devices out of sync, then the recording sounds bad.
Additionally, in my experience, you can’t “daisy chain” digital devices. In other words, you can only get a good sync-lock between two devices without requiring anything other than the sound cord. Mind you: TWO devices. You cannot add a third digital device to this mix because a) there’s no way to physically do this because different devices have different interface options and b) you would lose synchronization anyway, because of the way word clock sync works. I’m simplifying things here because I want this blog entry accessible to everyone.
I had three digital devices: two rack modules and the PC. So my dilemma was getting all my digital devices to play nice with one another.
Now, reading things like the above quote on Sweetwater’s website and seeing their ads in TapeOp made me think, “Hey, I’m stabbing away in the dark if I decide to simply buy a bunch of gear and hope it all connects together. I should call these guys and see if they have a solution I haven’t thought of.”
So I called Sweetwater and got ahold of “Scott,” one of their Sales Engineers. Scott was a decent fellow throughout our mutiple discussions. I gave to him the list of my devices and what I wanted to accomplish.Additionally, I said, “If I need more gear, that’s fine. I just want to be able to use all the gear I paid for.” Scott said he certainly understood and that no one expects to lose the use of one digital device when you buy another.
Exactly what I was thinking!! What I really wanted was for Scott to casually say, “To get those three digital devices to communicate, you need A, B, and C. Here’s how you hook them up. Here’s our prices on those items.” But it didn’t happen that way. Scott went on to tell me there shouldn’t be any sync issues if I just hook them all together with standard S/PDIF cable (which is what I have).
I said, “Well, no, Scott. That’s what I’ve done. Doing it that way means I can’t get a lock. I’ve tried multiple times. It doesn’t work.”
“Ok then,” Scott replies, “how about an Apogee Big Ben Master word clock generator.”
“Now you’re talkin’ like Christopher Walken!” I say, not knowing much about the thing. “Will that hook up to all my devices?” I query.
“It should. It’s a pretty popular box,” he says.
A few clicks here and a few clicks there on the website reveals that the Apogee Big Ben sends word clock data via BNC ports, none of which are found on any of my digital devices, including the sound card in my PC.
“Uhh, I’m not sure that’ll work, Scott” I say. “I’m short on BNC ports.”
“Oh. What about the S/PDIF or AES/EBU inputs?” he asks.
As he’s asking me these things, I’m thinking…wait a second. Why the hell am I telling him about daisy-chaining not working and why is he asking me whether certain interface options will work?? HE’S SUPPOSED TO KNOW THIS SHIT! What about all that “encyclopedic knowledge” stuff? Scott tells me he’s gotta consult with the engineers and he’ll call me back. Fine.
Couple days later, Scott did actually call back. He told me that according to the Sweetwater engineers, the Big Ben should do the trick.
“So how do I hook it up?” I asked.
“You connect your racks and your PC to the Big Ben and there should be a single word clock signal.”
“What I’m asking is how do I connect all these parts? Specifically. I mean, do I go S/PDIF from rack 1 to the Big Ben, then AES/EBU from rack 2 to the Big Ben? Or do I connect rack 1 to rack 2 and THEN connect it to the Big Ben? If so, connect it with what kind of cable? And we haven’t gotten to connecting the PC yet. How do I do that once the racks are connected? What do I connect it to the PC with?
And what about setting the racks to either send or receive lock signals? Which racks get what settings for when I hook all this stuff up? Will both racks be receiving lock signals from the Big Ben or what?”
You see, I’m a moron. I am pretty lost when it comes to this stuff and I want an iron-clad plan for connecting everything up before I make a purchase. I don’t think that’s asking too much.
The point here, friends, is this: if you’re going to claim encyclopedic knowledge and the like, then let it shine, baby! Don’t let the customer confuse himself with his own preconceived notions. Worse is allowing the customer to confuse the retailer. There should be no confusion. For instance, if I’m confused and there really is a way to daisy-chain these devices, then sell me something that makes it work. On the other hand, if I’m right about daisy-chaining not working…then sell me something that bypasses that limitaion. I’m pretty sure that’s what this situation is made of.
As it stands today, I’m still without a solution. I may sell one of those digital racks on e-bay just to get rid of it.
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