Concepts & signal flow
Timecode & sync help
The Timecode & sync questions live-event techs bring to Ask Roadie most (also called genlock, LTC, MTC, sync). Pick your symptom, or describe your own in plain words, and get the likeliest fix first, with the manual page when there is one.
Common Timecode & sync questions
What techs run into most, and what's usually behind it. The step-by-step fix for your exact topic is in Ask Roadie.
- Full answerGet the answer →
Choosing between MTC and LTC for triggering, and fixing the small timing offset
Short answer: MTC is timing-only and can jitter with MIDI/buffer latency; an audio-track LTC plays back with sample timing.
- Full answerGet the answer →
Clicks, pops or dropouts on a Dante/AES67 networked audio system
Short answer: Every Dante device slaves its local clock to one elected PTP master; any momentary loss of sync to that leader drops audio samples, heard as pops/clicks.
- Full answerGet the answer →
Drop-frame vs non-drop-frame confusion at 29.97fps (clock time doesn't match timecode)
Short answer: At 29.97fps real time and frame count diverge; DF corrects the label to match the clock by dropping frame numbers (not actual frames).
- Full answerGet the answer →
LTC reader won't lock / timecode won't chase even though signal is present
Short answer: Readers recover the square-wave transitions of LTC; clipping or attenuation rounds the edges and corrupts the biphase decode.
- Full answerGet the answer →
Wireless/battery timecode boxes (Lockit/Tentacle-style) drift over a long day
Short answer: Free-running clocks drift a few frames over hours as temperature and crystal tolerance add up; periodic re-jamming resets them to the master before the drift becomes visible in sync.
- Full answerGet the answer →
Word clock is unstable / adding a device caused noise (BNC word clock topology)
Short answer: Word clock is a high-frequency square wave on 75-ohm coax; impedance mismatches from missing/extra termination or daisy-chaining create reflections that smear the clock edges and inject jitter.
Not on the list? Describe it your way, or paste the error code off the display. Ask Roadie works the problem with you until it's fixed or you have a clear next move.
How Ask Roadie helps with Timecode & sync
- 1. Pick Timecode & sync. It's already in the list.
- 2. Describe what you're seeing. In your own words, or the error code off the screen.
- 3. Get the likeliest fix first. Steps in order, the manual page when there is one, and a note when other techs have confirmed it.
- 4. Still broken? Tap 👎 and it keeps going from where you left off.