help with using 2 usb audio devices in cakewalk

[bandcaptain]

HI. I am recording 4 tracks at once from 2 stereo USB devices in cakewalk music creator 4. one is a Maudio fast track usb and one is a line 6 pod x3 live.
both devices work together in WDM/KS and MME mode. problem is, the tracks recorded from the POD x3 are 15ms late compared to the fast track.
is there a way to fix this, other than manually moving the audio everytime I record? I realize I need a better recording device but cant afford for a few months. is there any other cheap/ free recording software that might have such a time adjustment? I can't seem to find an adjustment in cakewalk. I have deleted the aud.ini, rerun the wave profiler and played with buffer sizes and havent found a solution. any ideas?thanks

[AndyH]

The clocks in two different sound cards are always different enough to cause problems if one tries to use them together. The only way this works, and it is done quite often, is to use just one clock to drive all related devices.

In professional studios this is usually done with a wordclock device. The soundcards, and anything else that must be synched, must all have wordclock input options to be used in this kind of setup. The majority of cards sold for home and amateur use do not support wordclock.

Many other soundcards can be synched together via S/PDIF. One is selected to be the master. Its S/PDIF output is sent to the other’s S/PDIF input. That second card must be set, via its control panel, to expect S/PDIF input. The incoming S/PDIF signal will provide the clock for the second soundcard. If you don’t select the S/PDIF for recording in the recording application, that is all it does; you still record from the analogue inputs.

OF course, both soundcards must have S/PDIF capabilities. Without this, you are generally screwed. There are probably a few other ways to do the same thing, for those relatively few cards that have other digital I/O, but if you don’t have S/PDIF, you probably don’t have anything else either.

More than two soundcards can usually be chained together through S/PDIF.

[bandcaptain]

yeah that makes good sense. due to the complexity of using multiple devices I am going to get a single interface that records 8-10 tracks at once, that should cover my needs.
but, until then , there has got to be some way to sync the tracks recorded from different devices, maybe not in cakewalk but somehow,. I mean its a solid predictable and repeatable 15ms delay, are there any multitrack recorders that have a manual adjustment to compensate for such a delay?

[AndyH]

Adobe Audition, although not having used that facility, I can't say how easy it is to make work well. One can download a limited time trial edition from the Adobe site.

[TimOBrien]

The ONLY way to use multiple devices reliably is if they are produced by the same manufactuer, use the same driver and were BUILT to be ganged together.

Otherwise you're just banging your head against the wall...

[AndyH]

While there are some soundcards with drivers intended to support multiple chained cards, such as the M-Audio Delta series, I think a poll would find many people who have been quite successful with unrelated cards. Nothing is guaranteed, obviously. You have to try them and find out if there are any problems.