The ADAT Bridge comes with a standalone mode. When first turned on it will look at both the AES/EBU and S/PDIF ports for a valid word clock signal. If it sees one, it will lock to that word clock, the digital light will go solid, the sync mode will switch to digital, and the ADAT Bridge will pass the digital audio to all 16 ADAT optical ports. This allows you to transfer audio from your CD to an ADAT tape and lets you choose on which two tracks to record the information.