Newbie question: TASCAM 488 (not MKII) > PC ?

Ryasi19

New member
Hi all. This is my first post here, so please bear with me if I am covering old ground...

I am a longtime TASCAM 488 user who is planning on going digital (ARK 20 + CoolEdit Pro, most likely) within 6 months or so.

I have several years' worth of 8 track stuff on the 488 which I would like to transfer. I have seen the article on going from the 488 MKII to PC, but my 488 doesn't have all those outputs that the MKII does. It appears as if I am stuck with only being able to transfer 4 tracks at a time.

I'm thinking I can kick tracks 1-4 out, then do likewise with 5-8, and somehow (wave magic wand here) sync the two groups together using CoolEdit Pro or some other software. Is that a realistic strategy, especially given the specter of varying tape speeds?

Thanks!

- Rich
 
I've done stuff like that with Cakewalk. I can zoom in incredibly far and slide tracks so close in synch that you can't hear any difference. I even combined a drum track by synching it that way. The drum track was right on, but the instrumentals were all over the place. So I just cut and pasted the drum track to synch up and viola. Come to think of it I have also transfered 2 tracks at a time for a total of maybe 8 tracks, and slid them into synch using the waveforms in the same manner.
 
Just remembered a helpful hint. If you do transfer that way, just transfer the same drum track with each transfer operation, and then you can line up the drum tracks in each set and get them 99.999999999999999 percent accurate.
 
Or you could record a single click at the beginning or end of each song on all tape tracks. That might be a little hairy. Something you may not want to do without planning it beforehand.

[This message has been edited by monty (edited 05-26-2000).]
 
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