tascam 388 playback issue

[waterydomestic]

hello all--
i've been dumping tracks from my tascam 388 into pro tools (for eq, mixing, etc) via mbox but i've run into a serious issue. hopefully someone can shed some light on this issue:
since the mbox has 2 inputs, i've been dumping tracks from the tascam 2 at a time. however, it seems that the tascam has been playing back the tracks at slightly different speeds each time. for instance, pro tools tracks 1 and 2 will sync up to each other, as will tracks 3 and 4, etc. however, tracks 1 and 2 will not sync up to tracks 3/4 or any other tracks. this manifests itself in the following way: i'll sync up tracks perfectly at the beginning of a song but it will be noticeably and significantly out of the sync by the end of the song. then, if i go back and sync up the tracks with respect to the end of the song, it's out of sync at the beginning of the song. i know that the recorded tracks are okay, because if i listen to all tracks on the tascam, everything is lined up well.
has anyone experienced anything similar? i replaced the tascam belt recently, so i don't think it's an old and worn out belt. for what it's worth, my practice space is slightly slanted (okay.. quite a bit uneven at one end) so the tascam is not perfectly level. could this be affecting playback speed?
any help or insight would be much appreciated. thank you in advance.

[cjacek]

You will never get all tracks perfectly in sync dumping to pro tools that way, as the result of slight speed variations inherent to all tape recorders. You will need to transfer all 388 tracks at the same time.

[Tim Gillett]

Agree with Cjacek.
Analog tape could have locked sync but only by using one track for timecode. if you had a spare track you could conceiveably record a proper synch track and slave the 388 to its own track each time you transferred but not sure if the 388 has that ability or whether it would be worth the hassle.
My Protools Digi 001 can transfer 8 at a time. Many others can do that, and more.

If you're prepared to fiddle, you can time stretch and shrink tracks to the original two. It's not too time consuming if it's only a few short tracks and there are definite audible timing markers, say the drum beat or bass attack.

In your program, line the musical starts of the files up exactly and then work out how far out of sync they are right at the end of the track. Maybe half a second. Then work that out as a percentage of the total track time and stretch or shrink as that percentage. Make sure you dont click "maintain pitch" or you'll have instruments in time but out of tune!
It's probably best also to use the highest sample rate you can as you are chopping tiny sections of audio out of the files or adding them and the finer that's done the less damage done to the sound quality.

I've spent hours doing it on material that was not even recorded in sync, mostly old super 8 silent movie shot with a separate tape machine running for sound. It's yet another beauty of digital that this can be done so precisely.

But if you have a lot of material it will probably drive you crazy and you'd be better off getting a more suitable system with the correct number of inputs. It's a cinch then. I'm in the middle of transferring old 4 track recordings from my band and its a dream to be able to remix digitally, and without wear and tear on the valuable tapes.

Cheers Tim.

[Tim Gillett]

Forgot to say that of course this method only assures an "average" synchronisation. In practice there will be variations either side of perfect timing as the track progresses. Whether that drift is noticeable will depend partly on the length of track and type of music.

Tim

[waterydomestic]

>But if you have a lot of material it will probably drive you crazy and you'd be >better off getting a more suitable system with the correct number of inputs. >It's a cinch then. I'm in the middle of transferring old 4 track recordings from >my band and its a dream to be able to remix digitally, and without wear and >tear on the valuable tapes.

thanks for both of your advice. regarding the above: the goal in dumping from tascam 388 to pro tools is to gain access to more than 8 tracks without irreversibly bouncing/ping-ponging tracks. so even if i dumped all 8 tracks to pro tools simultaneously, you're saying i'll still encounter some measure of playback inconsistency when i dump the next 8?

thanks again for your helpful advice.

[Tim Gillett]

That's right.