Time shifting old 4 track tapes

[Schrocker]

I am using Wavelab 4.0 and Cubase VST 5.1. I got rid of my old Tascam 414 like 4 years ago and now that I'm unemployed with tons of time on my hands I'm trying to digitize my old four track stuff on a regular stereo tape deck. The recordings are all at half speed because the old four tracks used a faster tapespeed. that's easy--time shift in Wavelab. Tracks 3-4 are also backwards. That's also easy--wavelab reverse.

the bigger problem is that tracks 1 and 2 are at different speeds than 3 and four at the beginning and ending of the tape. So when I import each track into Cubase and match them up at measure 9, by the time I get to measure 15 they are no longer synced and I get (a slightly interesting) Kurt Cobainish chorus action going on. I am getting around this by cutting and nudging the tracks to match every two or three measures. Very tedious.

Is there a way(software/plugin) that I can incrementally time shift a file? Can I sync tracks after they are recorded? I don't have any extra sync machines, and am about as ignorant as you can get about syncing.

Also does anyone have a reference page that explains syncing in super simple terms?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

thanks

[PsyCoNo]

I'm not really sure if there is a 'correct' way to do this or not, but I have done something similar before. I usually tried to get the beginning notes of both tracks to line up as they are supposed to. Then I would pick a place at the end of each track which I knew were supposed to be in the same spot. I would then zoom in and see how much of a difference there is between those two points (usually in seconds), being as exact as possible. Then I would open the time stretch feature in cubase sx and adjust it by that amount. alot of it i think is patience and trial and error. hope this isnt confusing and is of some use.

[Blue Bear Sound]

Short of sending all 4 tracks at the same time (using direct outs of the multitracker if it has them), there is no other way to do it except adjust every few bars as you've been doing.

Time stretching is possible but guessing the amount of "stretch" each time is as tedious as manually shifting every few bars... PLUS - time-stretching also degrades the sound to *some* degree.

The basic issue is that the mechnical motor speed af cassette players (multitrack or otherwise) is ALWAYS varying to one degree or another, which means that every playback will introduce varying amounts of "shift" each time you play back --- so basically, the tracks never play back with the same exact time each pass.

The way to sync would have meant having previously used one track for a sync stripe, which could then be used to lock your computer to -- but you would have had to stripe the tape first -- it's useless after the fact!

[Track Rat]

Because of the drift associated with a tape transport that's not synced, You're gonna have a HELL of a time reversing, stretching and lining up tracks. If you're stuff was on something like an ADAT with VERY stable playback speed, it would be doable making a nanlog trans fer two tracks at a time and then dragging them into sync, But with what you're describing, It's my opinion that you'll never get it "right". Sorry.

[JR#97]

Like everyone else said, best of luck. I did exactly what you're doing when I found some old 4 track tapes that I didn't save to disk before I sold the 4 tracker. I used cool edit pro instead of cubase, but I basically did what you're doing... I would stretch/shrink say 6-8 measures at a time. I've also added drum tracks post mortem that way as well. Pain in the keester. It might be worth it just to rent/borrow/beg/steal another 4 tracker.