tascam 688 synching story

Bobby Darko

Bobby Darko

New member
as some of you know I tried to sync two tascam 688's with the tascam Midiizer. After some intense reading/trying and help from you guys I managed to do it. 14 tracks to cassette on two tascam 688's. I started recording this band early this year and we succeeded in synching and recording to two machines. But then the troubles started. After some time the slave wouldn't respond properly to the master anymore while the Midizer claimed they were perfectly in sync. What we'd hear was a seasick sound, so very unworkable for tracking and dubbing.

This problem is due to the stretching of the tape in the cassettes. Restriping the master code helps, but you can't do that if you already recorded to the slave because the codes won't match up. And the problem described will come back after some more recording, rewinding etc. To make a long story short: synching 2 cassette decks is not do-able in my experience, so we took another route (recording on two machines and syncing them up in the 'puter/converting them to a digital alesis harddisc recorder and mixing via the 688's again).

But I promised you a picture of the two decks and the midizer, so here it is (looks cool, but what a pain in the ass in the end):

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/ind...endID=149136667&albumID=1878&imageID=36254129

and a movie from one of the session days:
[video=youtube;<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="https://www.youtube.com/v/yewlSQHd754&hl=nl_NL&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="https://www.youtube.com/v/yewlSQHd754&hl=nl_NL&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>]video[/video]

Don't mind the clipping digital sound, it was recorded on a laptop.
 
How on earth did you figure out that the tape was stretching?
Did you prove it somehow or is it you best guess? What type of cassette was it anyway? Does the problem go away with thicker tapes?
 
If you have two of 688 you should be a guru at least. :)Very simple question about the type cassete. I was told to use Type 2 Chrome only. Is it truth?
 
I am not a 100% sure it was the tape, but I pretty much ruled out everything else (btw it was a suggestion of an engineer I know who has lots of experience with tape -from cassette to 2"-) and it just makes perfect sense. I tried new Maxell and TDK c-60 and c-90 tapes and the problem occured on all of them after some heavy use. The Midiizer and my machines are in top condition, cables were fine, so it must be the tape. And like I said, it was working perfectly for a while. BUt if you have any other suggestions, I like to hear them. After disconnecting the Midiizer both the tapes run flawlessy again btw. They just don't sync up perfectly anymore.

What really convinced me was the fact that after striping the master tape with code again, the problem was gone. BUt I couldn't take the chance of ruining good takes, so I took another route. Cheers, hermann
 
It's good to hear this story. I've been thinking about getting a MidiIzer and a TSR-8 to hang off the back of my 688, but maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea after all. I'm loving the 688 but I want more tracks :(

The two of them side by side looks awesome. I had no idea the midiIzer was that big.
 
exactly my problem, I love just using 8 tracks, but some bands just need a little more. You should be able to hook up the TSR-8 to the 688 without too much problems btw. Just don't try two cassette based machines. Again, it does work, but not when you want to rewind and overdub a lot of times. Just be sure the tsr is the master and you'll be fine...and yes the 688's look cool together!! (I have 3 now!)
 
688+688 with midiizer

Hello,



I'm running into trouble trying to hook up two tascam 688's with a midiizer (the last machine is new to me).

Both 688 are fully services and I have the manual of all machines involved.

I link all machines as described in the midiizer manual.

The first thing I find is that the master688 won't send the tc-gen signal trough to the slave deck.

I checked all connections, even changed slave and master to rule out a defect in the 688's, but it won't work as the manual states.

No real problem there, since i just stripped both tapes seperately.



Then I ran the SET UP-mode so the midiizer coud learn the tape characteristics, after that, the "chase" mode shoud provide a locking of the two systems.

This, I coud never achieve.(i tried it 25 times)

First of all, let me tell you the dip-sitch settings, to see they are right (according to the manual they shoud be).



On the mdiizer I've set the servo frequency on 9.6kHz to match the 688's, this because the manual states most machines use this frequency, the 688's manual doesn't state anything about frequentie, I hope I got that right?

Of course it is set for a serial/serial set up.

The time base on the midiizer is 96 ppq, the 688 switches are set on 96000bps, does this match?

Both 688 are set to "external sychronisation" and "fixed tape speed", (other settings gave even worse result, but the 688's manual and the midiizer manual contradict on this issue, I followed the midiizer's manual)

I striped both tapes with 30 ndf, is this advisable for casette tape?



They just never "lock" after a "set up" run, the slave follows the master after 2 or 3 seconds, if I play forward or play back, the slave does this with start-sto-start-stop movements.

Than I noticed something weird:

while running the master seperately the time code display showed 24 instead of 30 frames?

the slave was reading 30.

If I change the master slave position of the two 688's, the same thing happens, everytime the master reads 24 the slave 30, so it must be the midiizer reading something wrong, but what?

Just to make shure, I did everything again from scratch, erased the tapes and striped them again with 30ndf, with the same result, they won't lock, master and slave show different timecode (wich I saw as the reason why they coud not lock).

The next morning, without changing a thing, suddenly both machines show a 30ndf timecode???? (as they shoud), but still they won't lock????(I hate machines that do their own thing:-(



What a I doing wrong, can anyone help me out?

are my settings ok?



many thanks for your time, effort and willingness!
 
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