When an analogue track is mixed down to digital format...

Beck said:
Every sort of recording device will drift out of sync with another if they aren’t locked through some kind of synchronization, like SMPTE, etc. Two identical DAW interfaces will drift apart as well if not synced together, so the phenomenon isn’t solely an analog issue.
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That's sort of true and sort of not true. With my 488, I recently found a way of getting all 8 tracks out simultaneously. Not to bore with details {it's in a thread somewhere in the Tascam forum} but basically, because my DAW can record 6 tracks at once and I have two of the same machine, I simultaneously record to 6 tracks on one and to two on the other. Then I record the two onto the machine that has the 6. I press the play {machine 1} and play/record {machine 2} buttons at the same time and when all 8 tracks are on the DAW, there is virtually no timing difference. It's usually a milisecond and I suspect that's more to do with the micro difference between my left hand and right hand button presses. Even with a 35 minute piece, there was no noticeable drift. Actually, the absence of drift is what makes the system a winner.
 
I don't want to jinx you, Grimtraveller, but you're very, very lucky.

As Beck said, even digital devices can (and do) drift unless they are specifically synced together with distributed wordclock or something similar. Years ago I had occasion to try and do a recording using two different sound cards--one of them a Tascam--and, even on takes as short as 3 minutes there was significant drift.

Analogue machines, with belts and pinch rollers that can wear, tend to be even worse, hence all the money spent on time code or it's predecessors.

So...enjoy your system in the knowledge that you're very lucky. In fact, I suggest you go buy a lottery ticket!
 
Bobbsy said:
Analogue machines, with belts and pinch rollers that can wear, tend to be even worse, hence all the money spent on time code or it's predecessors.
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Hey, tell me about it ! The number of times I've tried to get analog machines to remain in sync without any kind of timecode. It's never worked and all that's happened is that my blood pressure has quadrupled and I've known a rage that even Darth Vader would've been wise to evade !
Bobbsy said:
I don't want to jinx you, Grimtraveller, but you're very, very lucky.

As Beck said, even digital devices can (and do) drift unless they are specifically synced together with distributed wordclock or something similar. Years ago I had occasion to try and do a recording using two different sound cards--one of them a Tascam--and, even on takes as short as 3 minutes there was significant drift.
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I'm amazed at that, to be honest. Would that apply to standalones too ? My DAW is the Akai DPS 12i and it came out around 2000. I have 2, both bought 2nd hand, one in 2005 at a used instrument store in Lewisham, South London {via ebay}, the other last year in Hammersmith, West London, at one of the few remaining instrument exchanges that I know of. I initially bought the second one as a back up unit but I've been using it as regularly as the 'main' unit. I always have loads of projects on the go, I can't even say which is my main unit.
Sometimes, I record tracks from one project to another and I don't get drift. I'll often look at the numbers flying by and they're bang on, give a milisecond or so. It's been great for mixing because I use one as the mixdown deck and it enables me to mix in sections.
I thought that digital units always run at exactly the same speed and timing although in thinking about it, I have two digital clocks in my van, one on the stereo, one on the dashboard. When the clocks go back or forward I set them simultaneously and over a period of 6 or so weeks, they do drift apart. If I let it, it'll go as far as two minutes apart.
Bobbsy said:
So...enjoy your system in the knowledge that you're very lucky. In fact, I suggest you go buy a lottery ticket !
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:laughings:
 
grimtraveller said:
That's sort of true and sort of not true. With my 488, I recently found a way of getting all 8 tracks out simultaneously. Not to bore with details {it's in a thread somewhere in the Tascam forum} but basically, because my DAW can record 6 tracks at once and I have two of the same machine, I simultaneously record to 6 tracks on one and to two on the other. Then I record the two onto the machine that has the 6. I press the play {machine 1} and play/record {machine 2} buttons at the same time and when all 8 tracks are on the DAW, there is virtually no timing difference.
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I should add that it's a matter of when not if. Any two unsynchronized record/playback devices will drift apart, but they don't all drift at the same rate. As I stated further up, people would be surprised how long even two analog decks will stay together, but they will eventually drift apart. You may get through a song depending on length... or two, but at some point one falls behind because they're working off of two different internal clocks and one will be slower. Generally speaking two identical DAWs will stay together longer than two analog decks. You can get lucky or very unlucky depending on how close the two Daws are in timing. It's the same with two computer clocks drifting apart if they aren't synced to the same master time reference.
 
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Let's synchronize our watches......

Well, I've been "lucky" many times over the last 9 months. Let's hope it holds up !
 
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blacktino79 said:
Believe it or not, I just go straight from the outs of my Reel to Reel and into Pro Tools
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That's pretty much what everyone does in one degree or another...some might have a mixer in-between the reel and the DAW...but certainly everyone has to hit a set of converters.

The issue in this thread isn't so much about the routing of the signals...but more about synchronization considerations and the pros/cons of bouncing overdubs from reel to DAW and vice-versa. What is easier to do and/or sounds better...etc.
 
...though I hope he has some kind of interface in the middle. I've never seen a piece of DAW software that could record an analogue signal by osmosis!
 
It could never hurt to...

put a reference tone on the beginning and/or end of the tape for tuning and pitch matching purposes, whether it goes to DAW or not.

:spank::eek:;)
 
Beck said:
I should add that it's a matter of when not if. Any two unsynchronized record/playback devices will drift apart, but they don't all drift at the same rate. As I stated further up, people would be surprised how long even two analog decks will stay together, but they will eventually drift apart. You may get through a song depending on length... or two, but at some point one falls behind because they're working off of two different internal clocks and one will be slower. Generally speaking two identical DAWs will stay together longer than two analog decks. You can get lucky or very unlucky depending on how close the two Daws are in timing.
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An interesting update for anyone still interested. I pointed out a few months ago that I have two identical DAWs and that when going between the two, I get no noticeable drift. Even on a piece that was more than 35 minutes, when adding four tracks from one to the other, machine B ran the whole time in sync with no drift.
Anyway, I wondered what would happen if I tried the same with a different DAW. As well as two Akai DPS 12i s, I also have the Zoom MRS 8, which I bought last year for the specific purpose of backwards recording. I could use my Tascam 488 cassette portastudio, but there, there would be drift issues. Anyway, I have this song and I wanted a guitar part played backwards in the middle section so I made a note of where on the DPS 12i the part would start and end then I transfered a guide of drums and acoustic guitar to the MRS 8. Reversed that and played a three minute piece on guitar, then reversed the guitar so it was now back to front and sent it back to the DPS 12i manually, beginning at the start point. There may have been a millisecond between my two fingers hitting play/record on the DPS 12i and play on the MRS 8 but the piece fitted perfectly, no drift at all. I did it 3 times and each time there was no drift. Neither machine was synched in any way, the only synchronization was my fingers hitting the buttons simultaneously.
Earlier, the consensus was that I was rather fortunate. I don't believe that now. I think digital machines run at exactly the same rate. Should I discover otherwise, that will come as a surprize.
 
grimtraveller said:
Earlier, the consensus was that I was rather fortunate. I don't believe that now. I think digital machines run at exactly the same rate. Should I discover otherwise, that will come as a surprize.
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Digital machines do not all run at the same rate, but many may be quite close because the technology is fairly mature the problems have generally been addressed. If you run them long enough they will drift, it's just a matter of how long before you can tell. And there are notorious cases of devices with clock issues.
 
One 35 minute piece is Nutz!

Even "Thick as a Brick" was divided into two 17-1/2 minute segments.
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Well, there's 20 segments on this one {it's called, rather bombastically, "The bizarre cavortings of the enchanted fieldmice" which contains part of a line I once heard in "NYPD Blue"}. It was inspired by the chorus of the song in the Pied piper movie that Donovan did, eons ago. I only ever saw it once and I wasn't really paying attention as I was babysitting.
I recorded it on my 8 track cassette portastudio. I started recording it in 1995 and finished it in about 2006. It wasn't meant to be so long but I just kept getting more and more ideas and then my mate drumming and I would be warming up before recording and I'd love what we were doing and so I'd just record it and keep it. If I had stuck to the original plan, it would have been about 22 minutes. Once I could see that it was going to go over the 22 minute mark {that's all I could fit onto an SA90}, I went down to Brighton with my 4 track and recorded the sea, kids screaming, arguments and seagulls and that made an effective link to the two tapes. The join is still impossible to spot.
When I originally mixed it, it was onto cassette {because there was no gap if you hit the pause button on the older decks} but since working out how to get all 8 tracks of my portastudio stuff simultaneously into the DAW, I've remixed it, in sections, just like engineers used to back in the 60s and 70s. I call it poor man's automation.
 
grimtraveller said:
Is nearly 37 minutes long enough ?
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Apparently not in this case. I routinely sync up audio recorded on my HD24 to video from my old digital camcorder. Generally I can match the audio to one point of an hour long tape and have it stay for the whole thing. The HD24 (non XR version) is notorious for having an inaccurate clock at 44.1kHz but is fine at 48kHz, so I always use it in 48 and it matches up with other stuff well enough for me.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
Apparently not in this case. I routinely sync up audio recorded on my HD24 to video from my old digital camcorder. Generally I can match the audio to one point of an hour long tape and have it stay for the whole thing.
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I wasn't being flippant when I asked if 37 minutes was long enough. I'm genuinely fascinated by all this and to find that I can actually get my portastudio tracks out to the DAW simultaneously is a joy for me, given that I've been on a quest for this very thing since 2004.
 
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