Bouncing Tascam 424 into DAW

[gasandmatches]

I've read a few posts about using a SMPTE snyc device to sync a Tascam 424 to a DAW. And of course syncing that way eliminates usage of your 4th track for anything but time code.

I'm want to try using all 4 tracks and still use the 424 as the front end to my Sonar 6 based system. And then try and line things up graphically in Sonar. Basically to achieve the sound of a 424 on an unlimited number of simultaneous tracks. Heres a possible scenario, if anyone has done this or something like it let me know how it went.


recording drums to tracks 1-4 in 424, i'd have drummer play to click from an audio track in Sonar as well as guitar scratch monitored from Sonar.

Start recording on Sonar and 424: before drummer starts playing switch one of mic inputs on 424 with a line source monitoring the click from Sonar (for alignment purposes), let 424 record a few clicks, then switch back to mic and start recording drums. maybe repeat this switching process at the end of the take.

Playback tape and send outputs 1-4 to seperate tracks in Sonar. Line up those pre-drum playing clicks graphically from 424 to corresponding clicks in Sonar.

Then I figure after this I could repeat the process for guitar, bass, and everything else. And since I'd need a maximum of 3 channels for the each rest of the instruments I could monitor and record a feed of the click and main mix from sonar onto one track of the 424 for reference and keep sending and aligning things similarly to the method used with the drums.

Possible problems:

-The tape speed could fluctuate slightly from take to take throwing off this whole process. Does any think this may be a major problem?

- the click recorded on the 424 may look different graphically or have different attack/release characteristics because of the tapes reaction to the sound source of the click, which could differ from the digital audio representation of the click.

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I'm going to try it this weekend and will post some results next week. If anyone has done something like this please respond and let me know how it went for you. take care

 

[omtayslick]

Interesting. Do let us know how it works out. Can I ask why you want the 424 as a front end to a Sonar DAW? Is it all that you have available, or do you prefer it's sound in some way?

 

[gasandmatches]

I want to use the 424 as the front end just for fun. I recorded some drums to it a few days ago and really like the way the cassette tape responds. Nice warm sound. Mics used:

Kick: Shure Beta 52
Snare: Shure Beta 57
Overheads: Studio Projects LSD-2 Stereo Condenser

I usually use a Tascam M-50 12 Channel Analog Console straight into my Presonus Firepod. Or a combination of lower end tube preamps.

 

[rayc]

I record of ten to my Yamaha MT100 then take the line out for each channel directly into a channel of my soundcard b/out box - play/record.
The 1st set are easy. subsequent sets need to be synched & that takes a little time but drop & drag is OK. It's keeping the timing that's difficult. I keep something on 1 track of tape - be it a drum beat, click track etc - to keep the timing reasonably accurate. Then repeat as needed.
You can by a synch box that will put a synch click onto one of your tape tracks it's therer so that the midi of your comp can read the synch.
Both ways need something on 1 tape track for synch.
You can use all 4 tracks whilst listening to playback from your comp but I've had probs with that manily because I'm an idiot.
Its easier to synch in the daw if tracks are the same length as well.
Good luck.

 

[gasandmatches]

rayc- just to reiterate. I'm trying not to use a sync device so I can have all 4 tracks free for recording. but I'm glad to know that you've tried the drag and drop method and it's worked well for you. hopefully it will work out the same for me.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

-The tape speed could fluctuate slightly from take to take throwing off this whole process. Does any think this may be a major problem?

This is exactly the potential (and likely) problem you'll face if you try doing multiple dumps from tape to PC without sume kind of synch. You can do it once; i.e. fill up all 4 tracks and dump them off to PC without any major issue, but as soon as you try adding more 4-track layers, you're going to face the analog motor speed drift issue.

Amother issue to be concerned about, IMHO, is that the more tracks you add up on your PC that come from that portastudio tape, the more buildup of tape hiss you're going to have. For example, three passes like that will give you 12 tracks of tape hiss on the PC which, when summed together, will be quite noticable and probably quite undesireable.

What you could do, though this is rather a comprimise, is rather than use your Portastudio as a recorder, use it as a submixer for recording to your your PC. The upside is that you won't have the extra tape noise and you won't have the sync issues. The downside/comprimise part of it is that since the Portastudio does not have direct outs on it's channel strips (I don't think it does, does it?) this means you'd have to mix your four channels down to a stereo submix on-the-fly rather than have the mix choices to make at leisure on playback.

But if you plan ahead and try a couple of dry run/practice takes to get the live mixes set right, the results from the live mix can be just as good as a post mix, and without the problems introduced by tape.

G.

 

[danw]

This sounds like a higher-end version of what I do. All I use is audacity, but I do 4 tracks at a time on a Tascam 424, mix them down to stereo tracks, and mix those in Audacity. After the first 4, I do a mono skeleton-mix of what I've got back onto one track, track three more, and then tape something over the mix track if I need to because I can get the timing from the other three. Yeah, I do run into timing issues when mixing the stereo tracks in audacity -- things line up at the beginning but are way off by the end -- but those are fixable. I usually have to zoom way in and either cut out or paste in tiny time segments in quiet periods throughout the mix, to keep the timing consistent. I don't hear it in the final mix. What you're talking about sounds plenty doable, it'll just take some time.

 

[TinNedd]

Why not just use the portastudio for mastering. Record it digitaly and then send it to tape for mastering. If you have the right sound card then all the inputs of the portastudio can be used. I happened to come across an tascam 8 track cassette deck a while back, though I accidently shortchanged myself when I had updated my sound card a little earlier......mmmmm...



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[gasandmatches]

Why not just use the portastudio for mastering.
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My main reason for not doing that is because I want to capture it to tape first. It will no doubt sound better captured to tape, than recorded digitally and sent to tape. But I get what you're saying. I've done that in the past and it sounds pretty cool.

-thanks everyone for your input so far. I'll post something next week. last weekend was crazy for me.

 

[gvdv]

danw and gasandmatches,
Out of interest, what are you both using to clean the rubber pinch roller on your 424. A few years ago I had a hell of a time trying to locate something that would do the job because Tascam had stopped making this cleaner and all of the other products that people told me about would, apparently, have eventually shrivelled up the rubber of the captsan roller.

I loved my 424 MKII, but it did not get much use after I ran out of pinch roller cleaner.

Ironically, I had wanted to transfer my four tracks from the 424 to computer, so this thread has been quite helpful.

I did have the experience a couple of years ago of only being able to transfer two tracks at a time because my friends audio interface could only accept two inputs at a time. That resulted in not being able to synchronize the tracks. Now, however, I have a new DAW with a presonus firestudio, so I'll be able (in theory) to plug my 424 MK II into the firestudio and transfer all four tracks at once.

Thanks, once again, for the thread,

 

[TinNedd]

Try a drop of dishwashing liquid in water, whith cleaning bud for the rubber pinch roller.

 

[Whale Bone]

I recently found an old 424 soundtrack project tape that I wanted to transfer to Sonar and 'remaster'. I have an Echo Mia with 2 analog and 2 digital in's. I tried playing 2 tracks into my dbx 386 into the digital in's, but when I went back to play tracks 3 and 4, I couldn't get the tracks to line up. Like mentioned above, it's not playing consistently, but not enough to ever notice when all tracks are played together. Since it is a consistency problem, I couldn't just squash the longer tracks to match the shorter ones because they would still go in and out of sync.

In the end I had to pick which two tracks I sent through my mediocre mixer to the Mia's analog in's and which 2 to the dbx for the digital in's. Once I did it this way, all the trouble was gone.

It did start me wondering about what you are trying to do. It's been a number of years since I'd listened back on my 4-track work, and I was amazed at the rich sound I was getting out of bass, elec and acoustic guitar and vox. Made me wonder for a second about going to the computer.

Is there a way to monitor the sound from the tape as it's being recorded? Like using the 4 track outputs (as opposed the L and R busses) while recording to get the sound, but record directly to Sonar so you can avoid ever having to play the tape back to extract the tracks. I have a feeling the monitoring doesn't work that way, though. But, I seem to recall the manual saying it was monitoring the tape. Oh, man, you're making me want to dig it out again and start playing around with this.

 

[gvdv]

Try a drop of dishwashing liquid in water, whith cleaning bud for the rubber pinch roller.

TinNedd,
Thanks for this, but wouldn't the dishwashing liquid eventually eat at the rubber pinch roller?

I know that when I was doing 'old' (non-digital) photography, one way of (cheaply) getting a film to dry after you had processed it was to add a drop of dishwashing liquid to a couple of gallons of water, in which you washed or rinshed the film prior to hanging it up for drying. I ceased doing this (and even stopped using the more expensive wetting agent, which this was a cheap alternative to) because a little too much dishwashing liquid would eat the emulsion of the film.

Because of the similarity in plastic/rubber constructions of the film base and pinch roller, I'm wondering if it might have a progressive, negative affect on the pinch roller.

Thanks again for your response,

GVDV

 

[gasandmatches]

I never got around to doing this because I didn't have time and it probably wouldn't have worked. But i did pick up a JL cooper PPS-2 for 20 bucks and i'm gonna start syncing to logic or sonar with it. 3 tracks at a time.

in response to this:

Is there a way to monitor the sound from the tape as it's being recorded? Like using the 4 track outputs (as opposed the L and R busses) while recording to get the sound, but record directly to Sonar so you can avoid ever having to play the tape back to extract the tracks. I have a feeling the monitoring doesn't work that way, though. But, I seem to recall the manual saying it was monitoring the tape. Oh, man, you're making me want to dig it out again and start playing around with this.

You can't monitor whats recorded on the tape as it's being recorded. at least not on the 424. the signal path doesn't work that way. I believe the direct outs are only engaged in playback mode.