Four track tapes and new midi tracks

[slapnpop]

I need to get my 4 track demos onto my computer and be able to put new [in time] sequenced or looped drum parts in place of the old repeating drum machine patterns. I Have an AMD Athlon 64 3400+, G of RAM, REASON, and Ozone for hardware interface. Looking at M-powered ProTools or Cakewalk HomeStudio. I don't know if either will do what I need and which one would run better on my computer. Someone please help.

 

[Dr Biscuits]

Either one will work for you, but no matter what software you use you will most likely need to correct for time on your tracks after you digitize them (assuming you're bringing them in seperately) because your 4-track will most likely not be playing back at exactly the same speed each time - if you can, put a click at the beginning and end of each track to help you sync them up....
Of course I'm assuming you're talking a cassete 4-track - if it's digital, no problem!

 

[slapnpop]

First thanks for the reply. But I really need to know how. After the tracks are on the computer and in time with each other. How do I get the program to recognize the tempo and time for the entire song.

 

[Dr Biscuits]

You can create a MIDI time map, which will compensate for the fact that your audio is probably not going to be playing back at a consistent speed due to tape stretching... basically you tap along.... This article's a bit old, but might be of some use for the steps to do it in Cubase http://www.popeye-x.com/tech/cubase_notes_2001.htm

 

[slapnpop]

Have you or anyone else used Pro Tools Beat Detective for such a project?

 

[altitude909]

What are the sync options on your 4 track?

 

[rayc]

I can sympathise & empathise having gone through this prob recently.
I'd use up my 4 tracks so couldn't retro a time stripe for synching. I was looking a various synch set ups but in the end bought a good sound card with multiple In/Outs so I could dump all 4 tracks to comp.
As for synching up a new drum track. maybe your prog. will find timing etc that you can work to. cakewalk has something in there but I'm not sure if it needs to have a midi track already inserted to read from. With a quick google I found this in an advert for cakewalk 9:
Powerful audio waveform editing enables you to combine or split sounds, remove silence, normalise levels, add time or pitch stretching, extract audio timing and more.

Cheers
rayC

 

[scapedog]

4 tracks from analog to digital

I can sympathise & empathise having gone through this prob recently.
I'd use up my 4 tracks so couldn't retro a time stripe for synching. I was looking a various synch set ups but in the end bought a good sound card with multiple In/Outs so I could dump all 4 tracks to comp.

I'm running into this problem too -- I'm getting back to some 15-year-old 4-track recordings (I have a Yamaha MT100 if that even means anything to anyone anymore), and I'd like to extract the audio from my 4-track sources to individual digitized audio tracks for further manipulation and editing. And it just isn't playing the same speed every time, so I get two tracks that don't quite sync up with the other two.

I found that "exercising" the tape a bit (ff past what I want, then rewind) helps some (presumably normalizing the tape resistance over the section), but it's still not perfect. Most of my tapes are recorded at double speed, one thing I haven't tried is playing them back at standard speed and then speeding them up on the computer. In fact, that might well be a better option just in terms of sound quality, though unless the speed is more stable at standard speed, the error will probably multiply (not to mention that it's going to take twice as long to do it).

I came here off a web search, looking into options I might have for my G5 iMac for recording simultaneously off of 4 inputs, so that whatever tape speed wavering there is at least stays in synch for all four tracks. Most of what I've come across is a bit higher-end than what I'm really after -- this is mostly just a preservation project, for tapes (and performances) of somewhat dubious quality anyway, though I still want to squeeze as much as I can out of them within reason.

Any ideas would be appreciated -- if it's a Known Fact, for example, that digitizing from a 4-track playing at half speed and speeding it up on the digital end is a Dumb Idea, I'd love to know about it before wasting countless hours. Or if there's a simple but relatively reliable little USB audio device with 4 inputs that GarageBand (or anything) can record from that someone can recommend, I'd be glad to hear about it. My web searches so far have come up a bit off-target.