How to make TASCAM 238 chase DAW?

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troutmask

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Hi,

After years of working in digital and finally becoming frustrated enough with the limitations of the format, I've decided that I want to start working with tape again -- specifically, I've been looking at getting a TASCAM 238 (I know that real tapeheads will grimace at such a prospect [especially since I just talked about the 'limitations' of digital], and in that respect, I have been looking at some R2Rs as well, though my experience with R2R machines is far more limited).

What I'd like to do is this:

Set up a DAW (probably Cubase, since it seems to run far better on my system than Adobe Audition) as an SMPTE master
Track using a 238 as an SMPTE slave
(I'm thinking that if I can work this way, as long as I print the same SMPTE information to each subsequent tape, I can track to different tapes and maintain synchronization without having to bounce tracks or anything like that)
And then, for the mixes, dump the tape tracks into the DAW while maintaining sync on any tapes involved

Is this even feasible? Is it possible to record to a 238 while it is in slave mode? I haven't bought a 238 yet -- it is just the latest gadget to catch my eye, and I wanted to get some feedback from other to see if what I wanted to do was even possible. Exactly what equipment would I need to make this work?

Thanks in advance
 
Look for one of the sync boxes Tascam made for the 238. They're pretty rare and expensive, but one surfaces on Ebay from time to time. This page explains what each box does:

The Tascam 238 FAQ
 
It would actually be cheaper and easier to slave a DAW to the 238, I think. Use a MOTU MIDI Timepiece to stripe SMPTE onto the tape, play that back through the MOTU to convert it to MTC, send the MTC to your DAW.
 
I understand what you're saying about slaving the DAW to the 238, but my reason for doing it the other way is to maintain consistency between different tapes. That way, if I use the 7 available tracks on one tape, I don't have to bounce tracks or do a mixdown, I can just switch to another tape, print the timecode on the new tape, and work from there. At least, this is what I'm attempting to do.

Thanks for the link. I did some additional research on Cubase and found that it could act as the master or slave through MTC. So I'm guessing I will need a unit that utilizes the Accessory port in order to slave the 238 to control the tape speed through the DAW. It is looking like finding an MMC-100 or an MTS-100 would be my best bet to interface through the Accessory port VIA MIDI. Would I need a separate unit to handle the MTC signal, though, or would one of these boxes be able to handle it?
 
That page explicitly mentions MMC (MIDI Machine Control) but not MTC (MIDI Time Code). So you would need to make sure your DAW can send MMC. It looks like you would only need one box to slave one 238.
 
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