Slide-tape project (sharp RD685AV; Tascam 414)

[Samuel LB]

Hi, all – brand new here. I'm trying to learn to work in slide-tape format (35mm film slides shown via a projector controlled by a cassette tape which is also playing back audio). I'm brand new to working with cassette tape and am up to my ears in formats and speeds.

I'm working with a Sharp RD685AV dual slide projector remote and cassette deck with built in loudspeaker. It records and reads the entire tape in the same direction – cue track on top and audio on the bottom (ANSI Philips 2tr tch format).

I can live-program cues (1000hz or 150hz pulses) onto the tape using this device (pushing buttons as the tape plays), but since I'm trying to synchronize the slide advances to music, it would be simpler to lay it out on a computer: pushing the on the beat button •starts* the frame advancing on the beat, with the image *appearing* on screen about .85 seconds later. I want the image to *appear* on the beat instead. I guess I could time it all out, make a score, and try to follow along, but it would be so much simpler to do it in all in a DAW.

SO! I borrowed a Tascam 414, which reads and writes, as I'm sure you all know, in TEAC 4ch 4tr format, from a friend, and put a cassette with audio and cues recored on the Sharp machine into it. The audio seemed to play on channel 1, and the cues on channel 4. So far so good.

I laid out the music and cues in Audacity in two mono tracks, with one panned hard right and the other panned hard left. I sped everything up 100% to compensate for the 2x write speed on the Tascam. I used a y-cable to split the signal from the computer (via the headphone jack) to the inputs for channels 1 and 4 and set levels. Channel 1 seemed to have the audio going into it, as it should, and channel 4, the cues.

I recorded a test and put the tape in the Sharp machine. The audio played back at the correct speed, but the slide projector didn't advance.

I tried another test, this time recording the cues on two channels (3 and 4), and tried it in the Sharp machine. Still no dice!

I can think of a few other things I could try – making the pulses longer, louder, ect., and I will get back into that tomorrow, but in the mean time, I'm hoping that there's a simple answer – either that I've missed something obvious, or that it just isn't possible to do what I'm trying to do using the Tascam, and I ought to track down a different cassette deck to do the dubbing with. If anyone is familiar with slide-tape or any of the devices in question, could you please let me know?

THANKS IN ADVANCE!!!

Best,

Samuel

 

[Slouching Raymond]

I would record the multi-track audio as normal.
Then, while listening to the music playback, record a track of slide control tones from a keyboard.
Mix the normal audio to the left channel, and the slide control tones to the right channel.

 

[rob aylestone]

Why not remove the cassette from the system all together and squirt the audio that triggers the projectors directly into the controller. The two tones would be easy to create and the edit points could be adjusted direct?

oddly this type of query came up on an events and theatre forum recently for another reason. There are dozens of projectors going for landfill because while transparency processing is still available at only about £6 for a 24 exposure film, the only factory producing the mounts have ceased production, so everyone is running on the last ever stock. As a result, the remaining projectors are being dumped. I was in a large store this week and all their carousels were in a big heap awaiting the skip arrival in a clean out of junk. So sad. I had them with an electrosonic controller. I can see the nostalgia here, but it’s just a bit sad it’s all stopping.

the frequency requirement for tones was pretty wide because the speed stability wasnt too good, so pitch is unlikely to be the issue but level probably was. One other th8ng to check is to take the tape and flip it over and check the audio and tone tracks flip to the other tracks on the multitrack. There’s a chance the machine doesn’t use standard track widths, so the narrower multitracks ‘miss’ the track spacing on the sharp? Duplicating the tone to the adjacent track might work. If the sharp isnt vital to be left alone, maybe opening it up and inserting the audio into the tone selector circuit, after replay, would trigger the change?