Wow I looked up those units they don't seem too terrible expensive! I always thought this kind of setup was incredibly difficult and confusing.
I do have a 3340S, but I also have an 80-8 which i would be using with a box like that. Having 7 tracks to use instead of 3 after the timecode is a lot better. Could an 80-8 be setup as slave to the DAW which sweetbeats said was better? I know that the 80-8 did have a Tascam "Varispeed controller" that you could get with it.
Still some other questions..
-Can this be done with ProTools M-powered? I Have seen something about MTC in the Peripherals setup where I setup my Project Mix I/O as Control Surface.
-Can Multiple Machines be synced? And do they have to be the same Make/Model?
-Does the audio in a setup like this record to just the tape, Or to ProTools AND the tape? which of the mentioned boxes would be the best deal. The JL Cooper one seems the simplest but dosent have many features. The Tascam one seems like a
control surface too? Unless the controls on the Tascam one can be used with the 80-8 I may not need anything like that because I already have the control surface on the Project Mix.
Being able to sync analog with ProTools would be a very impressive thing to have. Nobody I know who record bands as a hobby around here has any analog equipment (except maybe a cassette portastudio). Most people I work with want to work digital because they don't understand analog or think it will sound "old". Bridging the gap might give me a chance to try some larger analog recordings with people. Having a Sync with a DAW could also give me much more precise punch in points and things like that. I didn't think this would be something I would be able to do, but those boxes are not that expensive!
1-I think the 80-8 could be a slave, but I've never handled that kind of connection. I think it's possible through the parallel interface, which would require making your own special cables, and a more expensive sync box than the JL Cooper. I believe it would require a Tascam MIDIizer and another piece of hardware, which I think is the Tascam IF/1000, but I could be remembering the number incorrectly.
2-Any machine (digital or analog) can be a master, but you're limited to what recorders can be slaves. Digital recorders tend to be easier to set up as slaves because they are random access and most accept and can slave to incoming MTC. On the other hand, getting an analog machine to slave can be a pain, because it can only replay the music linearly (unlike a digital recorder with a hard drive), only certain machines are capable of it (to varying degrees) and it requires special cabling. In either case, the master machine (even if it's digital) will have a SMPTE track recorded. If the digital machine is master, there is no translating the SMPTE to MTC; the tape machine, through it's sync box, will react to the computer's directions. In a scenario in which a tape machine is master, SMPTE can be coverted to MTC, and no tracks are actually taken up on the DAW. As far as I know, MTC can not be converted back to SMPTE.
3-Multiple tape machines can be synced. In terms of Tascam machines, the latest series of machines with serial inputs (called Accessory 2) are the easiest to sync. This series of machines includes the TSR-8, MSR-16, MSR-24, 238, and 688 (I've omitted listing machines with 4 or fewer tracks). With a Tascam MIDIizer, and the appropriate Accessory 2 cables, one could fairly easily sync a TSR-8 and MSR-24, and still have a computer slave using MTC.
The Accessory 2 cables are absolutely necessary for the slaving tape machine of the above mentioned series. Any of the machines I've listed above could easily slave to an 80-8, so long as the appropriate sync box was being used. However, in a set up with two of the above mentioned machines and 2 Accessory 2 cables, when the master machine is directed to rewind or fast-forward, the slave machine is directed to do the same. In this way, both machines will always be able to playback and record at the same time. I've never been able to accomplish this because I only have a single Accessory 2 cable.
4-About precision and punch-ins: SMPTE is a time code that divides up each second of time into 30 frames. This offers a very high level of precision, and even without a computer or DAW, this can be exploited using a sync track, an Accessory 2 cable, a capable machine, and a Tascam MIDIizer.
In my own opinion, it's very easy and fairly inexpensive to slave a DAW to a tape machine, particularly if you have a DAW that you are familiar with and enjoy using. If you're at all interested in this area of audio technology, I recommended experimenting at first with having the tape machine act as the master, because it only requires (in addition to the sync box) a standard audio cable and an inexpensive MIDI cable. If you are not satisfied with how the computer is slaving to the tape machine, and you still really want to run this kind of hybrid setup, then at that time it would be worth it for you to look into constructing your own cables and assembling the appropriate hardware.
-MD