What I'm planning to do when I get me hands on those two reel-to-reels is to fill up the 8 track, bounce to stereo on the 4 track, fill up another 8 tracks, and fly in the new submix on the remaining 2 tracks on the 4. Does anyone see any forseeable syncing problems due to the tape speeds etc.? Anyone? Is this gonna work???
syncing up an 8trk and 4trk
- Thread starter humboldt
- Start date
You can go ahead and try manually flying it in for fun, but without some kind of constant speed correction (sync),the chances of everything still being synced up by the end of the song must be one in a million. Even if you did manage to start both your recording and playback at the exact same instant.
regebro
Insane Genious!
The question is: How DO you go about syncing those machines? Well, you won't get a straight answer out of me either. 
You need one of the machines to have some kind of ability to be a synchonized slave to an external source. Most cheaper multitracks don't have that, but it seems like the TSR-8 does! Also, 4-track reel-to-reels aren't very common anymore, so I guess it's pretty old? Then it might be able to sync, you never know, high-end multitracks often can.
You will need some kind of external equipment to sync the TSR-8, but exactly what, I don't know. You could try talking to Tascam, or some good music dealer, if you know any.
Otherwise, you could up your total number of tracks from 8 to 12 by doing a first stereo-mix from 6 of the 8-track tracks though.
Other ways of doing it is mixing 8 tracks to the 4-track and then recording two tracks on the 4-track and mixing that back onto the 8-track (that way you can also keep the original 8 tracks around if you need a remix). But that will add one more generation of noise.
But the best would be if you could sync the to reel-to-reels. No, you can't mix 8 tracks down to two, and then 8 more to the other two, since you need one track on each for sync, but you'll get the 8-track stereo-mix, + 7 more tracks + the one left over on the 4-track, all in all 16 tracks.
Or you could just sync them to get 10 tracks instead of 8 when thats enough. Then you don't have to do any mixdowns at all!
Personally I have yet to find a situation where I need more than 8 tracks.
Good luck in finding sync-equipment!
[This message has been edited by regebro (edited 06-30-2000).]
You need one of the machines to have some kind of ability to be a synchonized slave to an external source. Most cheaper multitracks don't have that, but it seems like the TSR-8 does! Also, 4-track reel-to-reels aren't very common anymore, so I guess it's pretty old? Then it might be able to sync, you never know, high-end multitracks often can.
You will need some kind of external equipment to sync the TSR-8, but exactly what, I don't know. You could try talking to Tascam, or some good music dealer, if you know any.
Otherwise, you could up your total number of tracks from 8 to 12 by doing a first stereo-mix from 6 of the 8-track tracks though.
Other ways of doing it is mixing 8 tracks to the 4-track and then recording two tracks on the 4-track and mixing that back onto the 8-track (that way you can also keep the original 8 tracks around if you need a remix). But that will add one more generation of noise.
But the best would be if you could sync the to reel-to-reels. No, you can't mix 8 tracks down to two, and then 8 more to the other two, since you need one track on each for sync, but you'll get the 8-track stereo-mix, + 7 more tracks + the one left over on the 4-track, all in all 16 tracks.
Or you could just sync them to get 10 tracks instead of 8 when thats enough. Then you don't have to do any mixdowns at all!
Personally I have yet to find a situation where I need more than 8 tracks.
Good luck in finding sync-equipment!
[This message has been edited by regebro (edited 06-30-2000).]
Christ, me head is spinning! Yeah, the 8 to 4 back to 8 again method was the first thing that came to my mind, but I figured if I could save one generation loss it might be worth it. Seeing as I'd now probably need a track on each machine for TC anyhow, going thru all the hassle for just the extra 2 tracks is beginning to appeal less and less. Ah well, back to bouncing!!!
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