Please bear in mind that slaving the tape deck is MORE expensive, MORE complicated, etc. I have, on many occasions, advised an operator to go with making the daw the slave because it was a better fit for his/her budget/expertise/purposes. I will continue to do that. I'm simply explaining myself as to why I feel it is a better fit for ME to slave the tape deck.
Yes...I always understood the concept of using the more stable device as the clock...however, it just worked out better with my Fostex G-16 for it to be the Master. I initially went the other way when I first set up my DAW, because it just made more sense to let the DAW be Master, but it was not as smooth.
With DAW as Master, with every move on the timeline, the deck would be jumping around trying to follow the playback head of the DAW. Yeah, I could just click on the "SYNC" button at the DAW whenever doing that...but it was one more step in the SOP, and the DAW makes all moves
instantaneously, but the deck is always playing the catch-up game.
I did several tests both ways, and having the G-16 as Master ended up being much simpler/smoother and I never noticed that the DAW was working to keep pace. Mind you, I'm not going back-n-forth, it's a straight, one-pass dump, I just start the deck about 20 seconds before the actual start point to let it settle into it's pace...and I do feel that the transport and synchronizer of the G-16 is one of the more rock-solid ones, and I've heard other folks say that about the G-Series decks. They may not have the most stellar reviews for other things (like I wish they made the G-series as a 3-head deck with separate Rec and Rep heads), but everyone always says it is one of the smoothest transports made.
Anyway...IMHO, as I already said earlier, if there's a bit-o-drift or if the DAW pulls a re-sample (which by the way, I'm doing A/D at 24/88.2)....it's still quite good enough for Rock & Roll either way!!!
The real up-side of me getting the 24-track is that I will probably not ever need to worry about synchronizing again, as I've got enough tracks to just do a single, "sync-free" dump to DAW, but really, AFA both the my "new" 24-track and the G-16 I'm going to be using the "non-sync" method I mentioned earlier....so there's no need for synchronizers and it's so simple, it's silly-easy.
Of course, for people who can't use both DAW and deck simultaneously during tracking for whatever reason, then the sync may still be needed.
I plan to keep one (I now have two units and two controllers) of the Timeline rigs on hand anyway, for just in case...but I'm going to permanently move to the "non-sync" SOP as it removes both the re-sampling and W&F concerns, and just let both DAW and deck "run free"....which is similar to the CLASP system, and allows the use of the tape in an "as-it-falls" mode, with no concern for location on the tape...so you can then never worry about constant RW/FW when tracking takes...just let the tape run to the end, and only rewind then.
I really like this "non-sync" approach, it opens up a new way of doing things and getting the most out of the tape with minimal RW/FW.
Oh....which ATX computer power supply did you mod for the MicroLynx? It must have been one capable of multiple voltages/amps, and not just any old PS...?