I have access to 24 track tape and wanted to try bouncing 13 tracks of a drum kit onto tape and back in to Cubase to see if it makes a difference to the sound.
I discovered that I would need a converter box to convert the SMPTE code from the tape to a midi signal to talk to cubase to sync the speed so I bought a Doremidi MTC-20.
It looks like it should do the job but I am struggling to get Cubase to consistently pick up the timecode from the tape through the box.
Has anyone else used this sort of setup? There is a thread based on a Tascam 488 but I believe that device has midi built in however the tape machine I have access to does not have midi hence the converter box.
If the tape machine and tape are in good shape, there shouldn’t be a need for SMPTE code if you’re just bouncing tracks.
We bounce tracks through tape all the time here. We just use an 8 beat count-in in front of the tracks we’re going to record.
We play the tracks from Cubase (preceded by the count-in), record to tape and record the output from tape straight back into Cubase, all in one go.
The tracks recorded back to Cubase will have an offset, of course, due to the playback head delay. We just grab the newly recorded tracks in Cubase and drag them back so that the 8 beat count-in aligns with the original source and we’re done.
Thanks KT66. I haven’t tried doing that but we did try mixing drums down onto two track tape and then sending the two tracks back in to the daw and they were a wee bit out by the end of the song.
I presume if you record it back to cubase at the same time as recording to tape there should be no variation in the tape speed so it should line up correctly.
