X48 - any way to lock more than one?

[LX3]

Hey guys

Quick question you might be able to help me with....

Is it me, or is there no easy way of locking another machine to an X-48, for more than 48 tracks?

I don't see any TL Bus connections or anything like that.

Paul

[yrplace]

timecode and wordclock out of the 1st deck should work w/ the 2nd deck slaved to them. Being hard disc recorders they should lock really quickly, but it will be a bit like running locked MDM tape decks.

Course if you plan to import it all into Pro-tools it will be even better. Just spot both sets of files in the session and you should be good.

Mark

[LX3]

Thanks Mark

As I suspected... I guess the finite lockup time means that audio files recorded on the slave will have a slightly different start time to those recorded on the master?

That's a pain. Seems strange after years of having a dedicated sync connection for ganging machines together, that Tascam would just drop the idea.

Then again, if you lock together a couple of MX2424s over TL Bus, are the files' start times perfectly in sync? (Maybe not sample accurate, but within a sub-frame or so would do). I would hope so, but I can see why they might not be.

Paul

[yrplace]

Are you trying to record 96 tracks live, and are you going to want to playback from the pair of X-48s or xfr all the files into Pro-tools.

If its the latter the slight delay in the start time on the 2nd deck won't matter since the files will be sample accurate when you spot them into PT. Ww've done this with a pair of Genex 9048 decks and it works great. The impt thing is to use the same wordclock.

You could feed the clock out from machine 1 to machine 2, but a better setup would be to use an external clock for both decks.

Let me know how you want to use the dualing machines and maybe I can help further.

Mark

[synthetic]

Send resolved video clock and word clock to both machines for sub-frame lock.

[yrplace]

Originally Posted by synthetic

Send resolved video clock and word clock to both machines for sub-frame lock.

You can only sync to one or the other........

[LX3]

Hi Mark, thanks for your suggestions. Yes, we're recording something over 48 simultaneous tracks, for the headliner at a festival. Looks like we're using three MX2424s now, with three HD24XRs as safety.

Files are to be transferred to HD and delivered to the producer to mix. Not sure what he's using. Obviously if it's PT, and we give him timestamped BWAV's life is fairly straightforward, even if the machines don't drop into record simultaneously. (Do they, with TL-Bus?)

We will of course have a master clock generator sending WC to everything.

I'm just thinking that at some stage in the near future I may get an X-48, so I can see myself running into this issue again. (You know, a bunch of secondhand MX2424s is looking like quite a good option!).

Personally, I mix in Digital Performer (abandoned Nuendo), which doesn't understand BWAV darn it (come on MOTU, catch up. Most other things in DP are awesome). So it's easier if all the files have the same start point. But as long as I can find out the time stamps, I can always set the start timecode for each soundbite... much like using spot mode in PT.

I'm still disappointed to see Tascam drop any kind of dedicated machine synchronisation. Maybe they're assuming people will never need more than 48 tracks..

Paul

[yrplace]

I assume they figured if you needed more than 48 tracks that you would sync them using timecode and wordclock. Two machines should sync up almost instantly and as long as you xfr them to some format that can see the timestamp you can easily put all the tracks in sync in one session.

I guess not all DAWs can do this but that's their fault not the fault of the decks.

I'm still not certain what the diff. would be in operation between syncing two x-48's as opposed to a pair of DA-78's .

I only have one X-48 but if I ever get a chance I'll try it.

Mark

[LX3]

Is it not the case (at least with TL-Bus and ADAT Sync) that if you put the master into record, the slaves go into record, and if you put the master into play, the slaves go into play?

That is the say, the transport functions are locked rather than one machine simply chasing the other.

Though I could be wrong...

P

[yrplace]

Originally Posted by LX3

Is it not the case (at least with TL-Bus and ADAT Sync) that if you put the master into record, the slaves go into record, and if you put the master into play, the slaves go into play?

That is the say, the transport functions are locked rather than one machine simply chasing the other.

Though I could be wrong...

P

That's true, but those are tape decks and need to be mechanically cued. The X-48 being a hard disc unit should start and lock to the incoming code within a couple of seconds, probably faster than a pair of DA-78's would lock.