Best way to connect Sonar MTC to MOTU MIDI Express XT

[norfolkmastering]

I want to use a MOTU MIDI Express XT to act both as a MIDI router and as an MTC to LTC converter.  It does those things!

My question is whether to slave Sonar from the MOTU device or do it the other way around?

[Synaptic]

Hey Norfolkmastering, what LTC device are you trying work with ? Tape machine ?

if you are working with Tape, I would suggest you slave Sonar to the tape machine rather than the other way around. Sonar will cope with the timing variances better than a tape machine trying to follow Sonar

If you are working with a digital device let me know

 

Chuck

[norfolkmastering]

I am syncing three tape machines to Cakewalk. My options are either to use the MOTU as the timing master or use Cakewalk as the timing master.

[bvideo]

Does the project have audio?

[msmcleod]

In the past, I've always found Cakewalk is better as a slave than a master... mind you it's been a long time since I've done it, and PC's were a lot slower then!

 

[norfolkmastering]

Yes the project has up to 21 tracks of audio, based on three 8-track machines with one sync track per machine.

I am recording to Sonar and the tape machines simultaneously then I have the option to mixdown from Cakewalk or from the tape machines.

The big advantage I see of using Cakewalk as the master is that it allows me to jump between markers in the song and the tape machines will chase.

I think if I use the MOTU MIDI Express XT as the timing master then I lose that capability; so it might come down to functionality rather than anything else.

I'm assuming that the Cakewalk MTC generation will be free of jitter? but I'm not sure what other timing issues there might be when using USB to transmit MTC from Cakewalk to the MOTU?

[bvideo]

So you're starting with no audio in Sonar. In that scenario, Solar can probably follow an external clock.

But Cakewalk might balk if it has audio in any track and you ask it to follow timecode.

How about your audio interface. Can it follow a sample clock?

[norfolkmastering]

I’m going to go with Sonar being the master for now.   The MOTU should be able to slave to the Sonar MTC via the USB connection pretty well and then the MOTU will provide LTC to the three tape machines.  We’ll see how that goes.

[msmcleod]

5 hours ago, norfolkmastering said:

I’m going to go with Sonar being the master for now.   The MOTU should be able to slave to the Sonar MTC via the USB connection pretty well and then the MOTU will provide LTC to the three tape machines.  We’ll see how that goes.

Just out of interest, how will this work using Sonar as a master?

When I did this in the past, I used my used my PPS100 to generate SMPTE code and recorded it on track 8 on my 8-track.

I then told the PPS100 that measure 1:01:000 started at exactly 15 seconds in, and set Sonar to slave.

At that point, I could record on both Sonar / 8 track.  It was always the tape machine that was in charge though, because it was playing back the time-code into the PPS100, which was then sending MTC to Sonar. 

My tape machine had no feature to locate to a specific location.... maybe your machines do?

I get how Sonar can tell your MOTU what the time is... I'm just curious as how the tape machines sync up their time-codes to sync with each other / with the MOTU.