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.

[norfolkmastering]

21 hours ago, msmcleod said:

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.

I'm using Sonar to generate timecode to a MIDI output port.  At the moment that's to a loopMIDI virtual port.  I use that as the source for an MTC to LTC convertor which is a utility available in the ShowCockpit app.  It comes out of my PC soundcard!

The LTC is fed to all three of my machines, two Tascam 238S 8-tracks and one Fostex R8 8-track.  All three machines use track 8 for recorded LTC timecode.

The R8 uses a Fostex 4030 sync unit to do the actual slave synchronisation, but it also has a very comprehensive MIDI based remote control suite which includes the ability to locate to a specific full timecode (via SysEx).  This MIDI control suite is incredible so I can use Sonar to set and unset the REC ARMs and a whole other bunch of stuff on the R8.

The two 238Ss each have a Tascam ATS-500 sync unit.  Again this these take care of slaving the 238Ss to Sonar.  However the 238S remote control system is much more limited and based on RS232.  So I have to use a PIC to translate MIDI remote control commands from Sonar (via AZ Controller) into the appropriate RS232 'text' character commands.  These do include REC ARMs which is great.  The ATS-500s have only CHASE mode (so it chases quarter frame timecode) and no facility to locate to a specific full timecode position.  So instead, I send the Sonar song position timecode (again via AZ controller) to the PIC and then the PIC generates quarter frame timecode messages for enough time (about 2secs) towards that target song position.  A couple of seconds is enough to get the ATS-500s to start chasing and it stops the machine when it gets to the target timecode.

There should be an article coming out in the next RTM (Recording The Masters) newsletter which gives an overview of how this all hangs together, plus how I use Sonar to control my analogue mixer.  All good fun!

[msmcleod]

1 hour ago, norfolkmastering said:

I'm using Sonar to generate timecode to a MIDI output port.  At the moment that's to a loopMIDI virtual port.  I use that as the source for an MTC to LTC convertor which is a utility available in the ShowCockpit app.  It comes out of my PC soundcard!

The LTC is fed to all three of my machines, two Tascam 238S 8-tracks and one Fostex R8 8-track.  All three machines use track 8 for recorded LTC timecode.

The R8 uses a Fostex 4030 sync unit to do the actual slave synchronisation, but it also has a very comprehensive MIDI based remote control suite which includes the ability to locate to a specific full timecode (via SysEx).  This MIDI control suite is incredible so I can use Sonar to set and unset the REC ARMs and a whole other bunch of stuff on the R8.

The two 238Ss each have a Tascam ATS-500 sync unit.  Again this these take care of slaving the 238Ss to Sonar.  However the 238S remote control system is much more limited and based on RS232.  So I have to use a PIC to translate MIDI remote control commands from Sonar (via AZ Controller) into the appropriate RS232 'text' character commands.  These do include REC ARMs which is great.  The ATS-500s have only CHASE mode (so it chases quarter frame timecode) and no facility to locate to a specific full timecode position.  So instead, I send the Sonar song position timecode (again via AZ controller) to the PIC and then the PIC generates quarter frame timecode messages for enough time (about 2secs) towards that target song position.  A couple of seconds is enough to get the ATS-500s to start chasing and it stops the machine when it gets to the target timecode.

There should be an article coming out in the next RTM (Recording The Masters) newsletter which gives an overview of how this all hangs together, plus how I use Sonar to control my analogue mixer.  All good fun!

That's a very nice setup.

I always dreamed of either the 238S (or the 688), but they were always out of my price range and by the time I could afford one, I'd already gone digital.

I used the Yamaha MT8X for years, even after I'd started using Cakewalk CWPA.  I only really retired it once I'd got used to my Yamaha DS2416 cards.   I knew I'd be going digital at some point, so I went for the MT8X over the Tascam 488 because it had individual track outputs for later transfer.

The MT8X was pretty basic.  It did have a couple of location points / loop record points, but apart from that, MTC sync was a "tape must be master" affair.   Sound quality was fantastic though.  A friend had the 688, and honestly we couldn't tell the difference in quality.

One thing I did swear by was Maxell XL-IIS cassettes (although the XL-II's were good too).  I recently found a few old tapes in the attic, some TDK SAX and one XL-IIS.  The TDK's were garbage, but the Maxell sounded like it was recorded yesterday despite being 30 years old.  My mate with the 688 swore by the Maxell tapes too.

Very hard to get hold of those tapes nowadays, and pretty pricey when you find them!