Lets Sync Midi to a Tascam 4 Track like its 1988 Midiman Smartsync Portastudio Demo

Lets Sync Midi to a Tascam 4 Track like its 1988 Midiman Smartsync Portastudio Demo
Please Like and Subscribe Thank You
No so long ago my biddy David Jaggs gave me his old Tascam Porta 05 and the Midiman Sync Box. Today I thought I would try it all out.
The Tascam is working fine so I thought I would go the whole hog and test out the Midiman Sync box and see what I could come up with.
As I mentioned I have mastered all the albums for Davids label Timespan Recordings. Find out more here. www.timespanrec... and follow David on KZbin / dpjfilms
Buy my music matthewnorth.ba...
Please follow me on the following Social media.
Spotify open.spotify.c...
Website www.matthewnort...
Facebook / matthewnorthmusic
Twitter / mnorthmusic
Soundcloud / matthewnorthmusic
#tascam #midiman #portastudio

[@davidjaggs]

Ah yes, my old Tascam! I used to bounce down track after track on that thing, I'd end up with 12 tracks on it! Shame the songs were shite!

[@WesleyWattley-xy4fg]

John peel may have liked it😅🇬🇧 💷

[@frequincyrecording4286]

I use a MIDI Man to drive my sequencers, a Yamaha QX1, QX3 or QX5, QX7 or QX21 or a Alesis MMT-8 and all those sequencers can drive any combination of drum machines and synths I want. I have a Tascam 246, 238 and several reel to reels. I enjoy this way of working on music as a hobby. Gets me away from the screen and Pro Tools on the commercial side of business. Cheers!

[@bobbythompson4268]

Quick question. I’m a little confused by this stuff, and I’m not sure if this does what I want it to do/think it does. Maybe you could help clarify this for me, if you don’t mind. I have a tascam dp-32sd, and some synths, with midi in, that I would like to record. As of right now, all I know how to do is record live, in order for everything to sync up, but I would like to be able to layer tracks after I put down an initial track or two live, and have them sync up. Is that what this does, the sync boxes? And if so, do you have any recommendations for a good one that isn’t too expensive? Thanks for your time!

[@RoyMaya]

Oh the good old days! 😂. Exciting times for sure. My father had an elaborate midi setup with a Tascam 8 track machine. But we used SMPTE to sync up the Atari ST and the Tascam.

[@annalievalsangus6955]

That was a really interesting demo - thanks! What you produced with the setup sounded really good!

[@MatthewNorthMusic]

Thank you very much your most kind

[@MichaelSmith-rn1qw]

I have a JL Cooper PPS-2 Synchronizer that was used to sync an 8 track reel to reel tape machine to a Roland VS 1680 digital recording rig, and later into my ProTools PC based recording rig. It had 3 methods of "striping" to track 8 on the Tascam TSR-8. MTC, DTL and FSK. I think I used MTC. There was a switch on the back of the TSR-8 that disabled the DBX on track 8 (I think that what it did). We would track drums live to tape, and later dump them into the Roland or Pro Tools. It worked fine until I messed up the TSR-8 a few years ago trying to change the capstan belt.

[@MatthewNorthMusic]

Well I hope that you manage to get it working again, its not too tricky to replace belts normally.

[@franktovar1237]

Ok. Your video is exactly what I want to do but all I have is an Alesis SR16 drum machine. Atari Mega ST and Atari Falcon and a Tascam Porta One. But I need that SmartSymc. I also have Cubase Score 2.0 and I have the Unitor-N but no Notator software.

[@spooktasticaparanormal]

Hey Matthew, great video my friend. I still have s vouple of 4 track recorders snd the tascam 488mk1 8 track cassette recorder. They are still my only means of recording. Keep up the great work. Kind regards. Paul.

[@oubrioko]

Used a *Fostex X-26* and an *Anatek Pocket Sync* box in a similar fashion during the early 90's. Literally had to plan strategically for the adjacent track to the sync tone by recording the lowest frequency instrument where the highs could be attenuated using EQ - then had to ride the adjacent audio track's fader/gain during mixdown to avoid audible bleed of that annoying sync tone. This was a very common nuisance, however the *Midiman* and *Tascam* units demoed here appear to be a pretty simpatico combination, given that the high-pitched sync tone didn't noticeably appear to bleed over audibly to your adjacent guitar track. 👍🏿

[@Music4Movies-sr8vo]

Great job also the JL Cooper PPS2 also works great. That 4 track with a 16 track sequencer, Would give a person 19 tracks. 3 audio+ 16 tracks of midi. I used it a lot on my Fostex A8 and A80 8 Track back in the early 80s. Great times.😊

[@afterrockradio1328]

Hello Mr. Matthew ! Can you please help ? Can 2 portastudios be synched together ? How about more than 2 ? What kind of device would I need to do the synching ? I know the particular portasudio unit has SMPTE capabilities for synching with drum machines and synths , and yes i am aware that I will need to sacrifice one track on each unit. Thank you !!!

[@MatthewNorthMusic]

If I'm perfectly honest I don't have a clue it's always been notoriously difficult to sink analogue tape machines together without very specialist equipment and very accurate speed alignments

[@xTHETRINCHOx]

THX for share Bro!...

[@MatthewNorthMusic]

Its a fun bit of kit.

[@evenmind-music]

Thanks for your explanation:)

[@FortressofSound]

I'm having a hell of a time getting my stuff to play nicely as the tempo will shift & drift with my Tascam Porta Two + Syncman + MPC. I'm wondering if your Porta05 running at double speed is helping it to keep a tighter sync since the Two only runs at standard slow speed. Hmm.

[@MatthewNorthMusic]

Quite possibly the double speed will help being a wider bandwidth

[@eancurtis9333]

❤

[@vortexalerand9949]

I've got 2 Porta Studio's. Porta02 and Porta05. I knew somewhere that i'd heard you could record a tone, i knew it was possible therefore - but i couldn't, or obviously didnt search hard enough to find the information about laying a tone properly. I wonder now, if maybe I can just record in a specific tone without the need for a "Midiman Smartsync" or the like..

[@MatthewNorthMusic]

no you still need something to turn the timecode info into a midi clock signal.

[@paudical]

Thanks for the informative video. Does this work with any MIDI device, for example if I were to replace the 909 with an MPC 1000?

[@MatthewNorthMusic]

Probably yes as long as its got a spp type synch.

[@TheAuralab]

❤

[@vortexalerand9949]

bro

[@wehappyfewmusic]

A very informative demo, and cool little setup. I’m just about to try using JLCooper sync box with my cassette multitracker. You made it look quite easy so hopefully it’ll work for me🤞🏻

[@MatthewNorthMusic]

Good luck

[@searchiemusic]

extremely cool, I've got a fostex e16 and e2, their scheme was having a 'flagship' remote that had midi in/out and smpte in/out, it also controls the synchronizer box for the two of them, i've definitely seen these boxes around but since I knew the autolocator existed and it had more functionality i passed, still incredibly nifty thing and certainly makes it more of a 'stuff in a backpack' affair, it is so extremely nice to be able to have an extremely complicated project running in tandem with tape recorded backing tracks, even hundreds of vsts, or even just bouncing audio between the two without worrying about synchronizing or phasing

[@MatthewNorthMusic]

I used to have an E-16 from 1996 to 2003 ish I never worked out how to get it to synch with a computer. i just did it by guesswork!