User manual

437
Synchronization
It is now possible to control the external tape recorder in-
dependently or together with Cubase:
• If you activate the Online button on the MMC Master
panel you can use the transport buttons on the panel to
control the transport of the device.
• You can also use the buttons to the left on the MMC
Master panel to arm tape tracks for recording.
The number of record arm buttons depends on the “Number of Audio
Tracks” setting in the Master Machine Control Device section of the Pro-
ject Synchronization Setup dialog.
• The “A1, A2, TC, VD” items refer to additional tracks
usually found on video tape recorders.
Refer to the manual of your VTR device to see if these tracks are sup-
ported.
• If you activate the Sync button on the Transport panel,
the MMC Master transport buttons (or the buttons on the
main Transport panel) will control the external tape re-
corder and Cubase in sync.
2. On the Transport panel, activate the Sync button.
3. Try to Stop, Fast Forward and Rewind from Cubase
and activate Play from different positions in the project.
The tape transport should follow.
• To turn off the synchronization between the tape re-
corder and Cubase, simply deactivate Sync on the Trans-
port panel.
Cubase Studio:
1. On the Transport panel, activate the Sync button.
2. Try to Stop, Fast Forward and Rewind from Cubase
Studio and activate Play from different positions in the
project.
The tape transport should follow.
• Turn off the synchronization between the tape recorder
and Cubase Studio, simply deactivate Sync on the Trans-
port panel.
Cubase as MMC slave (Cubase only)
This is set up in the MIDI Machine Control Slave section.
Simply specify the MIDI ports and the MMC Device ID.
Some mixers support the MMC-Master protocol for con-
trolling external devices, including Tascam DM-24, Yamaha
DM2000 and SSL. This means that Cubase can be used
as a “recorder”, where track arming and transport com-
mands can be sent from the master device. In addition,
some digital audio workstations (DAWs) can only operate
in MMC-Master mode.
Sync Options
The following Sync options are available in the Project
Synchronization Setup dialog:
Lock Frames
Using this field you can set how many frames of “correct”
timecode Cubase should receive before attempting to
“lock” (synchronize) to incoming timecode. If you have an
external tape transport with a very short start-up time, you
could try lowering this number to make lock-up even faster
than it already is.
Drop Out Frames
On an analog tape with timecode, dropouts may occur. If
a drop-out is very long, Cubase may (temporarily) stop. In
the Drop Out Frames field you can set how long a drop-
out (in frames) should be tolerated until Cubase decides
that the tape is not good enough to synchronize to. If you
have a very stable timecode source, you may lower this
number to make Cubase stop more swiftly after the tape
recorder has been stopped.
Inhibit Restart
Some synchronizers will still transmit MIDI Time Code for
a short period after an external tape machine has been
stopped. These extra frames of timecode can sometimes
cause Cubase to restart suddenly. Inhibit Restart allows
you to control the amount of time in milliseconds that Cu-
base will wait to restart (ignoring incoming MTC) once it
has stopped.