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Old October 2nd, 2007, 02:50 PM
geezer geezer is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Martinsburg, WV
Posts: 181
What's up....? and Microsync

.....No way of knowing what's up with the Direct X since Dave and company never responded to my issues with it.

One of my two existent systems has the Microsync, too. I used it extensively on my first few years of posting projects for TV, which all involved analogue transfers. I stopped using it when Krystal happened, or rather it stopped being as useful if I was going directly I/O from Krystal via AES. I found out after questioning Dave extensively that Microsync is only reclocking the converters on the outboard I/O, so really is not chasing when you are using a digital interface.....In that sense, it is no more valuable than any of the better native time code interfaces which just jam sync. They and Microsync still provide a good time code lock as long as you have a good clock sync between time code or video from the video tape machine and the clock source for Microsound.

In fact, since Microsound does not have a dedicated word clock input, other devices (I have used the Rosendahl/Steinberg TimeLock Pro with Nuendo) provide you a much larger palette of syncing options with other, native systems. With a word clock input, a native card can stay reliably locked to a VHS tape via the Timelock Pro by just taking the video signal as the clock reference.....I posted a 90 minute show in Nuendo this way with a VHS HiFi work tape (time code on the right HiFi channel, scratch audio on the left), and things stayed locked for the whole show once the initial jam happened.....The true chasing of the analogue Microsync action is definitely cooler, but this, again, limits you to 16bit analogue land.

The reason I got so involved in the 24bit thing was that I mixed and/or conformed and mastered about 12 or 15 music concert DVDs with 5.1 and stereo mixes between 2000 and 2003 or so. The masters were delivered as 8 tracks of 24bit/48k audio (DA78). Microeditor was absolutely of no use on these projects, and only served as an ancillary CD mastering medium for a couple of them. Even track repairs I had to do on some of the projects could not be done easily in Microeditor without tedious transfer times and tricky hand placement of repaired tracks.....I spent years asking for the functions in Microeditor that would allow for utilizing it on these projects, and never got any action on these requests......I also never got a decent explanation of how to get tracks as files back into Microeditor (as Rich seems to be able to do) from anyone here.....perhaps that is only because I wanted to be able to do it at 24bits.

One other interesting other piece of rare MTU software I do have that was quite useful in my early posting experience with MicroEditor is "MicroEDL". I don't know that anyone but me ever used it. This was a program that Larry developed on my specs before leaving for greener pastures. This program would take a linear editor's ("C" format) text file for a 4-channel audio edit and apply it to a 4 channel project with time code in MicroEditor, which allowed me to take a 4 channel stream from an early Avid editor with all level edits removed and chop it up and remix it and edit it properly once the basic offline edit was done......I used that for sure on the Hollywood Blacklist thing that won the Emmy (not for sound, but for the show), and delivered the mix on DA88 to the post house without them ever touching it before it hit air.......So that allowed me a certain amount of compatabiltiy with old-style post houses and pre-5.1 mix needs.

But this was as far as MTU got, and I think that was around 1996 or 1997. Nuendo started early on with the capability for OMF file imports and exports and multitrack output (although flawed in its original implementation), and I had a lot more file compatabiltiy right at the start with video post people, who no longer wanted to deal with the time it takes to do a real time 4 channel output......I did have to buy other file translation software to make things totally right, but at least that was possible with the other programs. Nuendo originally did not sound as good as MicroEditor for sure, but Wavelab did (and Wavelab now does 8 channel i/O and DVD-A mastering), and Nuendo is probably in the same ballpark now, along with Audition and virtually everything else......The writing was on the wall in 2000 for me, and I had to jump ship once I found the workable alternatives.

The only software packages I have felt pretty strongly about the integrity of are Wavelab (single programmer, different from the Nuendo team) and Adobe Audition....perhaps because a former intern of mine is on the Audition team. I think things are probably better at Steinberg now since Yamaha bought them, though, and Cubase, their least expensive product, is preferred by many to be superior (and does, in fact, get the upgrades to its audio engine before Nuendo does)......I have heard very good things about the sonic quality of the Samplitude line of products, but have never directly used them.....In all my casting about, Wavelab always came up with the most intuitive interface (inside the Audio Montage section), with Adobe Audition running a close second for the multitrack programs.....There are plenty of people who like Cakewalk/Sonar, too. They all have their quirks, but are all more stable than they were in the early 2000s when I was researching things heavily.

I really resisted putting my Microeditor systems on the shelf, but did not really have a choice.

If any other old timers or new timers want to contact me directly for fun or profit or just plain geezer jawboning:

Jim Smith- mudsmith@earthlink.net

Last edited by geezer; October 2nd, 2007 at 02:59 PM.
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