[LAU] ADAT tape transfer

[Peter P.]

* Arnold Krille <arnold at arnoldarts.de> [2013-02-03 19:08]:
> On Sun, 3 Feb 2013 08:39:22 -0800 linux-audio at to11.net wrote:
> > If I have two ADAT tapes that comprise a 16 track recording but I
> > only have one ADAT recorder, can I transfer the tapes one at a time
> > into Ardour on my computer via an ADAT cable and, in the end, be able
> > to have all 16 tracks still synchronized somehow? I have heard that
> > Broadcast Wave files have embedded timecodes that can be used for
> > synchronization but I'm not really sure how to create them or, in
> > this situation, if they'd even be applicable.
> 
> When you transfer the audio over digital cable, that is with the
> optical adat, a sample is a sample. So even if you don't get absolute
> time-code sync between your adat-machine and ardour, the clock will
> still be the same.
> So you can just transfer both tapes one at a time, then manually sync
> the two groups of tracks and they will stay the same till the end of
> the song.
That's right, there will be (almost) no drift between the set of eight
tracks, and unless there is stereo signals between different sets of
eight, you should be fine aligning them manually (provided you know
the source material). 

I just occurs to me that the RME Multiface has an ADAT Sync input connector,
that most of us probably have never used.
The multiface manual mentions tells us about "ADAT Sync In for connection to
ADAT Sync of an ADAT recorder. Allows for sample-accurate
synchronization with ASIO 2.0." so this will give you a timecode from
the ADAT machine, at least into the windowze HDSPsettings application.

best, P