In order to record my live jam’s i have bought a Tascam TD-24SD. The goal was to multi-track record songs on the fly, cut them up in ableton later and use the samples on the OT in a live setting.
When i finally get the samples on the OT the timing is off because the sample has slowed down (very slightly, 1/43 counts per 64 bars or something). Sample rates are all fixed on 44.1Khz, i don’t think that’s the problem here.
Some samples are up to 3 minutes long and the difference does matter for long samples. especially when changing between tracks, it sounds like extremely bad beat-matching.
Let me walk you through the order of events:
1: jam played at, lets say 124BPM. All synths are slaves to the OT’s clock and sequencer.
2: Tascam multitrack records jam at 44.1khz, 16 bit to sd card
3: Files from sd card imported in ableton. Warp functions have been shut off and ableton is operating with a sample rate of 44.1 khz.
If i record a 6 min beat, this timing difference will matter.
is there a way to record it in the right way without having to warp the files later on? i want loops i create for my OT to run smoothly afterwards and i want them to play nice with long samples as well.
Did you check the recording speed on all devices? Is it the same for Tascam, OT and Ableton clock?
If not, it might be that the “true” timing is analysed wrong. I had this on OT and importing long audio files. Sometimes the OT calculated the “true” clock wrong and I got offsets.
I had to fix this in the “Audio Editor” and change the parameters at “Attributes” accordingly.
The Tascam does not really use a clock to record i think. It just records. I believe that one of two things could be happening. The BPM of the OT does not sync up with ableton BPM or the files are distorted somehow in the recording.
Have you tried to skip the Ableton part just for testing? Since the files are already in 44,1kHz the Octatrack should be able to directly load them …
For example: try to record a constant 4-on-the-floor from the octatrack to the TASCAM and bring the recording back into the octatrack to compare it with the original 4-on-the-floor pattern running.
I’ve got the Tascam DP-32 and there is a “Metronom” button, on the right side, under the parameter knobs, second row. Should be the same for the DP-24.
Here we can at least set the metronome and the display timing …
Thats true, but i dont believe it alters any internal parameters. It seems to be just a helpful metronome for playing along. The discrepancy i’m getting is so small that it doesn’t show easily on the DP-24.
I’d like to do a little editing in ableton. Creating a drum sample that is a couple of bars that i later chop up in my octatrack with trigger locks so i can change the beat whilst keeping the sample.
I will try to do this to figure out if the problem is still there though. If that’s the case it would narrow it down to the DP-24.
Yes, my post was simply about how I would approach the problem to narrow it down. Nevertheless quite a strange issue. I can’t really believe that a digital recorder would drift that much within minutes …