Hi there!

[48trx]

It's sure been a long while - hope you've all been well and happy!

First off - Bob, I am/was so sorry to learn of your fire. No one who's not been through one (I had a terrible housefire in '90) can imagine the distress and disruption you're all going through. It takes a while. The smell stays with you long after it's really gone - big ozone machines help get it out of your belongings...but you most likely are already a forced-authority in your own right.

Ok, apart from wanting to pop up here finally, I also wanted to make a brief mention about the MX-2424 thread - to speak to the BWF thing.

As you all well know, these machines were orphaned quite a while ago. Development stopped at the time TimeLine(?) went under. One of the bugs that never got worked out was the fact that BWF was never fully implemented in spite of all the marketing. In other words - the .wav files recorded natively by the 2424 are simple wave files. From my experience, I'm certain they remain simple wave files when you edit them internally as well.

You can not place the files along a smpte time code timeline by internal time code numbers embedded in the file headers. There are no such numbers and no such headers. You must phase them or line them up other ways.

Too bad because I've really needed the BWF thing to work out of these machines as I attempted to use them for my main location recorder for our live video shoots way back. Good thing I had a TC DAT machine as a backup!

Via contacts at Tascam, it might be possible to get ahold of the firmware people (if they can be found) and offer them money to enable this functionality, but Tascam would certainly never do it - it would be a private matter.

If there was enough interest out there, I would be willing to locate the person most responsible for the 2424 coding and enter a dialog about BWF implementation as a firmware upgrade. Of course, it might be costly.

Anyway, just thought I'd mention all that.

BTW - how are you folks who are doing surround dealing with the automatic stereo downmix thing? I'm always a bit frustrated by what I'm hearing in my surround mixes when they're played back in analog stereo.

All the best,
Chris Mickle
Denver

[Veit Kenner]

It's sure been a long while - hope you've all been well and happy!
Hi Chris,

great to see you (back) on this forum. Glad you found your way. But, sorry, I can't answer any of your questions. I just felt like welcoming you around here. I'm sure someone will step up with a suggestion.

Take care,

Veit

[Mark Stebbeds]

Sorry Chris, but you are dead wrong on this one. As someone who has used the MX2424 on several occasions, I can attest to this.

If you have been given incorrect information from someone at Tascam, then shame on them for not knowing their own machine. When I investigated this issue with Tascam personnel a few years ago, the opposite was true. My needs for BWF were specific when I went down the MX2424 path, and researched it thoroughly.

There is a time stamp in every wav file I have ever recorded in the MX2424, and if you have a software app that reads BWF, it will label it as BWF.

You can locate a file that was recorded in the MX2424 to original time code postion in any software app that recognizes it. I have not tried Rail's app to bring it into SS, but I can locate to time stamp in Nuendo as well as Pro Tools, and have done it as recently as last week.

Well, change that, as recently as 30 seconds ago.

You and Angie are correct that it says nothing about this in the manual, and IIRC, nothing about BWF in the formating process, but when you format as FAT 32, wav is the default, and in reality it's BWF.

If you would like, I would be happy to send you a file for you to check out for yourself.


Mark

[Leadfoot]

Hey Mark good to see you here. What took you so long? ;)

Tony

[48trx]

Sorry Chris, but you are dead wrong on this one. As someone who has used the MX2424 on several occasions, I can attest to this...

...There is a time stamp in every wav file I have ever recorded in the MX2424, and if you have a software app that reads BWF, it will label it as BWF.

Hey Veit and Mark,

Good hearing an old voice or two. Seems like old home week already!

Mark, I only posted this to pull you out of the woodwork. :^) That makes 1 post on this forum for each of us - and we're polar opposites!

When last (and first - it was too embarrasing here) I tried to spot an MX2424 track to a TC position in Avid's Symphony - which sure does support and needs TC spotting - there was no TC to spot on the files.

So - - thanks for offering to send me a track or two, you know, I just might have some tracks of my own to lying around here.....I have used these machines over the years I've owned them.

However, I am a bit concerned that I could be - can I say it? ..... wrong! What a dissaster that would be......I'll try and spot again in one of the Avid stations for grins this week.

All for now and all the best!

Chris

[Mark Stebbeds]

I'll try and spot again in one of the Avid stations for grins this week.


It's been a while since I've driven an Avid, but being the step father of Digidesign, one might think that the Avid would look for region address info in the "session file" and not the audio file. No?

In Pro Tools, BWF carries a time stamp, but if you choose SDII as the default file format, isn't it devoid of time stamp imbedded in the file? I have a PT rig sitting here, but I haven't used SDII in ages since I end up porting over to PC so frequently.

I'll be happy to post a file known to carry MX2424 time stamp if you're interested.

Mark

[48trx]

Hey Mark,

Yes, please post or email me directly a very short 2424 file and I'll compare it with one of mine as well. Just so you know - recent Avid systems support all .wav files and BWF do spot correctly and brainlessly in those systems. I found that out quite by accident a year or two ago after using EDL Convert Pro on something and sending those files over. Everybody (all the vidiots!) had thought I'd finally found Jesus or something!....they didn't need a 2-pop - the files just showed up and spotted right where they were supposed to - just as if I'd been using ProTools....

Chris

...hey - this is kinda fun again!