What Cubase VST Can Do with Tape Recorders
Basically, Cubase VST allows you to do two things with the tape recorders it supports:
• Control the tape recorder’s transport control from Cubase VST’s Transport Bar. That is, Cubase
VST can make the tape recorder start, stop rewind etc.,
• Set tracks to record ready on the tape recorder and activate recording on these tracks. You can
even use all of Cubase VST’s recording features (punch in/out, Cycled recording etc), to control
the tape recorder!
Controlling Tape recorders is a two way process:
• Cubase VST sends out commands to the tape recorder, asking it to locate to certain positions and activate recording etc.
• The tape recorder delivers synchronization information (in most cases in the form of MIDI Timecode) to Cubase VST, which Cubase VST synchronizes to (see the Synchronization chapter of the “Getting into the Details” document for the complete picture).
Even though it appears as if Cubase VST is controlling the tape recorder completely, it is important to remember that Cubase VST is being synchronized to the tape recorders playback speed, not vice versa.
Cubase VST uses a standard MIDI protocol for controlling tape transports, called MIDI Machine Control. There are a number of tape recorders and hard disk recording systems on the market that support this protocol. Included with Cubase VST is a driver for using Cubase VST with MIDI Machine Control compatible tape recorders.
Using MIDI Machine Control and ASIO Positioning ProtocolYou may want to use MMC (MIDI Machine Control) to control the transport of the sync master, even when using ASIO 2.0. This is no different from using MMC with regular synchronization. Just note the following points:
• To enable MIDI Machine Control, select “ASIO 2.0/MMC” from the Timecode base popup in the Synchronization dialog.• Select an MMC Output (on the Output pop-up menu in the Sync Source section of the Synchronization dialog) that corresponds to the device you want to control. This may be an external hardware MMC converter. It may also be a “virtual MIDI device”, if the device is controlled directly from your computer.