Trouble With Tascam MD 350 - user error?

[Billy Rigby]

Hello everybody.

 

I recently invested in some new equipment to start gigging with and one of the pieces of kit I treated myself to was Tascam's MD 350 minidisk recorder. Nice machine, very user-friendly. I copied some backing music digitally, using an optical lead from my player to the 350. On listening back to the minidisk, however, a couple of the tracks start about a quarter of a second (approx) too early. I found this out using the machine's auto pause function, where the player pauses at the end of each track (so you can crack jokes with the audience or lap up the applause, presumably). It doesn't do this for every track - must be only two of them - but the fact that it does do it really bothers me.

 

Is there something I've overlook when copying the source material? When I burned the original CD to be copied to the minidisk, I used Nero and clicked "no pauses between tracks" - is it this lack of time between tracks that's caused the 350 to read the next track just a smidge too early?

 

Really grasping at straws here but I really don't think it's a fault with the 350; I'm sure it's something I've done. Any advice on this would be most appreciated.

 

Cheers.

[MarkPAman]

You should be able to edit the tracks on your minidisc.

 

Very small changes can be a little tricky, but there's a better way! Record a short piece of silence, move to to the right place & join it on to your existing track. Then you can split the newly created track in exactly the place you want it, and finally delete the left over bit of silence that you don't want.

 

It is important to remember that moving, joining, & deleting, all cause the disk to renumber later tracks. You need to be careful, when hitting delete, that it really is the one you don't want.

[andy_s]

You should be able to edit the tracks on your minidisc.

 

It is important to remember that moving, joining, & deleting, all cause the disk to renumber later tracks. You need to be careful, when hitting delete, that it really is the one you don't want.

 

my preference when doing this is to move the unwanted track to the end of the sequence of tracks rather than deleting it straightaway- then it's still around if you need it back because you've moved the wrong bit. ( a bit like not sweeping up the quarter inch tape off the floor of the editing room in the old revox days).

 

And if you're moving tracks with something on - the sooner you name the tracks the better, as the names will stay the same even though the track number will change. (at least that's how our Sonys work, I assume the Tascam is similar)

[Shez]

On listening back to the minidisk, however, a couple of the tracks start about a quarter of a second (approx) too early.

 

When you copied the tracks across, were you manually starting the recording or relying on the auto function?

If manual, it comes down to the accuracy of your reactions.

If auto, it's quite possible that whatever you're copying from has very low level noise (hiss, hum etc.) before the music that is falsely triggering it to start recording. You might be able to change the threshold setting on the MD recorder, or if you're playing back from a computer, trim the track right down to the start.

[MarkPAman]

my preference when doing this is to move the unwanted track to the end of the sequence of tracks rather than deleting it straightaway- then it's still around if you need it back because you've moved the wrong bit.

 

Such an obvious idea now that you've said it. Thanks

[Billy Rigby]

Thanks, everyone. The fault is the source disc - I had a listen to it today and the two tracks - I've Got You Under My Skin and Mack The Knife - start right at the end of the previous track, so I'm not even sure that I can fix the fault without going back to the start of the process (I've re-copied the tracks from the PC inserting gaps between the songs in the hope that this works).

 

Shez, the Tascam has a sync recording function when copying digitally so I used that. I don't trust my reflexes enough to do these things manually!

[Shez]

Another option might then be to copy all the tracks across without any track markers, so you end up with one long track. Then, just split it wherever you want to. Doesn't actually take that long.

[Billy Rigby]

Another option might then be to copy all the tracks across without any track markers, so you end up with one long track. Then, just split it wherever you want to. Doesn't actually take that long.

 

Because I use an optical lead to copy the tracks, though, I think the track markers are inserted automatically. There might be an override, though; I'll have to check the manual.

[andy_s]

my preference when doing this is to move the unwanted track to the end of the sequence of tracks rather than deleting it straightaway- then it's still around if you need it back because you've moved the wrong bit.

 

Such an obvious idea now that you've said it. Thanks :P

 

to be honest I can't remember where I nicked this idea from, but I think it was a case on once bitten, twice shy....evolution at work!

[Billy Rigby]

Just thought I'd give an update. Despite re-doing the disc, inserting pauses through Nero, and copying it (again, digitally) to the minidisk, the problem still persists. The offender seems to be the auto cue, which chops off the first tiny bit of the note when it goes into pause mode. Again, it's still only doing it with Mack The Knife and I've Got You Under My Skin. The manual advises altering the trigger level if the beginning of the track is missed but I've tried that and it makes no difference.

 

There's clearly some issue between these two tracks and the player. Just wish I knew what it was!

 

Re-doing the source disc and inserting pauses with Nero makes no difference as - I now realise - the pauses are inserted at the end of the track, not the beginning.

[paulears]

I must admit mine cues to the start of the track, not the start of the audio - Is there something odd about these two tracks?

 

EDIT

 

I found this in my manual

When a CD is recorded through the digital connection, short tracks may be recorded depending on the contents of the CD. Also, when auto track marking is performed, the track numbers may not be assigned correctly

Which makes me think that the start designator is not derived from a data source, but the start of the audio following a silence period. I'd always assumed it read some kind of data flag when the playback device incremented the rack number - but maybe not. The simplest solution assuming the start of the new track is actually on the end of the previous, is to combine the two tracks and then do a new divide at the correct place.

[boswell]

Edit the original Wav/mp3 file to insert 100ms silence at start of track. If it is mp3, I think you have to convert to Wav before you can edit it but the editor will do this for you.

Delete trailing silence at end of track.

Save track as wav

Use nero to make audio CD, set inter track gap to 1 sec, (1st track is defaulted to 2secs)

Untick 'Delete silence at end of track'

Make CD and then make MD.

[Stutwo]

The MD350 doesn't actually have the usual auto pause (well, the ones I've used elsewhere), it has dB settings. I had problems last time I used one in that it was waiting for a certain dB level before it paused, leading to sometimes having the track pause again if there was no audio in the first two or three seconds, leading to it actually chopping a half second of the actual audio in the process of pausing.

[MarkPAman]

I'd always assumed it read some kind of data flag when the playback device incremented the rack number - but maybe not.

 

Definitely not. I've just experimented with mine, and track marks are not carried over to the minidisc.

 

So the only way to do this is to edit them on the MD machine.

 

The simplest solution assuming the start of the new track is actually on the end of the previous, is to combine the two tracks and then do a new divide at the correct place.

:P

[Malcolm Gordon]

The Tascam has both Auto Ready, when it pauses at the start of the track, and Auto Cue, which pauses where the sound level exceeds a certain threshold. This level is adjustable or Auto Cue can be turned off. The accuracy of Auto Cue is plus or minus one frame (64 ms).

 

My Tascam certainly picks up the track flags when transferring optically/digitally from a CD and converts to track marks. The specific circumstances where it may not work are explained in page 9 of the manual. Although the manual seems to suggest otherwise I find that even with a CD it is necessary to set Auto Track ON in Record Pause. To keep the track lengths the same, rather than use Synchro Record which picks up the sound trigger, I set Record going then start the CD. All the track marks are picked up. The first track can be overlong if I am slow, so I edit that back to the same start point as the original. The Tascam seems to be capable of more accurate editing than my previous Sony.

Sync recording pauses when the audio level drops again, so can create additional tracks if you're not careful with music that has 4 second silences in it.

 

If the fault lies with the original CD, will your CD player step accurately through it from track to track in pause? With my (slightly elderly) CD player, if I use very cheap CD-Rs and/or burn at too high a speed, the player sometimes overshoots by up to a second when selecting a track in pause. If your player can't read the track flags properly it might pass on the error. Red Book CDs usually have silence in the countdown before a track flag (some players show -2, -1, -0) but live recordings may have applause bwteen numbers and be effectively continuous. The PQ flags should still work.