Hi guys. My first post for senior , experienced users.
In the old low budget days - still is - without multitrack facilities I recorded several of my old band on 4 portable sony dats so I have 8 track recordings, one stereo track each tape.Not all that ambience isolation and some instrument background sounds can be found on vocal mic and drum tracks so it would be hard to treat them as solo as I would like.
They all transferred to MAC, Logic, but they all 4 have , of course, different time lenght. Difference total is around 1 minute for a 50 minute recording but it s all there.
What is the best and easy DAW (preferrred MAC but if there is a WINDOWS option, it s ok ) where I can synch perfectly, stretching time lenght, to start, at least, the very first steps to mixdown them ?
As I said, tapes rolls arpund 50 miuntes concert each and it would be great to have a solution to have all tapes in sync without cutting each track.
I d like just an advice or a tip from someone who already have work in a job like this.The best and easy DAW and the proper function .
All the best This place helps me a lot on decisions about the best workflow for my audio learning.
Jose, Brazil

 

Last edited: Aug 21, 2017

Soundradix Auto Align? As long as you can isolate two recordings of a single source.

 

All DAWs can do this now, I can only speak of what I like to use and it might not be the best but I am the most comfortable with it.

Logic's Flex Time and Sample Delay, works real well for me. (Apple Support)
MOTU's Precision Delay and Find Beats and audio stretch (soft) (MOTU Tutorial)

I've done the same thing in Pro-Tools, Cubase and Nuendo I am just more comfortable and faster with the ones I listed. Just depends on what works best for you and how your brain wants to work.

 

Melodyne can calculate the tempo of the track that has no drums, it can calculate the tempo and sync vocal even. I have never used it but I have seen the tutorial. But that is the plugin, not DAW, but it is a great tool. Manual stretching is pain in the ass.

 

Not sure I completely understand what you're trying to do, but the length of each of the DAT recordings shouldn't matter, so long as you have a unified starting point to go by. I assume you manually hit the "Record" button on each of the four DAT decks, then started playing music? I don't know if you can automatically sync up those recordings in any DAW or dedicated two-track software. It may boil down to you having to do it by ear, unless you have a reference point between all four DAT tapes (mic bleed would be your best hope) that allows you to sync it up via waveform.

 

I'll suggest REAPER

• Although it's not automated, manual stretching in REAPER is easy.
• REAPER has apparently already established itself in other audio domains in Brazil.

 

I don't think he wants to stretch anything. Just sync the four 2tracks.
The vocal track should have enough info of all the other instruments for Auto Align to work properly.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Aug 21, 2017

Despite protests from dragonhill, as a slut, I approve of the sentiment & the wording of this sentence!

 

Sorry for my post earlier, english is not my first language, it won't happen again.

 

Thank you everybody all valuable inputs. I will start at Logic Flex Time to see how complex this can be solve in few programmed steps.
I have a start point drum count click which can be found on almost all tracks as well the last beat . It would be great if I could sync the tracks as a whole using these as reference in one or two steps. I will try to see Melodyne and Auto Align works using a main vocal track where there is more information as well other DAWS - I ve read the ADOBE Autidion has some sync feature who can helps a little bit .
If successful , I will post the solution here just as reference.
When you think all records from 70´s were very often captured and , sometimes, mixed later ´by ear´ - some of them recorded live in different, unexperienced gear, unappropriate setups , cutting phisically the tapes, etc etc , well , these old school guys deserve a lot of respect.
Thank you very much
All the best

 

We still had time-code and synced up multi-track recorders in the 70s. Compared to today it might be primitive but we weren't recording on stone tablets.

 

Well, it might not be quite as easy as a "few programmed steps", but if you have the same click on all eight tracks, you should be able to line them up visually in any DAW using the waveform editor.