The following information was pretty much lifted right out of a Tascam publication. We don’t think they’ll mind the plagiarism since it promotes their product. We’ve noticed a lot of studios looking around for the ideal recorder to interface with their studio and/or Pro Tools rigs. Tascam claims to have a very elegant solution with their MX-2424, and the more we learn about it more convinced we become they are right.
One of the best features of the MX-2424 is its compatibility with a wide variety of popular audio products like digital consoles and DAWs. Since one of the most popular DAW systems is Pro Tools, we want to make sure you understand how to make these powerful recording/editing devices work together.
The MX-2424 can format a drive to be compatible with Mac or PC. When recording on a Mac formatted drive (HFS or HFS+), the MX-2424 writes Sound Designer II (SDII) audio files. When recording on a PC formatted drive (FAT-32), the MX-2424 writes Broadcast Wave files (BWF). SDII audio files are used by Mac Pro Tools systems and BWF audio files are used by PC Pro Tools systems.
If you are recording something on the MX-2424 that is going to be moved into Pro Tools you will need one file per audio track. That’s where something called “TapeMode” comes in. When recording in the MX-2424’s TapeMode a project created on the MX-2424 will always have one audio file per track, which makes moving projects into Pro Tools (or any DAW) a breeze. If a project is not started in TapeMode it may be converted to TapeMode later using the MX-2424.
Once you have your TapeMode project ready to go into Pro Tools you physically disconnect the drive from the MX-2424 and connect it to the SCSI card that you probably already use with Pro Tools. This is usually done with drive carriers and such, but can be done with typical external drives as well. Once connected the drive should show up as another Mac or PC volume in your system. Use the “Import Audio Files” window in Pro Tools to place the recordings from the MX-2424 into your Pro Tools session. Since the SDII and BWF audio files from the MX-2424 are time stamped you can use “Spot Mode” in Pro Tools to place them in the session exactly where they should be with sample accuracy.
You can no doubt see the advantages of this method if you work in a fast paced production environment. Just move the drive over to the other machine and keep right on working. This is what we’ve been requesting for years and Tascam did it!