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The Timeline legacy lives on in Tascam's move from linear to nonlinear recording. Rob James brings us up to date in digital dubbing
NOT CONTENT with dominating the market for low-cost, Hi-8-based, digital 8-track, tape recorders, Tascam has introduced the MMR-8, 8-track hard-disk recorder. This machine is aimed fairly and squarely at the digital dubber market. I should say at the outset that this is not a Tascam designed or manufactured machine. Designed and built by Timeline it was first mooted several years ago as a partner for the Studioframe (Waveframe) DAW, which was a Timeline product. A long time and many dramas later, it has come to be marketed and sold as a Tascam. Although the appearance is superficially similar to other Tascam products closer inspection reveals its true origins.
MMR-8 is constructed in the traditional 3U-high, 19-inch, rackmount box; although installers would be well advised to use rails because this is not lightweight. The rear panel carries a forest of connectors, some rather unusual. In addition to D-25s for analogue I-O (pin compatible with DA-88) there is a further D-25 for AES-EBU that is definitely not compatible with the physically identical DA-88 TDIF connector. However, a DA-88 analogue cable can be used with XLR gender changers to break out the AES-EBU interface. Any AES-EBU input (stereo) can be routed through a built-in rate convertor. Two 37-pin D-connectors cater for the parallel interfacing of track arming and machine control with appropriate tally lamp drives. Parallel interfacing is considered an essential by many film users as is biphase synchronisation. The five enigmatically labelled BOB sockets (biphase Operations Board) take RJ12 plugs. These are used for four biphase inputs and one output. The active biphase input is menu selected. BNCs cover wordclock and video sync I-O and VITC in. LTC I-O is on 1/4-inch balanced jacks. Editor and transport 9-pin connections are Ds as are two dedicated sockets for Timeline Lynx synchronisers and two further dedicated sockets for MMR bus connections. Nine-pin and 25-pin D-connectors are provided for factory diagnostics. The remaining connectors are the usual MIDI In Out and Thru, a socket for external SCSI devices, IEC mains in and unswitched out and a 3.5mm stereo jack that provides analogue mixed mono out on...