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Picking up from the in-depth review of the long-awaited TM-D8000 digital console last month, Zenon Schoepe investigates the software package that automates and drives this desk
Requiring a minimum Macintosh configuration of a PowerPC 7100, the TM-D8000 automation software also needs 12Mb of RAM and if the computer's system software takes up more than 4Mb of RAM then this figure could rise to above 24Mb. For the record, the system will not run on any Powerbook or 68000 series Mac and you need system 7.5.1 or higher. Additionally, it is recommended that you run this with at least a 17-inch monitor for the 256-colour operation. Connection between the computer and the desk is down to a single serial multipin cable. You plug in, power up, and all of a sudden the TM-D8000 takes on a completely different complexion.
The digital desk's software is the latest in a line of automation breakthroughs for Tascam which did marvellous things with the first truly affordable VCA-automated M3700 (how soon we forget) and also had much lower profile moving fader success with a system for its top end M700 analogue board. The crux of the TM-D8000 automation is that it's not a complicated concept or implementation.
On-screen activity centres around a tool bar that contains dedicated pressable icons and pull-down short menus for a variety of functions. This tool bar is not particularly elaborate or extensive, you only get what you need, and, of course, you can use the dedicated pushbuttons in the automation panel of the desk to physically activate Read, Write, Update and Manual modes, all select, null, and separate fader and cut write enables. Indeed there is little on the screen that cannot be found within the desk's LCD menus.
Communication is fully bidirectional between the computer and the desk - if you're really sick then you can pick up a pot with a mouse if you want - and once I had squirted some code up the desk connector at a high enough level and told it what frame rate I was talking about, the on-desk time-code display and the on-screen computer display chugged along quite happily as one. It will also run to the code from a Tascam MDM or from its own...