Re: MIDI Sync for Dummies
2002-07-24 by paulhaneberg
You can do this high tech or you can do it low tech. Low tech is cheap and it might or might not work. Best solution is to generate a master clock and a time code of some sort with your hard drive audio computer and use this to control the midi computer. If you can generate midi sync from the audio computer this will work. Both midi sync and SMPTE code although not sample accurate by themselves should work - to be sample accurate you need a high clock rate like superclock. Low tech solution - start each midi track with a short pulse. Make sure they are exactly at the same time point on all tracks. Record to your audio machine one track at a time. In your audio program slide the tracks backwards and forward and line up the starting pulses. Assuming the master clock for the two computers are stable you should be able to get your tracks to line up very very closely. I've recorded tracks into ProTools from an old multitrack this way where I could not record all track simultaneously as they were on multiple reels having been originally recorded on two machines.