Help configuring MTP-AV USB - RESOLVED

[James Steele]

Thanks for the reply Chris, the replacement MTP AV USB was indeed specifically a 1.32 USB and 2.0.1 MIDI chip version. It worked on Windows 10 back in 2020 before I pulled the studio PC out to use for remote work from home. Best news is I replaced the CR 2032 battery just about an hour ago and bam! Everything is working again!

Fantastic! Great units! I am still using my MTP/AV USB *and* an old MPT2 daisy changed off of it with an old Apple network cable. I'm just amazed it works with my Mac Studio and Monterey!!! There is a caveat though... certain changes made in Clockworks (like muting certain MIDI messages on a cable, etc.) don't seem to "stick"... so maybe at some point there's a MIDI Express in my future, but I'm making do. All the normal playback stuff... the CC messages and MIDI note on and not offs... that sort of thing is working just fine.

[James Steele]

Ok. Changed the battery and the routing section has appeared. Yay. Thanks folks.

I'm going to mark this resolved. Glad it's fixed.

[mikehalloran]

DBX II (if I remember correctly) actually worked, and I have no idea how they managed to make 1/8" tape do what it did.

For $100 more, you could get the 238S with Dolby S which is what I have. I still have a couple or three cassette decks with dBx II and a large library of cassettes that I've been transferring to digital over the years.

[PartTimeGeek]

For $100 more, you could get the 238S with Dolby S which is what I have. I still have a couple or three cassette decks with dBx II and a large library of cassettes that I've been transferring to digital over the years.

I bought mine the year the 238 came out, or soon after, I don't remember the Dolby S option at the time. Was it a later addition?
I was familiar with DBX because the first 4 track cassette portastudio I bought was <EDIT!!> the Yamaha MT1X.. not the MT4X.. I was not that fancy. (I got it because it was the right price point for a unit that had 4 mic/line ins that could be used simultaneously... The DBX was the icing on the cake)


So there is the possibility that I knew about the Dolby S option and decided against it. I was pretty anal retentive and read Mix, Home and Studio Recording, and Electronic Musician magazines cover to cover every month. I might have been going on someone's subjective opinion on DBX II vs Dolby S, or I might have been going with the devil I DO know.. .

Just did some digging, the 238S was released around 3-4 years after I bought my model.
http://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/silent-partner/2899#

When Tascam launched the Dolby S version of the MSR24 one-inch 24-track to so much critical acclaim last year, a Dolby S version of the 238 seemed the obvious next step. After all, the Dolby S system was specifically designed to upgrade the performance of the humble compact cassette to the point where it would continue to be viable compared to the ever-widening range of digital consumer media. The original 238 model seemed to many people something of a technical marvel; the staggered, dual head configuration, and an extremely high quality direct drive transport allowed every last drop of performance potential to be squeezed from the limited track width. Add in dbx noise reduction, and the result was a nominal frequency response extending to a remarkable 16kHz, and a most impressive 90dB signal-to-noise ratio. Furthermore, the transport featured all the control interfaces of the most up-market Tascams of its generation — transport synchroniser and external computer control capability was already there, before most people were ready for it. This was quite obviously a serious machine, even capable of professional usage in, say, certain areas of the music-for-picture field. As a demo recorder it had all the advantages: compact, cheap to run (cassettes are an awful lot cheaper to buy than reels of quarter-inch or half-inch tape), and you couldn't spool off accidentally, no matter how careless you were.

However, the low tape speed (compared to an open-reel system) and narrow track width of the 238 obviously taxed the dbx system to the limit, and I have to admit that, subjectively, the Dolby S version results in an undeniably better sounding, although slightly noisier, machine.

That is from the 1992 issue of "Recording" Magazine, which is what "Home and Studio Recording" magazine changed their name to later on... maybe they thought they needed to be like the cool single name kids, like, "Mix" or SPIN... or maybe "Sting?"

Anyway, I spent the afternoon re-familiarizing myself with the UA Apollo x8P and the Console app in conjunction with Reaper and realized how rusty I am and how I never really got set into a fluent workflow and set of session and track templates before COVID so rudely interrupted me... I DID manage to start tracking vocals for a paying gig for a non-singer songwriter. I just needed to have enough done to have a clean vocal chain, and overdub a bunch of takes against a rough mix sent to me.

This will be the first time I used my voice, and my home studio for paid work... and I just had to track over and over with auto-lanes, simple comping here and there, and dump the rendered test ideas into google drive to get some feedback from the producer / mixer...

Couldn't do THAT with my syncaset1