Chris,
Back in the day… Like 1989/1990 Voyetra was a small, innovative company of it's own (not bought by turtle beach yet) located in Pelham, New York. The flagship interface the called the V-24s had 2 MIDI Ins and 4 MIDI Outs (64 possible channels) and it also generated and read SYMPTE time code (which was audio based digital time code format…sequencer morse code for clocking Tape machines and MIDI devices together)…
Now it was very interesting how MIDI and Audio (Vocals, Guitars) were done in those days, I remember working on 3 major label demo projects that were producing artist showcases with Voyetra Sequencer Plus Gold Version 4.02 with DOS PCs that had V24S Interfaces; the process was as such…
1) On a 16 Track Tascam Reel to Reel Tape machine, we would "Stripe" the Tape on Track 16 with SYMPE Code generated from the Voyetra V24s interface; if you listened to it (which was a crazy mistake), it sounded like some high digital pitches (more annoying than modem handshaking) … so after Striping the entire reel (30 minutes of Sympte), Track 16 was never sent back to the mixer
2) Now the cool part… in Voyetra, enter the Start time of the song you were working on and it would "chase lock" in perfect time to the Tascam Reel to reel by "reading" the SYPTE time code that was being fed into the V24 Interface via track 16 of the Tape machine. All external MIDI devices, Drum Machines, Multiple Synths, Electric Pianos, etc. were being played by the corresponding virtual MIDI tracks of Voyetra simultaneously and fed into a large mixing console (And NOT send to tape at all)
3) Now, while all the MIDI stuff was playing into the board, audio tracks were recorded by arming tracks on the 16 track reel to reel and the vocalist or guitarist would hear all the MIDI stuff being monitored and play/sing along with their track and it was bussed and recorded to tape.
So the end result ? 4) MIXDOWN: You would get 14 Tracks of audio on the reel to reel (Track 16 was SYMPTE, and 15 was left black since the SYMPTE was so strong it could bleed sonically onto track 15) and the final Mixdown would be done in real time through a large console; with the tape machine playing all audio tracks while Voyetra locked to the SYMPE track and played all the external MIDI stuff… all being fed simultaneously (in perfect sync) through the mixer where each synth, Vocal, Guitar, Bass Track, and drum machine was EQed with outboard effects and Compressors applied; all being mixed onto a stereo 2 track reel to reel.
Damn, I'm showing my age… But at least I have my hair
https://www.facebook.com/SocalStingers (2nd from the left)
PS: Just found my copy of Sequencer Plus Gold in the Garage in it's original Box with 3.5" 720K Floppies… ebay ?
