Steinberg SMP-24 SMPTE/ MIDI Synchroniser

Getting the timing right

With the progress of MIDI during the 80’s, this technology became increasingly essential in recording studios. In the first 10 years of MIDI, the prevalent audio recording method was still analog or digital tape. So an absolute key factor was the ability to synchronise the recordings on tape, with the MIDI sequencers.

Being a leader in MIDI software recording technology, with previous products such as the Pro-16 Sequencer (Commodore-64), Pro-24 Sequencer (Atari ST) and still current DAW Cubase (PC/Mac), German developers Steinberg GmbH introduced a hardware synchroniser companion for their hugely popular Cubase program on the Atari 1040 ST.

A rock steady crew

The combination of Cubase on Atari and the SMP-24 synchroniser was a rock solid partnership, that allowed the MIDI sequencer to exactly follow the tape position, anywhere in the recording, with very short pick up time. The sync response time for MIDI was far superior to that of syncing multiple tape machines together. Or syncing a tape machine to video.

Stripper’s delight

The SMP-24 outputs SMPTE code that can be recorded (“stripped”) onto an available track of your tape recorder. On analog tape recorders, it is advisable to use an edge track (first or last track) since this minimizes audio spill (“bleed”) of the code on the other audio tracks containing music. Once the tape was stripped with a continuous, unbroken code the SMP-24 will follow the SMPTE Code, and out MIDI Start, Stop and Song Position commands to Cubase.