Applications - Chapter 11
60 ADAT LX20 Reference Manual
MAKING DIGITAL BACKUPS
You can (and should!) back up LX20 tapes by copying all eight tracks to another
LX20 (or ADAT-compatible machine) via the digital bus.
Alesis urges you to back up whenever you have material you don’t want to lose. This
is not yet a perfect world.
Synchronizing two machines together via the 9-pin sync bus allows for making
sample-accurate copies, referred to the internal time code. This is the preferred
way to make copies. Otherwise, you can simply start recording on the slave and
play back from the master. This faithfully copies the audio information, but in all
likelihood there will be a timing offset between the two tapes since it is impossible
to start them at the exact same time unless they are synchronized together.
Here’s the complete procedure for creating a backup tape.
Action You do… You see…
Synchronize the master and slave With power off, connect a
male/male, 9-pin D connector
cable between the master SYNC
OUT and the slave SYNC IN
The master becomes ID1 and the
slave ID2 on power-up
Establish digital audio
connection
Connect a fiber optic cable
between the master DIGITAL
OUT and the slave DIGITAL IN
No visible change on machine
Load machines with tapes Insert the tape to be backed up
into the master, and a blank or
formatted tape into the slave
Cassette inserted indicator lights
in both machines’ displays
• To make a 20-bit backup, both machines must be Type II with tapes formatted in 20-bit mode.
• If the tape is unformatted, put the slave into FORMAT mode. If the tape is partially formatted, the
slave tape needs to have its format extended.
• For safety’s sake, write-protect the tape to be copied by sliding open the tape’s write protect tab.
Return both machines to a common
start point
Press the LOCATE 0 button Both TIME counters read
0:00:00.00
Enable digital inputs Press the DIGITAL INPUT button
on both the master and slave
LX20
The DIGITAL indicator lights on
both machines
Enable all slave tracks for
recording
Press all slave RECORD
ENABLE buttons
The RECORD indicators for all
slave tracks will flash.
Be sure the master LX20’s RECORD ENABLE buttons are switched off for tracks 1–8.
Initiate tape cloning Press PLAY and RECORD on the
master
Both machines start, RECORD
ENABLE indicators on slave
machine light solid
End backup Press STOP on the master after
backup is complete
Both machines stop
If a tape is in very bad condition, you may have difficulty copying it from the
master to a slave. If there are so many errors that the LX20 momentarily loses sync
during playback, all slaves will be taken out of record automatically. In this case,
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