Setting up Synchronization for a Personal Music Studio

In a personal music studio, you might want to synchronize with an external recording device such as a portable hard disk recorder used for live remote recordings.

Prerequisite

Use MIDI connections for timecode and machine control and Lightpipe digital audio connections for the audio clock and audio signals.

Note

Nuendo should send MMC commands to the hard disk recorder and remotely start playback of the recorder.
The hard disk recorder should send back MTC to Nuendo. When the recorder starts playing, MTC is sent back to Nuendo, which will sync to that timecode.
The hard disk recorder uses audio clock from the audio interface of Nuendo as the speed reference.

Procedure

Select Transport > Project Synchronization Setup, open the Sources page, and in the Timecode Source section, activate MIDI Timecode.

If you record from the hard disk recorder into Nuendo, Nuendo is the machine control master and the timecode slave, locking to incoming MTC.
Open the Machine Control page, and in the Machine Control Output Settings section, activate MMC Master Active.

Nuendo now sends MMC commands to the hard disk recorder to locate and start playback.
In the Machine Control Output Settings section, select the MMC Input and MMC Output ports that are connected to the hard disk recorder.

Because MMC uses 2-way communication, both MIDI ports should be connected. Make sure that the MIDI filter does not echo SysEx data.
Open the Sources page and activate Activate External Sync.

This routes transport commands to the hard disk recorder via MIDI and sets Nuendo as the timecode slave.
On the hard disk recorder, enable MMC and MTC.
Follow the instructions on how to set up the unit to receive MMC commands and transmit MTC.
In Nuendo, start playback.

Result

The hard disk recorder starts playback and sends MTC to Nuendo. Once Nuendo syncs to MTC, the status on the Transport panel changes to Lock and the current frame rate of incoming MTC is shown.