MCI AutoLocater III

The MCI AutoLocater III is a remote control for use with MCI analog tape machines. I've used it with the MCI JH24, although I'm really not sure what the span of compatibility is here. I'm not sure if it's only for sue with the JH24 or if it has a wider span. Having a controller with the JH24 like the AutoLocater III is really a necessity more than anything. The studio that I work at has the tandem of these two together, but our tape machine is in another room from the control room and to go back and forth would really be a pain. I could understand not needing this back in day when the tape machine was probably in the control room, but even then I can see it coming in handy. Our tape machine only gets used every once in a while and isn't really not worth it for us to have it in the control room, so that's where the AutoLocater III comes into play. With this you can control pretty much everything you need to from a distance. It's got record arming capabilities for each of the 24 tracks available on the tape machine, as well as full transport controls for playback and recording. It also has numerical buttons for entering in a point at which you'd like the tape to bring you to. In addition there's also a button that brings you back to zero on the tape, which is incredibly handy. You can even set the speed of the tape from here. All of these controls are also available on the tape machine itself, but without the AutoLocater III I wouldn't be able to run the tape machine and control the console/Pro Tools at the same time. If you have an MCI tape machine, it's most likely going to come with something like the AutoLocater III or the AutoLocater III itself, so definitely take advantage of it's convenience.