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- MGR/Algernon Van Peel
Tascam 788 Digital Portastudio
Published on 12/29/03 at 15:00I bought this at at musiccenter in Belgium for 750 euro. I needed a digital recorder to record my musical ideas I also wanted to make a CD out of my songs.
First of all, This unit is the only one in this price range to have 24 bit recording capability. I downloaded about 10 mp3's made by the Boss Br-1180 and 20 from the fostex VF-80 just to compare the difference between 16 and 24 bit. I can really hear the difference in sound quality. I'm very picky when it comes to sound quality because I play the trombone and I'm studying music. It can play 8 tracks at a time and it can record 6 tracks at once, it has 250 virtual tracks, 999 levels of undo although some who has reached that much undos s…Read moreI bought this at at musiccenter in Belgium for 750 euro. I needed a digital recorder to record my musical ideas I also wanted to make a CD out of my songs.
First of all, This unit is the only one in this price range to have 24 bit recording capability. I downloaded about 10 mp3's made by the Boss Br-1180 and 20 from the fostex VF-80 just to compare the difference between 16 and 24 bit. I can really hear the difference in sound quality. I'm very picky when it comes to sound quality because I play the trombone and I'm studying music. It can play 8 tracks at a time and it can record 6 tracks at once, it has 250 virtual tracks, 999 levels of undo although some who has reached that much undos should just start over. It has a waveform display unlike the Boss Br-1180. The manual was ok. I tried placing 1 mic infront of a trombone quartet and it sounded excellent except for the phone ringing and the door banging in the background. It has a very nice form and the knobs are very firm. (Wow, am I talking about my girlfriend or recorder??) It's has a 10 gig hard drive which is enough for 1 album but the drive can be replaced. The costumer support was just amazing. I bought it with a version 1.10 system so I emailed tascam Germany and they said that version 2.0 was coming out so they decided to send me an upgrade cd. I didn't have a cd drive for the tascam so they sent me an eprom microchip instead. It arrived here in the Philippines in less than 2 weeks. That was really quick. The sound quality is really good. Check out my songs so you'll know what I mean: www.nowhereradio.com/slidemasterx/singles
What I don't like about the tascam is that you have to buy a separate external cd burner to be able to back up, or import/export files. It only has a digital output. (no input). It doesn't have a built-in mic which I really needed because my ideas spring out during unusual times like when I'm in the shower or while I'm sitting on the toilet bowl. It's heavy and doesn't have batteries. I need to record during the vacation. One big factor that led me to buy this was the user forum on the tascam website but after I bought this, they closed it down. There is another 788 forum but with fewer members. it on: www.cmoore.com/forum
I had a difficulty with the effects because as a newbie, I needed EQ and reverb presets. The 788 only had 1 good reverb preset but there were lots of wierd effects for vocals and guitar which I didn't really need. The boss and fostex had a lot of presets.
The 788 looks solid to me. just don't drop and bash it around because it has a hard drive. It only crashed once. I just restarted it and everything went fine. I wish they made a softcase for it.
Well this unit is pretty good and it's better than other brands in the price range. It costs $600 now and a lot cheaper used. If you're experienced with EQ and effects then the 788 shouldn't be a problem for you but If you're a newbie who just wants to record ideas and you need presets, then you should get a boss br-864 or tascam pocketstudio 5. There are a lot of features on the 788 that I don't use. I should have waited for a few months until the Boss br-864 or Zoom mrs-802 came out. I regretted it a lot. Overall this is a good unit if you have a background on recording already.
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