Tascam Digital recorders

I'm not really an accomplished player or anything, but I like to record little dittys every now and then and needed something little for that purpose. I'm not in a band. I like country, rock, and top 40 or pop stuff. I read a book about songwriting a couple years ago and every since I've been playing around trying to get that one hook... I bought this unit at a music store in a town down the road for about $200. It's amazing the quality of the recordings. The sound is CD quality and it is so easy to use, it's click and start recording easy. There's a built in stereo mic, too, and has auto-punch, undo, some mixdown features, and a USB 2.0 port - which comes in handy when I want to dump things down to Cakewalk or whatever program I happen to be using at the time. The track editing function takes a little getting used to, but I've experienced that with other models too so I don't know how much of a downer that is. Just something I need to learn to work with better. Pretty solid. I feel like I could wind up and zing this thing from the mound down to the plate. A little pricey, but a lot of technology is tied up in this tough little unit, so I think it's worth it. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

This unit is orangish-red and looks great. I've been playing guitar and keys for years and I'm always looking for something to nail down ideas with, hence the purchase. I bought this for $169 from Musician's Friend. As noted above, I needed something small and portable to sort of keep with me for the purposes of recording ideas when they come to me - you know how that goes. You never have anything nearby when creativity strikes.. :) Super convenient. The unit records 24-bit wav or mp3 files to SD cards or SDHC media, there's a pair of stereo electret condenser mics with auto gain on the inputs. The sound is really high quality. The 2GB included SD card is not big enough. It's a nice thought so you can start playing with the unit, but as soon as I opened it, I ran out to Best Buy and got a 16GB card. Why mess around, right? Tascam builds good gear. I used to have an old four track from them and got years of use. This things seems to be constructed the same way - solid - as in it might be able to take a few drops here and there. Let's not try to test that out though. Great unit, great price. Can't complain. It sounds great, it looks great, it works great, and aside from the cheap 2GB SD card that comes with it, it's a hell of a unit. What do I rate it? 4 - nothings perfect. hahaha. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I got this through Music 123.com out of their "Refurbished" section which was a winner because I got the larger hard drive and the latest software. I paid about $650. I love this thing. If you're not timid about basic computer operations and can use a basic four track, you'll be flying on this thing. I really enjoy the ease of use and the on board effects. No more cables all over the place to outboard stuff (although you can do that too), it's a real step up over tape based home studios. No waiting to rewind. It's so fast my singer doesn't have time to grumble when I blow a take. I like that!!! The only setback is that the hard drive only has so much space, so eventually you have to pony up some more dough to get the CDRW 788 to make backups. But, you can also burn CDs off it too, so that's not too bad. Granted, for the money, you're not buying a Neve Flying Fader rig. It's got a plastic top surface but has held up well. I do take care not to bash it because it has a hard drive in it. Best bang for the buck 8 track digital out there, hand down. And...Tascam has an On-Line support forum that is exceptionally handy!!! This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I purchased the 788 after much internet research. I'm new to recording, and decided that it offered a lot of flexibility for a decent starter price. I paid approximately $900 through an online retailer - Musicians Friend. At its most basic level, it is VERY easy to use and the manual is mostly self explanatory. It has 250 virtual tracks per song which, for my use, assures that I will never run out of space. Records at 16 or 24 bits. Non-destructive editing and a fairly simple editing structure. Pretty good effects tweakability. Tascam provides a very useful and up to date online service forum which I've used extensively to clear up any misunderstanding between myself and the manual - excellent resource for beginners like myself to explore the recording world. Multi effects can only be applied to one track at a time which is frustrating at times. Example: If I record two guitar tracks and want to add flange and reverb to one track and a little distortion and reverb to another, I have to bounce the first track to an unused track, and then change my effects settings and bounce the second track. Since there're so many virtual tracks, its not such a big deal . . . but it does involve a lot of track shuffling. The manual is mostly self-explanatory. There are a few sections that are a little fuzzy and don't seem to illustrate the full capabilities of the unit. The construction is very nice. It's buttons, dials, and little lights are well organized and obvious, making it easy to navigate, although the display window is a little small. I've had NO problems with the unit, although there have been many reports of software difficulties in some of the earlier versions. Software upgrades are easy to get, however, and free. Pretty small and compact which make it good for portable recording sessions. I think the 788 is an excellent option for musicians ranging from complete beginner to experienced recording artist who wants something to work on at home. It is capable of producing very high quality sound recordings, and optional CD burners make this a very easy process. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I'm a beta tester for Timeline Vista, the company that developed the MX for Tascam. I plan to purchase this unit when the testing is complete because I am very impressed with it's performance overall. This hardware has got a V-8 under the hood! I tried doing home recording using soundcards and building my own DAW using over the counter software but even with lots of memory and a reasonably fast system I ran into problems with dropouts and freezes that were too huch hassle. With the MX-2424, I can do a ton of editing on a 24 track, 24-bit 44100 or 48000 Hz project and it never gives me a hiccup or long delays. I could record at 96000 Hz sample rates too if I wanted to but for me that's overkill. The analog to digital converters are very high quality and give great sound. The latest feature, a new GUI called MX-View, hasn't been released to the public yet because it's in the beta test phase, but I can tell you in all honesty, it's incredible! You can run the MX remotely with meters and do your tracking then do editing super fast. You can record many virtual tracks and quickly compile the best takes from each track to a new virtual track. You can render all your clips when done editing to make it easy to import into other music software at a specific time or if you use Logic Audio you'll soon be able to spot audio directly utilizing the Open-TL standard. If you don't have a digital mixer the MX-View software lets you do volume automation and you can mix down to two tracks to burn to a CD on the SPDIF output. I may take my tracks back into an audio program on my PC to add effects later but I can get a ton of work done using this new GUI and the MX-2424. Before they had the MX-View GUI they had a product called ViewNet which didn't have all that many features and was slower so I wasn't using the MX as I am now. It would be nice if it could work with IDE drives instead of SCSI because the SCSI drives cost more but I guess it probably wouldn't be able to perform as well as it does with the SCSI. This thing is rock solid! The buttons have a good feel and with the thousands of times I have pushed them I have never had an error where the button didn't work right. As I said before the sound quality is excellent and the synchronization and clock are so good you'll want to use the MX as your clock source. The unit will lock to just about anything and apart from the music industry this product is also heavily used in film-making and audio dubbing. Multiple units can chase one another to enable real-time recording of many instruments such as recording a full symphony. The MX-2424 competes with a couple of other products some for less money and some for more but it is purchased by professionals over the other units available because of it's quality and reliability. When previous owners get their hands on the new GUI, MX-View they just aren't going to believe all the extra features that have been added and how well it works. If you want to work quickly and feel confident in your recording hardware to keep up with you to get the work done without problems, then you have to evaluate the MX-2424 for yourself. You won't regret it! This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I've had this recorder for 2 weeks (took me a while find time to play with it) I didn't bother reading the manual a friend was nice enough to show me how to operate it. The recording I did was an outside recording. The birds were chirping,people were talking,cars where driving and honking their horns and people also blaring music from their vehicles. I was surprised how well this little recorder picked up bass from from a moving vehicle (music was playing of course). The recorder requires 2 AAA batteries and is very light in weight which is good because I'm a mobile person. I use this device for overdubbing audio onto my video production most cameras don't have good built mic setups so this is a great alternative. For overdubbing I use external condenser mics primarily a Studio Projects B3. I've only used the internal stereo mics a few times (and they are good). This recorder comes with with a 2gig card which is good for 3 hours of recording. What I would suggest is upgrading your card to at least a 4gig (it will support a card size of 32 gigs). Transferring files from the Tascam DR-03 is a breeze all you have to do is connect to a computer via usb and drag the files over (drag and drop makes life so much easier). I find this to be very quick and beneficial especially for songwriters as well as people like me to do vocal dubbing. There is a lot of handling noise which is expected as the built in mics are connected to the device so my suggestion would be to record with holding the Tascam DR-03. If you can mount the recorder you will have better quality recordings or you can just use an external mic like I do

For years, I used an old Tascam cassette 4-track (424), and I never got rid of it because it always worked, and it was very easy to operate. Unlike a lot of digital home recorders out there, the Tascam DP-01FX works with the same ease as the old 4-tracks, but you can do so much more with it. Also, the tracks never sound tinny, as is often the case on digital home recording equipment, and there's no hiss/machine noise whatsoever. What I like most about the unit is that you can use it as its own built-in recorder/mixer/effects unit, or you can use it to record tracks, and then easily upload those tracks into a computer mixing program. I'm not the most computer literate person in the world, and I have a Mac. These are usually big issues when it comes to compatibility and operation. In the case of the DP-01FX, though there was no issue. Importing from and exporting to the unit is unbelievably simple. I haven't had the need for the built-in effects, but I wanted the XLR inputs, so I bought this unit instead of the DP-01. It cost more, but was definitely worth the price, which, overall, is not going to break the bank . UTILIZATION The Tascam DP 01FX is very easy to operate since each feature has a individual know, so you won?t have to go through several menu screens. The unit has phantom power, which is always a good idea to have. SOUNDS sounds great with all styles of music. OVERALL OPINION I use the Tascam DP 01 FX digital recorder for everything. It is extremely easy to operate and all the mixing can be done on the recorder or the tracks can be exported to other software for further mixing. A great deal for the price. I was able to understand and use this product the first day I got it. Great for beginners and great for more experienced home studios musicians. I highly recommend this product.

The Tascam DA-40 is a quality DAT (digital audio tape) recording machine, that now of course is a bit obsolete. I don't know for what years the DA-40 was made, but I'm pretty sure it's from the end of the short lived DAT era as it's one of the best of it's kind. Of course it's kind of silly to go out and buy a DAT machine now that we have digital computer recording, but at the time the DA-40 was one of the best of it's kind. I work with a producer out of his home studio who still has one of these set up, although it never gets used. The only real point I could see to having the DA-40 or any other DAT machine would be if you still have old DAT tapes and are looking to play them back and/or get information off of them. The DA-40 in particular has a lot of features you won't find on other DAT's, which is why I think it's a later DAT model for sure. The DA-40 is also rack mountable and will take up three spaces in a traditional rack casing. It can record at up to a 48 kHz sample rate and a 16 bit depth as well. It also has a plethora of connections included analog balanced and unbalanced connections in addition the AES/EBU and SPDIF digital connections. Having said all this, unless you already have the DA-40, it's really not worth a second glance. The only other time I could see someone needing this would be if they wanted to bring their old DAT tapes back to life, but even then you probably already have the machine if you have the tapes. While the DA-40 is one of the best of it's kind in terms of being an effective DAT recorder, the bottom line is that it's an obsolete technology at this point...

The Tascam DA-88 is an old eight track DAT machine. These used to be pretty popular before the DAW age and you can still see some floating around out there. Of course, this is pretty obsolete technology at this point, but it's still worth discussing a bit. The DA-88 uses digital audio tape that can handle recording eight tracks at a time. It's an all in one system that's rack mountable and takes up about four spaces in a traditional casing. UTILIZATION I don't have too much experience using the Tascam DA-88, but the studio I work at does indeed have one. It certainly doesn't see very much use but it was recently brought out for some tests to see it's state. I think the owner of the studio is going to sell it and he asked if I would test it out. I didn't find it to hard to navigate around it as it's easy enough to playback tapes and shouldn't be hard to record right over them as well. I can't say that I know anything about a manual for the DA-88. SOUNDS The sound of the Tascam DA-88 is by no means bad at all. In fact, it's a pretty good sounding medium as it's digital just in a different form. The problem with DAT really comes with editing and manipulating. If you recorded on this and transferred it to Pro Tools it would be easy of course, but using the DA-88 as an all in one recording device is not exactly convenient by modern standards. So while it sounds good, in the modern day it's really not worth using. OVERALL OPINION While good for it's time, the Tascam DA-88 is pretty obsolete at this point. Those who do still have them have most likely been keeping them in storage for years as it's just not reasonable to work with in the day of the DAW. If you're interested in learning about it and can find one super cheap it would probably be fun to mess around with, but not really ideal for modern recording.

The Tascam CD-RW 2000 V3 is a discontinued model of a CD recorder and player. It is designed for use in recording studios, although there isn't nearly as much need for something like this now as there was even ten years ago, so CD-RWs like this one seem to be quickly dying out. This one comes in a rack mountable casing, which will take up two spaces in a traditional rack case. It is a fairly simple recorder and player to use, especially if you're only using it for the basic features, which is what my experience is with the CD-RW 2000 V3. I don't know how it compares to the original 2000, as I've only used this particular version. In the professional recording studio where I've used this, we had it set it up to record mixes straight to CD. While of course this can be done inside on the box on your computer, this has been in the studio for a while and has stayed since the days when it was a necessity. As a CD player it does the job very well, offering up a headphone jack in the front as well as a knob to control the level. It also has large buttons for play, stop, pause, and record. It has the standard settings that you'd expect from any CD player, as well as some not so standard ones for using the recorder. I must admit that I haven't delved too deep into the 2000 V3, and have generally only used it to write mixes to a CD for clients for myself. For this sort of use and beyond this unit will undoubtedly get the job done. It really just depends on what kind of system you're currently running to see if you need something like this, but most home studio owners won't at all. If you do need a hardware version of a CD player and recorder for your studio, the Tascam CD-RW 2000 V3 shouldn't be too expensive or hard to find even though they don't make them anymore, so I'd definitely recommend looking into it if you've got a need.

The Tascam Portastudio 2488 is a digital multi-track portable recording unit. It has 24 tracks, with four mic preamps and four 1/4 inch inputs. It has hard disc that you record to and also has a CD burner. While it has 24 tracks, the last couple of tracks are stereo tracks and can't be split. UTILIZATION The configuration and general set up of the 2488 is pretty easy, but does take a bit of getting used to, just in terms of toggling between the screens and finding your way around the menus. It is easy to use after a little practice and really has a lot of options built in. The manual is thorough and clear and is definitely worth having around while you are using this. SOUNDS The sound quality of the converters and preamps are surprisingly pretty good, and so are most of the built in effects. While the preamps definitely sound a bit tinny at time and aren't the fullest, they are usable and will work fine for the project studio. It has a lot of capabilities in terms of different effects and with a few good mics you can get some pretty good sounding recordings with this if you know what you are doing. The only downfall of this unit is that it is nearly impossible to edit the audio and isn't ideal for mixing with. OVERALL OPINION The Tascam 2488 was the first recording unit I got about six years ago when I wanted to get into recording. It worked great for two years for me until I upgraded to a computer based recording system. To me, a computer based system is better than something like this because it has wider capabilities in terms of editing and mixing. This being said, this unit is well made and will do the job when recording demos or other home studio ventures. The price has fallen considerably since everyone is using computer based systems, so if you are looking for a portable recording unit like this one, this is a great deal!