ANYONE KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS MIXER/RECORDER?

PG Music Home

my eldest son, gordon, is finally setting up a home studio and i am thrilled at the prospect. he asked his old dad for technical advice and i had to defer to you wonderful guys and gals.

http://tascam.com/product/dp-03/downloads/

his first serious mic: (LINK WON'T WORK) anyway, it's the 'perception 220' from akg. try here:

http://www.guitarcenter.com/AKG-Perception-220-Condenser-Microphone-104842315-i1391481.gc

see why i love this place?

Don, I don't hang out much. Maybe the 3 docs this week will get me back on track.

That's an interesting gizmo.

I personally don't know what he plays, what he knows or where he's heading.

If you have the cash, go for it.

If not get a cheap, Behringher usb mixer and an 'oldish' computer laptop with linuix and an xp machine that runs band in a box.

The most overlooked piece of software is after band in a box is Sox. I cannot tell you how much I think of that.

If your brain still functions, and you can understand stuff like if A=George and B=Bush A+space+B=George Bush then you are a budding programmer.

I have Linux machines, Windows machines, tablets, laptops, and huge sit on the floor machines.

I've got amps from Roland Cubes to Bose. I've got way too much stuff.

I taped names on my stuff so that stuff I don't use much goes to the right person.

I got mics. I can't even croak and be understood. So the mics have stickers.

What do I know?

This.

That your toys are just that.

They don't make you a winner.

But they can be fun.

Start it on your instrument.

Perfect it in Band in a Box.

Polish it in Linux.

If you have unlimited money you can buy a Mac and impress people with how great it should be.

It will be cute.

I'm into longevity, I hope.

See you in a few weeks, or months, or next year. Or not.

Peter has the best advice, while you can, have fun. It ends quick enough.

Don,
it may be what he needs, but it may be disappointing if he is trying to use it with BiaB/RB/PT.

Depends on what his needs are. If it is his first venture into digital recording,and a stand-alone device is what he wants, it will be very cool. If he is looking for an 'all in one' interface to use with his DAW, it may not be the best choice and is a nice chunk of change to be throwing down.

I'd look for a nicer interface and use a computer DAW if it was me, but that may not be his priorities.
This system makes things simple for ya, so it's got that going for it.
And he *could* export the recordings to a DAW if he wanted too. Like I said, it depends on his need. I had a small Tascam once, and still have it, but rarely find a use for it now. I think the computer offers much more flexibility and plugins and other benefits.

Hi Don,

It looks like a nice machine for what it is. Personally, I have a Boss/Roland BR-1600. It costs more but has better features.

16 Tracks can be played at once - Virtual tracks ( up to 128 tracks total.

8 XLR inputs. you can record 8 mics at once onto 8 different tracks.

80 gigabyte hard drive. - you don't want to mess around with little memory cards with digital audio

Incredible built in FX

Mastering suite, mixing, vocal fx including pitch correction and harmonizer.

USB connectivity to computer

also cd writer, and fairly easy to learn and use, very user friendly

You also need at least 1 good condenser mike, and a pair of near-field monitors

I still love the machine. I've been writing backing tracks from biab in computer to a rewritable cd and importing them into the BR1600

At the moment I'm going more in the direction of using Reaper with a Behringer BCF2000 hooked up to my computer. It depends what he wants to do. The portastudios can be a lot of fun, and you can get good quality results with them.

Good luck, Andrew

Hi Don,

I know of several different young performers who are using dedicated digital recording systems like that Tascam.

All but one of them use the dedicated digital recording system for tracking and then transfer those tracks to computer for final mixing and mastering. One of them use Macintosh, the rest use PCs - and one notable power trio goes from start to finish all on the dedicated digital recording system.

This seems to be a good work method, especially for the concept of recording their small combos, as the dedicated digital recording system is typically a lot easier to set up and run, capturing their performances as they play them live, in other words, not very much single track tracking session work, at least to begin with, they simply mic things, hook up direct boxes if needed and then can leave it all connected in the garage or basement "studio" between sessions, transferring files to the computer for mixing via USB sticks or CDR burns.

Advantages for the average musician who does not want to become a geek like me abound here. Built in mic preamps, no physical routing of cables from mic to pre and from line out to line in and then the often confusing selection of which channel goes where inside computer software as well as not having to deal with the things that go bumb in the night that stop the PC from recording today as it did yesterday, etc. etc.

These devices have a place. Every one of these young local performing groups is able to produce their own CDs, both for sale at gigs and also for internet publishing of their work - and if they do their part, the sonic results are rather good, too.

The dedicated digital recorder certainly represents a very viable alternative to all-computer based studios.

--Mac

I agree with what has been said about the DAW vs. Tascam discussion as it is about his needs. So I will address the mic side.

If this is his first good mic purchase I would suggest either a Shure M58 for vocals or a Shure M57 for both vocals and to mic amps, drums etc. Both are built like tanks and they are in the same price range as the one you are thinking about. But like amps, DAWs and cars mics can be a very personal thing!

Good luck.

Don, I looked at some of these back before Christmas. I went to several different forums and the main complain was the crosstalk or noise from the unit while recording audio. Some were getting clicks and pops from hardware onto the audio track.
You might want to look at some of the Tascam forums for more detail info on this unit.
Wyndham

john, gordon is a vocalist. i appreciate all of your suggestions but i neglected to say he already purchased this gear. my advice (after the fact) was to invest in a pro-quality sound card and, of course, biab. he already is familiar with audacity so i said to stay with that for the present, at least.

thanks again, folks.

see why i love this place?

.
I have had very bad experiences with Tascam product quality. Their customer support is pretty much non-existent.

Quote:

I have had very bad experiences with Tascam product quality.

My experience with Tascam is 1/3 good, 2/3 bad. The good part was an old Tascam 244 cassette recorder. It worked great in it's day.

The Tascam US-122 had lots of pops and cracks in recording. The US-428, ... ditto. I did use the US-428 in time to send it back for a refund.

No more Tascam products for me.

Don, I wish your son good luck with his purchase. Hopefully since it's not computer based, it'll work like my old 244.

There's a lot to be said for "stand alone" recording devices because they're so much simpler to use than DAW's and hardware conflicts, drivers, latency, bit rate, monitoring, etc.

I'm just not sure if this one fits the bill.

I love the Tascam products I have had, and still use the innovative FW-1884 as my main audio/MIDI interface & control surface.

However, I particularly dislike Tascam's customer service and product support, which presents a quandary when considering new purchases.

TASCAM's forte has been with the Portastudios. The portastudios became somewhat less portable when TASCAM began producing the huge 2488 series and portastudios like the DP-03 seem to represent more of a return to their roots of a a small all-in-one recorder that can be lugged around by a musician. My association with TASCAM/Teac goes all the way back to the mid 70's when I purchased my still functioning Teac 3340s 4 track multi-sync tape deck. All of my actual recorders (3340s, 2 TASCAM 788s, TASCAM 2488) have functioned flawlessly during the time that I've owned them.

TASCAM has been somewhat less adept at producing good functioning usb interfaces and although my experience with the US-428 was not horrible it wasn' wonderful either although in fairness it depended which computer I plugged the stupid thing into as far as functionality. It liked my laptop much better than it liked my desktop. I've had better luck with my FW-1884 and it is one of the best home studio mixing boards around. Too bad that they have stopped making it.

Keith, I also still have my Teac 3340s. I assume it still works, but it hasn't been turned on in 20 years.

I would come down on the side of a laptop with a Sequencer - there are many available even free - try KVR. The advantages of a computer based suystem is it grows with you, a tascam just gets binned when it can cope. I bought a digital workstation as my first system, I went back and bought Cubase tghe next week and I did not make a mistake. You might want ti start with a simple free sequencer and a decnet sound card with enough ins and outs, if you want to record multiple ins at the same time you need individual inputs -p line or mic levels. I supposew you can mix a bit on the tascam but it would not be easy

I still have an old Fostex R8 reel-to-reel which still works along with a box of Ampex 456 7" reels of tape.

Now and again I will run a digital track through it to warm up the recording or do a complete 8 track recording like I used to do all the time. It teaches me to think before recording and plan out everything.

That is in fact the greatest thing about BIAB - before recording we can have the whole song structure worked out.

Kevin

Matt, one thing I'll say about the 3340s, if you haven't listened to it for 20 years, it is worth firing up just to hear that old slap-back echo that it can produce at 15 ips. That is mainly what I use for in my studio these days.