does the 2488 have a drum machine built in it?

[COOLCAT]

My bro was asking.. he says the manual sucks on this drum portion.

He thinks there's a drum machine built in the unit, I thought it was MIDI triggered sounds?

Can someone answer this question once and for all?

[Sexy Heather]

I don't believe the 2488/2488 mkII has a drum machine, per se, built-in. It does have MIDI and looping capabilities, and effects for drums, but I don't think there's a drum machine. My DP-01 FX/CD is the same, no drum machine, but is has effects tailored for drums.

[ErichS]

The older 2488 does has some built-in drum patterns that you can string togerther to create a basic drum track, and a drum sound generator with different kits, but it is not a full fledged drum machine. It looks like these features were dropped in the 2488 MKII

[COOLCAT]

Erich is it easy to do?

My brother says the manual goes down the steps, then it doesn't work as far as a procedure.

So have you used it and is it easy to pull up and play?

Does it take up tracks etc?

I've heard different inputs now, some say its MIDI controlled and your the first to say its an actual Drum Pattern basic type machine...

thanks

[RAMI]

Originally Posted by COOLCAT

Erich is it easy to do?

My brother says the manual goes down the steps, then it doesn't work as far as a procedure.

So have you used it and is it easy to pull up and play?

Does it take up tracks etc?

I've heard different inputs now, some say its MIDI controlled and your the first to say its an actual Drum Pattern basic type machine...

thanks

Erich is right on. It's both.

MIDI....and a sort of drum machine in the sense that you can chain patterns (all in 4/4 I think) together. It takes up 2 channels on the board, but not 2 of the 24.

[Zaphod B]

The original 2488s do have a drum machine. You can string together segments and create song-length percussion and you are not restricted to 4/4.

But it's a real pain in the ass since the documentation doesn't address what all the rhythm patterns are, nor does it provide any description of what the different kits sound like, so you have to go by trial and error and make meticulous notes of everything you've tried.

There are only pattern presets - you can't actually generate your own patterns.

The internal drum machine uses the TG (tone generator) channel so it doesn't use any of the stereo tracks.

Did I say it's a real pain in the ass? It's worth putting out a couple or three hundred bucks for a fully programmable drum machine rather than mess with the internal pattern generator.

The 2488 can do MIDI syncing with an external drum machine.

[COOLCAT]

so the manual does suck, but the drums are there.

I mean sometimes its nice to have a basic "click" snare and kick drum track to keep things tight before the real drums to be put on last. pretty coold feature though it doesn't sound easy.

interesting... thanks!

[89gtsleeper]

Ok, a couple things here... I am an owner of a 2488mkII as of a few months ago as my first recording console.

1) My initial reading and researching was misleading. I purchased the 2488mkII thinking it also had a drum machine built in as the regular 2488 had. This is not the case. I was really bummed out, but after continuing to use it, I still think it is a really nice piece of equipment for a very good price. This was pretty much a perfect unit for me because of the exact features it had (except the drum machine).

[89gtsleeper]

2) The manual is really pretty straight forward about most things. The mixing, mastering, burning section leaves the most mysteries. Also the sectio for using the multi-effects was missing a few key things, but overall it's like any other real piece of equipment... the manual only goes so far without mesing around on your own. I read my entire manual front to back about 4 or 5 times before I even took it out of the box. I read for two weeks (still waiting for my monitors).

[89gtsleeper]

3) Screw the manual, becasue there is also a very good Tascam user forum. Yes it costs like three bucks to join, but just pay it. And also, there is a guy on those forums that made his own huge manual for the original 2488 that is tips from an actual user's standpoint, and things originally left out of the manual, it fills in almost all of the gaps in the real manual. Here you go.

http://dazsavoo.agentxsites.com/xSit...0HomeGuide.pdf

[89gtsleeper]

read pages 10-16 for the drum stuff.

[Zaphod B]

Originally Posted by COOLCAT

so the manual does suck, but the drums are there.

I mean sometimes its nice to have a basic "click" snare and kick drum track to keep things tight before the real drums to be put on last. pretty coold feature though it doesn't sound easy.

interesting... thanks!

Sure, you can do that pretty easily, although I find it much simpler to just program a simple snare-bass-hi-hat pattern on my Boss DR670 and record a few minutes of it onto one of the stereo pairs on the 2488. If you set the time signature on the 2488 and set up the MIDI sync, the external drum machine will play whatever tempo you have assigned.

[RAMI]

The pattern ROCK-32 is what I always use for my click. I record a few bars onto tracks 23-24 and then just copy 23-24 to itself for the length of the song.

[Zaphod B]

Originally Posted by RAMI

The pattern ROCK-32 is what I always use for my click. I record a few bars onto tracks 23-24 and then just copy 23-24 to itself for the length of the song.

That'll work.

[RAMI]

Actually, in case someone tries out what I said, it's ROCK-32-VERSE. That's the simpleest pattern in the machine, from what I could see.