Tascam DP-02CF sd?

S

senidge

New member
Hi guys, i've just joined the forum and i was just wondering if anyone could help me.
Basically i'm thinking of buying the DP-2CF as i've been using a computer for the past couple of years and it just doesn't feel as natural and simple as a portastudio, i've previously owned a cassette version.
What i was wondering was, is it possible to use a Compact flash to SD Card adapter with the tascam? as i'm a bit worried that as soon as i buy it the cards will become obsolete or at least hard to find. i'm aware that it only takes CF type 1 but i would prefer to use an sd card just to make it a bit future proof at least. i'm aware the dp004 is sd compatible but i would rather have something which is as usable as the old analogue models. budget is real tight so i cant really afford the standard model with the 40gb hard drive either.

Any help would be great.

Thanks:)
 
I'm going to venture to say I'm not certain. I suppose if you could get one that fits inside the sliding door on the side and still works, you would be golden. I haven't used mine recently but it seems that it won't function properly if you can't slide the media door closed all the way. Thus far I haven't had any problems locating CF cards though.;) I do have the DP-004 as well, and my only gripe is that they don't use the same format of cards.:confused:
 
Hi, Thanks for replying. So what i think you mean is that, in theory, for the sd card to work, then both the compact flash card and the sd card combined can be no larger than the compact flash card? that makes sense. i'll have a look online and compare measurements. just so that know, what made you buy both of them, was it the size difference? what do you think of both? i'm still making my mind up on what to get. i think i just like the old fashioned look and ease of use of the 02cf, but if i can get an easy to use smaller multitrack that's cheaper, then i will.
 
If you can find an adapter that is the same size as the CF card, you should be good to go, I would think.

I've had a 424mkII for a couple of years now and wanted to see how the digital version of it would work so I got the DP-02CF. I heard horror stories of the DP-01 with it's crashing hard drive, so I opted for the CF version of the DP-02. I really like it. I think the 424mkII is still quicker to set up and use, and has better mic pres though.

I bought the DP-004 for one thing: it is battery powered. I figured I could carry it around with me and whip it out and start recording, pretty much at a moments notice. It pretty much lives up to my expectations on that. It is pretty stripped down as it doesn't have EQ or send/returns, but that's okay. It's got some decent built-in mics as well. The stereo separation of the built-in mics leaves something to be desired, but overall, it's not a bad little unit.
 
Right, that's great, thanks. I've been online and found asd to cf converter by a company called delkin. As far as i can tell the sd card doesn't protrude from the cf card and it's the same size as a cf type 1, so with a bit of luck, it'll work, says no drivers are needed for anything so the Tascams's operating system shouldn't have any trouble hopefully. I have been looking on the net at cf cards which are generally cheap, but the fact that i can probably use SD in the future is something that has won it for me.

Thanks for the info on the dp004. as it stands i'm still getting the 02cf but i must admit, the price of the 004 is real appealing. i'm going to record as much as i can with the cf02 then transfer it to cubase on the pc and do any little finishing recordings or tweaks on there. so i guess it's the 8 tracks that's really won me over. Mic wise, i'm not really thinking of using the on board mics for anything, everything will go stright through the 3/4 jacks or the xlr. After christmas i'm planning to buy the tascam, plus a condenser mic. most probably the Rode NT1-A, so with those and my existing equipement i should get a pretty good recording.
 
Update from tascam!

I've just recieved the following email from tascam support.

"CF to SD cards is not supported. This type of adapter may not fully support the transfer of 8 tracks playing whist 2 recording.



Regards



Gary" So there i have it. apparently they aren't supported
Just though i'd post this as i dont want anyone to get into a fix trying the adapters
 
Sorry to revive this age old thread. I just picked up one of these for almost nothing and wondered if anybody had ever ended up trying that after all these years. Seems like the later generation adapters and SD cards would easily handle the speed of the older CFs that the Tascam supposedly wants, but I could be wrong. I've also been dealing with this stuff long enough to have seen quite a few manufacturers write off something as "unsupported" just to limit their test base or prevent a stampede of support calls even if the setup might have worked in most cases.

Also, why does this thing talk about mp3's? They've got them listed in several different bit rates along with 44.1 and 48k stereo .wavs in their "recording times" document, but the only mention in the manual is something about importing CD files (for the non-CF DP-02) in which case the recording time wouldn't matter.
Is that something the non-CF can do, or something which never got implemented?

If anybody ever runs across a schematic or service manual, please let me know. I may try Tascam this week.

Thanks!

George
 
Supportability & Specs:...

I agree with you about some things being defined as not supported, yet working fine in practice.

If you're referring to a specification document about recording times on CF cards, the PocketStudio5 recorded in an MP3 format and used CF cards, but the PS5 had a defined hard limit of 128kB total storage. If you put anything larger in, it would only recognize 128kB worth.

I believe for the SD/CF card adapter and the DP02cf, you'll just have to try it and maybe report back. I'm sure other people would like to know.

Thank you!
 
Thanks Reel Person!

It's the "Approximate Recording Time Chart" from here. The "(CF card only)" specs made me think they meant the CF version of our 02, but I suppose it could be a generic document for all CF equipped Tascam recorders. They also had a foreign version of the owner's manual at the English link on one of those pages, so I guess it could happen.

I've got a 4G CF card I bought a while back with a 2.5" IDE adapter I was trying to use in an old laptop. Turned out to be slow as crap, so I may just use that card depending on how much I like/use the DP-02.

The CF to IDE idea was for the same reason I grabbed this DP-02. I've always been looking for something to do basic vocal tracking on, which produced minimal mechanical noise or interference, so I could test/compare mics and such with the recording device right beside me. The DP almost nails it, but it's sad that it's missing a few minor mods or additions which would have made it perfect. Most obvious are the wimp city preamps. Seems like with a device of this nature, you want it to be totally "stand-alone" with no extra crap hanging off of it, and it would seem like having many users building entire mixes out of a bunch of low level tracks is only going to make their product sound bad. I can't recall anything I've got here with such low gain.

On the plus side, I will say that it was probably one of the easiest things to learn my way around on. After skimming the manual for a few minutes and using the unit for about a half hour, I was flying around on it like I had used it all my life.

George
 
Well, evidently this thing doesn't 'like' that 4Gig CF card I was talking about. It gives me some "Invalid card:63" error and tells me to power down with no option. It's a SanDisk Ultra II. They've got an Ultra II 1Gig in their (somewhat limited) approved list, but I know SanDisk have had some issues with counterfeits. Don't know if that's my deal or if the thing just really is more picky about the cards than I had guessed. Not sure if it's worth taking a chance on an adapter if so.

There isn't any sort of "force format" or anything is there? I don't see anything in the docs. The disk started off with a 1G fat32 partition and the rest empty, but when it didn't recognize it, I took it back to the PC and wiped all partitioning ...same result. :(

George
 
I don't use the DP02cf often, but...

I successfully formatted & partitioned an 8gB CF card, although I can't remember the brand or type until I locate it again.

:spank::eek:;)
 
A Reel Person said:
I successfully formatted & partitioned an 8gB CF card, although I can't remember the brand or type until I locate it again.
Click to expand...

Thanks!

What exactly is the spec this thing is looking for? In CF stuff I read, I see type I/II, but also mentions of UDMA modes. For instance, a SanDisk "Extreme Pro" 16G they have in their compatibility list shows on Amazon as UDMA6, 90MB/sec, 600x, but there's no reference to CF "type". I'm also figuring there's a bus/controller spec which the Tascam runs at, which might be a bit dated, so faster more modern (and expensive) cards are only going to bump themselves down to that speed, if it even agrees to see them.

If the Tascam bus is actually faster than some of the older compatible cards, it might be worth a few bucks more. The export/backup operations are one of the areas where this thing sort of shows its age and are one of my main complaints about it. If they had done the logical thing, and made it write directly to a visible partition in a standard format, we could transfer to the computer at USB2 or whatever speed our cards could do without all this extra conversion crap (and without cutting our card size in half). :mad:

George
 
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