dp02-cf worth it?

[ColdToTheTouch]

i just ordered a tascam dp02-cf and ive read good reviews and bad reviews. ive been using portastudios for about 11 years now, and figured it was time to go digital. i literally lost sleep last night because i was reading everything i could about the DP and now Ive stressed myself out. I ordered this machine from A "Daddys junky music" site.it's used and the price tag was $200.. damn. now I dont even know what I want to ask. i confused myself again. Does this machine have an internal hard drive or it only saves to the compact flash drive? Ive read alot of people having a hard time mixing down..should i honestly just stick to the 488 portastudio that's 20 years old? I bought the 488 a week ago from "daddys" and when i ordered the DP i just figured Id swap the 488 for it and pay the difference, but now im having second thoughts. im sorry that i was all over the place.. but can someone help me out with some opinions?

 

[jjones1700]

The DP-02CF is a nice piece of equipment. It records to Compact Flash cards and has no internal hard drive (less to worry about!). I've had mine for over a year and the only complaint that I really have is that the mic pre's are a little weak. Worst case scenario is you have to get an external preamp for the mics. Other than that, a slick little recorder.

 

[ColdToTheTouch]

thanks buddy.. i will probably come up with more questions once i pick this unit up tomorrow. O.K... now are the mic pre's any less weak than on the other analog portastudios? and people said they had a hard time mixing down and mastering. i downloaded the manual and read thru it.. now it seemed pretty self explanitory from what i read. go into master mode, hit record do the fader and pan tweaks as the song plays and its mastered. than i export the mastered song onto my pc for any additional mastering and burning? that sound correct? i appreciate your opinion.. and sorry for the dumb questions

shiZz

 

[jjones1700]

No dumb questions man. You are correct about the mixdown and mastering. I never found anything hard about it.

I'd say the analog portastudios have a beefier mic pre than the DP-02CF. My 424mkII has a good bit more gain than my DP. I was a little disappointed with that, but it wasn't a deal breaker.

You'll have alot of fun with it. It's pretty intuitive, with the exception of having to use a menu vs. the switches and buttons on the analog brethren.

Just make sure you have the inputs assigned and armed before you record. I've made the rookie mistake of recording a track and then going back and finding nothing on it! One of those true DOH! moments.

 

[RobertoL]

It records to Compact Flash cards and has no internal hard drive (less to worry about!).

?? I don't think so. Where will the files be stored when you have recorded something(but not exported yet)? There has to be something where you can store your songs that aren't mastered or exported ( internal FAT memory?).

Is there a way to directly save/export your songs (.001-files) to the Flash Card without storing it on the FAT Memory?

 

[jjones1700]

?? I don't think so. Where will the files be stored when you have recorded something(but not exported yet)? There has to be something where you can store your songs that aren't mastered or exported ( internal FAT memory?).

Is there a way to directly save/export your songs (.001-files) to the Flash Card without storing it on the FAT Memory?

It stores them in a proprietary format on the card. I haven't dove in to see what file structure it is. When you master or export, it converts it to .wav.

 

[RobertoL]

It stores them in a proprietary format on the card.

No, i don't think so. Where will they be stored when you made a song and you turn the machine off?

When you 'backup' your songs, the songs will be stored on the card in the folder 'backup' on the cf card AND on the internal drive.

 

[jjones1700]

No, i don't think so. Where will they be stored when you made a song and you turn the machine off?

When you 'backup' your songs, the songs will be stored on the card in the folder 'backup' on the cf card AND on the internal drive.

Are you trying to argue the point? Create a new song. Record a few tracks. Turn the machine off and swap CF cards. Record another song. Turn machine off. Swap cards to original CF card. Turn it on and load the song you were first working with. The material is still there man. It's on the card. If you haven't noticed, when you are recording the "Access" light is flickering. It's writing raw data to the card. When you perform a backup, it's simply compressing the song into one file so you can transfer that file to a computer and then to CD for archiving. The file is still in a proprietary format that you can't edit. It's simply a file for restoring a song should something either happen to the song on the card or the card becomes corrupted. Exporting files is where you get your usable .wav files for further editing or burning to CD.

Data being recorded on the DP-02CF simply isn't just "vaporware" that is stored in memory. That would be an excessive amount of memory to put in such a device.

If all else fails, contact Tascam during the week and confirm it with them.
(323) 726-0303

Think about it, the DP-02 (non CF) records the data to the hard drive when recording. The CF version doesn't have a hard drive, so it records it to the CF card. Why do you think there are multiple partitions on the card? The proprietary partition isn't going to show up when you connect the DP-02CF to Windows anyway. It's not supposed to be something that is examined under a microscope. It just works and there is a method of manipulating those files safely, namely exporting them to .wav. Besides, what difference would it make anyway how/where it stores the data? If it works, it works. Unless you are trying to reverse engineer the thing, leave it be man.