DP-02CF Newbie Questions

[rick5472]

I just ordered the Tascam DP-02CF recorder last night. I briefly skimmed the manual I downloaded from Tascam. I was hoping to get a heads up on a few things so I have a couple of questions. First I want to be able to connect my guitar to the recorder via the Tascam guitar trainer to take advantage of the effects. I have a Tascam MPGT1 and was thinking I could connect the guitar to the input of the guitar trainer and then the line out to the recorder. The question is do I set the input on the recorder to Line or Guitar? Second, I was hoping to be able to load an MP3 song say on track 8 and be able to lay down a guitar track on track one or whatever. Can the DP-02CF handle MP3 files or will I have to convert the file to some other format? Thanks for getting me started..........

 

[A Reel Person]

Rick,... a'ight!

The DP02cf is a nice machine that sounds good and is easy to use. Sure, it has some little shortcomings, but I don't wanna nitpick right out of the box.

The Tascam Guitar Trainer's line out should hopefully be a single MONO signal on a standard 2-conductor cable. If, by chance, (and I've not read the specs on the guitar trainer),... the line-out of the trainer is a "stereo" signal on a 3-conductor cable, it would be preferrable to get a proper "splitter" cable, say perhaps a 1/8"-stereo-plug-to-1/4" adapter Y-cable, (that splits the stereo signal off the 1/8" trainer output to 2 separate 1/4" plugs on the other end),... then use only one channel of the trainer's stereo output to plug into the DP02cf's input. (Or, use both plugs if you really want to record guitar in stereo to 2 tracks on the DP02). The DP02 input should be switched to "Line" in this case, as the trainer's output is a line level, not a guitar level,... or so I'd safely presume.

The DP02 will not import or use MP3 files directly. It's a 16-bit WAV file format internally. To "import" a track like that, you'd have to convert the MP3 file to a MONO WAV file, (not stereo). Then just drag and drop the mono wav file into the FAT portion of the card, and import the file to any track in a "song". If you want a simpler approach, you may line-out from the MP3 player to the DP02's inputs, and record to a DP02 track in "real time",... as opposed to "importing" like you do on the 'puter.

Good luck!