Just ordered a 788

S

S.C.U.D

New member
Hi have just ordred a 788- It doesn't have the upgrade however the shop have kindley agreed to sort this out and will get it upgraded for me. I have a couple of questions. I was reading about digital work stations / recording and it was saying that there is no headroom above 0db therefore if you overload this while recording a track clipping occurs, unlike an analogue mixer where you have a certain amount of space above 0db berfore overloading. Is this something i should be watching out for with the 788 and if so any tips on where you guys are setting your levels would be really helpful.

Also being new to this whole world of digital recording and hard drives etc how have you gone about having your hard drives upgraded - what's the best way internal or external and where's the best place to go for this.

And finally this is probably a stupid question but I have a brand new sony CD/CDr/CDRw I will be able to use the to burn CD's from the 788 won't I.
 
The official line from Tascam has always been that only a very small number of TEAC/Tascam burners are compatible with the 788. Others won't work or might even damage the machine. That said, some people on the old Tascam.com forum reported using other drives successfully. Most people seemed to think this was a bad idea.

If you don't want to spend £200+ on the Tascam CDRW788 you can shop around for the various components on Ebay. You'd need a drive, an external case, the right SCSI cable, and probably a SCSI terminator. All this can cost as little as £50, but finding them can be a pain in the butt, you have to assemble all the bits, and there's no guarantee it'll work. Only three drives are compatible. They are the TEAC CDR56S, CDR58S, CDW512S. The CD624S may be as well. All this info. used to be on the Tascam.com forum with the disclaimer that only drives bought in the US were guaranteed to be the right ones. I bought a CDR56S from Ebay.co.uk and it works fine.

If you exceed 0db on a digital machine you get digital clipping which sounds horrible. I think there's a section in the manual on gain staging which tells you how to record at maximum volume without clipping.
 
Many on the old Tascam forum (myself included) used external compression prior to the signal going into the 788 which pretty much negates any problems with clipping. Even without it however it won't take you long to get used to getting good recording levels.

As to the burner, as far as I know only Tascam's work properly.
 
Thanks for this guys - Just to confirm my Sony is an analogue CD recorder Half CD player and Half CD recorder - Could I not use the Stereo Output on the 788 to mix onto to my Sony - Like i do now on my 564
 
Sorry - Don't worry, just realised i've answered my own question here - and confirmed with Sound on Sounds Paul white Review of the 788.

"the stereo output / monitor output are on phono's for easy connection to a hi-fi system or stand-alone recorder" .

The scary thing is i've read this review twice already.

Sorry again.
 
No problem. All that stuff I wrote was about using a SCSI CD burner and the SCSI output on the 788. As you've seen, the stereo outputs can be used with any suitable device.
 
This might sound crazy, but some folks on the old forum suggested to set the track levels at 99 rather than 100. I have been doing this since, and it really seems to work. At 99 it is easier to get a level that won't clip.
 
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