Need help with Tascam 788

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vbtudor

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Hi there

I have a Tascam 788 and am looking for connection to comouter (the small LCD panel isnt good enough for my eyes sight to see clearly). However I am shocked at the price of the CD Rewrtier that tascam sell. This is only a SCSI drive right.

My question is does anyone know if there are any other drives that will definitely work with this unit or where I can get the base unit CW-W 512S - which I have seen online for around $100 but never anywhere there is stock. I begrudge paying 4 times the price for a comuter drive because it is related to music

Regards and best wishes

Vince Barnes
 
Tascam 788 hook up to computer

I have owned a 788 for three years and I too was not going to get sucked in to buying Tascams cd burner. I found that an HP for $40.00 on ebay worked fine. You do need to buy a terminator plug for the cd burner if it is not a tascam cd burner. They cost at most $10.00

The only joy you get from buying a Tascam cd burner is that they work properly the first time. It may take 30 minutes or so to set up another cd burner and get them talking to each other, but it is not impossible.

Hope this helps. You may consider buying a Tascam 2488. I have recently upgraded to one and it is a dream. Don't get me wrong, the 788 is a very good product that I enjoyed for three years. It all depaends on how serious you want to get.

Good luck!

febear :cool:
 
Thaniks for the advice - what model of HP was it by the way?
 
Febear,

I'd say you got very llucky! ;)

The 788 isn't a computer running Windows, so it doesn't have an entire library of device drivers built in. It only has device driver logic to support the TEAC drives they name in the Approved List of CD Burners. More than likely, your HP drive happened to have OEM components made by TEAC in the form of one of the drives on the list.

Hooking up an incompatible burner can actually damage your 788. I've heard of instances reported where an invalid CD drive actually kicked off the EEPROM update routine on the 788, causing the EEPROM to be erased. Granted, this is pretty unusual; most often incompatible drives just don't work. But it has happend before, and it can happen again.

You can find compatible drives on eBay pretty cheap these days already put together with a case and power supply. You can also buy one of the component drives on TASCAM's list, and install it in an external case with power supply yourself. But anyone would be well advised to be sure that the "guts" of the drive they choose to hook up to the 788 is one of the drives on TASCAM's list.

Best wishes,

Kent
 
Unfortuneately you are stuck with the 788's display and the 2488's is worse. Those things aside, they are both great machines.
 
I got my 788 burner from Guitar Center for $100 new. Ebay usually has them for around $129. Worth every penny. I burn all my 788 tracks to CD, import into Cubase and mix. Now I have back-up copies of the raw tracks on the CDs, and the ability to mix in Cubase (24 bit) with all my plug ins. The 788 is awesome sound, so-so mixing. My system gives me everything I need.
 
leddy said:
I got my 788 burner from Guitar Center for $100 new. Ebay usually has them for around $129. Worth every penny. I burn all my 788 tracks to CD, import into Cubase and mix. Now I have back-up copies of the raw tracks on the CDs, and the ability to mix in Cubase (24 bit) with all my plug ins. The 788 is awesome sound, so-so mixing. My system gives me everything I need.
Click to expand...

Say Leddy, if you don't mind (I hope this thread is still active!), can you point me in the direction of how to get individual tracks from a song onto CD as .wav files?

I have the Tascam-approved CD-R (624 I think), and even got the VHS tutorial from ebay- but I don't see how to burn .wavs to CD without running the "Premastering" sequence.

Call me blind. Can you clue me in? I'm running a similar scenario as you are, using Sonar HS4 to import into and mix, and Cool Edit Pro 2 for editing, etc.

Thanks for your time!
 
You have to have version 2.02 of the operating system to export individual tracks as wav files.
 
Trillian said:
You have to have version 2.02 of the operating system to export individual tracks as wav files.
Click to expand...
I do! V2.02. Come on, tell me! Tell me! :D

I have to get a demo of my band done this weekend, and I'm all ears...

Edit: I tried what I know, I.e., using the CD-R submenu, and entering "Wave Export". I'm getting a window in the display that indicates there is not enough room on the CD for the tracks.

Also when I try and shorten the length of my 3-track recording (from an hour and a half to eight and a half minutes), I get a "No Free Memory" message...
 
When exporting tracks as wav files, you are limited to however much space is available on the CD, (ie, about 700MB). So if the size of the files exceed that (as three 90 minute tracks probably do), it won't work.

Also, a song can only be 7GB in filesize on the 788; It's possible that your 90 minute three-track recording has taken up so much of that space, you don't have enough left to make such drastic edits. Note that this is not dependant upon remaining partition space. If your song is 6.93GB in size, you have roughly .07 GB of free memory space to play around with, even if you have 15GB of partition space open.
 
I have also searched around and am with you here. I'm going to have to move the recording somehow to another machine if I want to do any work to it! As it is, I've learned a lesson about the machine, and this will cause me to use it differently. Good! Limits are good. It is more of a "song-oriented" tool now.

I suppose I'll just erase the recording... It was run through a board at a gig, and the soundman there doesn't really know his gear or how to run it. Sounds like crap, see... :)

Thanks Trill.
 
Well, you could try to remove a small section (like audience noise, etc.). Then use Delete Unused to clear your undo history, and free up a bit more space. You may have to make a series of small edits just to get some elbow room. It might be a lot of work in the long run, but I always hate to hear about anything being erased.

If you do decide to do this, make a copy of the song first, probably to another partition. Never do this sort of work on the original (and only) copy.
 
Forgive the basic question, but just in case...

You either recorded in 16 bit, or chose the option to convert to 16 bit from 24 before you tried to burn a CD, right? The 24 bit files take up more room.

You can also just treat the 788 like a multi-track tape recorder and mix it down on to something else. When I don't feel like burning CDs and transfering files, I'll plug the stereo outs into my sound card (and the monitor outs into my monitoring chain) and just mix down into Wavelab. Sometimes it sounds better that way, since I can't go overboard with plug-ins, etc... :o

At least you'll have the recording instead of having to erase it.
 
leddy said:
Forgive the basic question, but just in case...

You either recorded in 16 bit, or chose the option to convert to 16 bit from 24 before you tried to burn a CD, right? The 24 bit files take up more room.

You can also just treat the 788 like a multi-track tape recorder and mix it down on to something else. When I don't feel like burning CDs and transfering files, I'll plug the stereo outs into my sound card (and the monitor outs into my monitoring chain) and just mix down into Wavelab. Sometimes it sounds better that way, since I can't go overboard with plug-ins, etc... :o

At least you'll have the recording instead of having to erase it.
Click to expand...

I recorded in 24 bit (always do).

I may just hook up to the PC I/O and let it run in all the tracks at once, raw. They'll have been D/A > A/D converted on the way in, but hey.

I actually like the faders for mixing down- I've done that on a couple songs and it's a great way to get the most of a performance, if you're the one who concieved it. I just think that with my own hands I can finish saying what I really mean to say in the arrangement, as far as levels and pans. Yep, I like the idea of treating it like a tape 4-trk. Simple is good.

This little machine is great for song projects! I'm looking at doing what a lot of you guys are into, which is recording to the 788, burning the resulting .wav files, and mixing in the PC. For this reason I'm recording at 24 bit... and it seems clear to me that this recorder is best suited for shorter songs and compositions, rather than extended live recording. Just for the partition (space) issue.
 
24 bit does sound better to me, I was suggesting the conversion to 16 bit just to get it on a CD. I use my 788 to record live gigs all the time and record to 24 bit. I just keep the "song" length under an hour or so, and burn one track at a time. I end up with 18 CD's to back-up and transfer a 3-hour gig! I think I'm going to get a Yamaha AW1600. Two more tracks and USB transfer.
 
18 CDs is a lot!!!!

......................... :eek:
 
A Reel Person said:
......................... :eek:
Click to expand...

Yep, and a lot of waiting for images to generate and wav's to burn! Hassle, and not really a constructive use of time. If I had to go through this I'd also look for another system. Hence my comment on the 788 being a song or composition-friendly machine.

I got your point Leddy about making the CD's 16-bit. I suppose it doesn't make any difference if you convert to 16, and back again to 24, once in your PC app. But USB does get attractive as you extrapolate this as a workflow scenario!
 
Just to chip in... if you have SPDIF I/O on your PC you can transfer tracks that way and keep them in the digital domain... ie: still at 24 bit... is time consuming, but so is burning CDs...
I have done this a few times.... the good thing about doing it this way is you can send 2 tracks at the same time... a word t the wise though... record a tone marker onto ALL the tracks so you can align them all once on the PC.

Zeek :cool:
 
Zeeker said:
Just to chip in... if you have SPDIF I/O on your PC you can transfer tracks that way and keep them in the digital domain... ie: still at 24 bit... is time consuming, but so is burning CDs...
I have done this a few times.... the good thing about doing it this way is you can send 2 tracks at the same time... a word t the wise though... record a tone marker onto ALL the tracks so you can align them all once on the PC.

Zeek :cool:
Click to expand...

For shorter pieces this sounds pretty reasonable!
 
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