Tascam 488

[trackerlee]

Hello all. I have a Tascam 488 8-track portastudio, and I would like to record all 8 tracks separately to a digital machine. I've read one suggestion on how to accomplish this, but it didn't work for me (mostly because I didn't understand it I'm sure). It was mentioned that tracks 1&2 can be extracted through the insert jacks. I don't know what the insert jack is. Is the MKII different from the first model 488 in this regard? I have the original 488, NOT the MKII.

Any help is appreciated.

trackerlee

 

[grimtraveller]

Hello all. I have a Tascam 488 8-track portastudio, and I would like to record all 8 tracks separately to a digital machine. I've read one suggestion on how to accomplish this, but it didn't work for me (mostly because I didn't understand it I'm sure). It was mentioned that tracks 1&2 can be extracted through the insert jacks. I don't know what the insert jack is. Is the MKII different from the first model 488 in this regard? I have the original 488, NOT the MKII.

Any help is appreciated.

trackerlee

I don't think it can be achieved on the MK 1. I too have the MK 1 and the piece on how to get 8 tracks out simultaneously pertained to the MK2. I recently tried to get 8 tracks out in 2 banks of 4, thinking that maybe I could just match up 1,2,3 and 4 with 5, 6, 7 and 8 because I knew it wouldn't run at the same speed. It was 2 of the most frustrating, rage inducing evenings I have spent. I would've been a broken man had I had had great expectations of sucess !
If anyone finds out how to do it on the MK 1, I'd love to know how.

 

[grimtraveller]

Trackerlee,
I don't know if you still look at these pages. I've been looking again at this page that describes two ways of getting 8 tracks simultaneously out of the 488. Theoretically at least, this actually should be possible with the MK 1. The differences between the MK1 and MK2 don't appear to be concerned with any of the outputs. I was initially thrown by the fact that the page starts by saying it's a way to get tracks out of the MK2.
Also, part of my previous problem was in only being able to record 6 tracks simultaneously on my Akai DPS12i and two passes on the 488 was just impossible. But then it struck me that now that I have 2 Akais, if it were possible to get 8 tracks out at the same time from the 488, then I'd send tracks 1-4 to one Akai and 5-8 to the other simultaneously then just fly the second set over. Digital machines run at the same speed all the time, unlike cassette tape so the problems I encountered before won't apply. This is of course, all dependent on being able to get the 8 tracks out.
We shall see ! If it works I'll post it here. If not, I hang my head in defeated humility.......

 

[grimtraveller]

Any help is appreciated.

If anyone finds out how to do it on the MK 1, I'd love to know how.

Theoretically at least, this actually should be possible with the MK 1.
We shall see ! If it works I'll post it here. If not, I hang my head in defeated humility.......

Well, having tried it out again, I can gladly report that it works on the MK 1 ! The details can be found here ~ if after all this time you're still about.