Tascam neo 2488 Virtual track help

[timmahcheese]

So basically, we (my dad and I) just upgraded to a new Tascam Neo 2488 recorder from an old Roland recorder made a relatively long time ago. The different layout is a bit frustrating to learn, and I had a few questions about how virtual tracks are dealt with by the tascam recorder.

First off, we were recording a song, using an individual virtual track for each input for each take. How would I be able to tell if a virtual track has already been written to? On the Roland, it was clearly indicated whether a virtual track had been written to...there seems to be no way to do this on the Tascam (other than maybe selecting them and hitting play, but that can be a pain if you use many inputs).

My second question is how do you go about deleting (or 'cleaning out', as tascam calls it) all the takes (virtual tracks) that we don't want to keep? Do you really have to go and delete every single one, one-by-one? That can really be a pain, because we were using 3 inputs, 5 takes, which would mean I would have to individually delete 12 virtual tracks if we keep one virtual track per input...thats a huge waste of time, if you ask me. Is there no way to delete multiple at once or quickly?

Thanks in advance! (and sorry if it's not in the right part of the forum)

 

[kung fu elvis]

The default settings on the Tascam are such that the 'virtual' tracks are assigned to the channels in order... 1=1, etc.
They will remain as such, unless you re -assign them to different tracks... (ie. vocals were cut later on channel 12, and you'd like the vocal to sit on channel 1).

The alternate takes can be cleaned out in the menu, with the 'delete unused' option.

 

[timmahcheese]

Hey, thanks for the reply! So, looking into the 'delete unused' option, it seems it only deletes overwritten data. I'm looking to actually delete multiple virtual tracks at once. Say, for example, my dad were to do 10 takes on a guitar lead, but only keep one. To get rid of the rest of the takes (on separate virtual tracks), would I have to actually go and delete every one, one-by-one?

A thought that crossed my mind was that maybe this thing just has a different take on the use of virtual tracks. Maybe they figure you just leave the data there, then overwrite and delete unused data when you need to use them for other tracks (overwriting them)... but then the disk would get fragmented, would it not?

 

[kung fu elvis]

From my understanding, 'retracks' occour on the same virtual track...


All of those retracks sit there until you hit the 'delete unused' option.

 

[RAMI]

From my understanding, 'retracks' occour on the same virtual track...


All of those retracks sit there until you hit the 'delete unused' option.

Exactly.

If, for some reason, you called up a different virtual track for every take, then you will have to put each track into the mixer and "Clean Out". The best way to help you remember which track is which is to re-name a track as soon as you record on it (or before you record on it). This way, if you want to keep "Git Solo 8" (for example), then you bring "Git Solo 1 to 7" into the mixer one at a time and "Clean Out".

 

[timmahcheese]

Hmm.. so it is as bad as I thought. Looks like Tascam designed this thing with absolutely no intention of user-efficiency. Seriously, our Roland VS-880, made more or less 11 years ago had the capability of deleting many virtual tracks with the push of a few buttons. This thing, you have to go through tons of tiers of menus just to delete one track. Thanks, Tascam, for being awesome.

 

[RAMI]

To delete a track, all you have to is hit "EDIT TRACK"-"CLEAN OUT"- and then select the track/pair of tracks you want to delete. I guess it depends on what you're used to. I can't compare it to other machines because it's the only one I know. But the process I described above takes about 1.5 seconds.

Just a suggestion, instead of replacing a virtual track with a new one every time you do a take, why don't you do your separate takes on the adjacentt tracks that are already in the mixer. You'll then have them side by side for comparison, rather than trying to compare by having to call a new track up every time. You can't A/B that way. If I understand correctly, it seems that the way you're doing might actually take more time.

I think once you get used to the 2488, you'll find that a lot of the things you initially thought were problems have a work-around or a different way of accomplishing what you want. I find that happens often when going from one company's piece of gear to another company's similar piece of gear.