DP24 WAV file import of files/work created by Tascam 788

ejm

Member
Subject: DP24 WAV file import of files created by Tascam 788

Hello to all. I am a new user here as of 10 May 2014. I hope that someone here can answer my questions. I did several searches of this forum as well as some others and did not find an answer.

I have been using a Tascam 788 and CD drive for the past decade or so. Good product. I have recorded a ton of music with it.

I have backed up my work in two ways:
- Data CDs.
- WAV files on CD.

However, as we all know, some day this 788 or one of its pieces will stop working and need to be replaced. I have been thinking of upgrading to a DP24 with its CD drive.
Question: How do I tranfer my work to the DP24? Can it be done, or is it history?

788 data CDs: I am assuming that the 788 Data CDs are essentially worthless as far as the DP 24 is concerned. True?

DP24: First off, I know that the manual states that it will read/load/import WAV files using an external computer, but it will NOT read/load/import the files using the CD drive. True?

I have a friend with a DP24, and we have been trying to do this process with his machine. As you might have guessed we are not having any luck.
We have put the 788 WAV files into a laptop.
We can transfer the WAV files made by the 788 into the DP24 SD card.
We have created a new song in the DP24 in which to place these WAV files.
After that we keep getting an error.
We cannot get the WAV files into a song and assigned to tracks for further work.

Are there any compatibility issues with the WAV files created by the 788 versus those expected by the DP24?
Any other "gotchas" that you know of?
Sample rate?
24/16 bit?
Have I/we found a new “bug” in the DP24?

I'm hoping to find someone that has actually done this process successfully.

Thanks in advance.
 
The only compatibility issue is that the WAV files must be in the same resolution ... a WAV is a WAV, it should work. What is the error (exactly)? To import/export WAV files they must be located in the AUDIO DEPOT folder on the DP24 (see page 80 in the manual). To my knowledge you can ONLY import AUDIO-CD tracks with CD player (ie, no WAVs, MP3s, etc).
 
Thanks for the reply.

It's been a few days, 150+ people have viewed the thread. Maybe I should expand the question beyond the 788.

Has anyone ever imported WAV files into the DP24, regardless of where they were initially created?
If so did you have any issues, and if so, what did you do to fix them?

Thanks in advance.
 
Thanks for the reply.

It's been a few days, 150+ people have viewed the thread. Maybe I should expand the question beyond the 788.

Has anyone ever imported WAV files into the DP24, regardless of where they were initially created?
If so did you have any issues, and if so, what did you do to fix them?

Thanks in advance.

Hi,

I have had no problem importing or exporting from/to the DP24 provided that it was wave files and they were at the same bit rate. When I first bought the DP24 I had songs made by cubase and also recorded on a Zoom R16 and Yamaha AW1200 these were stored on one of my hard drives and it was a simple although tedious task to get them onto the DP24 but get them on I did. These songs were imported one song at a time and you have to open the file tree so you can see each track select and copy all the tracks and provided that the DP24 is usb connected you will be able to see it as a separate drive within which is a folder called audio depot which you paste the tracks for the song that you are trying to copy across. Alternatively if you had a SD card reader you could take the card out of the DP24 and copy from computer to card as long as it is into audio depot folder.

Once the files are across into audio depot and you have the card back in the DP24 you load a new song then give it the name of the song you are copying (making sure it is the same bit depth) then go to menu/audio depot and import you can then import one track at a time to a channel of your choice until you have all the tracks imported. It sounds worse than it is and you soon get the work rate up once you have done this a few times.

As for importing from CD you can only import a stereo file to save me the effort below is a reply I put on an other forum:-

First make sure none of the editing buttons are on (Track edit bounce etc) and you are in Multi Track mode then press CD and from the drop down options make sure "play/import" is highlighted then press F4 you will see a list of tracks on the CD you have in the DP24 make sure that the tracks you want are ticked by using the jog/data or cursor buttons to select the tracks and F2 to tick the tracks then press F4 at which point you will get a pop up on the screen "import CD tracks are you sure?" press F2 for yes it takes a few minutes to import after which it reverts back to the CD Play/import menu and you might be forgiven for asking where,s my ****imported CD tracks ? we[/I]ll fear not they are in the audio depot folder so press home then menu/audio depot and import to the stereo paired track of your choice.

As you can see the Audio depot is the biggest link in all import and export tasks as you can also use it to export tracks for further work in a DAW program and import the finished track back again.


Bob
 
Again, what is the error you are getting (exactly)? (BTW- If you won't take the time to read the manual, why would anyone take the time to help you with your questions?)
 
I do not own the unit. My friend does.
He does not live close to me, so I can't just go over there and do all of this myself.
He did take the time to read the manual, and the process has not worked for him (yet).
I initially took the time to read the manual as well, but again, I do not own the unit.

Since he is busy with other things (life, etc.) this has been a slow and interrupted process.
I did not remember the error message, because I was not there when it happened and do not own the unit.
I am operating off of info that comes in when I get it.

He sent two e-mails to Tascam customer support in the past couple of weeks.
No answer.
He called them earlier this week.
The answer was something like "I don't know, we do not make the 788 any more and do not support it".

We talked in the past 24 hours or so.
The WAV files are getting into the Audio Depot folder.
From there, I found out that the error message is "Can not Import" (DP24 manual page 93).
Based upon this, I went and read the manual again last night on Import/Export (DP24 manual chapter 13, page 82).
There is a brief analysis of this error message in the manual.

We had lunch and talked about this today.
From that, we have an idea as to what the problem and the solution might be (or at least I'm hoping).
We should know in a couple of days.
After that time, I'll post back with the results and other additional info that we have found out in the process.

Like I said, this has been a slow and interrupted process so far.
Thanks to all for their responses and patience.
 
The problem has been resolved successfully.

As was suspected, it turned out to be an operator error. He was trying to import my 24 bit WAV files created by the 788 into a DP24 16 bit song. Yes, it states this in the manual but he must have overlooked it. Also, he is a new Tascam digital studio user. The CAN NOT IMPORT message description points to this, but I don't remember if it explicitly gives you the answer.

After we talked the other day I asked to make sure that the DP24 song was set to 24 bit.
It wasn't, so he created a new song set to 24 bit 44.1 Khz.
Presto.
=============================================================
However, there was one possible good thing to come out of all of this.
I'll share it here.
As I said, I'm not an expert, so there may be a simpler way of doing this.

What if for some reason you need to import 24 bit WAV files into a 16 bit song?
Maybe you're working with someone esle who has a different machine, or whatever else.

At one point he was able to import my 24 bit WAV files into the 16 bit song...........sort of. (I was suspicious of the solution because it just seemed to be a LOT of work, and pressed on anyway.) It involved taking the original 788 24 bit WAV files, converting them to MP3s, then converting them back to WAVs.

Attempt #1: The first thing he tried was using Audacity to create MP3s of the WAVs. OK.
Then he tried using Audacity to convert the MP3s back to WAVs. Nope.
For whatever reason, valid or not, Audacity did not like that.

Then............
Attempt #2: He downloaded a free program from NCH.
(I'm not an expert by any means, but to me it looks VERY similar to Audacity.)
So, he tried using NCH to create MP3s of the WAVs. Success.
Then he tried using Audacity to convert the NCH MP3s back to WAVs. Success.
Then, he was able to fully import the new WAV files into the DP24 song.
Why?

Like I said, I'm no expert, but I have a feeling that somewhere in the NCH-Audacity WAV to MP3 to WAV conversion process, the initial 788 24 bit WAV files were converted to the final WAV files, and ended up in a 16 bit format.
Somewhere the WAVs were truncated to 16 bit, and the DP24 liked these because the initial DP24 song he was trying to import them into was set up as 16 bit.

I posted all of this to helpfully help someone else out.
It appears that someone could import a 24 bit WAV file into a 16 bit song by using this process.
This could help if two people are working on a song and they both used different machines or formats.

Like I said, success.
Thanks for all who took the time to respond.

One final note: What I thought was interesting was that the DP24 manual almost NEVER mentions the 24 bit option.
Neither does the one for the 788.
I'm not sure what the reason could be.
It's almost like they want you to use the 16 bit option for some reason but don't say why.
 
...

MP3 is considered a much lower quality medium than either 24 or 16 bit WAV files. It's a "lossy" format that throws away data it doesn't "need" in an effort to reduce the size of the data file. By converting to MP3 as a middle step between 24 and 16 bit WAV you're degrading the data set responsible for your sound. It may work, but I don't think anyone here would recommend you do that. There should be a way to "dither" down a 24 bit WAV file to 16 bit in DAW software or on the 788 Portastudio without using MP3 as a middle step. Others may have a more technically complete answer to your question.
:spank::eek:;)
 
Last edited:
A Reel Person: Thanks for your response.

"By converting to MP3 as a middle step between 24 and 16 bit WAV you're degrading the data set responsible for your sound."

Maybe/probably true. So then the question is: Does it degrade the 24 bit data any more than if the data was originally 16 bit to begin with? I don't know the answer to that. If not, then it seems like a good/practical working solution.

As for sound quality, from the 788 V2 instructions on importing WAV files:
"The WAV Import function imports 16 or 24 bit files into either 16 or 24 bit song files. The imported files will be
written to match the bit depth of the song file."
On the 788 you can mix and match 16 versus 24 versus song versus WAV data in any combination you want. I'm not sure about the DP24.

The other question is: What are the advantages to 24 bit recording over 16 bit? Are they audible? Are they audible in a practical sense for most users? I have heard that if your recordings use a lot of "ambience" and/or spatial effects like reverbs, etc then you *might* notice a difference. If your recordings don't, then it might be a waste. Tascam seems to literally ignore the 24 bit option in the manuals for the 788 and the DP24. I have searched the manuals for the terms and they only appear once or twice.

"There should be a way to "dither" down a 24 bit WAV file to 16 bit in DAW software or on the 788 Portastudio without using MP3 as a middle step. Others may have a more technically complete answer to your question."

I would suspect so, but I am far from being a genius with this stuff.

And yeah, actually there is an obvious one. :>)) If you have a 24 bit song, create the exported WAV files as 16 bit. But then if you add some recording on another machine at 16 bit, and then try to import the new 16 bit WAV files back into the original 24 bit song, is it going to deny you? It may depend upon the machines being used.

I just took a gander at the 788 V2 instructions. On the 788 (I don't know about the DP24), it allows you to import/export song files/WAV files/16bit/24 bit mix/match any combination you desire EXCEPT: You cannot have a 16 bit song file, and from that create/export a 24 bit WAV file.

So then the all purpose answer seems to maybe be to just create all of your songs as 16 bit to begin with. Which leads us back to the question: What is the intended use of the 24 bit recording option?
 
Back
Top