Has anyone tried this recorder???

[Rata-tat-tat]

Hey all... since I'm planning to rebuild my studio when I get to Colorado... I'm taking some time to study some new pieces of equipment. Since I have started my quest to get a decent live drum sound my main obstacle has been lack of individual track control. The most common suggestion I have recieved for individual track control would be an audio interface. This seems like a great solution however they are a little pricey and you also have to worry about your PC meeting specs.... I have tried recording directly to PC using Cubas AI, but the fan on the PC makes quite a bit of background noise which pics up on the condensors pretty heavily. So I'm thinking there has to be a better way... I think Tascam may have a solution, but I wanted to put it out here to see what you guys think. Right now my set up uses 8 mics total with 2 overhead condensors. Let me know if you have had any experience with this unit... and pro's/ con's... I'm not sure how much EQ/ Effect this unit provides.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/tascam-dr-680-solid-state-8-track-location-recorder

[cuthbert]

I haven't, but I took a quick look at the manual for it:

http://tascam.com/content/downloads/products/43/E_DR-680_OM_vA.pdf

It looks like it's more suited for field production (video) than music multitrack recording. Couldn't see anything in the manual about EQ (except for a low-cut filter) nor effects - so there probably aren't any.

[Hook]

That's a mighty interesting machine there. I think if I was recording high school band concerts or theater type stuff, on location, it's perfect.  ???So now you have the dp02 and a mixer of some sort, since the 02 only has 2 simultaneous tracks to record onto?? Outside of portability and smaller footprint, what would you really get out of that buy? I say spend $100 more and get the dp-24 which looks awesome especially for the $$$ You get the 8 simultaneous and it looks super cool in the studio
An even better machine (having no personal experience with either machine of course) would be the BR1600. There is one on craigslist here in Tampa going for $400 and the guys been trying to sell it for 3 months now. You get the 8 track simultaneous and then all the magic that boss packs into it's machines!
I guess if you want to be in control from behind your set the 680 might take the prize then... if you 've got $$ to burn you could just go all Mac crazy...
I prefer a desktop unit because I just don't like to sit in front of the pc to create.For a new machine at a good price it's hard to beat that DP24.
Good luck brother!!

[64Guitars]

I say spend $100 more and get the dp-24 which looks awesome especially for the $$$ You get the 8 simultaneous and it looks super cool in the studio

I was going to suggest the DP-24 as well. Of all the multitrack recorders currently available, I think it's my favourite. Although, I have to state the caveat that I've never actually had the opportunity to use one or see it for real. So my choice is currently only based on information available on the web.

One thing that's important to point out is that the DP-24 isn't $100 more than the DR-680. It's $100 less! At least, it is at Sweetwater. I didn't check prices anywhere else.

TASCAM DR-680 $699.99
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/DR680

TASCAM DP-24 $599.99
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/DP24/

I haven't looked at the DR-680 in detail. But at first glance, I thought the same as cuthbert - it's a field recorder, so probably not ideal for multitrack recording in the home studio. The one thing I did notice in its favour is that it records at 192kHz/24-bit while the DP-24 is 48kHz/24-bit. But, to me, that's not very important. The quality of digital recorders is so good that I don't think you'd hear a big difference going from 48K to 192k. Hell, the BRs are only 44.1k and they sound great.

But, yeah, I agree with Hook. Check out the DP-24. I'm impressed with everything I've read about it. I won't go into detail here as I've already talked about it in the following topic:

https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=13468.msg177883#msg177883


Here's a video from David Wills at ProAudioDVDs on his initial impressions.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KufENvelUPA


And here's an excerpt from his TASCAM DP-24 DVD Tutorial.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR2yAtin3YI


There are lots more videos about the DP-24 on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=TASCAM+DP-24

[Rata-tat-tat]

Thanks Cuth I couldn't find anything regarding effects and such either... The main reason I found this unit so appealing is that I could rack mount it somewhere on the kit without taking up tooo much room.

Hook... Thanks for the input... Yes I have looked at the DP24 and it does look very cool. I may end up going with that unit or the BR1600; however, one of the other issues I've had with standard desk top consoles or mixers that have knobs and sliders... is the fact that I use the same mics in my studio for my live performances. Dialing a drum kit back in is a real pain in the neck and can take hours if not days to get it right. My thought is that something I could save my settings for different kits would be much more advantageous... The audio interface would allow for this and I was thinking the Tascam 680 would allow for this. I'm not totally against a console, but from my experience I could save myself a bunch of time and effort by having the ability to save different sounding kits rather than dialing them in all of the time. It's a tough move for me because I am a slider/ knob kinda guy, but I also don't like to mess around with a bunch of setup... I'm a get'r dun kinda guy.

[Rata-tat-tat]

I'm really liking the DP 24 the more I read into it (Thats a lot of bang for the buc)... I'm not sure, but I think you can save settings for EQ and Effect and apply them to each respective channel... The only downfall would be... there are only eight available inputs... If I expand for more mics I would have to come up with a different configuration... Maybe a preamp of some sort which would allow for more than one input and one output. I'm thinking I would like to add one more mic on my Toms and 2 mics for my bass drum for a total of 10 mics.

[Hook]

You know RTT, you might want to look into the ZoomR8 or R16. I know you can slave the r16's together, thus having 16 inputs, if you can do the same with the R8 then it 's not that much more $ to buy 2 machines. Something to think on.
Rock!

[64Guitars]

The only downfall would be... there are only eight available inputs... If I expand for more mics I would have to come up with a different configuration... Maybe a preamp of some sort which would allow for more than one input and one output. I'm thinking I would like to add one more mic on my Toms and 2 mics for my bass drum for a total of 10 mics.

I think most professional engineers only record the snare and kick drum to separate tracks so that they can control their levels independently during mixdown. The rest of the drums are mixed in real time. That is, you'd run all of your drum mics into a separate mixer, adjust the mixer's levels to your liking, and record its stereo output to a pair of tracks. This way, you only need 4 tracks for the whole drum kit; 2 for the stereo mix, 1 for the snare, and 1 for the kick drum. If you wanted to, I suppose you could expand this to have, for example, separate mixes for the toms and the cymbals. The point is, you don't need to record each individual tom-tom and each individual cymbal to a separate track. By running them into a separate mixer first, you only need 2 tracks to record the output of that mixer, regardless of how many drum or cymbal mics are coming into it. Alternatively, what many engineers do is record the whole kit with just two overhead mics to a pair of tracks, plus separate mics for the snare and kick drum, each going to separate tracks. Again, that's a total of only 4 tracks to record the drums.

Check out the YouTube video in this message I posted a while ago. It has some great tips on mic'ing drums.

https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=18636.msg230393#msg230393
(drum mic'ing discussion starts at about 1 hour into the video)

And here's a booklet and a couple of blogs from Shure on mic'ing drums:

http://www.shure.com/publications/us_pro_mic_techniques_drums_ea.pdf

http://blog.shure.com/shure-notes/recording-shurenotes/five-techniques-for-stereo-miking-drums/

http://blog.shure.com/shure-notes/live-sound/beyond-the-basics-drum-miking/

If you really want to record each drum mic to a separate track and you think 10 will be the most you'll need, you could link your DP-02 to the DP-24 via midi. The DP-24 has both Midi In and Midi Out, while the DP-02 only has Midi Out. That means the DP-02 will have to be the master. So when you press Record and Play on the DP-02, both the DP-02 and the DP-24 would start recording simultaneously. Of course, the two inputs on the DP-02 would have to be recorded onto a pair of tracks on the DP-02, not the DP-24. But when you rewind the song and press Play, both machines will start playing simultaneously and all 10 tracks will play back in sync. You'll probably need some sort of mixer on the outputs so you can hear both machines at the same time. Later, you could always bounce the DP-02 tracks over to the DP-24 so you can mix everything on the one machine.

[Rata-tat-tat]

Thanks 64... I think I like your idea of using the DP 02 and the DP 24 simultaneously... I think if I at least get the DP 24 I could come up with all kinds of crazy configurations since I already have a Yamaha mixer with built in compression (Which I really haven't figured out how to use on my drums)... I've read up on it, but have never really figured out where I like it to be set and which drums compression really sound better on... Some folks say to compress the heck out of every drum... some say to use compression sparingly... The Yamaha only has 1 knob to adjust the compression.  I will check out the links you've supplied... there may be an answer in there somewhere. It's times like these I wish I would've stuck with playing the guitar LOL.....