AudioMedia - December 2008 - (Page 19) Tascam | SS R1 & SS CDR1 course it is, but there are so many niggles with computers: the number of leads, mains plugs, that it takes an age to boot, that you need a tidy sound card to take your balanced audio and squirt it back to the desk, and although the drivers/software/operating system are all . reliable, sometimes that’s not enough. The glory of Compact Flash is that it’s cheap and getting cheaper, it boots sharpish, it outlasts a CDR by miles, and it’s as easy to use as a shoelace. I was stuck at the Porthcawl Elvis Festival (I kid you not) trying to record a three-hour show. No problem, a GB card will do that nicely. Which is why I did punt the SS-CDR at my colleagues in the orchestra – who loved the longevity of the Gb card capacity, but really did need -bit, which is only available on Tascam’s HDR . The other argument for CF is the widespread availability of CF-based field recorders from Tascam itself, Fostex, Marantz, Sound Devices, and Nagra. And although the medium is compact, you can at least write a label on it. This combination of field recorder and studio format is something CDR never really managed, putting CF closer to minidisk, but allowing us to escape the dreaded audio compression, although these machines will record to MP format, if that’s your thing. Plugging a keyboard in gives access to quick titling of files and loads of keyboard shortcuts. The editing is of the old-fashioned minidisk style: you select an edit point and jog it back forward, while the machine cycles in loop playback. It could really do with the waveform display from the Fostex. Now, maybe you’re wishing you had your laptop, but for simple top and tailing it gets the job done. One thing I did notice when tidying up my three-hour Elvis epic, is that before the system makes a divide edit, it has to copy the entire file. Even I’m not that much of an Elvis fan. So, for three minute songs, editing is a yes, but for three hour symphonic meisterworks… maybe not. The front panel controls are laid out just like an old fashioned CD or MD player, and your live jock will have no problem with this. I snuck one in between two CD players at a live OB and we bounced along without dropping a beat. I got to play with the RC-SS remote control for instant replay, which features hot start keys and a refreshingly long control lead. Press ‘flash load’, and the keys load up faster than a grunt in Call of Duty. A nice feature for those early morning starts, when you fire a cut to take some level the light on the button flashes as if to say “Play me next, play me next.” Which on the whole is much better than the, “Do you feel lucky punk, well do you?”, given off by some keypads. If you have the SS-CDR then the hot key-pad works with both CF and CD formats, which is a nice bonus. My take on the Compact Flash recorder is that it's nice to have, in some ways less hassle than CDR – no finalising, longer duration, and media that fits in your pocket, and of course it isn’t prone to scratching – and loading the files into a computer is even easier than ripping a CD. Having said all that, I find the dual-medium recorder the most attractive. CDR when you want to play the result in the car, the flexibility of edit then copy to CD, and the ability to rip from CD when required, without a PC. I put my money where my mouth is and shelled out for an SS-CDR , and you can’t really say fairer than that. ∫ I N F O R MAT I O N £ SS-CDR1 GB£779.00, SSR1 GB£459.00 (inc.VAT) A TEAC UK Ltd., Unit 19 & 20 Hatters Lane, Watford, Herts, WD18 8TE T +44 (0) 1923 438880 W www.tascam.co.uk A Tascam US T +1 323 727 7617 W www.tascam.com AUDIO MEDIA DECEMBER 2008 19 http://www.merging.com http://www.merging.com http://www.tascam.co.uk http://www.tascam.com
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