Recording - April 2014 - 43

yourself if you goof. The Undo works on both
recording and editing tasks, but note that the
Undo History isn't preserved as part of a
saved Song when power is turned off.
Editing
The editing functions on the DP-008EX
cover all the necessary bases; they're a little
bit fiddly to do with only the jog wheel and
buttons on the small LCD, but they're settable
down to the frame (30 frames per second) so
they're as precise as they need to be.
Without getting bogged down in the
terminology too much, you can select any
chunk of audio on any track and move it
to another time on the same track or a different track; this operation can either
replace the audio that was already there,
or insert it and move later audio over to
make room. Similarly, audio can be cut
(and later audio moved forward to fill the
gap) or simply replaced by silence.
Tracks can be completely copied
("cloned") or erased ("cleaned out").

In practice, you can get pretty quick
with these edits and accomplish what you
need to assemble fairly complex arrangements, should you elect to do your work
completely on the DP-008EX. If you'd
rather work with your captured audio in a
DAW, you can do that too; see below.
Playback, mixing, bouncing, and
mastering
Each track on the DP-008EX has its own
2-band EQ with settings like those on the
Input EQ, and a send to a global Reverb
with six programs (two Halls, two Plates,
Room, and Studio). The Reverbs are clean
and quiet, but they're only meant for subtle
touches; with a maximum reverb time of
only 3.2 seconds, you're not going to get
a huge cathedral sound here.
Turning your multitrack recordings into
finalized mixes can be thought of in terms of
playing back from a multitrack recorder
through a mixer into a stereo recorder, while
manipulating the mixer controls as you go.
These are all realtime functions; you set them
up, press Play and Record, and manipulate
the mixer in real time to create your mix.
The Bounce function lets you mix eight
tracks back to a stereo mix on Tracks 1
and 2, freeing up the remaining six for
more tracking. The Mixdown function lets
you mix down all eight tracks to a stereo
Master Track that's stored as a separate
part of the Song data from the multitrack
data; and the Mastering function lets you
run a Master Track through a special set
of stereo effects for final polish. These

effects include a 2-band EQ, a 3-band
Mastering Compressor with a library of
presets for different genres, and a
Normalize function.
There's also an Automatic Mastering
function that pre-listens for peak levels
offline before running through the track
and applying dynamics control; it's quite
good-sounding on simple mixes, and is
super-simple to use. You just set it to
Natural or Maximum and let it go.
Getting to the outside world
The SD card inside the DP-008EX formats
into a minimum of two partitions: there's
one or more MTR partitions for multitrack
data (Songs), and a FAT partition that a
computer (connected via USB) sees as a
hard drive. Data import/export involves
moving your Songs from one partition to
the other, between TASCAM's proprietary
Song format and simple WAV files.
You can back up and restore entire
Songs with Master Tracks and settings, or

import/export one or more audio tracks
or Master Tracks to and from mono or
stereo WAV files. This lets you bring in a
drum track created on a computer or
taken from a loop library and use it in a
DP-008EX song, or remove your raw multitrack data and bring it into a DAW for
further editing, sweetening with plug-ins,
and mixing. This makes the DP-008EX
perfect for capturing ideas without the
pressure of totally completing a song
inside the recorder.
Final thoughts
I've been reviewing digital recorders
for decades now; they've gotten cheaper,
smaller, better-sounding, and easier to
use pretty much every year, and the DP008EX is no exception. One really nifty
addition to the user interface is that TASCAM temporarily repurposes buttons all
over the device to speed navigation.
Need a set of left/right buttons for a
moment? The Rewind and Fast Forward
buttons fill in for the task. Easy-to-understand graphics make almost every operation simple rather than cryptic, adding to
the overall feel of comfort and ease.
If you want to capture more than a simple stereo track for your songwriting
ideas but the thought of firing up your
DAW kills your mood, the DP-008EX
might be a perfect solution for you.
Price: $199.99 street
More from: TASCAM, www.tascam.com
RECORDING April 2014

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Recording - April 2014

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