DP-32SD discontinued at Musician’s Friend

Sam Trenholme

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DP-32SD
This was mentioned in another thread, but so the story does not get buried:

The Tascam DP-32 SD has been discontinued at Musician’s Friend.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/tascam-dp-32sd-digital-32-track-portastudio

Also unavailable at Woodwind and Brasswind, who is under the same umbrella company as Musician’s Friend:

http://www.wwbw.com/Tascam-DP-32SD-Digital-32-Track-Portastudio-J06382.wwbw

Now, as far as I know, Musician’s Friend is the only Tascam dealer who has discontinued the DP-32SD. So, it could be nothing — or it could be a sign that Tascam is phasing out their top-of-the-line Portastudio.

Personally, every year, the number of Portastudio like products decreases and the price and features they have go down. Back in 2004, you could, with enough money, get a Korg D32XD: 32 tracks, 24/96 audio, insert effects on each channel, 4-band parametric EQ, four aux sends, 16 inputs, the works. Since then, Korg replaced the D32XD with the more inexpensive and lower featured D3200, before dropping out of the digital multitrack workstation market entirely.

Likewise, Tascam until recently made a 48-track hard disk based digital multitrack. No longer: The most tracks Tascam makes in a device that allows individual tracks to be armed or unarmed is the DP32-SD (someone correct me if, say, the Tascam DA-6400 allows for this).

When Tascam discontinued the DP-32, they replaced it with the more inexpensive DP-32SD, which got rid of the CD recorder and the MIDI connections.

If Tascam were to phase out the DP-32SD, market trends indicate that it’s unlikely that they would replace it with, say, a DP-48 with with 24 stereo tracks, 12 inputs, four AUX sends in the back, a MIDI interface, a SPDIF digital output, and a compressor and four band EQ for each channel. More likely, they would just make the DP-24SD their highest end Portastudio.

So, hopefully, Musician’s Friend no longer stocking the DP-32SD is just a weird quirk. Because, the way the market for digital multitrack workstations is evaporating reminds me how the market for analog synthesizers evaporated in the 1990s, a market which only fairly recently get resurrected.
 
Well...if this is the end, I'm glad I decided to get one 5 days ago. I was having very little fun on the pc...
 
Both Sweetwater and B&H Photovideo just received new stock of the DP32.
It would be a shame if these units are being replaced with something that is tethered to a pc. Like the previous poster I am glad I bought one recently as I really like the simplicity of these units. It's similar to recording to a cassette deck like I used to in the past, only better. In fact I was looking at cassette decks until I came across these units.
 
Agreed - the Track Factory promo video implies all the hassles with other computer-based systems are installation problems. This may be true to some extent, but my main gripe is with the operation. As soon as I saw them operating a qwerty keyboard and a mouse my heart sank. No offense to Tascam but it's just a pre-installed and optimised computer running Cakewalk. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a complete computer luddite (maybe?) - I used to design & program the things, but when it comes to music, there's something about hands-on. /end of rant by old geezer :)
 
@Phil Tipping In all fairness, any all-in-one digital unit is essentially a locked down and optimized computer.

I'm just speculating here. If there's any truth to Tascam discontinuing the Portastudio, it would appear that the creation of this product was spawned from that decision along with their decision to discontinue the DM console series. If the Track Factory is an attempt to bridge those two customer bases together then they've completely missed the target. I hate to criticize but I'm curious what made Tascam create such an offering when there are so many glaring deficiencies.
  • Let's call it what it is, this is an entry level product for those who want to step into the DAW world for the first time. The $1300 price point is not attractive considering what you are really getting here which is a generic 2 channel USB audio interface, an unnecessary mediocre microphone/headphone, and an under powered mini Intel PC with Cakewalk. You need to provide your own monitor. Unless you got a spare, add that to the cost.
  • For the Portastudio users, being forced to use only a mouse & keyboard will cause many faithfuls to walk away. Some say control surfaces are dead but then explain the Midas 32 and the new Presonus Studio Live 32 which are hybrid all-in-ones.
  • "A condenser mic for capturing vocals, drums, acoustic instruments, and more" With an anemic 2 channel audio interface? If you want to record live drums you're just capturing overheads and nothing else. If this is the Portastudio replacement as the marketing description suggests, then a skimpy 2 channel interface is a huge downgrade.
  • A 256GB SSD? You're not going to last long with that if you want to enjoy 96kHz sampling rates.
If this were to replace the Portastudio, will current owners want to upgrade to this and does the $1300 sticker price play a factor as well, even for first timers?

EDIT - To the original poster, Musician's Friend now shows they will have the DP-32SD in stock on 4/16/17 so I don't know what the heck is going on but my critique still stands :). Maybe the Portastudio's fate depends on how well (or not) the Track Factory does.
 

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