Time remaining question

[shredd]

see this problem

Mod's: sorry if this is off-topic.

But this is absolutely DISGUSTING.
I checked my stash of D'Addario EXL110's (that I routinely string my electric with) and they are FAKE. I'm sooooo pieced!!!

My reaction was about the same as for spammers/hackers: Death By Public Stoning.

 

[BazzBass]

so Phil, you're saying Tascam ship them with 4 or 8Gb cards?

the bloody cheek !

bloody heck, it's a 4gb card. a thousand bucks and they cheap out on me?

thanks Phil.

 

[shredd]

you're saying Tascam ship them with 4 or 8Gb cards?
the bloody cheek

I KNOW, right?
I realize that every nickel counts to the bean-counters who manage production costs...and they probably think they're doing you a favor by including a card at all, to get started with.
But I'm willing to bet that the cost difference to a major manufacturer between a 4GB and a 32GB card is about 2 dollars.

But - yeah - the DP's typically ship with a 4GB...sigh...

 

[BazzBass]

I have an unopened Sandisk 32Gb Ultra microSDHC UHS1 which should be in spec, checking the list it is similar to older ones approved so Im formatting it now...AFTER backing up the old card.

 

[Phil Tipping]

bloody heck, it's a 4gb card. a thousand bucks and they cheap out on me?

Agreed... about the company.
But your machine was telling you the truth all along. Hope you make up to it or it might not play ball any more

 

[shredd]

But your machine was telling you the truth all along. Hope you make up to it or it might not play ball any more

 

[BazzBass]

Agreed... about the company.
But your machine was telling you the truth all along. Hope you make up to it or it might not play ball any more

we've kissed and made up. I bought it a nice form fitting dust cover so I was in the good books anyway hehe. But I'll make us a nice steak dinner tonight just to be sure.

Again, thank you Phil, for your contributions on here and for your How to Guide, I use it every day. They were the main reasons I decided on the 32sd

 

[-mjk-]

so Phil, you're saying Tascam ship them with 4 or 8Gb cards?

the bloody cheek !

bloody heck, it's a 4gb card. a thousand bucks and they cheap out on me?

They originally shipped with a 2GB card (there is an old YouTube ad for the original one that specifically says that too). I got a used DP-32 and yup, it had the original 2GB card which was not on the approved list and did not work properly!

 

[shredd]

I got a used DP-32 and yup, it had the original 2GB card which was not on the approved list and did not work properly

Me too...my used 1st-gen DP-32 had some cheezy 2GB card that flocked up non-stop. I got a top-notch SanDisk 32GB and it's been flawless...
It amazes me that, with the intention of keeping purchase cost 'competitive', companies will forego/neglect reaaaalllly important things that consumers would GLADLY pay for (like a decent SD card...or MIDI on a DP-xxSD - LISTENING, TASCAM???)

 

[Logrinn]

In all fairness - Tascam did offer MIDI on their DP24 and DP32. It was up to the consumers to buy them at that time. I can’t verify this but my impression is that the newer DP’s - without MIDI - have sold condiderably more than the older ones.
So when Tascam look at those facts they see that they must have done something right, ie remove MIDI and lower the price = more units sold.

Also - when companies like Tascam, Zoom, Roland, Yamaha and others present the public with new innovative products that use harddrives, memory cards and similar addons, the earlier sizes and versions of these are (were) usually much more expensive than a much bigger counterpart today. Sure, a 2gb card is peanuts today, especially compared to a 128gb card. But back in the day a 128gb card (if available at all) could very well have cost more than the machine itself.

 

[shredd]

Tascam did offer MIDI on their DP24 and DP32. It was up to the consumers to buy them at that time. I can’t verify this but my impression is that the newer DP’s - without MIDI - have sold condiderably more than the older ones.

This is a real mystery to me...'cuz I have a hard time seeing how someone using a MTR of this level DOESN'T need MIDI.
Yet - he's right - it appears they didn't sell well (they were only out a couple-few years), which is surely why Tascam somehow decided MIDI & CD-R/RW were expendable cost-boosters, and they are STILL making the DP-xxSD.

But I think that it's notable that when you go on eBay or Reverb or whatever...there's a HUNDRED DP-xxSD's offered, new and used, for every ONE DP-xx/1st-gen.

Speaking for myself - I wouldn't trade my 1st-gen 32 for TEN xx-SD's!!!

 

[BazzBass]

I have never used midi, ever. I must be the only one here.

my drummer has a great Roland electric kit with all the fantastic sounds we need. Why replace every hit with some other samples? the Roland ones are good enough.
We record 'live', no click track, organic, me and the drummer keep time very well. We only overdub vocals and lead breaks and fix little mistakes.
One band has a great multi instrumentalist but we've decided to only have on the recording what we can reproduce live, yes, we often 'discuss' the pros and cons of this approach hehe

 

[shredd]

I have never used midi, ever. I must be the only one here.

Actually, I think you'd be surprised...MIDI (in my amateur estimation) was, and remains, a pretty overwhelming branch of sound technology that is not very 'accessible' - and I think a LOT of musicians just say "flock it - who needs it?!?".

Speaking for myself - I was ABSOLUTELY one of them - throughout the 90's, 00's, and a good chunk of the '10's!!! I was aware of how powerful and capable it was - but it just seemed so out of reach - it's a vast technology.
About the mid-'10's, I started to realize that I didn't need to "master" it and implement every possible aspect of it, and started to pick up little pieces, starting w/drum machines and tempo, timing, synchronization, etc. Then a little bit of synth connectivity. But that's about as far as I've gone with it.
But I'm glad I have a handle on what I'm doing with it. I've accomplished some good things and have access to gear I wouldn't with MIDI.

Not that I wouldn't MUCH rather be like Bazz - have some musico's around who can straight-up keep a tempo, and play with feel. As it is, it's just me in my home studio, trying to remember which way the pointy end of the git'r goes!!!

 

[BazzBass]

I mean, and this might get me banned from here , but sometimes we slow down and speed up, sometimes on purpose sometimes not. We are humans, that's what we do. I can't stand today's music, synchronised to a 1000th of a second, time shifted drum hits, autotuned vocals.......no thanks

 

[-mjk-]

I have never used midi, ever. I must be the only one here.

my drummer has a great Roland electric kit with all the fantastic sounds we need. Why replace every hit with some other samples? the Roland ones are good enough.
We record 'live', no click track, organic, me and the drummer keep time very well. We only overdub vocals and lead breaks and fix little mistakes.
One band has a great multi instrumentalist but we've decided to only have on the recording what we can reproduce live, yes, we often 'discuss' the pros and cons of this approach hehe

Replacing drum sounds is not the only point of MIDI. If you use the Roland to record MIDI you can edit those "little mistakes" a lot easier (easier to line it up with other instruments too) and then use the same exact sounds from the original Roland sound module, or any other sounds if you want to.

Another advantage of recording MIDI over audio is that with recording audio you either have to record all separate tracks or record a submix and live with it. Recording MIDI allows you to use the MIDI track to drive the sound module and do various techniques for getting a good drum sound without compromises. I've done both and I use whichever method suits the song I'm working on. Sometimes I have 3 different VST drum kits on a single MIDI track, all mixed how I want them.

But one cannot record MIDI on a DP, so the MIDI function on the DP machine would be to send machine control to a sequencer/drum machine so it would play with the song. If you have an outboard drum machine, you can do the mixing in the drum machine and bring it into the DP on 2 tracks, saving a lot of real estate. You can choose to record the audio or leave it as a live MIDI input so you can make adjustments to the mix in the machine.

 

[shredd]

But one cannot record MIDI on a DP, so the MIDI function on the DP machine would be to send machine control to a sequencer/drum machine so it would play with the song

As far as my DP goes - that's about the extent of it. I'm fairly deaf and really stewpyd, so it's waaaay easier for me to let the DP get the timing/tempo of my drum machine/s exactly right.

I do very little of the sound-sampling/defining stuff, or setting up commands to run. That's over my head. I toldja I was stewpyd.

Then came the synths...for a long time I had the terrific Roland JUNO-60, and played it like a Casio. Sort of.
But eventually I ended up here: I have set of Rolands, all tied in together MIDI-wise. Mostly I just use one to play the other, so I can layer sounds and such. JD-Xi, JU-06a, and a GAIA....

 

[-mjk-]

Whatever workflow works for you is the right one.

 

[BazzBass]

Am I missing something here ? The advice to not remove the SD card and insert it into a pc too often as the contacts get damaged. Wouldn't you just take the micro sd out and insert it into a new adaptor ?

 

[Arjan P]

I mean, and this might get me banned from here , but sometimes we slow down and speed up, sometimes on purpose sometimes not. We are humans, that's what we do. I can't stand today's music, synchronised to a 1000th of a second, time shifted drum hits, autotuned vocals.......no thanks

That has nothing to do with using MIDI or not. I've almost finished another Beatles cover song and programmed varying speed into Cubase, so the song speeds up a bit at the chorus and drops back a bit with the next verse (or, when necessary, changes time signature). MIDI instruments just follow along because MIDI is not Time based but Tempo based. Plus, your 'note on' moment in MIDI recordings is just as out of time as you play it. The mechanical, unnatural feel you are referring to is caused by quantizing MIDI notes, not MIDI itself (and BTW, is great for dance music!).

 

[Phil Tipping]

The advice to not remove the SD card and insert it into a pc too often as the contacts get damaged.

This is just a recommendation if you have the choice, and is only based on anecdotal reports of sd sockets becoming intermittent. One person found some dodgy soldering around his, but we don't know if this is commonplace or just a one-off, e.g. a 'Friday afternoon' build... if they're still a thing nowadays

Wouldn't you just take the micro sd out and insert it into a new adaptor ?

You could do this, but it depends on the device you are using. As far as I know, devices can detect if/when a card is inserted by probing it at regular intervals, or by mechanical detectors on the socket. If it uses the latter, it won't know you've removed or changed cards.