Reading raw recording off of SD card on laptop, tablet etc

[Riffin]

Hi,

I have had so many Tascam machines in the past i lost track of how many.

In an attempt to take another step forward, I bought a DP008 several years ago as a simple "idea machine" to easily capture musical experiments and ideas and review and share them without hauling the DP008 with me to do so. I record an hour or more at a time and going through the mix/master/convert to wav is a waste of time[more than the original recording] when all i want to do is grab the sd card and play it elsewhere. Am I crazy to think that there is an app or program that can replay what i recorded on the dp008 on my tablet or laptop? Or at least an app or program that can convert to a wav or mp3 file faster and with a better interface and more powerful memory than the dp008? I know that I speak for many and really most musicians........less technology and complexity equals more creativity and actual play time.

I pulled the dp008 off the shelf in my studio to review some recordings [I have several hundred Gb] that I made years ago that never saw their intended use with other musicians. Please tell me that Tascam has come up with a better interface for simply and quickly reviewing a recording made on a dp008 on another device.

Thanks, Riffin

 

[.Strat Brat]

I too often wondered why the Tascam DP008 cannot simply create a file that can be transferred directly to a laptop without the long ponderous procedure of creating a WAV file. Perhaps newer versions of these machines will create WAV files automatically, and eliminate all the procedural meandering that is currently required.

 

[Phil Tipping]

Based on the way the later dp models work (dp24/32), my guess is you still need the Export process. The fact that it stores the wave files in the FAT partition is just for the benefit of letting a computer 'see' the files.... I believe its main purpose is to collate/glue track fragments back together to form a single wave file per track.
On the dp24/32, the whole card is formatted as FAT so you can see what's going on. Every time you press record, a new wave file is created in the MUSIC folder for every armed track. It does this even if you are continuing or restarting recording on the same track(s). So even though a computer can 'see' these files, they are not much use as there could be many more fragments than tracks, and some of them could also start at different times within the song as opposed to lining up at time zero. The Export function is the crucial step required to collate everything and it creates a single wave file for each track in a separate folder called AudioDepot. My guess is that the early models also create fragments the same way, but store them in the MTR partition(s). This is Tascam's proprietary format so they are invisible to standard computer systems, which is why it's just a guess.... but if correct, even if you had a way of reading these partitions, the file fragments wouldn't make much sense. Now if someone could re-write the Export process as a free-standing utility...

 

[Riffin]

Thank you for your replies. If Tascam doesn't currently have the option to record a wave file that can be uploaded to another device to share with others without all of the additional steps, they should include that in their recorders programming. How hard would it be to allow the recorder to also operate like a smart phone or the tablet that I'm typing this on. This capability would make the recorder very useful to musicians and bands who want to capture and transfer non studio material to another device and share via internet something instantly like the older cassette tape and cd machines could. I know this can't be that complicated. Or do i need to buy yet another device dedicated to function as a simple recorder? When I saw the onboard mics on the DP 008 I made the assumption it could do that.

Think about this scenario. A band records a gig or rehearsal on something like a DP008. They have no intention of making a CD from the recording, but each wishes to listen to what the audience heard or might hear later to make the band better. You take the sd card out of the recorder and while the band breaks down (no roadies for us) each member transfers the recording to their smart phone or tablet (or one member shares it via internet ot bluetooth) in less time than the mix, master, fat file process takes. Each member can then review their parts and what others did and hopefully the band gets better.

TASCAM, IF YOU ARE READING THIS... make the smaller DP style devices capable of what I described and to bridge the gap that there is to your more powerful studio worthy devices. The baby DP devices are after all mostly used as a stepping stone and learning tool. I bet the vast majority of DP 004 or 008 type devices are not used to make studio quality polished recordings. So, yes, give them all of the features that they currently have, but give them a RECORD IN WAV OR MP3 option. I think you will be surprised at the positive response to this option.

Thanks, Riffin

 

[Riffin]

Btw...my BOSS MICRO BR AND ZOOM PS 02 both allow WAV and mp3 recording. I bought the DP008 to hopefully get better mics and mostly for the analog user interface. It does make on the fly tweaking easier, and usually an amigo in the audience adjusts the levels.

Btw i visit the Tascam booth at NAMM every year and share my thoughts, but i think they never get to the design and engineering department. Maybe here someone will take them to heart.

Thanks, Riffin

 

[Phil Tipping]

I see your point about the extra hassle, but it's only one extra step for the purposes you are describing - it does not have to involve "mix, master, fat file process". You record one or more tracks, then 'export' them... no mixing or mastering is necessary... or have I misunderstood?

 

[.Strat Brat]

Having for the first time yesterday actually created a WAV file via the Master process on my Tascam DP08 that I set aside in exasperation after its purchase some years back, I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly the process was completed.

The wait state, as the Tascam creates the WAV file, actually takes a bit longer than the steps needed to start the WAV file creation process, but even at that, my 3 track WAV file was ready to export to my laptop in less than 3 minutes, which is quite reasonable by the standards of this hobbyist guitar picker.

One imagines that larger files with up to 8 recorded tracks would take a bit longer to convert into WAV files for export, but again it takes longer to read the instructions for the Master process, than it does to go through the requisite steps that will become second nature with repetition.

 

[Riffin]

Thank you both for the input. Phil, I see you are very busy, but i have read the manual over again and can not find any way to export 2 tracks as one song without the mix master steps. Recording a band for an hour or more set with 2 mics, or my often very complex input combination of up to 6 devices played simultaneously and recorded to 2 tracks while i play a guitar I built triggering all of the input signals, produces not one recording but 2 seperate tracks in the FAT partition if exported without mastering. For the band's 2 tracks the difference is more of a pan issue governed by mic placement, but for my often over 1 hr of virtual/traditional guitar experimentation, the 2 tracks are VERY different and need the extra steps to show up on my computer as 1 unified stereo WAV file. Sometimes i might record for a week before i get to the point of putting this data into WAV or MP3 format so I can listen to it in my car, lab, bed etc on something other than the DP008. I just want to have the recordings on another sd card and hear them as they come out if I play them back on the DP008 without doing anything to them, but on a different device. Wav or mp3 is fine.

One problem is that the FAT partition is too small for some recordings, and certainly too small for multiple recording transfers. The manual cautions against losing data when reformatting the too skinny FAT partition. It seems strange that on a 32gb card that the final destination for finished material is so small with no ability to choose to have a larger sized or multiple FAT partitions.

I tried exporting a 18 min song recorded simultaneously on tracks 1 and 2. I already had a 5 min 2 track mixed and mastered song in the FAT partition. When i chose the song to export it showed up as 2 seperate tracks. It took over 10 min to copy them to the FAT file, and once I connected the USB to mt computer it took about 30 sec for the 2 songs in WAV to be in a file on my computer, ready to play, albeit ONLY as track 1 OR track 2 for the song that wasnt mixed and mastered. When I tried to export another similar song, i got a notice on the DP008 that there wasn't enough room on the FAT partition.

Maybe I'm missing something. Is there a way to export to my computer, a 1hr, 2 track recording as one playable WAV or MP3 file without mastering or reformatting the FAT partition for each new recording?

It would really be great if TASCAM wrote a program or app that allowed a user to plug a full sd card from their recorder into their laptop or tablet and mix, master, convert, backup etc faster and easier on a better visually, faster and ready to share interface. How hard could that be? That way someone like me who has 10 or more sd cards full of unorganized data begging to be used as intended could have it all in one place, efficiently organized, used and easily shared and one or 2 sd cards would be plenty. You'd see ALLOT MORE "recorded on my TASCAM" clips on the internet. Good for customers. ..good for the bottom line...keeps the remaining hair from becoming completely silver... is anything bad about easier or less frustrating?

 

[Riffin]

Strat Brat...Hi to Africa from Riffin in Mexico.

I'll try the master without mixing tomorrow but my recordings are mostly long. I'll time it and report my findings. I'm glad that you are getting better use from your porta studio. This problem between an original recording and the many possible paths to a universally usable WAV or MP3 file could be super easy and much faster if there was a simple downloadable program to make our more user friendly and more powerful computer devices an optional (likely most often chosen) mixing, mastering, finalizing device. Way better than lots of buttons and flipping through choices on a screen the size of a couple of postage stamps.

 

[.Strat Brat]

I hear ya Riffin. Attaining simplicity is not always a simple matter when it comes to consumer electronics. I imagine future iterations of the Tascam design will take some of our user gripes into consideration. I am just glad to finally have my Tascam Dp08 actually working, after having set it aside for so long, due to being slow in deciphering its sometimes obscure and convoluted file transfer procedures. The downside is that now every sour note I accidentally hit on the guitar is reproduced with painful clarity ha ha.