Tascam 2488 neo - transferring degradation problems?

[JOSHUA B. POWER]

Howdy!

Recently I have recorded 2 Song Demos on my Tascam 2488 Neo and they sound GREAT - on my Tascam 2488 Neo; unfortunately when I transfer my demo song .wav files from my 2488 Neo to my Laptop via the USB the sound quality is way quieter when I play back the songs on my laptop? Now I've just recently read somewhere that if you do not bounce your songs through the Virtual-Tracks you will lose quality? (Even though I did not add effects to them yet) I'm not sure either way and was wondering if someone could help me solve this 'sound-reduction' problem? They're good songs and I'd hate to not let people hear them as intended. Please Help!

Thank you in advance,

Joshua Benjamin Power
Aspiring Musician

 

[JOSHUA B. POWER]

Also, and this piece of information might help, I was saving and running my .wav songs through the program Audacity? And does anybody know of any good free audio programs out there?

Many thanks,

Joshua Benjamin Power
On-Going Musician

 

[Phil Tipping]

Hi Joshua. I don't have a 2488 but the basic principles for my dp32 should still apply. The statement re. "bouncing songs through virtual tracks to avoid losing quality" seems very odd - where did you read this? Also not clear with your term "quality" - do you really mean quality (as in distortion) or just a difference in volume.
If it's just volume, can you not adjust this with the playback level on the laptop? The volume of a signal depends on the initial recording level, but once it's been recorded, that level is preserved in the digital data. Playing it back on any system should sound the same as long as nothing else changes the playback signal, e.g. changing the digital format or inadvertently inserting an effect.
Bouncing is a way of re-recording track(s) onto another, so this would allow you to increase the volume if the track was recorded too low, but it's only the same as you increasing the volume on playback - you're not gaining anything... any noise in the recording will also be increased.
The quality of a signal depends on the bit depth and sampling frequency. This is defined before you record the original signal - on the neo the bit depth can be either 16 bits or 24 bits, where 24 is higher quality. The sampling freq is fixed at 44.1KHz. If you record a signal, then export it to a wave file using the same bit depth as recorded, then copy to your laptop and playback (again using the same bit depth), it should sound exactly the same on your laptop. If this is what you're doing and it still sounds way quieter, then I'm not sure what's going on - maybe it is something peculiar to the neo. Try a simple test with a mono signal - record it, export it, play it on the laptop. This will eliminate any potential issues with stereo left & right signals being panned or out of phase.
If you are talking about a song which has been mastered on the neo and then sounding quieter on your laptop than commercial songs, this is a separate issue re. mastering and compression skills.

 

[JOSHUA B. POWER]

Howdy Phil!

I read about bouncing tracks to virtual tracks via homerecording (dot) com (a forum); a blurb was mentioned about it - but I read elsewhere which explained bouncing tracks to a virtual track better (basically to make room for more tracks) - I never did that, so that couldn't be the problem - but somehow originally thought it might affect the sound for some odd reason (the build/program/design)? But now that I think about it, that sounds too complicated. Haha!

Ok, what I really meant by 'quality' was not distortion but rather a difference in volume. But now that I think about it - it may have been recorded a bit quieter than it should have which may be the problem and/or as you've mentioned re. mastering and compression which I have not played around with just yet - but have read somewhere you'd be able to boost the audio sound while mastering through compression!

Thank you so much for responding; you've clarified a few things in my mind and opened the possibilities of recording music again a reality!!!

Thank you so much Phil,

Joshua Benjamin Power
Happy Camper

 

[Phil Tipping]

Ok Joshua, glad you're managing to reason it through. If it helps, there's a series of video tutorials on the dp24/32 which also cover generic recording principles (see sticky posts at top of this forum) - I know it's not quite the same as the neo, but there are a lot of similarities as Tascam have carried many concepts forwards through their range. Good luck.

 

[JOSHUA B. POWER]

Thanks Phil, I sure will read through the sticky posts at the top of this forum, thanks again and have a wonderful day!