Tascam US-800 (8 Inputs simultaneously)

[tchamm]

I have been using a US-800 with my iPad 3 for several months and it works flawlessly. However, I would like to upgrade IOS from 5.1.1 to 6.0.1 and I am concerned that it could cause problems. Is anyone using IOS 6.0.1 with the Tascam US-800? Thanks.

[pwnified]

The tascam us-800 is still working with iOS 6.0.1.

UPDATE: Now having issues with an iPad 4 with iOS 6.0.1 and the tascam us800, it seems to have a lot of latency on playback, even after multiple reboots and power cycles. Haven't tried the aggregate device (headphone plugged into iPad). I doubt tascam will ever fix the product, so again this unit is not recommended.

[jseib2293]

I am not sure where to post this, but because I am using a Tascam US800 I'll start here.

I used it for the first time to record live at a gig, and some of the individual tracks got messed up on just some of the songs.

Background on the equip: Ipad 1, 5.1.1., multitrack 3.2.2

I ran 5 tracks in simultaneously. VOX, Bass, Guitar, 2 mics on drum kit. I had a 6th track set up but was not using it. Didnt arm it during recording

I recorded multiple tunes in one group, because i was also playing and just let it run. I did stop recording between tunes so there was a little blank space .

The first several recordings are great, but as the night went on, some of the tracks got wanky. Even though the recording should have stopped and started all together, some tracks are longer than others....and they are out of sync so to speak. The first tune that happened on I found the spot as it only happened to one track, cut out the extra then moved what was left to "line up" with the others. But the rest were so buggered that I cant salvage them. By the way it was jazz so it makes it that much harder to tell that the recording was off! Ha.

Here is what I suspect it could be:

1. My ipad was almost full.... as I recorded through the night I virtually ran it out of space. Maybe as it got close to full it put errors intothe tracks?

2. I forgot to turn off the wireless. The club has wireless, tho no programs were in the background. Could the wireless have been the cause?

3. Also, it is an ipad one. Maybe I should reboot it occasionally between tunes to "reset it" so to speak?

Any input? I will try again next week, with the wireless off, more free space, and reboot occasionally but maybe somebody knows what I did wrong>

FYI, the ones that came out ok are awesome.

[pwnified]

1. My ipad was almost full.... as I recorded through the night I virtually ran it out of space. Maybe as it got close to full it put errors intothe tracks?

It sounds like a buffer overflow, basically the internal buffers filled up and started dropping audio, which has the effect of shortening the track due to the dropouts.

I suspect that the iOS background process "The Cleaner" came on and used a bunch of file bandwidth. The Cleaner goes around to all the other apps and deletes their caches, trying to free up space. Especially an iPad 1 is going to have issues trying to stream that many tracks to file while that background process is running. So always have a lot of free filespace before starting a heavy session.

[jseib2293]

OK. Thats what I suspected. My wife has an ipad two with more free space. I think I will try hers next friday and see if that corrects those issues.

thanks alot, I will let you know how that goes.

SO here is a stupid question. When I do a mixdown, I have options for bit rate. I do not understand how I should decide what bit rate to select and why?

Is higher bit rate better quality audio? If my goal is to create cd quality audio, what options should I select at mixdown?

[pwnified]

CD quality for mixdown is 44k wav (lossless), and every player known to exist can play this format. The other higher bitrates are there for higher bitrate projects, to avoid any loss at mixdown. If your project is set at 44.1khz (the default), then use the "wav 44k" option in the mixdown.

[jseib2293]

ok.
here is my first live attempt. THis was m4a not wave. Ill probably redo it as wav and see. this is compressed a bit by youtube also.
THis is a VERY noisy room, we have never been able to record there as there is so much ambient noise. But I took the guitar and bass right off the board, and then two mics for the drum kit. Im happy with it for my first attempt.

http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_edit?v ... 32ufM&ns=1

[jseib2293]

two technical questions, and I am sorry if I am not posting in the right spot.

1.) I successfully moved a couple songs over to my pc through itunes file sharing, thinking I could easily move them back. But while I can move an entiore folder off the ipad, it isnt letting me move a folder back. So I cant see how to get the song back onto the ipad to do more editing..

The next question is (I am not a recording engineer, can you tell) the bass player says his sound in the recording lacks "warmth". I figure I can help that through EQ'ing and other things. where would you start to try to "warm up" his sound. I realize this question might be better suited for a different forum altogether....

[pwnified]

You can zip the song folder and drag the zip back to itunes. MultiTrack has support for uncompressing the zip, just tap the icon when you get back to multitrack.

Not sure what your buddy means about "warmth", it's a purely subjective term. But if I had to guess, most people would probably think it has something to do with reducing the high end. It probably comes from tubes and the association of some type of sound with the hot glowing filaments. You should ask him to explain what it means to him, and to please refrain from using adjectives used to describe food

Your link to the video doesn't work, but please post it in the "Made with multitrack" forum.

[jseib2293]

Thanks. I think I have it pretty well figured out.

My ipad 1 just doesn't have the drive space that I need to record a three hour gig. So I am buying a new ipad with 64 gb storage. I note ipad 4 won't work. Is the issue 6.0.1 or the ipad 4? Apple is selling refurbished ipad 3, do you think that is still compatible