Review: Tascam Portastudio DP-24
Tascam is still hanging on to the Portastudio concept amidst increasing pressure from DAWs, so does it still have a place?
By Mark Davie
20 August 2012
The Portastudio feels like it should be extinct by now. A standalone, all-in-one recorder/mixer seems unnecessarily limiting in an age of laptops and eight-channel 1U interfaces. Especially amongst the more recent control surface/interface combinations that have come to market. The Portastudio’s unwillingness to relent is interesting, so we put the latest Tascam DP-24 through its paces to see where it fits in the current landscape.
Like JoeCo’s Blackbox for live recording, and location recorders from Nagra and others, there are plenty of digital recording devices out there that don’t need to speak to a computer to work, and are better for it. The difference is that the Portastudio is trying to cut ties with computers altogether. It wants to capture your song, take you through the mix process, master it and burn it to CD. I’m surprised there’s not a label maker installed! It even refuses to look like a computer, with no way to hook up an external monitor, and the USB connection won’t let the unit act as a soundcard, it’s only function is to turn the DP-24 into a rather cumbersome card reader.
STUDIO ON THE GO
Out of the box, the unit is set to 16-bit/44.1k, presumably to play nicely with CD masters. Though you can set up 24-bit/48k when you begin a new song, recording to SD or SDHC cards. There’s 42dB of trim available from nominal input gains of -14dBu (mic), with 16dB of headroom in the ADC. It handled everything well, with no need for pads on electric guitars amps or close miked drums. If you need any more gain, a digital trim feature can give +6dB boost to the track.
Inputs are XLR/jack combo mic/line connectors with the last of the eight being able to switch between guitar or line for the jack input. The mic preamps are decent, and clean right up to the limit of their range where they start to introduce a little noise. And they worked well on most everything I put through them. Phantom is switchable over banks of four channels. The trim pots have a bit of play in them and no genuine level markings, which makes them feel a bit light on. While all the other knobs are stepped and feel sturdy.
Navigating the waters of the Portastudio is not too difficult. By the end of an hour, you can pretty much get the hang of it. To the right of the screen (which at first seems a little dinky, but you soon realise it covers everything you need) the buttons for Assign, Mixer, Dynamics and Effect let you navigate through the pages on the screen, and the Home screen can toggle between a mixer and timeline view. The timeline view comprises straight coloured bars for tracks, but by selecting a track, hitting Jog Play, and going into the waveform view, you can do some more detailed waveform editing.
The record arm button doubles as a mute or solo selector, with the LED above it lighting up instead of the translucent button, when solo or mute mode is activated. It’s a simple system that works well. Timeline navigation is simple too. You can set up to 99 markers in a song, which double as navigation points and locators for setting the In and Out points for any editing functions. The transport buttons are inset, clear, round, and importantly, the record and play buttons light up when in use. In fact, the whole system is clearly thought out, each element has a different tactile feel, and there are plenty of signifiers to keep the DAW user (used to watching the tracks recorded in realtime) happy that recording is happening as intended.
I first put the Tascam through its paces at a band rehearsal, recording to all eight tracks simultaneously for two hours straight. The unit didn’t falter once, and has been rock solid through mixdown with more tracks added. It did present one conundrum though. While I could set markers on the fly, I assumed that you would be able to separate these sections, and make them into their own song or ‘session’. But while there is the ability to do just about any editing, cutting, pasting, inside your track, there’s no easy way to copy specific portions of a longer recording post the fact and create different songs, you can only copy the entire song again and edit it down. Worse still, you can only create one master per song, so I couldn’t even work methodically through each song and export it. I thought the DP-24 would be perfect for those sort of set and forget recordings, so that was a bit of a shame. Best to stop and start between each track.
NEED TO KNOW
LIGHT ON THE EFFECTS
Coming from DAW land, where with a basic laptop and any one of a number of software packages you can have access to unlimited processing and effects till your computer runs out of legs, the Tascam felt quite limiting. You can set compression on your inputs, but not add it to tracks in mixdown. Likewise, the guitar processor insert effect is only available on one channel. Obviously with only one guitar DI input, it makes sense to only have one guitar insert to get the sound before recording. The way to get around that is to bounce guitar tracks to another channel with the effects printed. You’re also limited to two dynamic inserts when you’re tracking with the guitar processor enabled.
Despite the post processing limitations, you do get good control over dynamics on the way in. Each of the eight inputs can have a compressor, noise suppressor, de-esser or exciter added to it, though not more than one. It works in a ‘last used’ manner, you can scroll through all four processors, and whatever processor you last use is the one that is assigned to that channel. The compressor had variable attack and release, threshold, ratio and makeup gain, but has no metering for gain reduction, the exciter did its job, but introduced a bit of high frequency noise, while I couldn’t understand what the de-esser was doing at all. It had a frequency control that ranged 1-4Hz (not anywhere near the sibilance range as far as I can tell!) and a ‘depth control’. The manual provided no information on how to use it either, and is quite light on in regard to effect parameters. The tests that I did with some vocal sibilance definitely removed a bit of the essing without any great side effect, so it does work, it’s just how that’s a mystery.
You also get a single onboard effects processor that can be set up for Reverb, Delay or Chorus. You can use Send 1 on each channel to hook it up. The second send is for external effects, which are available over unbalanced jacks.
Stop screen-watching and just get on with it
THE PORTASTUDIO WAY
Taking a song from woah-to-go with the Portastudio is a step-by-step process. Once you’ve assigned your inputs, set up a bit of compression and tracked your song, you push the mixdown/mastering button once to enter Mixdown mode, which locks out any more recording. Once you’ve got all your effects and EQ dialled in, you can set In and Out points and record a master file, setting levels with faders on the fly. Once you enter the Mastering mode, you can add multi-band compression separated into low, medium and high bands, with crossovers at 125Hz–1kHz for the low point, and between 1-8kHz for the high crossover. You can also set one of six knee settings, and use auto or manual makeup gain. No limiting or loudness maximisers, just a normaliser, and dither. The EQ is the same as the track EQ, which has three broad ranging filters, a low and high shelf, and a mid control. The low shelf extends from 32Hz-1.6kHz, nearly meeting the high shelf starting point from 1.7-18kHz. The mid control can boost or cut frequencies with a variable Q that centres at any point across the entire EQ range (32Hz-18k). It’s a simple EQ that is useful for broad sculpting of tracks with 12dB of boost or cut, but not particularly surgical.
Once you’re happy with your master, you can burn it to CD. Which is valuable for checking out the track or passing it around, but for some reason seems a bit arcane. Especially with the absence of any MP3 encoder — while obviously not encouraging quality, it’s still a handy way of sending around demo ideas.
There are plenty of DAW-like features that have made their way into the DP-24. Virtual Track lets you store up to eight takes for each channel — great for auditioning solos or stacking vocal takes to edit together. The editing is quite complete, you can Copy/Paste to paste a selection over a track, or Copy/Insert to insert a selection and extend the overall track. You can also Move/Paste and Move/Insert, which leaves a gap where the original selection was as you move it. You can also Open a gap and insert silence, or Cut parts and close the gap, Erase a part and leave the gap, or Clone or Delete a track. And you can punch record, with an optional footswitch giving extra control over that mode. The only thing missing from typical DAW operation is the ability to fade or automate. There’s also an onboard tuner and metronome, and MIDI In and Out for syncing external equipment, but no onboard synths.
WHERE IT FITS
While you can export your recorded tracks to a DAW and unleash a computer’s processing power. The Portastudio’s independence from computers is its strength. You can lug it around anywhere with you, is easy as pie to use, and handy enough to make some great sounding tracks. Best of all, you can stop screen-watching and just get on with it. Great for bands that want a relatively cheap, quality recorder, and for anyone that needs a reliable, stable recording system, without having to deal with sometimes messy computer drivers.
RESPONSES