TASCAM 788

Easy to use, the manual is very well made.My version is the 2.02, had a master track which u can back to song !
The editing is very cool and easy.
I dont like the distortion effects, but i dont have money to buy a good distortion, if u dont have nothing , the distortion effects sound usefull ! ( u can change the parameters of the effects )Good chorus and delay . The reverd sounds great too, no need to spend money with some aux. reverb , i think.

I use a bad guitar with good strings ! Im a bass player, the effects for bass is very good ( the eq and the compressor sounds great for bass )Chorus reverb and eq good, distortion not so good i think !
I plug my bass direct on the 788, sounds great, i have a bass amp with DI, but i dont still use it ! Directly, the bass sound medium eq to bass ! The trebles is very difficult to get with the internal eq !
I think the bass through the amp will be more bright sound !

Not broke yet ! Thanks God !!! I never want to broke the unity !
Im recording my cd on it, im a professional, im a songwriter, i play my keys and my samplers drums on 788, sounds good for me, all my projects in portastudios go to a pro studio to mix, its a good idea to do this way !
A tip to no money musicians ! Brazilian way to do things ( hehe ).
Please Harmony Central, put my words in totally, so many musicians dont have money, and certainly, so many professionals of music knows what i will write !
Lets go childs.
First u record the 6 channels, for example , a bass drum, a snare, a cymbal, a piano , a guitar and the bass, after this, make a "guide mix"" on the 7&8 stereo channels !
Ok, step 2 !
Running the "tape" to 5 minutes mark ( if your song have 4 or 4:30 minutes ) get it ?
Copy the "guide mix" or your metronome or your drum machine on channels 7&8 again ! ( U will be free with 6 more tracks to record with pristine and without fear of no tracks to work ).
Step 3. Run the "tape" to 10 minutes mark and put again the "guide mix"" into 7&8 channels, u will get 6 more tracks to guitars or pianos.!
Again run the "tape "to 15 minutes mark. Put the guide mix again in
7&8 channels abd go to vocals for example ! six channels to vocals is enough for u ? OK !
After u record all your song with all parts u desire u get the 788 and go to a pro studio with a protools and a enginner with good tube pre amps and play the tascam in the protools hd system and make the final mix! DONE !
But if 8 channels with reductions is enough for u go ahead, the 788 had a 24 bits pure sound !

My unity have a 2.02 version, the shop i buy is very cool people.

I play pop music, i play for 20 years, i had a fostex d 90, If i stolen i will call the cops., I love the praticity of menu navigation, i hate this unity dont have 16 tracks and cdrecorder built in !!!
Yes this machine help me get the music, but, i hope tascam people in the next version, please, make a portastudio with 16 independent tracks and more effects and a bigger display, under 1000 bucks, the music is most importat than money, and the majority of musicians dont have money because we r not gear sellers !

After reading the very long manual, it was pretty easy to use. I got it with version 1.10 but I had it upgraded to 2.02. Routing and editing of effects was very simple

First of all, This unit is the only one in this price range to have 24 bit recording capability. I downloaded about 10 mp3's made by the Boss Br-1180 and 20 from the fostex VF-80 just to compare the difference between 16 and 24 bit. I can really hear the difference in sound quality. I'm very picky when it comes to sound quality because I play the trombone and I'm studying music. I tried placing 1 mic infront of a trombone quartet and it sounded excellent except for the phone ringing and the door banging in the background. There were a couple of vocal, bass, and guitar effects but they were average so I used my line6 pod for the effects. The hard disc was quiet. You'd have to place your ear close to the hard disc to be able to hear it but it doesn't bother me while recording. The sound quality was really good. Check out my songs so you'll know what I mean: www.nowhereradio.com/slidemasterx/singles

The 788 looks solid to me. just don't drop and bash it around because it has a hard drive. It only crashed once. I just restarted it and everything went fine. I wish they made a softcase for it.

The costumer support was just amazing. I bought it with a version 1.10 system so I emailed tascam Germany and they said that version 2.02 was coming out so they decided to send me an upgrade cd. I didn't have a cd drive for the tascam so they sent me an eprom microchip instead. It arrived here in the Philippines in less than 2 weeks. That was really quick. One big factor that led me to buy this was the user forum on the tascam website but after I bought this, they closed it down. There is another 788 forum but with fewer members. it on: www.cmoore.com/forum

What I don't like about the tascam is that you have to buy a separate external cd burner to be able to back up, or import/export files. It only has a digital output. (no input). It doesn't have a built-in mic which I really needed because my ideas spring out during unusual times like when I'm in the shower or while I'm sitting on the toilet bowl. It's heavy and doesn't have batteries. I need to record during the vacation. I had a difficulty with the effects because as a newbie, I needed EQ and reverb presets. The 788 only had 1 good reverb preset but there were lots of wierd effects for vocals and guitar which I didn't really need. The boss and fostex had a lot of presets. I record pop-punk and prefer to keep things simple. I really like the 99 take punch-in because I like to do different versions of guitar licks. I wish it had a built in mic, cd burner and a drum machine but that would be asking too much. This unit is pretty good and it's better than other brands in the price range. It costs $600 now and a lot cheaper used. If you're experienced with EQ and effects then the 788 shouldn't be a problem for you but If you're a newbie who just wants to record ideas and you need presets, then you should get a boss br-864 or tascam pocketstudio 5. There are a lot of features on the 788 that I don't use. I should have waited for a few months until the Boss br-864 or Zoom mrs-802 came out. I regretted it a lot. The tascam is good if you plan on making polished demos and stuff. I plan to buy a small 4 track to use as a sketchpad. Overall this is a good unit if you have a background on recording already.