TASCAM CD-BT1mkII

This will be the same as my prior views, same features

Same here too....

This unit is now at the end of it's life span, after about half the time that my first one lasted. It now will not play cd's, and is pretty much useless. I can't believe it, I KNEW it was a mistake to buy another one of these. It's like falling for the same kind of insane woman again. you know it'll be a disaster, but you give it one more shot. It still is, as far as I know, the only unit of its' kind. I love the utility, but its' the worst piece of 'professional' bass gear I have ever used in the 40 years I'm playing the bass. DON'T BUY ONE!

Don't even bother.

I am joining a band as of 4/1/08. I needed this tool to learn the band's music and it just stopped working. I cannot play through an amp where I live. This means I need to find a new way to practice with cd's through headphones. DOES ANYONE KNOW OF ANOTHER UNIT THAT CAN DO THIS?

I WILL NEVER BUY ANOTHER TASCAM PRODUCT AS LONG AS I HAVE A PULSE!

Please see my reviews of the Mark 1...once again a great tool, poorly built.

Wonderful for practicing, but flimsily made, and has the half-life of a gnat in a hurricane.

Just beginning my Tascam CD-BT-1 nightmare Mark 2.

Forget it. Please see last model (MK-1) reviews

O.K., yeah, after the death of my mark 1, I couldn't find anything else that does what this tool does. It is indespensible for my practicing. I simply have to figure going through using one up per year or so. I use this GENTLY, and it sits in a stationary place, and I NEVER touch the tiny breakable switches or the jacks. The cd door hinges broke on this last night, the door still closes, but-- like are you kidding me? This STILL is a very poorly made and thought out unit on a professional level. Your CD-BT-1 is GUARANTEED to break, little necessary parts like switches and jacks, and the hinges now, are not even suitably made for NORMAL use. TASCAM- HEAR THIS! MAKE A PRO MODEL WITH METAL PARTS AND HEAVY DUTY COMPONENTS!- FOR CD'S AND MP3'S I'll PAY MORE FOR ONE THAT WILL ACTUALLY LAST!

Takes a little time to figure out the menu and most of the controls are a bit clunky and multi functional.
Once you get used to it, its fairly simple.

Sound quality is pretty good, as long as you get some decent headphones.
The factory effect settings are pretty average but can all be edited to suit individual user needs.
This unit does a pretty good job overall when considering its intended purpose.

I've only had this unit for a couple of weeks...so far no issues at all

No need to contact so far

All in all this is a great little tools for practising and working out stuff straight from a CD. Its ability to transpose and cahnge tempo for complex parts is really very good.
The effects are not something that I am particularly interested in and frankly I never use them, but thats very much an individual thing!
Anyone that wants to pratice with a metronome and work lines out very accurately should get one of these,...really cheap and incredibly useful. I bought it with powers supply and Tascam carry case

On ease of use I'm not even sure Tascam knows how to use this thing. The manual to me is a joke. Haven't got it to work right yet with either of my basses. Active or Passive. A more in depth step by step manual would help TREMENDOUSLY!!!!!!!!
I didn't buy this to use with an amp or anything other than to simply insert a CD, plug in my headphones, plug in my bass, pick out the bass line and practice it. So far very disappointed.
I intended to be able to use this thing out of the box. I didn't want to feel as if I had to be a computer programmer, a mystery sleuth, electrical engineer, or an archaeologist and this thing is suppose to be the latest version and easier to use than is predecessors.

I have got the CD player function to work on this thing and If I'd been in the market for a CD player only it sounds o.k., but I could have bought as good or better CD player cheaper.

I can't fairly rate this on the can you depend on it, but on the would you use it on a gig without backup I would have to say no way.

They offered free headphones with the purchase of this model. Sent in the registration form and the gift certificate. Approximately 6-8 weeks ago and so far have heard nothing from them.

I play all styles of music rock, metal, punk, contemporary Christian, jazz, blues, country, and blue grass.
I believe the concept is great if they gave more thought to an operators manual for this thing.

I've been playing for approximately 35 years. I own a Korg bass processor pedal that is awesome, Behringer UltraBass Head, GK 4-10 cabinet, A customized Jay Turser Neck Through 4 string bass with Active, Passive pickups. A DeArmond Pilot Pro V five string bass with Active pickups.

If lost or stolen I think I'd try to look long and hard for something else. Surely the search would not take as long as trying to figure out the programming of this thing.

Not the most ultra-intuitive pieces of kit but if you take a few moments to read the (admittedly slender)manual it's all pretty straightforward & logical. I had to use it in a real hurry to learn a tricky solo for later on the day I bought it and was able to get on top of it in minutes.

Havent had time to try the effects yet but the sound quality it delivers on my (passive at this point) bass is surprisingly good. I use an Ampeg amp and the unit might have been expected to suffer in comparison but quite honestly it doesnt.

Admittedly the sound of the CD bass when the track is slowed down is hardly crystal clear but its good enough for isloating and learning the lines.

Too soon to say how reliabale yet

Not tried yet (& hopefully I'll never know)

Hva ebeen playing bass for 3 years and bought this because our lead guitaris (who staggers me with some of the complicated stuff he has to learn and remember) recommended the guitar one so highly.

I'm in a rock coervs band I'm going to revisit all the material we play to find out just how much more accuratley I can get my parts overall. I suspect it's one piece of kit I'll be amazed I ever did without.

Did'nt work right out of the box. That kind of sums up the ease of use category.

CD player worked great but no input signal from the bass. Effects show up on the sceen but with no sound from the bass guitar, who can tell?

Again, this unit did'nt work properly right out of the box! I have to give it a 2 rating because #1 says "it worked once"!

I bought this little piece of sh*t in June of this year, did'nt open it up until October and it did'nt work. Now I shipped it back ($11.50) and they want a $40.00 estimate fee to tell me how much it is going to cost to repair it! My 2 cents worth of advice to everyone out there is try it at the store or the day you get it in the mail,UPS, etc. This unit has a 90 day labor warranty & 1 Yr. on parts.Hopefully it will be repaired properly but I'm disappointed with my initial purchase and dealings with Tascam.

The unit's features may overwhelm most users. I teach bass synth keyboard and felt it best to withdraw it from their study area and put in a standard CD player with pitch and loop (Gemini CD100) with remote and an older analogue mixer (Yamaha KM800). The features though wonderful and extensive were just too overwhelming for beginners. I use it for personal study and transcribing but not the instrument input. Although I sequence all tracks for my personal projects I use the pitch and tempo features to revisit certain works to see how a new key and tempo might give me a different idea for the work. I do this during the creative stage with a sequencer of course but it is nice to just pop in a CD and see how things are affected with the unit's tempo and key alteration features. Even though I gave the unit a "very difficult to use" rating it can't be helped. The designers seem determined to have a unit that does everything one might want this type of unit to do.

Sound quality seems acceptable at normal playback. I do wish Tascam had put in a "back to vanilla default" button. I've gotten myself enmeshed in effects and alterations which I wasn't able to defeat quickly. The unit seems to remember any changes you have made to the settings once you power off. I do not use batteries.

It will stay put in a studio setting. I would not use it for a regular playback CD on a gig. Better to take along a rack mount player if you use CD recorded material in your bookings.

I've had Tascam-Teac units going back to 1975 (A2340 four track reel to reel) and mixers and had no problem. One unit I bought a MM-1 (midi mixer) gave me grief but it was a technological cul de sac for Tascam and was retired after one year's use. It used highly proprietary pots and the technician who was obligated to repair the unit blurted out that the Japanese got back at the USA for Hiroshima by manufacturing and selling the MM-1 to unsuspecting Americans.

this unit can be very useful to owners who spend many hours reading the manual and experimenting with the numerous features. It is a huge advance over something like the Akai U40 which was very useful to me. The U40 was a huge advance over years of playing 45RPM singles at 33rpm to transcribe works. One was forced to transpose using the turntable method of course but the chore of working with vinyl toughened my aural discerning skills.

See my earlier report (basically favorable) - this is to bitch about their Tech support and Reliability(or lack thereof).

Well, the first one I bought didnt work, so I returned it.

This one works, except:

The CD refuses to track certain cuts on brand new, store bought CD's.

All the effects that come off the Effects button (Bass enchance, Bass Cut, stereo mix, etc) come up - but DO NOTHING!!

I have over an hour of hold time from two separate calls waiting for someone to pick up my call - while listening to their whining music (designed to drive disatisfied customers away?)

No one ever picked up my call.

I am p*ssed. I am on my second model of the BTI, things still don't work right, and their Customer Service Dept leaves you on hold till you drop dead.

I am steering away from TASCAM products for good.

For what I got here out of this product that worked, I could have used a much cheaper software program.

This is a review for the mkII version of the CD-BT1. I also bought the original version, but it was defective (the laser wouldnt track)and the manual was awful so I sent it back. The mkII has more goodies (like ametronome) and the up/down keys are now separate and easier to use.

The device is reasonably intuitive, I was up and running in minutes, but you need to study the manual (which is just mediocre)to get the full value. Once you get the hang of how the buttons work, its not too bad.

The menu screen is cheap and difficult to read. You would think a cutting edge company could get a good display like Yamaha has.

The manual is a real improvement over the original model, but is still bare-bones. No details on the effects menu, almost no suggestions or tips

I use this for transcription and practice, not as an effects box. The sound quality for the effects are pretty good (not great).

The sound quality is good enough that I am using this with headphones (Sony MDR V-900) instead of plugging into an amp to practice, to give my long-suffering family a break.

Havent had this long enough to tell, but I got burned on the original model.

I really think this thing is too delicate to take out of the house.

Not used

I work part time as a professional musician and do anything from studio work to jazz trios to ensembles, pretty much everything except metal. I have been playing music over 40 years and went back to college to study music, including the bass.

I use this tool as :

a) a trainer to work against cd's to get my timing, intonation, expression etc perfect. The looping and slow-down functions really work well for this. I recently worked a big band chart that went back and forth through several meters (7/4, 5/4, 3/4, 2/2, plus good ol 4/4)at 180 bpm. The mkII allowed me to perfect my part from a CD they sent me and I nailed it the first time at the session. I already have a CD player with loop/i/o function - but the box with a slowdown feature is just more convenient.

b) a transcriber for bass lines and other instruments. I like to cop other peoples stuff and this is excellent. The slowdown works very well except at the slowest setting (50%). The bass enchance function did not really work as well as I expected. I have a pretty good ear, but this feature makes life a lot easier

The pitch adjustment feature is really nice, since so many guys like to tune down to Eb. Also there a a few songs that are off slightly from std tuning and its a pain to retune for them

Things I would do different for mk III (and I would pay $100 more for this):

Make this a real bass trainer by adding a rudimentary rhythm box

Cut the crap and market one trainer for guitar, bass, vocal etc. instead of a separate one for each application All we are talking here is just one setting on the filter frequency. Sheesh.

One more thing: Dont even think about using batteries. It eats 4 AAA baterries in 30 minutes of use. Buy the charger - an extra $25.

Overall, this is a valuable tool for my arsenal, but I hope somebody comes out with a mkIII.