Review of Tascam DP-004 Digital Multitracker

This is a review of the Tascam DP-004 multitrack recorder.

Some additional information not addressed in the video:

If you read Tascam's promotional material, they like to point out that this unit uses good old fashioned knobs instead of tedious nested menus. Well, that's true for the volume and pan controls--everything else is accessed via tedious nested menus. Every time you want to adjust trim levels, switch from stereo input to mono, turn on the metronome, bounce tracks, save or load a song, it's all through a series of menus. A typical sequence you might use when starting a song is as follows:
1- press Menu button
2- Scroll down and select Song
3-Scroll down and select "create"
4-Input song name using toggle wheel.
5- Press Home button
6- Press Input Settings button
7- Reset input setting from "low" to "medium"
8- Press Home button
9- Arm tracks for recording
10- Press record

Once you go through the process a few times, it's fairly quick and automatic. The process for transferring a song or track to your computer, however, is not. Let's just say it's a multi-step procedure, and anything but intuitive; the user manual is an absolute necessity.

So, pros and cons:
Pros:
Decent sound quality with sufficiently loud input signal.
Portable.
USB transfer (albeit with difficulty)
Not too expensive.
Warm, analog-like sound.

Cons:
No EQ, effects, or drum machine. You do get a metronome and a tuner (although the tuner doesn't really work).
Weak Preamps
Unintuitive, menu based interface.

While Tascam decided not to include any EQ functionality, they did decide to include WAV editing capabilities. I think it might be easier to physically cut and splice actual magnetic tape then to use these editing tools.

One more niggling criticism: to rewind to the beginning of a song, you have to hold down stop while pressing the rewind button. As often as you do this, it would be nice to have a dedicated button for it.

Alright, I've said enough. A good unit for playing around with. If you want something for more serious work, this isn't the unit for you.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Tascam
• DP-004
• Review
• Digital
• Recorder
• Blueridge
• br-40

[rayray2012]

They've updated the firmware to fix the tuner and include some additional preamp levels to choose from. If you go to the tascam site, you can download the latest firmware and it fixes most of that. Still no EQ, effects or DM though...

[SeymourSnide]

Awesome. I'll check it out. Thanks!

[kssork]

your comment on the eq made me lol :)

[dannyhayden22]

@dreammachineking Have a look in the booklet. It's quite confusing, but once connected via USB, all the work is done through the computer not the Tascam.

[dreammachineking]

i bought one of these recently and i made a song on mine, but i have no idea how to listen to it on the computer! please help!

[PhobiaGuy]

@OnCatchingFire I'd say great for you but it's not as easy to work as it could be. Many of the principals of what you can do on it, are a bit tough going at first!

[KIRKCHUKALAS]

sounds good, but they don't have built in reverb on this unit!?

[OnCatchingFire]

So this is my first peice of recording equipment, this is a good buy for me right? I play acoustic, sing, and I plan to hook up my keyboard for drums and other neccesites.......Good for me?

[suljaard]

@ SeymourSnide: can you use HC (High Capacity) SD card on this unit? I'm planing to get one but if it doesn't support HC SD,... it would be a drawback..

[fatcatbuzz]

@prammaven hahaha I know what you mean. I've been living out of a suitcase for the last 10 years, so I'm ready to go back home and start making music again. Things are different these days, aren't they? I sound old. hahaha

I like the new digital stuff that is coming out these days and want to incorporate it with my old school stuff back in MN. But, I'm not sure how. All I remember is how easy analog was as opposed to Protool,which I took as class for at UNLV. I got it down, but tape was fun.