Tascam DP-006 Digital Portastudio Multitrack Recorder

If you enjoyed using the old cassette 4 track recorders, then you will find this is easier and better to use. The nuances of eq-ing, de-essing and so on have passed me by in this first week of use, but I've put together two passable songs in a very short period of time, bouncing down, mixing to multiple stereo pairs, using the very natural sounding automatic mastering function, transferring my mastered song to the FAT portion of the SD card.. the whole thing is so much easier than it should be. And no tape noise.People who complain about the proprietary format on the active part of the SD card probably bought the wrong recorder. This device is a stand alone device. If you wanted something to extract individual tracks and work with them on your computer, then this isn't it. And is the almost real time transfer to the FAT portion of the drive a problem? I don't think so personally. It's exciting - you've worked for hours on a song. Is three minutes while it processes such a pain?The internal mics are great. I was going to buy a mic, but honestly I don't see the point. I might get a vocal processing unit if such a thing exists, and if it does, I would get a mic. It would be nice to have the ability to do something with my voice outside of what this box can do with its fairly limited reverb. Still though - this box rules. Get an adaptor or you will be recharging like nobody's business.

I bought this machine as a step up from my wonderful BOSS MicroBR 4 track, which has amply served my needs for a number of years. The 8 tracks on the TASCAM give me a lot more flexibility and the controls are generally more intuitive than on the BOSS. The manual is clear and well written, and I succeeded in recording a professional quality demo' in a few hours. The mixing and mastering process is a little bit trickier than I'm used to, but I'm sure I'll grasp it better in time. As with all machines of this type, there's a lot packed into a small package and I don't think the unit would be any the worse if some of its more arcane functions - mastering tools, three different types of reverb, menu-driven individual track EQ - were quietly dropped from future versions in the interests of simplicity of operation. All in all though, a great machine and I hope it will serve me for many years to come.

I have not completely read the full instructions but everything seems to be working OK, although the sound through the headphones is REALLY low? external speaker is Ok, as I have not completely read through instructions I am hoping its something I have not set right? heres hoping.

Fantastic piece of kit!! Having been used to the Tascam Porta 05 of the eighties that used "real cassettes", this was a great replacement. It has a lot of features but you can literally use it out of the box to lay down tracks. But read the instructions for mixing and mastering. It's logical but if you're like me and hate reading instructions then you'll get frustrated! Can't fault it and my daughter and I have put some professional sounding tracks together. Outputs as a WAV file so use a good well known free software app to convert to high quality mp3!

Makes you re-invent and re-invigorate your home recording processes. Try new sounds, techniques and approaches. Shake up your routine. Find that new sound; maybe you'll earn your door. It adds an organic feeling imperfection to things without the gimmick and pain of pure analogue. Every track has got to be important; you only have eight. I know that sweet new delay pedal has a stereo output and can ping pong the listener's brain to the shadow realm, but should it? Is it really a part that you want them taking that seriously? And hey, you've got a very solid 8 tracks, the song is there, you've reduced all you can, but you know it just needs that one extra track for one more harmony on the last chorus. No sweat! Just drag those 8 tracks into your old friend DAW and throw on another one. There ain't no rules in atmospheric space pop.It's seriously fun. You may not like the songs you end up with and decide to use a DAW for your serious work still. It'll still be different for the better after trying to force yourself to use this little guy for a while. You can always have it around and just use it to record jam seshes, and it'll be waiting for you like a country cottage, to get away from the bustling, bright lights of the DAW.

Great product,upgrading from analogue ,Its amazing ,really small but massive performance,found controls a bit small,but Ive got large hands!I could not be more pleased with it ,I think the mains adapter is a really good Idea rather than batteries .

Very early days for this review, but a few initial thoughts. The item arrived in good condition etc. The first thing that strikes you is that it is miniature. Much smaller than I'd imagined. The knobs and dials are a bit flimsy - everything teeny and tiny. The LED window is ok but situated on the top means I have to keep craning over to view - plus employing my strongest glasses [young folk would be fine with this!].Once plugged in, it worked well straight away and I managed to record a few things, though I'm still not sure how I did it. The instructions are clear and for a techno-dunce like me almost understandable. It seems a good and useful item, but the fragility of it is disturbing. As I said at the top, early days.

What a great little piece of kit! I use it when I travel and I can't access my permanent studio. I do my editing and mixing on Macs, and it's so easy to import raw, unedited tracks from the Tascam.Highly recommended