anybody know DA-78s?

[aurelialuz]

we've just got this thing and i'm a tape dude, it's a crazy new digital world. yeesh. is there any way that you can bounce to 7 but not 8 and vice versa? it seems like you can arm them both, or neither, but in mixdown mode, you can't just do one. i was able to set the levels and do a successful bounce to 8, but it just took all the tracks and bounced them to 7, recording over a guitar room mic.

ack.

[Professor]

Wow, here I was thinking that I really know the DA-78 very well since I've owned two of them for so long. And naturally you'd pick the one feature I don't think I've ever used. I'm guessing that if it only engages both record tracks then that's your answer right there. You could try the tech support line for them - they really are quite helpful. I called in last week because I had an emergency where I needed to get data off a tape that day and the heads decided they'd finally had enough and were giving me error rates like mad. But I had to accept the errors and get the error mute mode into "no mute" which isn't described in the manual (press & hold shift + up + down for 2 seconds). Once I got it I was able to lift the material from tape with a couple of tiny errors, but no sudden mutes & unmutes of the track. The on the line hadn't used the function, but he had two machines at his desk and was able to push buttons and find the trick. There may be something buried in the menu that would allow you to make mono dumps of the system, though it might not be able to function in a 7-to-1 mix mode, but maybe it can run in 6-to-1 without killing track 7. Hard to say.

-Jeremy

[aurelialuz]

okay, well, i guess if i can't figure out how to do it, i can work around this problem. but while you're here, can you tell me definitively whether you can bounce a track plus other tracks to itself? like, you want 5, 6 and 7 to go to 7; is that possible? it seems like it.

[Professor]

Again, it ain't a function I really ever use, but I took a quick look at my manual. Seems that you can use the internal mixer to mix channels 1-8 onto tracks 7&8. Obviously that would mean that track 7 will be lost in that process at least as a distinct individual track. If there is an available track elsewhere (like if 1-4 might be free) then you could bounce track 7 over to another track, create your submix and then still have as many as 6 original mono tracks and the new stereo mix on 7&8.

How many tracks did you already record, and how many more will you be recording?

-Jeremy

[aurelialuz]

well, full disclosure, this is just an experimental track, it really doesn't matter what happens. but we used 7 and then went to look for the bounce and ran into this both-or-none thing. really doesn't matter, just lost the room mic on the guitar.

but what do you think of these machines? and what do you generally use them on?

[Professor]

Well, you can't keep the 7th track alone, but can bounce to 7&8 and keep the other 6. And since you have one free, you could shuffle the tracks around to choose a different track to lose at #7.

I love the machines though I've gotta send both of mine down to Tascam for service as they are really acting up lately. They're both about due as they are at about 400 hours but they were used on location so they've been trucked around an awful lot.
I had a cool little 6-space rack setup with a Soundcraft 8-channel preamp (the expansion module for a 328 mixer) connected via TDIF to the Tascam, and then the 78 outputs fed into a 1-space Rane line mixer (can't remember the number) that was just used for my confidence monitoring. That recorder plus about 8 condensers and 4-6 dynamics to choose from, and a piles of cables, stands, etc. and I had a very compact 8-channel location rig. And I had a second rack case with another 78 & preamp so I could run 16 if needed, and then monitor through my A&H mixwizard 16.2.
2 hours straight recording of 8-tracks at 24-bits on tapes that I could buy for $3-5 each at any local supermarket or drug store - that's a great setup. Then I'd mix at home through the A&H onto a Masterlink.

-Jeremy