Tascam Digital Portastudio 2488 User Guide

 TASCAM 2488 User’s Guide 59
5 – Mastering
 When all your tracks have been recorded, it’s time to 
make a stereo mix onto CD. These operations are all 
controlled from the 
AUDIO CD menu.
NOTE
The operations all deal with songs on the currently-
selected partition. If the song you want is on another 
partition, you must select another disk partition as the 
active partition before proceeding (see “Selecting the 
active partition” on page 65).
All mastering operations are accessed from the AUDIO 
CD...

5 – Mastering
60 TASCAM 2488 User’s Guide
the RECORD key and press the PLAY key again) or 
proceed to the master check operation (see below).
Mastering operations are included in the undo list. If 
you make an almost perfect pre-master, but all other attempts after that fail to achieve the perfection you 
are looking for, you can decide to use the almost-per-
fect original, and undo all the less-than-perfect 
attempts which followed.
Exiting mastering
To exit the mastering operation and allow normal...

5 – Mastering
 TASCAM 2488 User’s Guide 61
If you want to trim the start of the master:
3
Set the IN point to be the 00:00:00:00 point. 
4Use the jog control to set the OUT point to the 
exact position where you want the master to 
start.
If you want to trim the end of the master:
3
Set the IN point to the point where you want 
the end of the master to be, using the jog 
method to set the point. 
4Set the OUT point to be some way after the 
existing OUT point.
In both cases (trimming the start and trim-...

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62 TASCAM 2488 User’s Guide
If you finalize the disc at this stage, you cannot 
record any further songs on it. If you do not 
finalize the disc, you will not be able to play it 
on ordinary audio CD players.
NOTE
If you choose not to finalize the disc at this point, you 
can finalize it later, without recording another song.
4Press ENTER to continue, and EXIT if you 
want to choose a different song.
5You are asked if you are sure that you want to 
record the song. Press 
ENTER to proceed...

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 TASCAM 2488 User’s Guide 63
wish to add to the final CD, press the INSERT 
key.
A check mark (✔) appears by the title of every 
selected song. There is no need to worry about 
the final running order of the CD at this stage.
If you have made a mistake in adding a song to 
the list, you can remove it by highlighting the 
title and pressing the 
DELETE key.
2When you have added all the songs to the list 
that you want to record on the CD, press 
ENTER.
NOTE
If you have only selected one...

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64 TASCAM 2488 User’s Guide
Playing back CDs using the 2488
If an audio CD (either finalized or unfinalized) is 
inserted into the 2488’s CD-RW drive, the 2488 can 
play it back.
The sound is output through the 
MONITOR and 
PHONES jacks. The only control over the sound 
from the 2488 is through the 
MONITOR control knob. 
All other mixer controls are disabled.
1Make sure the 2488 is in “normal” mode, that 
is, not in the master check mode or mastering 
mode. On the 
AUDIO CD menu, move the...

 TASCAM 2488 User’s Guide 65
6 – Disk management and file import/export
Disk management
The 2488 formats its hard disk into multiple parti-
tions. One of these partitions is in FAT-16 format and 
is used for exchanging files between the 2488 and a 
USB-equipped computer. The FAT partition is a fixed 
size, and does not appear in the disk partition or song 
menus, as it is only used for file exchange. The parti-
tion is only accessed with the backup and restore 
operations using USB and the wave...

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66 TASCAM 2488 User’s Guide
Formatting the disk 
WARNING
When you perform this operation, all data on the 
native part of the disk is destroyed. This operation can-
not be undone. Before performing this operation, make 
sure that all songs and data that you want to keep are 
backed up, either to disc or to a personal computer (see 
“Backup and restore” on page 72).
When you format a disk, you can also change the size 
of the native partitions. All partitions are...

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 TASCAM 2488 User’s Guide 67
ENTER to continue with the format operation. 
Press 
EXIT to halt the operation. 
NOTE
While the format operation is taking place, the HD 
indicator lights and you cannot perform any operations. Make sure that you do not turn off the 2488 during the 
format operation.
4When the format operation is complete, a new 
blank song is automatically created on the 
partition.
Reformatting the FAT partition
If the FAT partition is full, you...

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68 TASCAM 2488 User’s Guide
File import and export
The 2488 can import and export the following file 
types:
 WAV audio files (see below)
 SMF (Standard MIDI files) for playback by the 
2488 internal tone generator
The WAV files used by the 2488 are assigned to vir-
tual tracks. Since virtual tracks are mono, the audio 
files used must be also be mono.The sampling frequency must be 44.1 kHz, and the 
word length may be either 16 or 24 bits.
Note that if you...