Tascam Digital Portastudio 788 Owners Manual

788
OWNER’S MANUAL
CAUTION: TO REDUCE THE RISK OF ELECTRIC SHOCK, DO NOT
REMOVE  COVER (OR BACK).  NO  USER-SERVICEABLE  PARTS
INSIDE. REFER SERVICING TO QUALIFIED SERVICE PERSONNEL.
The exclamation point within an equilateral triangle is intended to alert the user to the pres-
ence of important operating and maintenance (servicing) instructions in the literature
accompanying the appliance. The lightning flash with arrowhead symbol, within an equilateral triangle, is intended to alert
the user to the...

2  TASCAM 788 Digital Portastudio
Important Safety Precautions
IMPORTANT (for U.K. Customers)
DO NOT cut off the mains plug from this equipment.
If the plug fitted is not suitable for the power points in your home or
the cable is too short to reach a power point, then obtain an appro-
priate safety approved extension lead or consult your dealer.
If nonetheless the mains plug is cut off, remove th
e fuse and dispose
of the plug immediately, to avoid a possible shock hazard by inad-
vertent connection to...

  TASCAM 788 Digital Portastudio 3
CAUTION:
…Read all of these Instructions.
…Save these Instructions for later use.
…Follow all Warnings and Instructions marked on the audio
equipment.
1) Read Instructions — All the safety and operating instructions should
be read before the product is operated.
2) Retain Instructions — The safety and operating instructions should
be retained for future reference.
3) Heed Warnings — All warnings on the product and in the operating
instructions should be adhered to.
4)...

Table of Contents
4 TASCAM 788 Digital PortaStudio
1 – Introductory concepts
Multitrack recording (general) ........................... 8
Tracking ..........................................................8
Overdubbing ...................................................8
Punching .........................................................8
Mixdown ..........................................................8
Mastering ........................................................8
Disk vs. tape recording...

Table of Contents
 TASCAM 788 Digital PortaStudio 5
Monitoring the recorded sounds (TRACK CUE)... 39
Arming tracks and monitoring ...............................39
More monitoring options ........................................40
Monitoring in mono................................................. 40
4 – Mixer
Mixer features ..................................................... 41
Linking channels ................................................ 41
To link two channels...

Table of Contents
6 TASCAM 788 Digital PortaStudio
Playing back CDs using the 788 ............................78
Backup using CD-R ............................................ 79
Backing up a song ..................................................79
Restoring data from CD-R ...................................... 80
9 – Effects
EFFECT 1  ........................................................81
EFFECT 2  ........................................................81
Setting up EFFECT 1...

Table of Contents
 TASCAM 788 Digital PortaStudio 7
NRPN values for multi-channel and stereo dynamics 
processors ...........................................................107
NRPN values for single stereo effects .................. 108
NRPN values for distortion multi-effect processor 
settings (1) ...........................................................109
NRPN values for clean multi-effect processors (2)113
NRPN values for multi-effect processor (3) .......... 118
13 – Specifications, etc....

8 TASCAM 788 Digital PortaStudio
1 – Introductory concepts
If you are new to disk-based recording or to multi-
track recording generally, there may be some ideas 
with which you are slightly unfamiliar. This section 
briefly introduces you to some of the concepts regarding the 788 and its operation. Even if you are 
familiar with the idea of multitrack recording and 
disk-based recording, you may find this to be a useful 
introduction.
Multitrack recording (general)
Multitrack recording allows you to...

1 – Introductory concepts–Disk vs. tape recording
 TASCAM 788 Digital PortaStudio 9
Multitrack recorders can be analog (for example, the 
TASCAM PORTASTUDIO cassette series) or digital 
(for example, the TASCAM series of DTRS record-
ers), and likewise mixing consoles can be analog or 
digital. The 788 is digital, that is, after the signals 
enter the 788, the mix, recording process, the internal 
effect processors and mixdown are all digital. This avoids any possible loss of quality caused by 
repeated...

1 – Introductory concepts–What do “16-bit” and “24-bit” mean?
10 TASCAM 788 Digital PortaStudio
tracks recorded in a session would look something 
like:
Actually, the arrangement of tracks on a disk is more 
complicated than this, but the diagram above gives 
you an idea of how tracks don’t need to live side by 
side as they do on tape. Another thing to notice is that the tracks are of differ-
ent lengths. Unlike a multitrack tape, where the 
length of the track has to be equal to the length of the...