Tascam Digital Portastudio 788 Owners Manual

2 – Getting started–A few notes about this manual
 TASCAM 788 Digital PortaStudio 21
“Roadmap” to this manual
Each section of this manual deals with a different 
topic:
1 “Introductory concepts” (page 8) This 
section provides an introduction to some of the the-
ory behind the 788. 
Read this section to: familiarize yourself with the 
ideas behind multitrack recording and disk recording.
2 “Getting started” (page 19) This section 
provides you with basic information regarding the 
first use of the 788,...

2 – Getting started–Connecting other equipment to your 788
22 TASCAM 788 Digital PortaStudio
Connecting other equipment to your 788
For a typical recording session, you will need:
the 788 itself
some sound sources (instruments and/or micro-
phones)
a stereo mastering recorder (cassette, DAT, MD). 
Alternatively, you can use a CD-R or CD-RW drive 
which will allow you to master the song, and also 
to back up and restore your working material.
an external effects unit (optional)
a monitoring system...

2 – Getting started–Connecting other equipment to your 788
 TASCAM 788 Digital PortaStudio 23
If your external effects unit can only accept a mono 
input, connect the 
L AUX OUTPUT of the 788 to 
the input.
The MIDI connections described here do not have 
to be direct connections—your sequencer will need 
to accept data from the instrument chain and to 
pass data to them. However, you should make sure 
that MTC (MIDI Timecode) can be sent from the 
788 to the sequencer, and MIDI Machine Control...

2 – Getting started–About the menus
24 TASCAM 788 Digital PortaStudio
About the menus
The 788 uses a menu interface to display and select 
operations that you cannot carry out using the front 
panel keys.
The 
JOG/DATA dial is often used to scroll through a 
list. When the dial can be used, the screen will usu-
ally show a small icon representing the dial (as 
shown at on the left of the screen).Generally, the transport must be stopped (not playing 
back or recording) when using the menus.
When scrolling...

2 – Getting started–About the menus
 TASCAM 788 Digital PortaStudio 25
Other control screens
There are a number of dedicated menus and screens 
available, which are accessed with the following 
keys. These are all described in the appropriate sec-
tions of this manual:
Selecting parameters
If there are many parameters on a screen, use the cur-
sor keys to highlight the parameter you want to 
change before setting the value with the dial.
Here, the two 
PAN values can be highlighted, and 
changed with the...

2 – Getting started–The “home” display
26 TASCAM 788 Digital PortaStudio
The “home” display
There is one special display which is always avail-
able with the touch of one key—the 
HOME/ESC key. 
This “home” display provides the following 
information:A large display of the time counter (see below)
Track/monitor meters and the recording source
The title of the currently active location mark
A space for messages
The record ready status of the tracks (in this exam-
ple tracks 3 and 4 are ready for...

2 – Getting started–Entering and editing titles
 TASCAM 788 Digital PortaStudio 27
1From any of the screens listed above, press the 
SHIFT + MENU (TITLE) key:
The screen above shows the titling of a virtual 
track.
2Use the 
LEFT and RIGHT cursor keys to move 
the cursor (the reversed character).
3Use the dial to change the cursor character.
4Press 
ENTER when you have finished editing a 
title (
EXIT to leave the title unchanged).
Use the 
DELETE key to delete the character at the 
cursor—(i) below, and...

2 – Getting started–The SONG menu
28 TASCAM 788 Digital PortaStudio
The SONG menu
The SONG menu, as the name suggests, is con-
cerned with the management of songs on the 788. You can load, save, copy and protect songs, as well as 
deleting the data which is currently on disk but 
unused in the song.
Creating a new song
Before you start recording, you must create a song on 
the disk. This means that any audio data you record 
on the 788 will be associated with that song until you 
select a new song. Any...

2 – Getting started–The SONG menu
 TASCAM 788 Digital PortaStudio 29
Loading a song
To load a previously-saved song from disk (the cur-
rent song will be written to disk automatically when 
the song is loaded):
1Press the 
MENU key.
2If 
SONG is not highlighted, turn the dial until 
it is, and press 
ENTER.
3Turn the dial until 
LOAD is highlighted and 
press 
ENTER.4Select the song to be loaded (from the currently 
selected disk).
The current song is saved, and the selected 
song is loaded from disk....

2 – Getting started–The SONG menu
30 TASCAM 788 Digital PortaStudio
tion, you should rename one of the copies immediately 
after the copy operation has been carried out.
When you make the selection for copying, only those songs 
in the currently-selected disk or partition are listed. If you need to back up from many different disks or partitions, you 
must select each partition in turn (“Selecting a disk” on 
page 32) and then select the songs on the selected disk or 
partition.
Deleting unused space...