Topic: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)

[Life In Rewind]

Channels 3 & 4 have the Pan option though and I set them to L12/R12.  Plugged into 3 & 4 & even with gain set to High (just for testing) the levels barely registered but I did get separate L & R signals.    What am I missing?? 

If you aren't getting enough gain on high, go into you INPUT menu and change the setting from 'line' to 'mic'.  Just remember that you might need to change it back before a show because your settings might be too sensitive for a loud show.  For most shows, I've found that having my INPUT menu settings at 'line' and on the BASIC menu, have the gain range set at medium or low (assuming you've implemented the firmware updates that installed the medium range as a menu selection item) that gives me a good level range for recording loud rock shows.

He might have the 3/4 set for the internal mics...?

Should be: BASIC > INPUT 3/4 > XLR/TRS

[voltronic]

I just did a quick check on the pan settings, and it is as Steve suspected - it only seems to affect the monitor output; not the actual recording.  I did mono tracks centered and hard panned, and stereo tracks centered and hard panned.  Moved in front of left and right mic while speaking, etc.  Pan settings did not affect anything on the actual recording.

To further clarify: The separate mono tracks came out center-panned regardless of the pan setting on the 70D - i.e. they were dual-mono (I was recording a stereo set of mics).  You could easily make them stereo by panning track 1 hard left and track 2 hard right in software, as you would expect.  Conversely, stereo tracks came out hard-panned regardless of the pan setting.  Even with pans manually set to center, the result was a hard-panned stereo track.

I don't have access to a Mid-Side setup at the moment, but I would imagine that the "width" control (which replaces "pan" in M/S mode) does affect the recording, and not just the monitor out.  Can someone confirm this?  I always prefer to matrix later on, so I never tried this when recording using my borrowed M/S rig.

[groovon]

I just did a quick check on the pan settings, and it is as Steve suspected - it only seems to affect the monitor output; not the actual recording.  I did mono tracks centered and hard panned, and stereo tracks centered and hard panned.  Moved in front of left and right mic while speaking, etc.  Pan settings did not affect anything on the actual recording.

To further clarify: The separate mono tracks came out center-panned regardless of the pan setting on the 70D - i.e. they were dual-mono (I was recording a stereo set of mics).  You could easily make them stereo by panning track 1 hard left and track 2 hard right in software, as you would expect.  Conversely, stereo tracks came out hard-panned regardless of the pan setting.  Even with pans manually set to center, the result was a hard-panned stereo track.

I don't have access to a Mid-Side setup at the moment, but I would imagine that the "width" control (which replaces "pan" in M/S mode) does affect the recording, and not just the monitor out.  Can someone confirm this?  I always prefer to matrix later on, so I never tried this when recording using my borrowed M/S rig.

As you might have noticed, there are two M-S settings, one called 'Monitor', and the other, 'Record'. They both allow real-time monitoring (of the effect on the stereo image of Side mic input level relative to Mid mic input level). However I'm not sure what the difference between them is, as far as what goes to tape. My best guess is that in MS 'monitor', you end up with two raw mono tracks, to be processed later, whereas in 'record', what goes to tape is a stereo mix just the way the levels were set. I think. Still not sure, as although I have various M-S setups, have yet to use them in anger 
Unfortunately there's practically nothing in the manual to clarify any of this 

Dave

[stevetoney]

^ Good excuse to avoid mid-side recording.  Lol.  I'm sure it has its uses but i have yet to find one for what i do, at least that sounds as good as spaced directional mics.  Its fun, but I don't care for that technique much at all.

[jbell]

A friend ran my DR70d for the UM Halloween run with no reports of errors.  I have a PNY 64gig card in it.  I also doubt he dumped the files and did a format every night. 

[voltronic]

Good news and bad news update:

Good news (potentially):

Firmware v 1.12 posted two days ago:

V1.12 fixes

• The recording/playback level display now shows more
  precise level changes.
• Operation stability has been improved.

I'm going to try it out tomorrow.

Bad news:

After having zero problems with a non-approved card (old Transcend), I have had numerous and severe problems with my brand new card which is actually on the list: SanDisk SDSDUP-16G.  The other day when I posted about my panning check, I went back and listened to some practice piano recordings I made.  One of them had severe skipping and dropouts, and even had a loud burst of static at the beginning.  Tonight, I was recording a marching band competition, and a couple early tracks had digital noise, a later track had severe dropouts and skipping, and then toward the end my last tracks failed to record at all, giving me "Write Timeout" errors.  I used this same card last week with no problems, and the same record settings exactly: 24/48 stereo with Dual Rec, so 4 tracks total.  I just sent an email to Tascam Customer Service recommending that they check this card more thoroughly again.

I'm going to do the firmware update and test the SanDisk card again before taking it back to Best Buy.  Tomorrow I'll let it run 4 channels at 24/96 to see if and when things go bad, and I'll report my findings.

[voltronic]

Update:

Clearly this SanDisk is either a defect / dud, or is not compatible with the 70D.  I'm leaning toward the first option, since it worked perfectly for the first couple recordings I made a week ago, but over the last two days its performance degenerated rapidly into unusable.  This morning I updated the 70D to 1.12 firmware and set it to record 4 channels of 24/96.  Write Timeout after 10 seconds, which was the last thing it was doing at the end of last night's show.  Erase Format and repeated test: Write Timeout at exactly 10 seconds every time.

Popped in my old Transcend and letting it run, and so far no issues.  Not like there have ever been any before with that card.

So I'll be taking the SanDisk back to Best Buy as defective.

BTW, I have yet to see what either of the things mentioned in the 1.12 firmware update are.  The meter ballistics may be a touch faster, but I'm not really sure.

EDIT: The numeric level readout for highest max level now changes in 1 dB steps; previously I believe it changed in 2 dB steps.  Can someone who hasn't updated to 1.12 yet please verify this? 

They could have done so much more to improve the metering, but I'll take any progress.  Also, keep in mind that the gain still adjusts in 2 dB steps.

[stevetoney]

I'll preface this response by saying, obviously I don't know whether your card is a dud or not.  I'm sure it happens.

But if you review the comments on this thread, you'll find that there are people that experienced the same thing you just did.  First their card worked, then it didn't.  Tom's response back then was that the card is probably old and it wore out, but people asked well if that's true then why does the card work in my DR680?  (Response as I recall was cricket sounds.)  Now you're concluding that you have a dud.  Hmm, yeah it's a new card so that's certainly a possibility, but it's a strange coincidence that you're seeing the same thing that others have.

Anyway, I bought the same card as you did assuming that it would work fine and haven't used the DR70D since, so I'll do some testing to see what happens on my end.  (Obviously, based on your feedback, now I can't assume this approved card will work, so once again my confidence goes down a notch so I gotta waste time proving to myself whether the card or the recorder is at issue.  I was hoping I'd gotten past having to do that by spending (wasting?) more money on an approved card.  )

You won't be surprised by my response to this, but I don't think it's fair to assume it's not an issue with the DR70D and make Sandisc/Best Buy pay for the error that, in all likelihood (based on your experience repeating what others have seen), is on Tascam.  Have you tried the 'dud' card in another device?  Bet it works fine. 

I acknowledge (and hope upon hope) that the card really is a dud, but I also don't believe in repeating coincidences.  That said, I can't even begin to think of a technical reason to explain why your 'unapproved' card works and your approved card doesn't work now after it did at first.  Maybe firmware v1.12 addressed this whole mess, but I doubt it since Tascam hasn't yet acknowledged that there is anything but an approved/unapproved card issue at work. 

[willndmb]

I'll preface this response by saying, obviously I don't know whether your card is a dud or not.  I'm sure it happens.

But if you review the comments on this thread, you'll find that there are people that experienced the same thing you just did.  First their card worked, then it didn't.  Tom's response back then was that the card is probably old and it wore out, but people asked well if that's true then why does the card work in my DR680?  Now you're concluding that you have a dud.  Hmm, yeah it's a new card so that's certainly a possibility, but it's a strange coincidence that you're seeing the same thing that others have.

Anyway, I bought the same card as you did assuming that it would work fine and haven't used the DR70D since, so I'll do some testing to see what happens on my end.  (Obviously, based on your feedback, now I can't assume this approved card will work, so once again my confidence goes down a notch so I gotta waste time proving to myself whether the card or the recorder is at issue.  I was hoping I'd gotten past having to do that with an approved card.  )

You won't be surprised by my response to this, but I don't think it's completely fair to assume it's not an issue with the DR70D and make Sandisc/Best Buy pay for the error that, in all likelihood, is on Tascam.  Have you tried the 'dud' card in another device?  Bet it works fine. 

I acknowledge that the card very well could be a dud, but I also don't believe in repeating coincidences.  That said, I can't even begin to think of a technical reason to explain why your 'unapproved' card works and your approved card doesn't work now after it did at first.  Maybe firmware v1.12 addressed this whole mess.

agreed

[voltronic]

Maybe firmware v1.12 addressed this whole mess, but I doubt it since Tascam hasn't yet acknowledged that there is anything but an approved/unapproved card issue at work.

Well the behavior with both cards is the same with 1.11 and 1.12, in that the Transcend works perfectly and the SanDisk not at all.

The reason for my quick conclusion that this card is a dud is that it worked fine for a while, then quickly got bad, and now I get an immediate Write Timeout after 10 seconds, on both firmware versions, and even right after a fresh format.  It would not be the first dud card I've gotten from SanDisk. 

I will run it through a couple test utilities in my PC though to see if it really is the card that is bad though.

[stevetoney]

I will run it through a couple test utilities in my PC though to see if it really is the card that is bad though.

Thanks.  I really do hope it's your card, but that's what happened to the person that bought my DR70D that I ended up refunding (greenmtnsrider).  I don't think he was using a new card, but he had a couple of good experiences with the card he was using mixed in with some of the digi-noise/skipping issues that have been reported.  I understand that these were somewhat random at first then after about four or five uses, he got the card write error message, after which the card wouldn't work at all.  If you want, PM him directly and maybe you can compare notes because I'm just going from memory of what he wrote to me when he was having the issues, which timewise was right at the very beginning of the ts.com discovery of this issue.

[capnhook]

I'll preface this response by saying, obviously I don't know whether your card is a dud or not.  I'm sure it happens.

But if you review the comments on this thread, you'll find that there are people that experienced the same thing you just did.  First their card worked, then it didn't.  Tom's response back then was that the card is probably old and it wore out, but people asked well if that's true then why does the card work in my DR680?  (Response as I recall was cricket sounds.)  Now you're concluding that you have a dud.  Hmm, yeah it's a new card so that's certainly a possibility, but it's a strange coincidence that you're seeing the same thing that others have.

Anyway, I bought the same card as you did assuming that it would work fine and haven't used the DR70D since, so I'll do some testing to see what happens on my end.  (Obviously, based on your feedback, now I can't assume this approved card will work, so once again my confidence goes down a notch so I gotta waste time proving to myself whether the card or the recorder is at issue.  I was hoping I'd gotten past having to do that by spending (wasting?) more money on an approved card.  )

You won't be surprised by my response to this, but I don't think it's fair to assume it's not an issue with the DR70D and make Sandisc/Best Buy pay for the error that, in all likelihood (based on your experience repeating what others have seen), is on Tascam.  Have you tried the 'dud' card in another device?  Bet it works fine. 

I acknowledge (and hope upon hope) that the card really is a dud, but I also don't believe in repeating coincidences.  That said, I can't even begin to think of a technical reason to explain why your 'unapproved' card works and your approved card doesn't work now after it did at first.  Maybe firmware v1.12 addressed this whole mess, but I doubt it since Tascam hasn't yet acknowledged that there is anything but an approved/unapproved card issue at work.

(I am going to give life again to a post I deleted on page 2 or three.)






A product recall is in order.

[2manyrocks]

 hope it's a faulty card.  Would really be awful to have spent money on the mod and then have the deck go bad out of warranty. 

[morst]

The difference between Monitor & Record for mid-side is so you can play back M/S tracks using the monitor feature and actually hear them mixed m/s. Serious M/S recordists do not mix their m & s on the spot, they record "A/B" and go mix at home.

See page 14 of the Reference manual (screen capture attached)

http://tascam.com/content/downloads/products/867/e_dr-70d_rm_vb.pdf

As you might have noticed, there are two M-S settings, one called 'Monitor', and the other, 'Record'. They both allow real-time monitoring (of the effect on the stereo image of Side mic input level relative to Mid mic input level). However I'm not sure what the difference between them is, as far as what goes to tape. My best guess is that in MS 'monitor', you end up with two raw mono tracks, to be processed later, whereas in 'record', what goes to tape is a stereo mix just the way the levels were set. I think. Still not sure, as although I have various M-S setups, have yet to use them in anger 
Unfortunately there's practically nothing in the manual to clarify any of this 

Dave

[groovon]

The difference between Monitor & Record for mid-side is so you can play back M/S tracks using the monitor feature and actually hear them mixed m/s. Serious M/S recordists do not mix their m & s on the spot, they record "A/B" and go mix at home.

--Yes I know, and I normally do just that. However, due to the built-in matrix, you can monitor the stereo mix--in either mode--while recording, which is useful. I also seem to remember that in M-S 'Record' mode, the two tracks are ganged to one level control (I may be wrong, I haven't done it in a while.)

See page 14 of the Reference manual (screen capture attached)

http://tascam.com/content/downloads/products/867/e_dr-70d_rm_vb.pdf

--Fine, but it's still scant information, and please note that in the deck's menu, the M-S options are NOT named 'Record' and 'Play', but 'Record' and 'Monitor'. So the manual provides not only insufficient information, but is also misleading.

Dave

As you might have noticed, there are two M-S settings, one called 'Monitor', and the other, 'Record'. They both allow real-time monitoring (of the effect on the stereo image of Side mic input level relative to Mid mic input level). However I'm not sure what the difference between them is, as far as what goes to tape. My best guess is that in MS 'monitor', you end up with two raw mono tracks, to be processed later, whereas in 'record', what goes to tape is a stereo mix just the way the levels were set. I think. Still not sure, as although I have various M-S setups, have yet to use them in anger 
Unfortunately there's practically nothing in the manual to clarify any of this 

Dave