Topic: TASCAM DR-680 portable 8-track - announced at NAMM

[Chuck]

A couple of notes I have after doing some of my own tests today:

- It does work fine on a 9v DVD battery.
- With 8 AA batteries installed (internally) I pulled the external plug out and it continued recording without a hitch. So internal battery back-up works fine.
- Without batteries installed I pulled the external plug and it shut down. The WAV files were saved fine. The header was fine too. The files were not corrupted.
- The pre-amps are not noisy.
- There is plenty of gain in the LOW mic setting. I wasn't able to check if my mics overloaded it with concert level volume.
- The screen back-light stays on when using the external power source (9v DVD battery or AC). So that will negatively effect external battery life.
- It's fairly easy to use right off the bat. I did read the manual inside and out a number of times before it arrived.
- I like it.

I doubt I'll have much more time to mess with it before I use it to record this weekend.

[mattmiller]

- The screen back-light stays on when using the external power source (9v DVD battery or AC). So that will negatively effect external battery life.

Are you sure you can't change this?  I know the HD-P2 is like this by default, but you can turn it off in the system menu.

[philper]

You cats who already have your DR680s, can you confirm or deny something for me?  In reading the manual, I'm confused as to whether the DR680 can record 6 analog tracks AND the digital input pair at the same time (total 8 inputs), or only can record the digital input INSTEAD of inputs 5/6 (and its mixdown).  I had thought it was 6 analog + the digital in OR a mixdown (total, 8 chan), but re reading the manual now I'm not sure.  I know it can do 6 in analog + mix pair.

thanks

Philip Perkins

[ShawnF]

Yes, you can do as you initially thought: six analog tracks and the digital input.  Channels 7 and 8 are called the "Stereo Track," which I find a bit confusing.  You have to tell the recorder whether you want the Stereo Track (channels 7 & 8) to be a mix or just the digital-in signal.  This is in the REC menu, under the ST REC item.  If you set it to digital input (DIN), you're set.  But if you are using that for the mix and want channels 5 & 6 to be the digital-in tracks, then you further have to tell the recorder that.  This is in the I/O menu under INPUT SEL.

So . . .   if you have four or fewer analog tracks, you can record those to channels 1-4, the digital input to channels 5/6, and also record a mix of all the channels to the "Stereo Track" (if you want--you still have to arm the channels you want to be recorded).  I did a choral concert Saturday with two stereo pairs of mics and a spot mic for soloists.  One of my stereo pairs was digi-in (DAV BG-1>Mytek 192), recorded to 5 and 6.  The other pair went into a second DAV and then line-in to channels 1 and 2.  The spot mic went into channel 4.  I used that instead of channel 3 only because it automatically defaulted to being panned to the right, which is roughly where I wanted it, so it was just convenient for monitoring.  Not that I couldn't have adjusted the panning of channel 3 very easily, but there was no particular need; I just didn't arm channel 3 for recording.  I guess I should mention I recorded this in mono file mode to avoid having an empty channel.

[Ozpeter]

Some means of recording the mix to a separate medium would be handy but recording a stereo mix to the same medium seems to me to be a bit of an invention looking for a use.  Or am I being unimaginative?  (which is entirely possible).

[spzkt]

I see this as very good news. Seemingly confirming that the pre-amps are more along the lines of the HD-P2 than the rest of the Tascam DR line.

From a post by Oryoki to NatureRecordists today:

I spoke with Tascam representatives at the NAB convention about the DR-680 preamp design.  They said the DR-680 uses a design similar to the DR-100, but built from electronic components that have better performance than the DR-100 offers. 

[ShawnF]

Well . . .   I suppose if you can set up a mix during soundcheck that you think you'll be happy with, it could save a lot of time in post, but you'd still have the individual tracks to play with if you decide against.  I'm not sure that's ever likely to happen for me, but who knows.  Additionally, one could take the time and set up the mix internally after the fact for playback, and then send that via the digital-out to another recorder.  I have an MT around somewhere that I could try that with.  But I agree it's not the handiest implementation.

Some means of recording the mix to a separate medium would be handy but recording a stereo mix to the same medium seems to me to be a bit of an invention looking for a use.  Or am I being unimaginative?  (which is entirely possible).

[Ozpeter]

I guess you could take out the card, pop it in a laptop, and then burn the stereo mix to CD right away to give to the band or whatever.  But then you'd need to have a laptop about you... now there's something they should bring out, a compact CD burner with an SD card reader attached.

[Chuck]

- The screen back-light stays on when using the external power source (9v DVD battery or AC). So that will negatively effect external battery life.

Are you sure you can't change this?  I know the HD-P2 is like this by default, but you can turn it off in the system menu.

I have not found a way to do this. You can program how soon the back-light goes out if you run on internal batteries. But, I have not found a way to disable it with an external power source.

Also, as mentioned before you can turn unused tracks off, so you won't use up valuable card space with blank tracks.

I was able to record mics in on tracks 1&2 and use tracks 7&8 to record the SPDIF out of my V3, which is the way I plan to run it for a while. I'm going to run one of my iRiver recorders out of the optical output on the V3 as a back-up... just in case there are any *glitches* with the new recorder.

I bought the recommended Transcend 16GB SDHC card and it's working great so far.

I haven't found anything I hate about this recorder yet.

[midside]

... now there's something they should bring out, a compact CD burner with an SD card reader attached.

'they' have.......

[ajcourtney]

So we try to make the audio clock as stable as we can, and then make sure there is a reference audio track on as many of the cameras as we can manage (in a multicam concert shoot, for instance).  The cameras frame rate will drift somewhat, but not as much as you might think--we have successfully done 2 hour+ sets with as many as 9 non-synced cameras.

I'm not concerned about non-locked cams either.  My primary response was due to the fact that audio drift will require all audio tracks to be time stretched in your NLE to remove the inherit drift between the outboard audio and the video.  I just did a small shoot a couple weeks ago, but still have 21 audio tracks to mixdown.  Although the clocks in my old digimax 48k's are very good, there is bound to be some variation between the master audio clock and the cams' clocks in this 2-hour gig.  The only way to correct this is to mathematically manipulate 21 tracks of audio (or the stereo master) in order to properly sync the audio with the video unless you have the cams genlocked to one master clock and the entire audio rig WC'd to that same master clock.

[leehookem]

I just emailed Doug to check on availability.  Here was his response:

Hi Lee, it may be a while since every DR series they have released had or developed serious issues. We are waiting to see how it does before we decide if we want to sell them. I will add your name to the waiting list.
thanks for the inquiry....Doug

[philper]

So we try to make the audio clock as stable as we can, and then make sure there is a reference audio track on as many of the cameras as we can manage (in a multicam concert shoot, for instance).  The cameras frame rate will drift somewhat, but not as much as you might think--we have successfully done 2 hour+ sets with as many as 9 non-synced cameras.

I'm not concerned about non-locked cams either.  My primary response was due to the fact that audio drift will require all audio tracks to be time stretched in your NLE to remove the inherit drift between the outboard audio and the video.  I just did a small shoot a couple weeks ago, but still have 21 audio tracks to mixdown.  Although the clocks in my old digimax 48k's are very good, there is bound to be some variation between the master audio clock and the cams' clocks in this 2-hour gig.  The only way to correct this is to mathematically manipulate 21 tracks of audio (or the stereo master) in order to properly sync the audio with the video unless you have the cams genlocked to one master clock and the entire audio rig WC'd to that same master clock.

In our practice it does not work out this way.  There isn't any reason to time stretch and put up with the audio artifacts that that might make, and in any case all the cameras drift at a different rate from each other so no one value of time stretch would work for all.  We get the sync as close as we can, cut the piece and then adjust sync to eye in the cut.  This same sort of per shot sync adjustment has always  happened in concert projects, even when the sync was mathematically correct re: either film camera crystals or video genlock cabled off a master clock.  Our rule is that in a concert project sync is in the eye of the beholder, and different angles and lens lengths of the same action will end up needing different sync offsets to look right, even if they were in dead sync to start with (especially for anything to be seen on the big screen).  So since we know we'll have to tweak sync anyhow, we make the concert shooting lighter weight, simpler, w/more cameras than we could cable up and take advantage of the small size of newer cheaper non-genlockable cameras to get shots we couldn't have before.   Our last shoot used 6 EX1s and several more lipstick and "icecube" cameras rigged to lighting battens, amps, drumsets etc.  for a 100+ min set.  The sync is way close enough to cut with, and we'll make the final sync calls in the online.

Philip Perkins

[philper]

Some means of recording the mix to a separate medium would be handy but recording a stereo mix to the same medium seems to me to be a bit of an invention looking for a use.  Or am I being unimaginative?  (which is entirely possible).

In film+video work we are expected to deliver a 2 track (stereo or split mono) recording for dailies and editorial, in addition to the iso tracks, so it is a useful feature in that sphere.   All the high end multitrack file recorders as well as the computer-based ones can do this.

Philip Perkins

[philper]

Yes, you can do as you initially thought: six analog tracks and the digital input.  Channels 7 and 8 are called the "Stereo Track," which I find a bit confusing.  You have to tell the recorder whether you want the Stereo Track (channels 7 & to be a mix or just the digital-in signal.  This is in the REC menu, under the ST REC item.  If you set it to digital input (DIN), you're set.  But if you are using that for the mix and want channels 5 & 6 to be the digital-in tracks, then you further have to tell the recorder that.  This is in the I/O menu under INPUT SEL.

So . . .   if you have four or fewer analog tracks, you can record those to channels 1-4, the digital input to channels 5/6, and also record a mix of all the channels to the "Stereo Track" (if you want--you still have to arm the channels you want to be recorded).  I did a choral concert Saturday with two stereo pairs of mics and a spot mic for soloists.  One of my stereo pairs was digi-in (DAV BG-1>Mytek 192), recorded to 5 and 6.  The other pair went into a second DAV and then line-in to channels 1 and 2.  The spot mic went into channel 4.  I used that instead of channel 3 only because it automatically defaulted to being panned to the right, which is roughly where I wanted it, so it was just convenient for monitoring.  Not that I couldn't have adjusted the panning of channel 3 very easily, but there was no particular need; I just didn't arm channel 3 for recording.  I guess I should mention I recorded this in mono file mode to avoid having an empty channel.

thanks, that helps a lot.  ...and did you like how your recording sounded?

Philip Perkins