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Gear / Technical Help => Recording Gear => Topic started by: morst on December 03, 2015, 04:57:32 PM

Title: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: morst on December 03, 2015, 04:57:32 PM
Welcome to my GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM thread!

This will be a place where those who have had trouble caused by Tascam gear can post specifics, in case anyone shopping for recorders is interested in large trends.

Maybe you know the story about the DR-70D?

Super-short version: The DR-70D glitches horribly, randomly, uncontrollable, and unpredictably unless a SDHC or SDXC card is selected from the list which was published October 6, 2015, nearly a year after the deck was first sold.

The Tascam customer service representative who was present on this board did little but parrot the company line of "you must use a card on the list, or it is not Tascam's fault/responsibility" until he got insulted by a disgruntled Tascam customer and took his ball and went away. Tascam has not sent any other reps to interact with this board since then.

In my mind, the only reason that they published the updated list on October 6, with the 64 & 128 GB cards, was as a direct result of my BBB claim against them. https://sanjose.app.bbb.org/complaint/view/443623/c/h68r4v
Quote
TASCAM has been an industry leading manufacturer of high quality yet affordable multitrack recorders for over 40 years. There are times when the technology used in the development of such recorders provide capabilities that are out in front of other related products. In the case of the DR-70D, our initial tests on available media (specifically SDXC media) has shown that they are not meeting the stringent requirements of the unique recording capabilities of the DR-70D. The issue is not the DR-70D hardware but the available SDXC media.

Current tests are revealing a number of cards that do seem to meet the necessary requirements. Once all tests are completed, an updated list which includes the acceptable cards will be posted on our website.

Just for the record, of the thousands of DR-70D recorders we have sold since November of last year, outside of Mr. Scharff, there has only been one other user contact us (and that was today) concerning SDXC media.




So, if you are dissatisfied with TASCAM, it would probably be a good idea to let them know, and let us know that you have let them know, so they can not continue to complain that "there has only been one other user contact us (and that was today) concerning SDXC media"


Quote
How products of this nature are designed and how specifications are decided is well beyond the scope of this discussion.

If the customer's real agenda is to use a high capacity SDXC card with the unit, then based on the new Tested Media List that has recently been posted, his problem is solved.

This will be our final correspondence on this matter.

They are not interested in fixing their gear, and they are only barely interested in placating customer complaints! That snarky response may be good enough to close a BBB claim, but it makes them look like jerks to me!


Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: acidjack on December 03, 2015, 05:39:47 PM
Trashcan is special. New deck every month, each less functional than the last.

The SDHC card issue is just like the "Tekkeon issue" with the 680. That is, if you use a Tekkeon with selectable voltage with a 680, it fries the motherboard. Or at least, after going through two 680s, that was their claim. Their ability and desire to repair was nonexistent; customer service the usual "it's your / somebody else's fault" routine.

My DR-40 was better, and I sold it to someone who successfully used it since, but even it wouldn't format cards properly. They'd format, but the deck would hang, and you had to turn it off and power it back on.

In addition, I find the overall QC, feel, and operation of their products to be awful. Even if it had worked properly, the 680 was an obvious piece of junk, hard to use, unreliable, and felt as cheap as it was. Oh I forgot, it also had the "it only works with certain digital outs" issue.

Things can't be someone else's fault all the time. This company is notorious for a reason.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: MakersMarc on December 03, 2015, 05:49:48 PM
The last Trashcan I owned was a  P1, and it was a pos that liked to lock up before shows for no reason. And it was probably Tascams finest portable hour.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: morst on December 03, 2015, 06:32:56 PM
Here is a glitched fileset from the Tascam DR-70D, if you'd like to take a listen to some of the errors caused by using just any old perfectly good SDHC card, maybe straight out of a camera?

Cracker Live at Palms Playhouse on 2015-07-07
https://archive.org/details/Cracker2015-07-07

"Almond Grove (3:45), Get On Down The Road (3:36), & Eurotrash Girl (5:33) have glitches which appear to be on the master files from the Tascam DR-70D"


ARE THERE NO STANDARDS?!?
(joking, as if you couldn't tell by comic sans...
there ARE standards: https://www.sdcard.org/ )
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: darby on December 03, 2015, 07:18:17 PM
I had a DA-P1 that had the head slip out of alignment after 2 years of use

I had 2 different CD recorders give me problems... can't remember the details anymore

I had a HD-P2 that had the Firewire port die... no huge deal

I had the first DR-680 in the world to die due to the voltage issue acidjack also went thru
it took TEAC 2 months to do anything about the issue and only did because the retailer I bought it from went to bat for me

I had a DR-2d crap out mysteriosly after about a month of use... the retailer exchanged it

I too for some reason bought the 70D after going thru all the issues above, but sold it as soon as issues were noted about the cards

I still have my old trusty 112MKII cassette deck from back in the day when Tascam wasn't synonymous with Trashcan
 
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: capnhook on December 03, 2015, 07:31:51 PM
Thanks morst, I guess you and I are two of a kind.  Marketing/corporate apologists are taking over this world, ever since we heard that "corporations are people..."!   Sheesh, what a load of crap these guys fling.

And as far as one distinguished member here goes, maybe he has plenty of cash, and free beta-testing time, to dump off on "doorstops", but most of us don't.  And most of us here aren't going to be getting on TASCAM's cheerleading bandwagon, either.  Glitched recordings are top of every taper's shit list......we can screw up enough other things ourselves.  We don't need help from a trashcan recorder.  We certainly didn't get much help from that weasel, Tuomo.  Good riddance.

Your BBB case was well articulated and well thought-out.  Sounds exactly like something I would write.  TASCAM deserves all the criticism it gets from us.

Thanks for the new thread....jumping in.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: mfrench on December 03, 2015, 08:20:38 PM
Trashcan?
Come on,.... they've already spelled out their own name: Ta Scam (read: To scam, with a bad Bostonian/Bronx/whatever accent).

Its a shame that your $200 recorder isn't right.  Try it with a bad $1200 DVRA1000 DSD recorder, with the same level of customer support.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: MakersMarc on December 03, 2015, 09:46:44 PM
^ that blows Moke.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: aaronji on December 04, 2015, 06:45:10 AM
Not $1200, but I had really bad luck a few years back with a stand-alone CD recorder (RW2000) that set me back ~ $500.  It functioned perfectly, with one slight flaw: the CDs I burned with it would only playback in the device.  Not in the car, computer, portable or stereo.  After several fruitless months trying to get any semblance of service from them, I just trashed it...
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: Life In Rewind on December 04, 2015, 06:58:52 AM
Not $1200, but I had really bad luck a few years back with a stand-alone CD recorder (RW2000) that set me back ~ $500.  It functioned perfectly, with one slight flaw: the CDs I burned with it would only playback in the device.  Not in the car, computer, portable or stereo.  After several fruitless months trying to get any semblance of service from them, I just trashed it...

Similar experience with the early Marantz CD-R 610...junk. Flawed firmware from the get go. Digital transfers sounded - notably - different. I eventually got my money back out of it doing transfers for local studios. But that thing sucked. Eventually threw it away. Paid like 2400 bucks for it in 1993.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: colinw on December 04, 2015, 08:53:22 AM
wow, I guess I am lucky.

I Haven't had any issues at all with the small handheld recorders I have dr07mkii and dr-2d. Both are great little machines for what use them for.

I also have a pair of old TEACv1050 3 head tape decks that I used heavily in the tape trading days, which were workhorses and I never had any issues with. I still play tapes on them occasionally and they are solid!

It is unfortunate they don't provide any decent service for their products, seems very common these days.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: hoppedup on December 04, 2015, 08:56:43 AM
Tascam DR-70D in a flawless performance as a counterweight:

(http://i673.photobucket.com/albums/vv96/hoppedup_36/projection%20room.jpg) (http://s673.photobucket.com/user/hoppedup_36/media/projection%20room.jpg.html)

Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: Fried Chicken Boy on December 05, 2015, 01:22:21 AM
Glitched recordings are top of every taper's shit list......we can screw up enough other things ourselves.  We don't need help from a trashcan recorder.

My thoughts as well. 
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: ccage on December 06, 2015, 10:13:01 AM
I had one of those DA 302 DAT cloners back in the day.
What a piece of crap....it failed early and often.

Those DA P1's must have been a steady income revenue stream for Plotnick at Pro Digital for several years  ;D
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: MakersMarc on December 06, 2015, 10:23:26 AM
^ oh man, forgot about those. They failed massively right out of the gate. I also had a da30 that liked to chew tapes.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: obaaron on December 06, 2015, 10:26:07 AM
well, not that it matters but ive had my 680 for 3 years and my 60d for a year and a half anf have had zero issues. guess ive been lucky!
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: johnfitz on December 06, 2015, 11:41:41 AM
I have nothing to gripe about.

I've got a $200 4-channel recorder that performs much better than any $200 4-channel recorder has any business to.

For more than 6 months I've been using it almost weekly to record 4-channels and have used it as a straight 2-channel recorder (with the 2-channel back up tracks enabled, so I guess even those instances are still using all 4 channels) probably half a dozen times on top of that and fortunately I've never had any negative issues. I'm recording everything at 24/48.

I'm using a Sandisk Ultra Plus 64gb Microsdxc Class 10 Uhs-1 Memory Card (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NPJBYD0?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00) and have installed all of the firmware updates when they've become available.

I formatted the card in the recorder several times the only way possible via the older firmware version and did the new full format that's available with the latest version before I last used it. (Even the full format option only took a minute or so to complete).

I never put any of that into your spread sheet, but there you have it. I may be in the minority but so far I've had nothing but good luck with my DR-70D.

Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: capnhook on December 06, 2015, 01:53:07 PM
wrong thread. johnfitz.

Please consider altering or deleting your post.

-T
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: acidjack on December 06, 2015, 04:10:48 PM
wrong thread. johnfitz.

Please consider altering or deleting your post.

-T
I'm not sure he did anything wrong by posting that his deck was fine. I think at this point even the Trashcan users who've had the better luck have to admit that all is not well with that company and its products. It'd be one thing to post a completely fan boyish defense of garbage business practices/products (as we've seen here many a time before) but I don't think an anecdotal post about how at least a few of them work is off-base. Just my $0.02.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: Life In Rewind on December 06, 2015, 07:13:56 PM
You guys have missed the part in the DR-70D literature about TASCAM's proprietary "Super Bit Shaping"

This is a more aggresive A/D process that results on triple the accuracy of past A/Ds - but requires a more resilient SD card hardware.

TASCAM is labling this proprietary technology as "TASCAM Super BS"

:)
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: capnhook on December 06, 2015, 08:04:43 PM
You guys have missed the part in the DR-70D literature about TASCAM's proprietary "Super Bit Shaping"

This is a more aggresive A/D process that results on triple the accuracy of past A/Ds - but requires a more resilient SD card hardware.

TASCAM is labling this proprietary technology as "TASCAM Super BS"

:)

Niiiiice one...!  :coolguy:
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: morst on December 08, 2015, 01:55:17 PM
I have nothing to gripe about.

I've got a $200 4-channel recorder that performs much better than any $200 4-channel recorder has any business to.

For more than 6 months I've been using it almost weekly to record 4-channels and have used it as a straight 2-channel recorder (with the 2-channel back up tracks enabled, so I guess even those instances are still using all 4 channels) probably half a dozen times on top of that and fortunately I've never had any negative issues. I'm recording everything at 24/48.

I'm using a Sandisk Ultra Plus 64gb Microsdxc Class 10 Uhs-1 Memory Card (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NPJBYD0?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00) and have installed all of the firmware updates when they've become available.

I formatted the card in the recorder several times the only way possible via the older firmware version and did the new full format that's available with the latest version before I last used it. (Even the full format option only took a minute or so to complete).

I never put any of that into your spread sheet, but there you have it. I may be in the minority but so far I've had nothing but good luck with my DR-70D.

THAT CARD IS NOT ON THE APPROVED LIST! AT SOME POINT, IT WILL FAIL, AND TASCAM WILL TELL YOU THAT THEY ARE NOT TO BLAME..

CAVEAT EMPTOR.

The approved card list for the DR-70D is here: http://tascam.com/content/downloads/products/867/dr-70d_tested_media_list_20151006.pdf

If you use any cards other than the ones on the list, and they fail, you have NO RECOURSE with TEAC/Tascam.

Do you want that?
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: tapjunkie on December 10, 2015, 05:57:55 PM
I have owned a P2 for almost 10 years and never had an issue.  I must be lucky.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: ts on December 15, 2015, 03:00:56 PM
I have nothing to gripe about.

I've got a $200 4-channel recorder that performs much better than any $200 4-channel recorder has any business to.

For more than 6 months I've been using it almost weekly to record 4-channels and have used it as a straight 2-channel recorder (with the 2-channel back up tracks enabled, so I guess even those instances are still using all 4 channels) probably half a dozen times on top of that and fortunately I've never had any negative issues. I'm recording everything at 24/48.

I'm using a Sandisk Ultra Plus 64gb Microsdxc Class 10 Uhs-1 Memory Card (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NPJBYD0?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00) and have installed all of the firmware updates when they've become available.

I formatted the card in the recorder several times the only way possible via the older firmware version and did the new full format that's available with the latest version before I last used it. (Even the full format option only took a minute or so to complete).

I never put any of that into your spread sheet, but there you have it. I may be in the minority but so far I've had nothing but good luck with my DR-70D.

THAT CARD IS NOT ON THE APPROVED LIST! AT SOME POINT, IT WILL FAIL, AND TASCAM WILL TELL YOU THAT THEY ARE NOT TO BLAME..

CAVEAT EMPTOR.

The approved card list for the DR-70D is here: http://tascam.com/content/downloads/products/867/dr-70d_tested_media_list_20151006.pdf

If you use any cards other than the ones on the list, and they fail, you have NO RECOURSE with TEAC/Tascam.

Do you want that?

Looking at the approved list you have posted it seems I recently purchased a non approved card: SDSDXP-032G 32GB NG

But the 16Gb same type is OK? And this one is at your own risk: SDSDXPA-032G 32GB OK*1

Really???
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: morst on December 18, 2015, 03:49:52 PM

Looking at the approved list you have posted it seems I recently purchased a non approved card: SDSDXP-032G 32GB NG

But the 16Gb same type is OK? And this one is at your own risk: SDSDXPA-032G 32GB OK*1

Really???

Yes, really!!!

Tascam blames the cards but I blame Tascam.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: 2manyrocks on December 18, 2015, 04:44:17 PM
I thought the BBB complaint was over the top, but am looking at it differently the more i think on it.  Tascam just released the dr701d, and there is no approved media list that I can find.  To an unkowledgeable user like me, my assumption would be the 701d is passing time code or whatever in addition to four channels of audio.  So my guess is it would be even more demanding on a card than the 70d.  Given the limited list of approved cards for the 70d published by tascam months after many of us bought the 70d, it leaves a bad impression in my mind to see another recorder released with no list of approved media.  Spend $599 and take your chances and spend money trying to determine which cards work in the 701d or any other tascam product again?  Not me. 
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: Life In Rewind on December 18, 2015, 06:24:43 PM
I thought the BBB complaint was over the top, but am looking at it differently the more i think on it.  Tascam just released the dr701d, and there is no approved media list that I can find.  To an unkowledgeable user like me, my assumption would be the 701d is passing time code or whatever in addition to four channels of audio.  So my guess is it would be even more demanding on a card than the 70d.  Given the limited list of approved cards for the 70d published by tascam months after many of us bought the 70d, it leaves a bad impression in my mind to see another recorder released with no list of approved media.  Spend $599 and take your chances and spend money trying to determine which cards work in the 701d or any other tascam product again?  Not me.

Yep - and they had the "rep" here - who bailed...

He could have hung and tried to work with us...

We got the message TASCAM...our business is not wanted...

While we may not be the demographic this is device is aimed at - The taperssection.com threads ranks high in Google searches - who else is talking about it...?
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: morst on December 18, 2015, 06:48:30 PM
Thanks to my unreliable Tascam DR-70D, I no longer enjoy recording live shows.

I am prepping for a show tonight and feeling panic and anxiety.

Ready to quit if this keeps up.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: voltronic on December 18, 2015, 06:58:26 PM
Thanks to my unreliable Tascam DR-70D, I no longer enjoy recording live shows.

I am prepping for a show tonight and feeling panic and anxiety.

Ready to quit if this keeps up.

Are you having problems with a listed card? If so, which one?
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: morst on December 18, 2015, 07:19:52 PM
no, I've just totally lost my taper groove.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: Life In Rewind on December 18, 2015, 08:48:00 PM
no, I've just totally lost my taper groove.

She'll be back...
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: aaronji on December 19, 2015, 03:12:45 PM
Are you having problems with a listed card? If so, which one?

Lists?  We don't need no stinkin' lists...Not in the "GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM!" thread, anyway.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: brianp on December 23, 2015, 12:09:05 PM
No gripes from me. Going on 10 straight years of use with my HD-P2. I can only think of two times where I had a problem. Pretty sure one was a battery issue, and the other was a write error on an 8 year old card that probably needed to be replaced anyways.

::knocks on wood::
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: IronFilm on December 30, 2015, 04:14:41 AM
The people who are having issues with your Tascam, exactly which SD cards are you using? As I've seen zero mention of specific cards (aside from the guy who had no issues, which mentioned a particular one. Sandisk Ultra I think he said).

If you're using any old random Class 4 card, well... no wonder you'll have issues! And you've got no excuse whatsoever, not when fast Sandisk SD cards are so dirt cheap these days.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: goodcooker on December 30, 2015, 12:01:27 PM
The people who are having issues with your Tascam, exactly which SD cards are you using? As I've seen zero mention of specific cards (aside from the guy who had no issues, which mentioned a particular one. Sandisk Ultra I think he said).

If you're using any old random Class 4 card, well... no wonder you'll have issues! And you've got no excuse whatsoever, not when fast Sandisk SD cards are so dirt cheap these days.

People have been reporting issues with cards that are class rated with speeds equal or better than approved cards. There is something wonky with the way the write process is implemented on this machine. It may be some new type of technology/software that is ahead of current hardware but it's the only digital recorder I know of that's had these kind of problems. Tascam is blaming SD cards saying they degrade performance over time and whatnot. I have a Toshiba class 4 card that I've recorded countless shows with 4 channels at 24/48kHz in my Tascam DR2D and in my Tascam DR60D going on 5 years without a single hiccup. It's not cards....it's the DR70D.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: 2manyrocks on December 30, 2015, 06:33:33 PM
The people who are having issues with your Tascam, exactly which SD cards are you using? As I've seen zero mention of specific cards (aside from the guy who had no issues, which mentioned a particular one. Sandisk Ultra I think he said).

If you're using any old random Class 4 card, well... no wonder you'll have issues! And you've got no excuse whatsoever, not when fast Sandisk SD cards are so dirt cheap these days.

Look at tascam's own list of approved media for the 70d.  Within the same model line of sandisk cards, some are NG.  Explaination, please?  A sandisk that works in other tascam may not work in the 70d.  Explanation, please?  Now they released the 701d without any list of approved media.  Do you want to spend $599 and then try to find a card that works at your time and expense?
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: MakersMarc on December 30, 2015, 07:59:32 PM
^

I saw that list with the NG designations....wtf?! Sloppy at the least. As has been said, I wonder if Trashcan developed some new write technology and failed to test it properly....or did and found the issue too late in production. No worries, another cheap shit deck is probably in the works right now.  :P
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: justme on December 31, 2015, 08:39:23 AM
My heritage is from the still photography side and I always set the camera to write to dual cards to be sure that I do not lose an important shoot.
On top of that I always get on the set with backup cams in case one fails.
And even doing personal video shoots I set the camera to write to both cards at ones.

I've never had any problem with a CF or SD card not working or geting corrupted due to a mismatch between cam and card.
Sure there can be performance issues but never information loss.
Information loss should be out of the question in todays digital and redundant world!

As I'm looking into which recorder to purchase dr-680, dr-70d, 661mkii etc I found it extremely surprising to read all these stories about how the 70d can not handla cards in a better way and kind of shocking on how Tascam fails to produce a unit that are this picky (read crappy) in what to feed it with. Not to mention the slow or zero interest in producing documents of working cards.

I thought it would be easy to set a cost limit and then choose a good recorder within the price range but gosh was I wrong.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: 2manyrocks on December 31, 2015, 12:09:05 PM
^None of my other recorders, cameras, camcorders, etc. appear to be picky about cards, either.

I think most of us view Sandisk as a reliable, good quality card, and yet even within the Sandisk brand, there are a limited number of Sandisk models that are on the 70d list of approved media.  And 70d users have to be very observant in choosing the correct approved model from among all the similar looking Sandisk cards at retailers. 

 The only other manufacturer on the list is Panasonic and the Panasonic cards appear from my research to be discontinued or very limited in stock. 

If Tascam had published the list of approved media when they started selling the 70d, it would be one thing, but issuing the list months after the 70d has been on the market doesn't sit well with me.  Tell me up front if a recorder requires specific cards to work correctly. 



 
 
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: morst on January 02, 2016, 02:47:53 PM
Information loss should be out of the question in todays digital and redundant world!


THIS!
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: todd e on February 11, 2016, 11:51:40 AM
i hated my p1, but i have 2 hdp2's and use 4 different types of card without any issue over the past 10yrs.  i guess i'm a statistical abnormality ;-)
i only use 8gb card, and reformat before each show. 
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: dallman on February 12, 2016, 02:24:32 PM
i hated my p1, but i have 2 hdp2's and use 4 different types of card without any issue over the past 10yrs.  i guess i'm a statistical abnormality ;-)
i only use 8gb card, and reformat before each show.
HDp2 is rock solid. Other than a few people having some rust issues I have never heard of any operational problems. Also it is of a different era for Tascam. They still sell them though and other than being a bit large, It remains a great deck with lots of features.

But this is a gripe category, not a praise category. I wish they had any kind of decent customer service. It took about 50 emails to finally get a response on my firmware update explanation and request for the DR680 MKII where the Din Mon /Mix Mon always reverts back to Mix Mon and does not hold. Tascam said enough people would have to complain for them to address it, and I think that part of the deck is so complicated to figure out that mass complaints are unlikely. Most people do not run 6 analog mics along with a preamp digital output with 2 additional mics to the mix track.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: vialenco on January 02, 2019, 07:31:37 AM
Ok so I'm resurrecting this dead thread. But then again may be some one at Trashcan may see it one day and push for them to change something because for a company that aims itself at the "pro" sector of the market it's really quite unacceptable.

I don't think I've ever got a reply from any one there regarding any queries past or present and now that I have a faulty product I doubt I will ever get any reply regarding that too but who knows.

Last year I brought a DR-100 mk III and although skeptical and weary of it being Tascam it was the only recorder on the market in that price range that met all my requirements so I thought meh how bad can it be, if it's faulty surely I can return it?
Well bang on a year after purchase the machine now glitches on playback or whilst record monitoring, this is now just a few days outside of the warranty period!
The data recorded to the SD card is actually ok but playback and monitoring on the DR it'self isn't, at a guess an issue with the DA IC or a capacitor... Thing is it doesn't really give you confidence if you play something back and it's clicking and popping, on location you'd think is the file corrupt?

The sad thing is the DR-100 III other wise was great, some minor quibbles about the build (noisy and poor quality jog wheel and the shock mount doesn't really do anything when the unit is hand held)

The one piece of advice I will give to any one buying anything from these people is if you can buy it from a place that offers an extended warranty. Here in Europe anything you buy from Thomann is sold with a 3 year warranty! Unfortunately when I brought mine they didn't have any in stock so I got it from a local re-seller in my country.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: junkyardt on January 02, 2019, 04:58:47 PM
huh, i never saw this thread the first time around, so this is the first i've heard of these types of complaints against tascam. recently i did own a dr-100mkII for about a year, recording maybe 20-30 shows with it. i eventually sold it and upgraded to a mixpre-6, but i never had an issue with the tascam. maybe i just got lucky? anyway, now seeing this i'm glad i didn't try to use it for too much longer.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: vialenco on January 02, 2019, 05:47:32 PM
huh, i never saw this thread the first time around, so this is the first i've heard of these types of complaints against tascam. recently i did own a dr-100mkII for about a year, recording maybe 20-30 shows with it. i eventually sold it and upgraded to a mixpre-6, but i never had an issue with the tascam. maybe i just got lucky? anyway, now seeing this i'm glad i didn't try to use it for too much longer.

I'd like to think their products have improved and we are a small minority but the support is totally lacking unfortunately, which IS something that seems to be echoed by the Tascam user base.
I understand with anything there will be a degree of products that fail be it caused by a design oversight or part failure but the way the company then deals with this to me is of ultimate importance and this is where Tascam fails.

Would I still recommend the DR-100 mkIII? Totally! But I'd purchase it from a dealer with a good reputation/who offer extended cover just in case.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: hoppedup on January 02, 2019, 06:37:51 PM
We had a Tascam employee on the forums trying to listen and be as helpful as he could in his position. He kept getting attacked and bounced. Looks like he even deleted his account.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: vialenco on January 02, 2019, 07:12:20 PM
We had a Tascam employee on the forums trying to listen and be as helpful as he could in his position. He kept getting attacked and bounced. Looks like he even deleted his account.

That's a shame, unfortunately some people are just  :tomato:

I wonder how the whole Gibson thing affects them
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: voltronic on January 02, 2019, 07:28:45 PM
We had a Tascam employee on the forums trying to listen and be as helpful as he could in his position. He kept getting attacked and bounced. Looks like he even deleted his account.

Tascam has long been known to have poor / unresponsive customer support.  It's a big problem with the company, and one many of us had to find out after we already bought products from them.

That said, the Tascam rep (Tomuo) who had an account here (as well as Gearslutz and JWSound) was a notable exception.  He was one of the only major-manufacturer reps I am aware of to ever frequent this board, other than John Willett (formerly Sennheiser, now Gefell) and Paul Isaacs (Sound Devices).

The way some of our members attacked him for giving answers they didn't like was really unfortunate.  They seemed to hold him personally responsible for problems with product design, firmware performance, or other poor customer service interactions they have had with the company in the past.  He was just one guy trying to be helpful, at least in my view.

This is where things started to come off the rails.
http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=173960.300 (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=173960.300)
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: Gutbucket on January 02, 2019, 07:58:08 PM
Vialenco, have you tried a few different SD cards (freshly formatted) in the recorder and found the same issue with each?  If so and the issue is playback-related only, as a work-around you might consider a small inexpensive "playback only" player/recorder, physically transferring the SD card over to that when you need to make an listening check in the field.  Not ideal, but less costly than a replacement recorder.

Tascam makes decent gear at low cost that performs well in most cases, but one should not expect much support from them.  The Tascam recorders I have - a DR680 Mk1 and DR680 Mk2 - have been very good recorders for me and are still performing well.  I know this does not apply to you in this case but I'll put it out there for others- Early adopters be warned, best advice is to hold off purchasing until the initial problems and issues of new devices are well documented and have been sufficiently resolved.

I don't expect any new recorders from Tascam until after the Gibson dust settles.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: vialenco on January 03, 2019, 05:40:34 AM
Vialenco, have you tried a few different SD cards (freshly formatted) in the recorder and found the same issue with each?  If so and the issue is playback-related only, as a work-around you might consider a small inexpensive "playback only" player/recorder, physically transferring the SD card over to that when you need to make an listening check in the field.  Not ideal, but less costly than a replacement recorder.

Tascam makes decent gear at low cost that performs well in most cases, but one should not expect much support from them.  The Tascam recorders I have - a DR680 Mk1 and DR680 Mk2 - have been very good recorders for me and are still performing well.  I know this does not apply to you in this case but I'll put it out there for others- Early adopters be warned, best advice is to hold off purchasing until the initial problems and issues of new devices are well documented and have been sufficiently resolved.

I don't expect any new recorders from Tascam until after the Gibson dust settles.

Hi, I might start a new thread re my issues but to answer your question I have tested 3 different SD cards I have on it and they all did the same thing. The odd thing is it only started doing it few days ago and never had this issue in the past. I even did a full format of the card in the Tascam and still same issue.
I wonder if it's FW related as to be fair since updating to the latest FW I haven't used it much although I'm sure I would have noticed by now. Like most manufacturers though I am unable to "downgrade" the FW as I have tried, I have also tried re-flashing it with the latest OS.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: mjwin on January 03, 2019, 02:33:35 PM
Last year I brought a DR-100 mk III [...]
Well bang on a year after purchase the machine now glitches on playback or whilst record monitoring, this is now just a few days outside of the warranty period!
The data recorded to the SD card is actually ok but playback and monitoring on the DR it'self isn't, at a guess an issue with the DA IC or a capacitor... Thing is it doesn't really give you confidence if you play something back and it's clicking and popping, on location you'd think is the file corrupt?
When you say it's "glitching", I don't suppose this could be anything as simple as a bad connection on the h/p connector? Not that that's necessarily simple to fix, but if you can nail it down to this, you might find someone who can fix it. You didn't say much about how it actually sounded, so it isn't easy to tell.  If the recording itself is ok, the problem is likely to be in the post-digital output section, and bad connectors are the #1 cause of such noise.

The sad thing is the DR-100 III other wise was great, some minor quibbles about the build (noisy and poor quality jog wheel and the shock mount doesn't really do anything when the unit is hand held)

I think you might well have got a bad unit here.  I find the jog wheel an excellent interface,  and it certainly isn't noisy. It can also be spun with one finger so it's easy to scroll through very long files. Mine has had a lot of use in this respect and is still holding up after 2 years or so.  (Actually, I wish the Mixpre6 had a similar function!)  As for the mic shock mount, sometimes I wonder why machines at this level bother with an internal mic as this tends to do them a disservice.  AFAIK, only Sony D100 offers a decent quality in-built mic, and it's double the price for a reason!
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: vialenco on January 04, 2019, 11:37:53 AM
It's not a breaking down socket or cold solder joint, I thought I attached an audio clip as well as the picture but I forgot that was only on my email to Tascam.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=10YMuSgUhq1oh9TcO5a3MI5lITDM10fVd

Any way I actually got a speedy reply from them (Tascam UK) saying it's most likely the DA section at fault and to contact the dealer I brought it from to arrange a return.
Upon contacting the dealer they said it will probs be done under warranty even though it's just a few days out although he couldn't get a answer out of Tascam regarding that question and assumed it would be ok as they gave him a returns RMA.

So fingers crossed it all goes well and Tascam are turning over a new leaf  :coolguy:

Re the shock mount reason I mentioned it is because from memory I've used better on cheaper recorders from the likes of Zoom from memory i.e. hand held for interview. But it's of no real importance to me as 90% of what I do is using line sources.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: IronFilm on January 14, 2019, 12:49:04 AM
We had a Tascam employee on the forums trying to listen and be as helpful as he could in his position. He kept getting attacked and bounced. Looks like he even deleted his account.

That is sad to hear.

I really enjoyed my usage of the DR60D/DR70D/DR680

And apparently the HS-P82 was pretty awesome for its time.

Wish Tascam would make something now to respond to the MixPre6/10T and F4/F8n machines.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: vialenco on January 25, 2019, 08:07:00 PM
Not had an official reply from Tascam yet and have been advised by my dealer the manufacturer will update me late next week but I believe the issue was software related and has been resolved.

The reason I believe this is that Tascam has just released a new FW which addresses my described faults so chances are they are now testing it to confirm all is ok.
I should of also mentioned the battery miss-reporting issues which I believe are software related but it never bothered me that much.

Download the latest FW here https://www.tascam.eu/en/downloads/current/DR-100MKIII (https://www.tascam.eu/en/downloads/current/DR-100MKIII)

"Maintenance items
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
V1.06 fix

- When AUTO MARK was set to LEVEL, marks would be added frequently. This has been fixed.

- During playback of a WAV File with 96kHz sampling frequency, low-level noise would be output on rare occasions.
  This has been fixed.

- Plug-in power would be supplied even when the input source was set to EXT LINE. This is been fixed."
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: TaperBryan on March 25, 2019, 10:45:53 PM
I just procured a DR70D from the yard. Ran it for the first time 3-22-19. Just moved all the files that were on the card over to my desktop and reformatted the card. It came with a SanDisk Extreme PRO 16GB card.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: tascamsks on October 30, 2020, 11:01:52 AM
I have three tascam recorders, two I bought over the years, one given to me by a musician friend of mine.  None of the files produced by them are recognized by my windows 10 computer, the message is, the codec code from the Tascam is not recognized.  So i spend a couple days staring at a 2 inch screen, mixing tracks down on my DP-004, and now I can't transfer this file to my video editing software.  Nothing i have recognizes this file.  So i go on some websites selling Tascam recorders and read that DP-006 is good for windows 7, Vista and Windows 8.1 or something.  NOT 10.  WTF.  This is a complete ripoff.  Every update from windows 10, trying to stay ahead of Chinese and Russian hackers, is rendering a new category of Tascam products obsolete. 

If you are using these mini-computers to store information, you are an idiot.  Record through an audio interface and use a REAL computer to store files.  This is where everything is going, and fast.  Hardware can't keep up, and its like buying a horse and buggy, in the age of cars.  Tascam knows this, and is selling products which will not work in a couple years, if nothing else because of the constant updates of Windows software.   I say sue the fk out of them.  Tascam is dead. 
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: jerryfreak on October 30, 2020, 11:17:52 AM
love my dr100 mkii and my dr-2d

both solid performers
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: rocksuitcase on October 30, 2020, 12:37:32 PM
I have three tascam recorders, two I bought over the years, one given to me by a musician friend of mine.  None of the files produced by them are recognized by my windows 10 computer, the message is, the codec code from the Tascam is not recognized.  So i spend a couple days staring at a 2 inch screen, mixing tracks down on my DP-004, and now I can't transfer this file to my video editing software.  Nothing i have recognizes this file.  So i go on some websites selling Tascam recorders and read that DP-006 is good for windows 7, Vista and Windows 8.1 or something.  NOT 10.  WTF.  This is a complete ripoff.  Every update from windows 10, trying to stay ahead of Chinese and Russian hackers, is rendering a new category of Tascam products obsolete. 

If you are using these mini-computers to store information, you are an idiot.  Record through an audio interface and use a REAL computer to store files.  This is where everything is going, and fast.  Hardware can't keep up, and its like buying a horse and buggy, in the age of cars.  Tascam knows this, and is selling products which will not work in a couple years, if nothing else because of the constant updates of Windows software.   I say sue the fk out of them.  Tascam is dead.
OKaaayyyy. Since this is your first post, WELCOME!
Now, I'd like to tell you some of the issues you bring up which most of us do not do anyway:
1] Almost zero hard core recordists store any data on their recorders. We mostly take the data off SD|CF cards and transfer it to our computers (Mac and PC)
2] Almost zero hard core recordists consider their digital recorders as a device to edit with, movie sound operators aside, and they certainly don't do much field editing these days anyway.
3] Nature or Foley recordists might do either of the above, but surely if one is being paid, one is not storing files on a bit bucket.

While Tascam certainly has issues, this file format mis-match I do not comprehend. What is the suffix for the files (i.e. .wav, or other?)
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: vanark on October 30, 2020, 01:48:21 PM
I have three tascam recorders, two I bought over the years, one given to me by a musician friend of mine.  None of the files produced by them are recognized by my windows 10 computer, the message is, the codec code from the Tascam is not recognized.  So i spend a couple days staring at a 2 inch screen, mixing tracks down on my DP-004, and now I can't transfer this file to my video editing software.  Nothing i have recognizes this file.  So i go on some websites selling Tascam recorders and read that DP-006 is good for windows 7, Vista and Windows 8.1 or something.  NOT 10.  WTF.  This is a complete ripoff.  Every update from windows 10, trying to stay ahead of Chinese and Russian hackers, is rendering a new category of Tascam products obsolete. 

If you are using these mini-computers to store information, you are an idiot.  Record through an audio interface and use a REAL computer to store files.  This is where everything is going, and fast.  Hardware can't keep up, and its like buying a horse and buggy, in the age of cars.  Tascam knows this, and is selling products which will not work in a couple years, if nothing else because of the constant updates of Windows software.   I say sue the fk out of them.  Tascam is dead.

No issues getting my 24 bit WAV files off the Tascam to my Windows 10 computer via either USB or usually direct off the SD card.

How big are your files? More than 4GB? Some DAW software will not recognize files due to the size, not anything to do with the equipment it was recorded on. Most of us allow the recorder to autosplit the files at 2GB to avoid system issues and then seemlessly rejoin them later.

Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: voltronic on October 30, 2020, 06:56:59 PM
I have three tascam recorders, two I bought over the years, one given to me by a musician friend of mine.  None of the files produced by them are recognized by my windows 10 computer, the message is, the codec code from the Tascam is not recognized.  So i spend a couple days staring at a 2 inch screen, mixing tracks down on my DP-004, and now I can't transfer this file to my video editing software.  Nothing i have recognizes this file.  So i go on some websites selling Tascam recorders and read that DP-006 is good for windows 7, Vista and Windows 8.1 or something.  NOT 10.  WTF.  This is a complete ripoff.  Every update from windows 10, trying to stay ahead of Chinese and Russian hackers, is rendering a new category of Tascam products obsolete. 

If you are using these mini-computers to store information, you are an idiot.  Record through an audio interface and use a REAL computer to store files.  This is where everything is going, and fast.  Hardware can't keep up, and its like buying a horse and buggy, in the age of cars.  Tascam knows this, and is selling products which will not work in a couple years, if nothing else because of the constant updates of Windows software.   I say sue the fk out of them.  Tascam is dead.
OKaaayyyy. Since this is your first post, WELCOME!
Now, I'd like to tell you some of the issues you bring up which most of us do not do anyway:
1] Almost zero hard core recordists store any data on their recorders. We mostly take the data off SD|CF cards and transfer it to our computers (Mac and PC)
2] Almost zero hard core recordists consider their digital recorders as a device to edit with, movie sound operators aside, and they certainly don't do much field editing these days anyway.
3] Nature or Foley recordists might do either of the above, but surely if one is being paid, one is not storing files on a bit bucket.

While Tascam certainly has issues, this file format mis-match I do not comprehend. What is the suffix for the files (i.e. .wav, or other?)

+1 to this response.


Regarding the format issue: While it may be possible for a file transfer through your recorder to be getting borked, you should try using a card reader to dump the files directly from the card.  Any Tascam recorder you have writes .WAV files, and this is a format Microsoft created with IBM.  It is absolutely supported.

Also, I 100% disagree with the premise that recording straight to computer is where "everything is going".  Talk to any of the professional location recordists on GS Remote or JWSound, the people who do this as a day job, and they will tell you that portable recorders are generally much more reliable than recording straight to a laptop or PC.  I have found this to be the case as well.  I can count one hand the number of times I have had a recording made on a digital recorder be unusable.  Two of those were faulty firmware; the others were user error.

You can hate on Tascam all you want (with or without cause), but try making this argument to Sound Devices, AATON, Zaxcom, Sonosax, or any other high-end portable recorder brand.
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: morst on October 31, 2020, 12:02:45 AM
I have three tascam recorders, two I bought over the years, one given to me by a musician friend of mine.  None of the files produced by them are recognized by my windows 10 computer, the message is, the codec code from the Tascam is not recognized.  So i spend a couple days staring at a 2 inch screen, mixing tracks down on my DP-004, and now I can't transfer this file to my video editing software.  Nothing i have recognizes this file.  So i go on some websites selling Tascam recorders and read that DP-006 is good for windows 7, Vista and Windows 8.1 or something.  NOT 10.  WTF.  This is a complete ripoff.  Every update from windows 10, trying to stay ahead of Chinese and Russian hackers, is rendering a new category of Tascam products obsolete. 

If you are using these mini-computers to store information, you are an idiot.  Record through an audio interface and use a REAL computer to store files.  This is where everything is going, and fast.  Hardware can't keep up, and its like buying a horse and buggy, in the age of cars.  Tascam knows this, and is selling products which will not work in a couple years, if nothing else because of the constant updates of Windows software.   I say sue the fk out of them.  Tascam is dead.
Hi there and welcome to TS.

My quickie version for TL/DR is: Don't feel bad that the gear is junk, but DO be cautious and test gear before investing time into playing with data on it.


now for the troubleshooting portion:
You have three recorders? Are they all DP-004? Or do you have a DP-006? What is the third one?
What video editing software do you use?  (Do you know what audio file formats it is able to accept?)
What file format is visible on the storage medium when you plug it into a computer to read, or how does that work for the DP series? (I only own the DR70D from t'scam)
Have you tested the system to insure that that you could transfer a file, before doing important editing work on the machine? *(consider this workflow in the future)
Do you have access to a windows 7, vista, 8.1 machine, or a Mac or linux machine which you could try?


Oh here's a tascam-type problem:
Are you using media chosen from Tascam's list of acceptable memory cards? I started this thread because of the required specificity of the DR70D...
https://tascam.com/downloads/tascam/35/dp-004_tested_media_list_r4_20130204.pdf


Good luck and you can PM me if you wanna chat in detail.

Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: Gutbucket on October 31, 2020, 02:40:50 PM
.WAV file format support is universal
Title: Re: GRIPE ABOUT TASCAM! What is wrong with them?!
Post by: Melanie on November 01, 2020, 11:09:25 AM
I have three tascam recorders, two I bought over the years, one given to me by a musician friend of mine.  None of the files produced by them are recognized by my windows 10 computer, the message is, the codec code from the Tascam is not recognized.  So i spend a couple days staring at a 2 inch screen, mixing tracks down on my DP-004, and now I can't transfer this file to my video editing software.  Nothing i have recognizes this file.  So i go on some websites selling Tascam recorders and read that DP-006 is good for windows 7, Vista and Windows 8.1 or something.  NOT 10.  WTF.  This is a complete ripoff.  Every update from windows 10, trying to stay ahead of Chinese and Russian hackers, is rendering a new category of Tascam products obsolete. 

If you are using these mini-computers to store information, you are an idiot.  Record through an audio interface and use a REAL computer to store files.  This is where everything is going, and fast.  Hardware can't keep up, and its like buying a horse and buggy, in the age of cars.  Tascam knows this, and is selling products which will not work in a couple years, if nothing else because of the constant updates of Windows software.   I say sue the fk out of them.  Tascam is dead.

Considering that you haven't responded to any of the posts asking questions about your problem I suspect you are either embarrassed   about lack of knowledge or have used info to solve your problem. Hope you have put supplied info to  good use.