In an earlier article I mentioned how important it was to record your band live. Having live recordings of your band will help you learn where you need improvement. Club owners also prefer having a live demo of the band instead of a studio recording. While looking for collectible equipment I stumbled across and incredible deal at Musician’s Friend. Today I’m going to tell you about the
TASCAM DP-02CF Portastud (Mislabeled) Portastudio 1139.
First of all this could very well be a rare collectible recording device. Why? Because during manufacturing the name was misprinted on the front of the recorder. So instead of being a Portastudio, it’s simply a Portastud. I can just hear the roars of laughter when you tell your bandmates you’re bringing your Portastud to the gig. Can I guarantee that this piece of equipment will become a collectible? No, but there’s a chance. Tascam is a big name and has been around for a long time. So the Portastud could be a good investment for future resale.
As for the recorder itself, it’s a classic Tascam Portastudio. Small and highly functional. My first multi-track recorder was a Tascam Portastudio and I made tons of excellent recordings with it. The Tascam DP-02CF Portastud gives you 8 tracks of CD quality recording with a very easy to understand interface. If you want to get into multi-track recording the Tascam Portastud is a perfect device to learn on. It has a matched pair of Tascam mic featuring XLR inputs with phantom power for your condenser mics. It also has a guitar input for direct recording. It records directly to Compact Flash Card and comes with a free 1GB Compact Flash Card. This will give you enough space to lay down a dozen songs or more. The only drawback is the fact that it will only record 2 tracks at a time. You get 8 tracks total but only 2 at a time simultaneous recording. It’s made more for the musician that wants to track on their own which the Portastud would excel at.
The Portastud would also interfaces with your computer through a USB 2.0 connection. So you can take this recorder with you, record at any location you choose, then bring it home and move the tracks into your Digital Audio Workstation. That makes it great to do quick recordings of your gigs. It also has RCA analog outputs and a digital S/PDIF optical output.
Now for the best part, the price! This thing is affordable. You can pick up a Tascam Portastud from Musician’s Friend for $269.00. Not only do you get it for that low price, it also has a $20 rebate, bringing your cost down to $249.00. At Musician’s Friend all orders over $99 include free shipping so it’s really a heck of a deal. Especially when you consider it could become one of the very few collectible multi-track recorders. Get a Tascam Portastud today as quantities are limited and I doubt you’ll ever get another chance to own one labeled Portastud.
