Portastudio comes of age at 788

US But where do you put the C90? 30/10/00

The Portastudio is dead - long live the Portastudio! Tascam, the company that actually owns the copyright to that name, has launched the 788, an 8-track 24-bit hard-disk recording version of those beloved tape-based machines it used to make in the 20th Century. It even looks like a 488 (a little bit). The 788 has six inputs, all featuring 24-bit A-D conversion, as do the main stereo, aux and monitor outs. There's also a S/PDIF out, a stereo aux send and a stereo effects send. There are 999 levels of Undo/Redo, digital effects onboard (gate, compression and multis) plus rather nifty transport controls so it operates like the familiar tape-based recorders. You can back up to CD-R too. But the best bit? 250 virtual tracks per song which can be recalled an reworked. And there's no noise, of course. But, er, wasn't Roland doing all this a few years ago? (If you still lurve your tape, there's always the Tascam Porta02mkII - four-track recording for not much more than the price of a song. Hisssss!)

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