DAW-less recording

[Guitarbilly]

I went to a friend's house last weekend and he wanted to show me his studio. He uses a Tascam console that records directly to a SD card. A few cool analof mic pres plugged into the console and a Compressor and Reverb in the inserts. No computer or DAW. At all.

I thought it was going to sound like crap, but he showed me some of the tracks he's working on and it sounded pretty good honestly.

I had no idea this was still a thing? Anyone has any experience with this type of rig?

[turbopablo]

I have been reading up on the Tascam Model 12. It definitely gets great reviews and those who use them seem to really love them. I suppose the hard part is probably figuring out your workflow vs. the machine's. But we generally have to do that any time something significant gets switched up.

Whenever I come due for a new interface I am will seriously consider something like that.

[Guitarbilly]

yeah he's using the Model 24, with a bunch of 1073 and 512 clones in front of it. I was impressed with the sound quality. It seemed pretty easy to work with.

[turbopablo]

Those can also be used as a DAW controller I think.

How hard/easy were all of the sub-menus for EQ and shit like that?

[VTM]

Before I got Ableton about 5 years ago, I did all of my recording on Tascam decks. Never had a model with SD cards though. I would plug the Tascams into my PC to transfer files. When I go back and listen to my old soundcloud clips, I can't tell the difference between the Ableton and Tascam recordings.

[Guitarbilly]

Those can also be used as a DAW controller I think.

How hard/easy were all of the sub-menus for EQ and shit like that?

Pretty simple. The effects screen is easy to use but honestly you don't need it much.
EQ is just knobs the channel strip, no menus.
The single knob compressor is very effective as well. The HPF button works well on guitars and voice. He's using a Lexicon LXP5 for reverb in the vocal channel insert.

So the effects he's using is the occasional delay on leads and a gated reverb on the snare etc and it's really easy to apply and tweak them.

It's a very old school/tactile experience. I liked it a lot. Feels like actually recording instead of playing with a computer.

[ElDirtySanchez]

That sounds pretty interesting, I found I was much more productive when I was using a tascam 4 track tape recorder than daw. With daw’s I find myself spending more time playing around with plugins than actually recording . I’ve thought of going back to my old 4 track , but I’ll have to look into modern daw -less recording options .

[linthat22]

I have an older digital Tascam Portastudio that is 8 channels, does that count?

I sometimes run my Quad Cortex into it when I don't feel like using a computer or Reaper.

[Vladimir Putin]

My dad used to run one of these Tascam units because it was a familiar interface similar to his old giant Tascam consoles in the 80s/90s.

I never understood it because I prefer visuals when I am trying to edit. A Mac Mini and a cheap interface don't take up much real estate and offer significantly more functionality.

[broslinger]

I have a Yamaha AWG16 recorder. It even burns cds.

I'll never use it again. I love my DAW.