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OWNER’S MANUAL
9101411800
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Table of Contents Important Safety Instructions .............3 1. An introduction to the Porta02 .......4 1.1 Multitrack recording Ð a brief introduction..................4 1.2 Some safety notes and precautions..............................5 1.3 What you need to make recordings................................8 1.4 Connecting the Porta02..........8 2. Parts of the Porta02 ........................9 3. Making your first recording...........13 3.1 Setting up ..............................13 3.2 G
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Important Safety Instructions CAUTION: "Note to CATV system installer: • Read all of these Instructions. This reminder is provided to call the CATV system installer’s • Save these Instructions for later use. attention to Section 820-40 of the NEC which provides guide- • Follow all Warnings and Instructions marked on the lines for proper grounding and, in particular, specifies that the audio equipment. cable ground shall be connected to the grounding system of the building, as close to the point
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1 An introduction to the Porta02 1 – An introduction to the Porta02 The TASCAM Porta02 MiniStudio recording” before you start using the allows you to produce recordings which Porta02. Spending a little time reading are not possible with an ordinary stereo now will save you a lot of time in the cassette recorder. future. You can read the rest of the man- ual at any time. We suggest that you read at least this sec- tion 1 and also 3, “Making your first 1.1 Multitrack recording – a brief
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1 An introduction to the Porta02 and on A/V cue-equipped cassette record- ers. L R 4 CUE R 3 R 2 R L 1 L IEC (Philips) ste- TASCAM 4Tr 4Ch TASCAM 4Tr 3Ch reo cassette (Porta02 format) (A/V cue format) Notice that the stereo cassette arrange- one pair of L and R tracks on the stereo ment allows you to use both sides of the cassette take up the same positions as cassette, by playing the tape in the other tracks 1 and 2 on the Porta02. This can be direction. The Porta02, however, uses the
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1 An introduction to the Porta02 audio equipment). If any liquid or any detergent. Do not use solvents or thin- objects such as paperclips, guitar ners, etc. to clean the Porta02, as these picks, etc. fall inside the Porta02, do will damage the surface. not try to operate it. Return it to a • There are no parts inside the Porta02 TASCAM service center for repair. that you can repair by yourself. Do not • If the case of the Porta02 becaomes open the Porta02 case or try to
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1 An introduction to the Porta02 1.2.4 Cleaning the heads You should clean the tape heads of the formance and longer life from your Porta02 regularly to keep it working Porta02. properly. Dirt and tape oxide buildup on the heads will force the tape away from WARNING the tape head gaps that record and play- Only use head and rubber cleaning fluid and back. Head cleaner will remove the dirt cleaning swabs designed for use with tape and restore the sound quality. recorders. The u
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2 Parts of the Porta02 1.3 What you need to make recordings Apart from the Porta02 itself, you will • Some monitoring equipment (some need: kind of amplifier and speaker system). • Headphones, if you intend doing any • Some kind of stereo mastering work with microphones. These will recorder to produce the stereo record- avoid acoustic feedback (“howl- ings. This can be a cassette recorder round”) when recording. Additionally, such as the TASCAM 102Mk II or an
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Parts of the Porta02 Parts of the Porta02 9
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Parts of the Porta02 [1] POWER IN and switch [4] PHONES jack This 1/4” jack allows you to connect a Use this jack to connect the PS-P2 AC pair of stereo headphones to the Porta02. adaptor which comes with your Porta02. When connecting the power, make sure WARNING the power switch is off (slide it to the right, as you look from the back). Do not use headphones equipped with a mono jack. This will cause damage to the Porta02’s WARNING headphone amp
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Parts of the Porta02 clockwise to MIC for any channel which When the PHONES MONO switch is is recording a microphone. pressed, these controls will have no effect on the output from the PHONES jack. Instruments such as electric guitars pro- [13] REC FUNCTION switches duce a signal which is between MIC and LINE levels and the TRIM control should (1 and 2) therefore be somewhere between fully These switches control where the signals clo
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Parts of the Porta02 IN jacks. They should be used together • If the left record-protect tab of the cas- with the TRIM controls (see 3.3, “Setting sette has been broken out, or if there is the level”) to adjust the levels of the sig- no cassette loaded, the RECORD key nals routed to the tape tracks. cannot be pressed. • It is not possible to go directly from [16] RECORD indicator recording into playback mode. This red indicator lights when the • The PAUSE key only pauses playback and reco
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3 Making your first recording 3 – Making your first recording This section describes how to make a 4-track recording using the Porta02. For this, we will assume that you are making a recording of your voice on two tracks (1 and 2), using a microphone, and recording a part of a stereo CD or cassette on the other two tracks (3 and 4). Make sure you know what you are going to say. Start by making sure that you have all the equipment listed in 1.3, “What you need to make recordings”. 3.1 Setting up 1
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3 Making your first recording 3) Play the tape for about 10 seconds and then stop the tape. 4) Press the counter reset button. 3.3 Setting the level The aim of this section is to teach you to set the input level so that the average signals coming from the microphone will light the 0 meter indicator, and the loudest will light the +6 indicator. 1) Make sure all OUTPUT LEVEL controls are set to 0. Put on the headphones and set the PHONES LEVEL to the 0 position. If you do not do turn down the s
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3 Making your first recording 3.4 Recording the first track 1) Set the REC FUNCTION switch of INPUT 1 to 1. You are now ready to record on track 1. Make sure the REC FUNC- TION switch of INPUT 2 is set to SAFE, so you don’t record on it by accident. 2) Press the RECORD key (which will also press the PLAY key) and start recording the first spoken track. If the level as shown by the meters now seems a little high, you can “back off” on the fader a little. 3) When you have finished (try to keep spe
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3 Making your first recording 3.5 Recording the next track Since you plugged the microphone into MIC/LINE 1 / MONO, and didn’t plug anything into MIC/LINE 2, the microphone signal is split as if it was plugged into both channels. 1) Take fader 1 to the 0 mark. 2) Set the level for input channel 2 in the same way as you set it for input channel 1 (see 3.3, “Setting the level”). 3) Set REC FUNCTION switch for INPUT 2 to 2. You are now ready to record on track 2. 4) Rehearse your second spoken p
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3 Making your first recording 3.6 Recording the stereo backing Now that tracks 1 and 2 are filled with spoken words, we’ll put some backing music behind them. We’ll assume that you’re using a CD player here (of course, it may be an MD player or a cassette player). NOTE This is a test recording and will not be used except as a test. However, if you are making recordings for public performance or distribution which include pre-recorded copyright material, you should be aware of the regulations co
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3 Making your first recording 3.7 Mixdown Make sure that your mastering recorder is connected to the monitor- ing system. 1) Set both REC FUNCTION switches to SAFE, and move both faders down to 0. This will stop any extra unwanted noise from the inputs appearing in the final mix. 2) Make sure the mastering recorder is ready to record, and put it into record pause mode. Do not start recording yet. If you are using a tape for mastering, make sure that you are not recording over anything you w
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3 Making your first recording 7) Mix the tracks, fading the backing music on tracks 3 and 4 to taste. 8) At the end, stop both machines. Rewind the mastering recorder. 9) Set the amplifier input source to the mastering recorder, and replay your mix. 10) If you are not happy with the mix, you can do it again, either recording over the old mix, or adding the new mix after the old one. Congratulations! You have now completed your first recording project with the Porta02. Rewind the Porta02 tape
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4 Hints and advanced tips 4 – Hints and advanced tips This section gives a few hints and tips which may be useful to you when you make recordings using the Porta02. 4.1 Recording techniques Learning how to record is an art, not a you, and there are several good books on science. One of the best teachers is expe- the subject which can explain the theory rience. However, there are a few things of recording and some of the techniques. mentioned here which may be useful to 4.1.1 Recording electric
