Tascam TA-1VP Owner's Manual

36 TASCAM TA-1VPDrum Presetsª18 DrumAlert Adds weight and snap to drumkit, adjust model mic proximity towork kick sound, and Low Pass EQto control high end.19 TiteSnare Adjust compressor threshold, EQ1&2 gain to taste.20 KickEnhance Will give even a well-recorded kickdrum some spectral enhancement.Use input level to increase ordecrease the overall effect.21 LoFoDrLoop A patch designed to properlytrash a mono beat (or one side of adrum loop).Bass Presetsª22 FatBass Adjust EQ 1 frequency for yourspecific mix.23 FunkBassBeef Adds power bass and slap sizzleto funky bass parts — adjustmodel mic proximity for low endresponse.24 PopBass Adjust compressor threshold, EQ 1frequency, and EQ 2 gain.Instrument Presetsª25 ElecGtrWarm Adjust Tube Warmth, EQ 1&2 gain.26 TheSaxCuts Adds grit, tone and presence tosaxes. Adjust model mic proximityfor low end thump.27 MonosynthDbl Enhance and spread out thatmono synth track. You can also usethis one on guitars. Pan outputs R/L.28 PianoCuts Allows piano to peak through amix. Adjust modeled mic proximityfor bass response.29 BrightAcGtr Adjust compressor threshold, EQ 1frequency, and EQ 2 gain.Special Effect Presetsª30 Destructo Adjust compressor threshold fordesired effect.31 Telephone For that special phone moment— less is more! Depending onyour source level you may need toboost Output gain.Utility Presetsª32 LiveVoxFix Preset built around a live vocaltrack recorded at Caesar’s Palace inVegas in the ‘60s. Mostly designedas damage control.33 GateThatKick Pumps and isolates the kick drumfrom the rest of the kit (and live)sound. Adjust the gate thresholdto your track.34 SnareGate Adjust the gate threshold andNotch EQ frequency to your track.35 TomGate Adjust the gate and compressorthresholds to dynamics.Realistic Mic ModelingExpectationsAlthough the TA-1VP’s Microphone Modeling seems inmany ways to be almost magic, it is, in fact, simply veryclever science. And as such, it has some limitations thatyou must be aware of.To get the maximum satisfaction out of Mic Modeling, itis important to have realistic expectations of exactly whatit can and can’t do. (Most of what it can’t do relates tothe physical impossibility of recovering information thatwasn’t in the original signal to begin with.) Here are themain issues to be aware of:Choice of Input Microphone• Luckily for all of us, thegeneral quality of “affordable” microphones has reacheda remarkably high level. Consequently, if you stickwith well-known manufacturers, most any reasonablequality mic will provide sufficient performance to allowthe TA-1VP to do its processing with good results.On the other hand, you can’t expect to pick up a cheapmic and expect the TA-1VP to make it sound like aclassic Neumann U87. If a source mic has massive roll-off in a particular frequency range, there is no way theTA-1VP can produce the signal that would have beencaptured had the source mic had better response.Microphone Technique• In getting the best possiblerecorded sound, mic technique and placement are atleast as important (if not more so) that mic choice. Agood engineer can record a great track with an SM57while a poor one can make a U47 sound like a toy. Ifyour audio is not well-recorded in the first place, theTA-1VP can to do very little to improve it. If you startwith a poorly recorded track, all the TA-1VP will do ismake it sound like a track that was poorly recordedwith a great mic.Excessive Frequency Boost• Although the TA-1VP’sprocessing does not itself add noise to your signal,any noise in your original audio or noise added byintervening processes (e.g., A/D conversion, pre-TA-1VPdynamics processing, etc.) will be accentuated by anylarge amount of frequency boost. This should only7 – Appendix