katiedawg

Found a brand new one - yep, Rubber Monkey in New Zealand. It took some convincing to get them to sell it to me - protected sales territories and all that. I sent them a couple of links to Tascam that showed the product as discontinued in the Americas and suggesting trying retailers on other continents and they finally agreed. Very nice folks - they were just working the accepted process. I believe they may have more of them, so if anyone is reading this who needs one, shoot them an email. With the exchange rate, it worked out to around US $565.

Agreed - I have two of them in absolute mint condition. They sound incredible and I'll drive the wheels off of mine. The fact that I can jam-sync them to time code (if the gig has video) is just icing on the cake.

Wow, looks like Tascam is in the middle of dumping the HS-P82 as well. Pity, although I knew the time was coming. It's an outstanding recorder, although it's dated. (I hate that word.) A little too big compared to the smaller Zoom plastic stuff, although I find the Tascam to have a bit of satisfying heft. It was outflanked by the Sound Devices gear at the very top (and I have a 722) and Zoom on the cheap-out bottom side. I'm trying to convince Rubber Monkey to sell me their RC-F82. Rubber Monkey is being cautious, as they have marketing agreements with Tascam (all vendors do). Protected territories and all that. Tascam even has a post on their international site to try other countries for this unit. I made the point that I'm probably the last person they'll find that will buy that unit - it's stranded assets that they're also paying taxes on. The sales rep agreed to go to management and see what they say. Man, take my money and run or you'll still have that thing on the shelf when the sun finally burns out. Sigh - why are things so difficult?

Wow, thanks everyone! I'll try Teac/Tascam first, then the others. Buzz Audio is in New Zealand - maybe I could get Tim involved if I go that route. Keep the suggestions coming; I'm expecting to end up striking out. I'll post as I find out.

Yeah, I thought about calling them. Thanks for the number. And I don't understand them abandoning the pro market either. I love my HS-P82s. I used to drag around an Alesis HD24XR that Jim Williams modded for me, a Buzz Audio A-Rack and a couple of D.A.V. BG-8s. Sounded incredible. Then I borrowed an HS-P82. And it sounded incredible and it's small and light. Then I bought another one and chained them together. Man, that's the way to do it. No, you can't overdub with the Tascam. The HD24XR is like a tape machine in every way with absolutely zero latency. I still have all of that, and it does get used in an overdub situation. But I charge big bucks to drag all that stuff out now. It's heavy and I'm now 64.

I saw that last night and I called them today. "Yeah, we really need to update our web site."

I've tried my usual suspects - Full Compass, Sweetwater, Musician's Friend, et al. to no avail. Sigh... All I need to do is give a live mix for a webcast as I capture the eight ins for post later, and the RC-F82 would be perfect. Otherwise, I'll be dragging out my 01V96 and sending AES/EBU from the HS-P82 to the mixer for the webcast. I'd rather not drag that mixer around for something so simple. Lots of overkill capability from the Yamaha that I won't need, and the RC-F82 just sits right on top of the recorder, taking up very little space. I knew I should've grabbed one of these off eBay a few years ago.

Well, not that I can see. And although I appreciate the suggestion, I'd rather stay in North America if possible. Heck, I'll rent one if anyone here would do that.

Sorry in advance if I'm posting on the wrong forum. I'm trying to find a TASCAM RC-F82 control surface for my HS-P82 recorder. I have two of the recorders and I've never had a need for the control surface - until now. And they're discontinued! Anybody have anything they'd want to sell? New, used - doesn't matter as long as it works. TIA...

Wow - Full Compass shows the same thing you posted. Click on the first and fourth photo and your selection will appear underneath the row of four pics. If you put your mouse over the picture that shows up at the bottom, it will auto-zoom waaaay in. Yep, I see HD-P8 on those two shots. http://www.fullcompass.com/prod/157578-Tascam-HS-P82 So what the heck is the difference? Tom - any clues for the unwashed masses?

I've searched around on this forum, and searched across the web and I don't see anything about this, so I'm hoping Tom (or someone else in the know) will see this and chime in. It appears that there are two hardware versions of the HS-P82. Mine has the power switch beside the Slate button, but I'm seeing other units on both eBay (listed as brand new) and on some well-known retailer web sites with a button marked "LCD Tilt" in place of the power switch, and the power switch is on the side panel beside the power input jack. There are other front panel differences, too - the Shift button is gone and has been replaced by a Locate button, among other changes I see. TASCAM's site shows the one like mine (with the power switch beside the Slate button), and old posts about the recorder (when it was new and retailed for thousands more) show the version on TASCAM's web site (like my unit). So does anyone know what's up with this? If so, which one is the current production model? Also, what else (if anything) was changed between the two units? Any differences internally? I'm about to buy a second one, so I'd really like to know. TIA... Posting a couple of links for observation - hope this is allowed. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Tascam-HS-P82-8-Channel-Field-Audio-Recorder-High-Resolution-HSP82-BRAND-NEW/391421659325?_trkparms=aid%3D888007%26algo%3DDISC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D44039%26meid%3Df9e80ab178f74439ad484066316a2b2f%26pid%3D100009%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26sd%3D222805801396&_trksid=p2047675.c100009.m1982&autorefresh=true http://www.tascam.com/product/hs-p82/

I'm great with attending to Project/Track/Take names - it makes life so much easier, obviously. I was hoping for something better than the slate clap, since one deck may not be fed with mics close enough to avoid comb filtering issues that we could get using that for a reference. Samplitude will cheerfully extract TC, so that settles that issue. Thanks for the advice!

You know, I was thinking about how neat it will be to have a pair of these running from the same PS/2 keyboard (as we've been kicking around above), then this thought struck me: With all those decks from the original post in this thread being started and stopped at different times, how are they imported into a DAW and able to be in sync with tracks from another deck that was started a few seconds before/after? Sure, if you manage to get them perfectly aligned in time, they'll be (and stay) in perfect sync thanks to the WC sync during the recording. But - how is it that they are aligned "horizontally," if you will, in post - along the time axis in the DAW? Were the recorders all started well before the concert, and then did a stage hand go out there and use the clapper on a TC slate to get a single audio point-of-reference for DAW time-alignment later, or is this somehow done more elegantly? I've never ganged decks together, as I've always had everything in one system (DA78-HR way back when, then the Alesis HD24XR). All the separate audio tracks were in perfect sync in the DAW because the recording was done on just one recorder. They couldn't be out of sync with each other, unless I accidentally moved one in the DAW. Hope that one made sense...

I'll need to buy the second one first! Then I need to get the keyboard to run both transports, but I believe I can do it.

Considering what's already there, I'm very happy with it for my purposes. Again, it filled a giant hole between the 2-channel Sound Devices and the 24-track big rig. I'm really impressed with the quality of the audio without needing to use esoteric outboard gear, too. Having enough clean, ultra-quiet gain to use my Royer stereo ribbon mic without the Cloudlifter preamp is something, indeed. It's a perfect match on impedance - that mic sounds fabulous through the HS-P82. I also have to engage the pads for the Schoeps and DPA mics or I'm way down at around 9:00 on the pots. Quite a machine - I wish I'd discovered this earlier. I can now fly to gigs with my fragile and expensive gear with me inside the plane instead of having to drive it in the SUV for hours. The stands? They're aluminum light stands - I just ship 'em ahead of time along with the cables.

I believe I'll try it, but I'll clip one of the +5 pins just to be on the safe side. Man, just controlling the transports as if they were internally ganged would be great. Any comments about the article below? I called Tascam support and they played dumb: http://filmtvsound.com/index.php/112-news/413-hs-p82-still-being-supported

Yes, the fader board is very nice, but I can't justify the price. That's money that can go toward the second deck. My work is "studio on location" stuff - choral, orchestral, pipe organ and chamber groups in their own halls, so I set levels as they warm up and go through some pre-arranged fortissimo sections. Once that's done, the gains don't get touched. We run our takes, then the do-overs to drop in when we post and that's it. The only regular actual live stuff I do is European tours with choirs as they take over for the resident choirs for a week. That's church services, and the Brits are a quiet group by nature. Very little coughing and other racket takes place in a British cathedral during the service! The Sound Devices 722 running on batteries and a pair of the Schoeps mics is a stunning combo for this. YES - get yourself a BG8. That entire BG series is by far the most bang for the buck preamp you can buy - you won't regret spending the money. FWIW, I also have a Buzz Audio A-Rack (s/n 1, too) that's the best thing I've ever heard. Think Millennia clean, but somehow with just a bit of Neve thunder that doesn't get in the way of the ultra-clean. It doesn't sound sterile while it stays clean. But it's three rack units with all Class-A electronics, so it gets hot. You need a four unit rack case with a vent spacer in the top slot to deal with the heat it makes. Still, it's jaw-droppingly incredible sound. http://www.buzzaudio.com/products/arack.htm Now that thing is *really* a pain to pack around, which is why I stepped down to the BG8 strips. I haven't dragged out the Buzz in a couple of years now. I'd love to hear comments from Tom on any/all of this with regard to running two decks tied to a single keyboard to use as the transport control. Of course, I'll WC them together. I only need TC if I need to jam-sync to the video guys, which is almost never.

Yeah, the keyboard generates the serial communication clock to the host (not to be confused with WC), but the host is in control of the data transfer between the two devices, and the host can halt data from being sent from the keyboard by pulling the keyboard's clock line to a logic low. When the host is letting the keyboard "talk," there are bursts of 11-bit frames that are sent from the keyboard with data that tells the host what key has been pressed. I'm thinking one PS/2 keyboard split between two HS-P82s ought to work, since the decks are just "listening" on their serial port data lines - they're not sending anything back as I understand it. Syncing the decks with WC for sample-accurate sync would be a separate issue from the serial clock generated by the keyboard for serial comm, if that makes sense. What all of this would buy me (well, anyone who wants the desired but not-delivered cascade function) is the ability to use the Function keys on the keyboard to simultaneously run the transports on both decks with the keyboard being the transport control. I have an Alesis HD24XR that Jim Williams of Audio Upgrades modded - the analog I/O board was basically completely rebuilt and the ADC/DAC chips were changed out to top of the line units. It wasn't cheap, but the difference is night and day. But there's no headphone amp on the Alesis, so I have to have a single rack unit mixer on the outputs for the phones. I also have a pair of DAV Electronics BG-8 preamps which takes the rack count up to six units. It's a fabulous sounding rig, but it's bulky and HEAVY. I have a Sound Devices 722 for the two-channel gigs, but nothing in between, so I picked up a used HS-P82. I'm stunned at the quality of the sound. Even my Royer SF-12 stereo ribbon mic had *plenty* of dead-quiet gain. The sound is smooth as silk. (Schoeps/DPA/Neumann are the other mics I carry.) So, I'm sold on replacing the big rig with a pair of Tascams if I can just get the transports tied together. That's what this is all about.

Yeah, I posed the WC/TC question to a friend of mine who's synced up devices plenty of times. I had it wrong - WC is sample-accurate sync, but isn't recorded anywhere (as I understood him to say). It locks the machines together at the sample level so there's absolutely zero drift between decks. TC is embedded in one (or maybe all) of the .wav files for the video guys but won't sync the machines. (Again, as I understood him.) My initial confusion was from using TC to sync two Studer A800s for 48 tracks (well, 46 after sacrificing one track per deck for TC). Just fine for analog, not so much for digital, it appears. I have the pinout chart for the PS2 connections and can easily make a splitter, leaving off the +5VDC from one machine. Again, all that's doing is powering the keyboard which generates clock and data to the receivers on the recorders. I'd still love to hear from Tom to get his take on this.

Sorry to reply to an old thread, but some parts of this raise questions for me. First, why TC sync along with WC sync? I understand WC isn't frame-accurate, but TC is. So - again - why both? Second, I'm considering getting a second one, but the lack of cascading irritates me. Still, if I can Y together two of them to a single keyboard, that would go a very long way. I'm assuming the 5V line from one of the decks needs to be left off, since all we're doing is powering the keyboard with it. The keyboard generates the clock signal, so the decks just listen for that and command pulses. Ought to work just fine, but are there any comments about this? Third, I wonder if two decks connected this way would take all commands, not just Rec, Play and Stop. You know - create a new song and name it on both decks simultaneously. If both decks are simply "hearing" commands from the keyboard, I'd think this would work. Naming the individual tracks might drive a dual setup crazy, though. Comments/ideas/laughter/scorn? Many thanks!