trenino Posted May 23, 2013 Report Share Posted May 23, 2013 Dear Tom Duffy and Tascam team... What where you thinking and did not use real potentiometers?? This is a total deal breaker for me. I have been trying to convince myself to make the purchase because of the additional features but audible clicks is not something I am looking from a recorder.. I waited for several months for the dr-60d to become available for purchase. All the specs looked right. It looked like it was really ahead of the competition. Now, you are causing me problems since I am looking for an alternative. Although at this price range I must admit it is quite difficult to find all the features, I am glad I did not pre-order and waste my money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Joachim Posted May 23, 2013 Report Share Posted May 23, 2013 Dear Tom Duffy and Tascam team... What where you thinking and did not use real potentiometers?? This is a total deal breaker for me. I have been trying to convince myself to make the purchase because of the additional features but audible clicks is not something I am looking from a recorder.. I waited for several months for the dr-60d to become available for purchase. All the specs looked right. It looked like it was really ahead of the competition. Now, you are causing me problems since I am looking for an alternative. Although at this price range I must admit it is quite difficult to find all the features, I am glad I did not pre-order and waste my money. Here is a link to the comparable Fostex DC-R302. Yes, it is more expensive but, it is designed with the professional user in mind. http://www.locationsound.com/fostex-dc-r302-dslr-mixerrecorder-1190?filter_name=fostex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted May 23, 2013 Report Share Posted May 23, 2013 Hi, and welcome " This is a total deal breaker for me. " OK " Now, you are causing me problems " nothing personal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trenino Posted May 23, 2013 Report Share Posted May 23, 2013 Hi, and welcome " This is a total deal breaker for me. " OK " Now, you are causing me problems " nothing personal ha, mr. stand up comedy appeared of course it is personal. everything is personal. Companies like Tascam who cater to such a huge market (in fact every company) should care and take into consideration all these personal opinions. For all these personal opinions if put together, they become an...objective problem as big for the customers as for the companies themselves. In addition to that, someone who is googling for reviews on the Tascam dr-60d is more likely to take into consideration in his decision-making all the various personal opinions, like mine, in order to form their own. Unfortunately, forums like this are the last resort for expressing personal opinions. Most "professional" and "objective" views more often than not are an elaborate ad campaign... Now, if the target market for this product is people with lots of money who don't really think about how they will spend it and buy all sorts of combinations of equipment (apparently many of them exist in forums) is one thing. But it appears to me that Tascam caters to the independent filmmaker/ videographer who WILL take the time to read various personal opinions before they pay for something that might not do the job. Steve, thank you. Actually i found about the Fostex DC-R302 just yesterday. It looks like a great piece of equipment. Unfortunately it is out of my price range. I am considering the Marantz PMD661 or the Roland R26 as alternatives. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted May 23, 2013 Report Share Posted May 23, 2013 (edited) "Tascam who cater to such a huge market " good point: HUGE market... " the target market for this product is people with lots of money " not true. " But it appears to me that Tascam caters to the independent filmmaker/ videographer " not generally, but with these products, certainly much more directly than Zoom... " forums like this are the last resort for expressing personal opinions. " and you joined here primarily to do specifically that...eh ?? " Unfortunately it is out of my price range. " there seem to be alternatives... but there are always compromises, even at higher price points. " did not use real potentiometers?? " many digital products at all price points do not use potentiometers... and for lots of valid reasons, like the actual audio signal not passing through them., and the fact that they are digital devices (and thus use rotary encoders).. Edited May 24, 2013 by studiomprd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trenino Posted May 23, 2013 Report Share Posted May 23, 2013 " forums like this are the last resort for expressing personal opinions. " and you came here primarily to do specifically that...eh ?? I'll be honest. I think this is one of the best audio forums. There are some great advices & info here. I noticed that a representative of Tascam took part in a conversation regarding this product and I thought that the company is interested on how their product is perceived by their current or future customers. We both agree that it is a huge market and that the people in this market will probably be cautious of how to spend their money (since they dont' have lots of it). With that in mind and since the forum is labeled "Manufacturers & Dealers" and it is open, I was hoping I can perhaps either influence Tascam's thinking or influence people who are in the same situation as I am, looking for more in depth info. I still think that for the price the dr-60d would be unbeatable if tascam was a bit more careful with the potentiometer design. The stepping & clicking issue is not something you want to experience from a mixer - that is how the company advertises it. I really hope this can be fixed soon. thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Duffy Posted May 23, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 23, 2013 We're certainly reading all the feedback we get on the DR-60D, but please forgive me for not sparring with anyone who comes at it with inflammatory verbiage. This is more prevalent on other forums, but either way, my response has to be silence. We are looking at making improvements, but I'm sure a few will still find a way to fault it. Tom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Duffy Posted May 23, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 23, 2013 I waited for several months for the dr-60d to become available for purchase. You may have chosen to wait, but B&H had massive stock of the DR-60D on the first day of NAB (less than a week after the first press release). Many people ordered theirs on the show floor after seeing it at our booth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dfisk Posted May 24, 2013 Report Share Posted May 24, 2013 Dave, Do any recording with it? A little bit. The "zippering" sound is there, but honestly, it's only really noticeable with a steady sound, like a sine wave or room tone. Once I started talking and adjusting the knob it wasn't as noticeable...at least to me. I only spent a few minutes messing around with it. I didn't read the manual (I never do for anything), and after about 30 seconds of messing around in the menus I was good to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Reilly Posted May 24, 2013 Report Share Posted May 24, 2013 Glad to read it's easy to use. I suppose the zippering might be a non-issue in most situations. Would be curious about high ambient and musical ones though. Less sure about what appeared to be large adjustment steps. Just to connect to the other DR60 thread on input control: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted May 24, 2013 Report Share Posted May 24, 2013 " this is one of the best audio forums. " this is actually pretty much a specialty forum for sound for movies and TV, and primarily production sound, including how it relates to and interacts with post production sound... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Duffy Posted August 2, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 2, 2013 Just released - DR-60D V1.20 Firmware http://tascam.com/product/dr-60d/downloads/ Changes: A mic input muting function has been added. <--- As requested here and elsewhere. A volume adjustment function for the auto tone and slate tone has been added. The limiter function would not work properly on rare occasions. This has been fixed. Operation stability has been improved. Have a good weekend Tom Duffy (TASCAM) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Duffy Posted August 2, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 2, 2013 do the volume pots work linearly or are they stepped? Yes. The Front panel input level controls are linear pots whose position is read digitally. That digital position is then used to control the input gain (Mic or Line level) in 0.5dB steps using a linear table. The reading is heavily filtered to get smooth changes, we have further tweaked this process in V1.20. The gain itself is applied using an electronic volume control that switches gains on zero crosses. So, yes, it is linear, and yes, it is stepped. Unless you are using a pathological input signal (e.g. sinewave), this works very well. We're still investigating how to make the DR-60D UI work for all types of end-users, we realize some people want the mixer on the front instead of the input trims. Having the input trims on the front means that if you don't hear it in the monitor mix, you know it's not going to the iso channels (i.e. not being recorded). Tom (TASCAM) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wgtwo Posted October 1, 2013 Report Share Posted October 1, 2013 Hi Tom, has/is work still being done on improving that zipper effect? Having listened to some samples, I have come to the conclusion that it is most definitely an issue (or at least was) in real world circumstances; the steady drone of traffic, for example. Also, I read somewhere - I think it was the comments to some blog, not a trustworthy source - that the DR60d uses a scaled back implementation of the same preamps used in the DR680. Having listened to those shill-tastic Juicedlink presentations, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case - they both sound great. Confirm/Deny? Cheers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Duffy Posted October 1, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 1, 2013 DR-60D preamps are the same HDDA circuits as the US-322 and US-366 computer interfaces, and are better than the DR-680 pres. The HDDA topology and component values were fine tuned through many listening tests with our own engineers and respected industry "ears". We're still looking at further improvements to the operating system. Tom (TASCAM). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dfisk Posted October 2, 2013 Report Share Posted October 2, 2013 I've used my DR-60D a little more, and I do with it the same thing I do with pretty much every recorder in this price range. I put a small mixer in front of it. I have my Sound Devices MixPreD that works well when combined with this unit. All my level controls are done on the SD machine, and the DR-60D is the recorder. It works very well when incorporated into my Norbert Sport setup. Everything is right there. Now, for what I do (product videos), it's just basically me talking, so I could just go right into the DR-60D and not worry. I usually set levels and then never touch them because I don't need to. But, because I love gear, I tend to run all kinds of stuff when I shoot product videos. I'll usually have at least three cameras rolling, two mics, two recorders, and anything else I can throw into the mix just for the heck of it. It's just me, and I like to experiment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Louis Posted January 13, 2014 Report Share Posted January 13, 2014 You have to have a continuasly variable pot,like they have on the DR100 This enables us to give you the "hold" function, that locks out all accidental changes from knocked controls or button presses by the camera op once you are in record. Ok, so the input gain won't change once the device is in record. That's good to know! But suppose I'm giving a camera person/interviewer my blessing and I've set the gain for them, or suppose I am riding my levels into the recorder from a separate mixer, as was earlier suggested. What's not to prevent someone from bumping or intentionally fiddling with the potentiometers while not recording? Oh wait, does the lock switch accomplish this, or does it lock out the transport buttons as well? So what's the word: the screen shows increments of 3db, but the dial is responding to changes per .5db? (And I only heard the visible changes to the meter, not the intermediary changes.) Of course, I'm more comfortable with the later, so I'll take the happy news! For me the issue is not so much that I can not professionally adjust the levels mid-recording. I wouldn't reach for those little dials mid-stream if I could help it. I do like your solution, Tom, of finding zero-crossings to apply to volume adjustments. That kind of latency I can appreciate serves a real function. Maybe there could be something tied into the auto start feature that further delays these adjustments until natural pauses in the conversation (averages below the auto start threshold longer than .5 seconds)? Furthermore, maybe a lock feature on the input levels themselves, even if it's done in the menus, such that when they are intentionally turned, perhaps based on the rate of ticks, a pop-up comes up first asking "Unlock"? So for me, the cusp is not even the zippering; my feeling is that the real issue, and the reason folks might have a slightly more respectable answer with the DR-100, is that the dials can be taped off. With the DR-40, there's really no reason to put tape over the buttons. Someone can still hit buttons with tape stuck on them. And these raised knobs on the DR-60D, due to the relative nature of them, the latency, and the bumped shape, can't be taped off. I thought maybe one could put a pip of nail polish on the face of the mixer as a reminder to aim where the dials are calibrated to a mixer, for example. But the problem with that is I don't sense there is anything particularly absolute about where the dial is pointing and the input level that it is proportioning. That's the other big thing-calibrating has a large margin of error, because the gain is moving in steps. I'd love some further support on understanding the scale on the Tascam and why you guys chose a notch at -12. What do you want your customer to know about that value? What am I doing wrong? When I've calibrated to -20 to these tascam line of recorders, I needed forensic methods to chase away the edginess that came with normalizing. And I'd like to think I could have avoided normalizing in post to begin with. What do I like about it over the DR-100, or for its own sake? *Faces up in a mixer bag (although it will be an inevitably funny reach to the input side. A DR-100 with a safety cable can hang out the side of a bag). *Knobs over buttons on the DR-40, irregardless of my critique. *Level bracketing or 4-channel recording. *The price, and the value for that price-the feature set, from pre-amp to recorder (okay, they are not as quiet as the juicedlink), given the array of amateur and potentially pro-sumer applications, depending on the skills of the person operating it. *The attentiveness you have taken here, Tom, and with that translating into updated firmware. *The pre and post slate tone. *And say what you will about the knobs, the buttons are quiet. The pluses continue, but to cut myself off: Job well done, Tom! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Louis Posted January 28, 2014 Report Share Posted January 28, 2014 Bump. Just hoping Tom Duffy gets a chance to cover the ground I discuss above. Maybe I'll reach out to him separately if this thread ran its course... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted February 6, 2014 Report Share Posted February 6, 2014 J-L: " Maybe I'll reach out to him separately if this thread ran its course... " good idea! maybe send him a PM..? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Reilly Posted March 7, 2014 Report Share Posted March 7, 2014 ...an action rendering this forum moot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Duffy Posted March 19, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 All the above requests have been noted for the future, but for now I'd like to announce that the DR-60D has been reduced in price, significantly (too low to print here, search and you'll see). Economies of scale that weren't obvious when we started this product have allowed us to continue providing great value to our DSLR based customers. Tom (TASCAM). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted March 22, 2014 Report Share Posted March 22, 2014 zowie! and better than a Zoom... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Reilly Posted September 28, 2014 Report Share Posted September 28, 2014 Latest Full Compass print-o-log has entry for : TASCAM DR-60DMKII "The new version includes an improved microphone preamp for up to 64dB of gain and a smoother sound." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Duffy Posted September 29, 2014 Author Report Share Posted September 29, 2014 Wait for AES next week. That's not the only thing coming... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dfisk Posted September 30, 2014 Report Share Posted September 30, 2014 Can't wait to see it, Tom. I've been happily using my DR-60D with my DSLR rig for our K-Tek videos and I love it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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