Tascam Digital Portastudio 2488 User Guide

							6 – Disk management and file import/export
 TASCAM 2488 User’s Guide 69
The 2488 will appear as a removable disk on 
your computer system.
3Drag and drop the Standard MIDI file(s) from 
your computer’s disk to the 2488. 
4You can now disconnect the 2488 from the 
computer (see “Using USB for backup and 
restore” on page 73).
5Press EXIT to dismiss the popup message on 
the 2488.
The 2488 restarts.
6Now you can load the files from the FAT parti-
tion to the MIDI playback unit. From the 
MIDI 
PLAYER 
menu, with SMF set as the tone genera-
tor mode, press the 
MIDI PLAYER key (above 
the 
STEREO fader):
7More the cursor to the on-screen LOAD button, 
and press 
ENTER.
8Move the cursor to the file you want to load 
and press 
ENTER.
NOTE
Note that there is no SMF export function (the 2488 
cannot create or edit MIDI sequences).
You can repeat step 3 as many times as you like, fol-
lowed by steps 6 through 8 as many times as you like.
USB export (audio files)
This is basically the reverse of the import procedure. 
First, select a virtual track and then export its con-
tents to the FAT partition before connecting the 2488 
to the computer and copying the file.
1With the transport stopped, from the WAVE IN/
OUT
 menu, select the USB EXPORT option.
2Select the virtual track to be exported and 
press 
ENTER.
3Select the resolution of the resulting file (16 or 
24 bits). The resolution of the exported data 
affects the size of the file. Press 
ENTER to 
export the data to the FAT partition, or 
EXIT 
to cancel the process.
4Select the DISK option and press ENTER and 
then select the 
USB OPEN/CLOSE option and press 
ENTER.
5Connect the 2488 to the computer.  
						

							6 – Disk management and file import/export
70 TASCAM 2488 User’s Guide
The 2488 will appear as a removable disk on 
your computer system.
6Copy the wave file from the FAT partition to 
the computer.
7You can now disconnect the 2488 from the 
computer (see “Using USB for backup and 
restore” on page 73).
8Press EXIT to dismiss the popup message on 
the 2488.
The 2488 restarts.
NOTE
You can repeat steps 1 through 3 as many times as you 
like (provided there is space on the disk), followed by 
steps 5 through 7 as many times as you like.
Disc import (audio files)
The 2488 can only read mono WAV format files from 
the top-level directory (root) of a data disc with no 
other files on the disk. Files in subdirectories cannot 
be imported.
When these files are imported, they are assigned to a 
virtual track, that must then be assigned to a real 
track.
1Insert the disc containing the files into the disc 
drive.
2With the transport stopped, from the WAVE IN/
OUT
 menu, select CD IMPORT, and press ENTER.
3Use the wheel to select the wave file to be 
imported, and press 
ENTER:
4Use the ENTER key to confirm the load of the 
file to the virtual track (popup mess) or 
EXIT 
to cancel.
Disc export (audio files)
This allows you to export virtual tracks to audio files. 
Even if the song is being recorded at 24-bit resolu-
tion, you can export 16-bit files (and the other way 
round).1With the transport stopped, from the WAVE IN/
OUT
 menu, select the CD EXPORT option. 
						

							6 – Disk management and file import/export
 TASCAM 2488 User’s Guide 71
2Select the virtual track to be exported and 
press 
ENTER.
3Select the resolution of the resulting file (16 or 
24 bits). The resolution of the exported data 
affects the size of the file. 
4Press ENTER to copy the virtual track con-
tents to disc, or 
EXIT to cancel the process.  
						

							72 TASCAM 2488 User’s Guide
7 – Backup and restore
Backup
You can use the 2488 disc drive to back up your work 
to disc. You can either use CD-R media (cheaper, but 
you can only use it once) or CD-RW media (slightly 
more expensive, but you can erase and reuse it a 
number of times).
NOTE
The operations all deal with songs on the currently-
selected partition. If the song you want is on another 
partition, you must select another disk partition as the 
active partition before proceeding (see “Selecting the 
active partition” on page 65).
The discs you make in this way are not audio CD—
you cannot play it on a CD player, and it can be read 
only by a 2488. If you have friends with 2488 units, 
this is a very convenient way of taking your songs 
around (you could record the drums in one location, 
take the CD over to the bassist, then the guitarist, and 
vocalist, and then finish the mixdown at yet another 
location with great monitoring facilities).
NOTE
Observe the usual precautions when working with 
recordable media: handle discs by their edges, avoid 
getting fingerprints or grease on the recording surface, 
and keep them clean. Also, avoid using hard pens or 
pencils or oil-based markers to label the discs.
Have a blank CD-R or CD-RW disc ready before 
proceeding with the instructions described here.
1First, save all your song to disk.
Press 
MENU, select SONG, and then select SAVE.
2Press ENTER, and a popup appears, telling 
you that the song is being saved. The HD indi-
cator lights as the song is saved.
The display shows the home screen after the 
save has been done.
3Open the CD-RW drive, using the eject button 
on the drive, and load your blank disc into the 
tray, recording side down. Use the drive but-
ton to close the tray.
Now press the 
MENU key and select DATA 
BACKUP
.
4Select your song using the wheel and press 
ENTER. A pop-up message appears telling you 
how many discs will be needed to back up the 
song.
5Press ENTER again. A pop-up message tells 
you the progress of the backup operation.
A backup may span more than one disc.
6When the backup is complete or if the first 
disc is full, the disc drive tray opens. Remove 
the disc, label it and store it in a safe place.
7Continue the process if more discs are needed 
until the backup is complete.
NOTE
If you are backing up to more than one disc, you must 
ensure that the discs are identical (from the same man-
ufacturer). Even if two discs from different manufactur-
ers have the same stated capacity, you may not be able 
to use them in the same backup operation.
Restoring
If you ever need to restore your data from a data 
backup CD or CDs, you basically reverse the 
process.Before you start restoring a song, make sure that you 
have all the discs that were used to back up the song. 
If some of the discs are missing, you will not be able 
to restore the song (you cannot load half a song). 
						

							7 – Backup and restore
 TASCAM 2488 User’s Guide 73
1Put the first (or only, if there is only one) disc 
of the backup set into the CD-RW drive.
2With the transport stopped, press the MENU 
key.
From the 
DATA BACKUP menu, select CD RESTORE. 
The 2488 reads the title of the song from the 
disc and asks you if you want to continue.
3Press YES to continue, NO to eject the disc and 
cancel the operation.
4If you go ahead with the restore, the 2488 cop-
ies the data from the disc to the active disk 
partition. A bar graph on screen shows the 
progress.
5If the backup is spanning more than one disc, 
when the first disc has been read, it is ejected, 
and a message asks you to put in the next disc. 
Insert the next disc and press 
YES.
If you insert the wrong disc (out of sequence 
or from a different backup set), the 2488 ejects 
the “bad” disc and asks you again for the cor-
rect one. If you really cannot find the right 
disc, you must press 
NO to cancel the restore.
If you cancel the restore operation part of the 
way through, none of the song is restored, and 
the 2488 goes back to the state before the 
restore was started.
6When data is restored from the last disc, the 
disc is ejected, and the restored song is loaded. 
Using USB for backup and restore
By using a USB cable to connect the 2488 and a per-
sonal computer, it is possible to back up songs and 
restore them to and from the computer’s disk drive.
The song data backed up in this way is not audio data 
which can be played on the computer—it is an 
archive of tracks, virtual tracks and edits, just like the 
songs backed up to CD.
It is also possible to use the USB connection to 
import and export audio files. See “Disk manage-
ment and file import/export” on page 65 for details.
The 2488 and USB
Data transfer is carried out at USB 2.0 speeds (but if 
your computer has the older 1.1 USB standard fitted, 
it will still work, just slower. Consult your computer 
documentation for details.
We recommend that you always use a cable designed 
for USB 2.0 operations to ensure accurate fast data 
transfer.
The 2488 will work with the following Microsoft 
operating systems: Windows Me, Windows 2000, 
and Windows XP. It will work with the following 
operating systems from Apple Computer: MacOS 9.0 
and above, and MacOS X 10.2 and above.
For all the above operating systems, no driver is 
required. The 2488 simply appears as a removable 
disk.However, you should always follow your computer’s 
instructions on how to disconnect a USB removable 
drive safely from your system.
Windows Me/Windows 2000/Windows XP
With Windows Me, Windows 2000 and Windows XP, 
the procedure is a little more complex.
In the system tray (typically at the bottom right of the 
screen), you see an icon picture of a PC card and an 
arrow.
Left-click this icon to show a popup bar: Click this 
popup bar to allow the 2488 to be removed from the 
computer. When the panel telling you it is safe to 
remove the 2488 appears, unplug the USB cable.
If a panel telling you that it is not safe to remove the 
2488 appears, do not unplug the 2488. Close all pro-
grams and windows that are accessing the files on the 
2488 and try again.
Macintosh
When removing the 2488 from a Macintosh system 
(OS 9 or OS X), drag the disk icon to the trash, or 
press Command-E (OS X 10.3 also has a button in 
the Finder which allows ejecting removable media). 
When the icon has disappeared from your desktop, 
you can disconnect the 2488. 
						

							7 – Backup and restore
74 TASCAM 2488 User’s Guide
Backing up
If you do not understand the 2488’s disk arrange-
ment, you should read “Disk management and file 
import/export” on page 65 before proceeding.
Backup to a computer connected via USB is a two-
stage process. The first stage is copying the song data 
from the native partition to the FAT partition, and the 
second stage is copying from the FAT partition to the 
computer.
To backup:
1With the transport stopped, press the MENU 
key. Note that you do not have to connect the 
2488 to the computer at this stage.
From the 
DATA BACKUP menu, select USB BACKUP. 
The screen shows a list of songs on the current 
partition, and their size.
2Note the size of the free space available on the 
FAT partition, and select a song which will fit 
onto that partition. 
3Press ENTER when you’ve selected the song. 
The 
HD indicator flashes as the song data is 
copied.
The song files in the FAT partition will 
appear as “8.3” filenames, rather than with 
the 12-character internal names. The “real” 
longer names are stored as a part of the 
song.
4When the copy is finished, attach the 2488 to 
your computer using a USB 2.0 cable. 
5Select the DISK option and press ENTER and 
then select the 
USB OPEN/CLOSE option and press 
ENTER (see “Enabling and disabling USB” on 
page 65).
The 2488 will appear as a removable disk on 
your computer system.
6Drag and drop the song file from the 2488 to 
your computer’s disk. You can then archive it, 
burn a backup CD-R, etc. Note that you 
should not rename it at all—when you come to 
restore it, the 2488 needs the filename in its 
original state as it came from the 2488.
7You can now disconnect the 2488 from the 
computer (see “Using USB for backup and 
restore” on page 73).
8Press EXIT to dismiss the popup message on 
the 2488.
The 2488 restarts.
TIP
If you repeat this process many times, you may find that 
the FAT partition fills up. You can manage the files on 
the FAT partition from your computer, as well as erasing 
the FAT partitions’s contents from the 2488. 
Restoring
This is basically the reverse of the backup process. 
The archived song data is copied from the computer 
onto the 2488’s FAT partition and then onto the 
2488’s native disk partition.
1Select the DISK option and press ENTER and 
then select the 
USB OPEN/CLOSE option and press 
ENTER.
2Connect the 2488 to the computer. 
The 2488 will appear as a removable disk on 
your computer system.
3Drag and drop the song file from your com-
puter’s disk to the 2488. 
4You can now disconnect the 2488 from the 
computer (see “Using USB for backup and 
restore” on page 73).
5Press EXIT to dismiss the popup message on 
the 2488.
The 2488 restarts.
6Press the MENU key. From the DATA BACKUP 
menu, select 
USB RESTORE. The screen shows a  
						

							7 – Backup and restore
 TASCAM 2488 User’s Guide 75
list of songs on the FAT partition, and their 
size.7Use the wheel to select the song to restore and 
then press 
ENTER. The HD indicator flashes as 
the song is copied from the FAT partition to 
the native partition.
8When the copy is finished, the song is auto-
matically loaded and becomes your current 
working song. You can then use the song man-
agement features to load another song, if you 
want (“First steps in recording (song manage-
ment)” on page 36. 
						

							76 TASCAM 2488 User’s Guide
8 – MIDI
The MIDI module inside the 2488 is a GM-compati-
ble MIDI tone generator (TG) which can be used 
either to play Standard MIDI Files (SMFs) or drum patterns as a backing for the audio tracks recorded on 
the 2488.
The instruments in the tone generator can be mixed 
(volume, pan position, etc.)
Internal module mode
To change between the MIDI file playback mode and 
pattern playback mode:
1From the SYNC/MIDI menu, select and press MIDI 
PLAYER
.
2Use the wheel to select either SMF (file player) 
or 
PATTERN or OFF). 
3You can also turn MIDI OUT either ON or OFF. 
NOTE
This allows you to use the 2488’s playback facilities to 
drive external MIDI devices, whose audio outputs can 
then be recorded through the audio inputs of the 2488.
SMF
The Standard MIDI File format provides a common 
file format allowing MIDI songs to be transferred 
between different sequencers and sequencing soft-
ware, etc. 
These files may be transferred from a personal com-
puter attached to the 2488 via USB using the proce-
dure described in “USB import (SMF files)” on 
page 68.
When an SMF is read from the FAT partition in this 
way, it becomes the active SMF, as shown in the 
SMF 
PLAYER
 screen, which is also used to load the SMF:There is only one parameter that can be changed on 
this screen, the 
SPEED, which is expressed as a per-
centage of the original speed (since an SMF can 
include tempo changes, expressing this in BPM is not 
very useful).
The screen shows how many bars (measures) are in 
the SMF, and also the MIDI channels used by the 
SMF (these are the numbers from 
1 through 16 at the 
bottom of the screen. Active MIDI channels are 
shown in inverse. 
						

							8 – MIDI
 TASCAM 2488 User’s Guide 77
Editing the MIDI instruments
Although it is not possible to edit the notes in the 
SMF, it is possible to edit the initial settings for the 
tone generator.
1Press the shifted TG SELECT (GM EDIT) key.
The numbers of parts which are playing are 
shown in the outline font (parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 in 
this illustration). Part numbers are initially set 
to incoming MIDI channels.
2Use the cursor keys to navigate to the field you 
want to change, and the wheel to change the 
values.
There are three screens in all. Use the left and right 
keys to change between the screens (they don’t 
“wrap round”).
The parameters you can edit are:

MUTE: Muting ON or OFF (muting ON means the 
instrument is off).

INSTRUMENT: Select the instrument for this part from 
the standard GM instrument list.
Ch: The MIDI channel which will be used to play 
this part.

KEY: Sets transposition (from +63 to -64 semitones).

PAN: Hard left is L63, center is C, hard right is R63.

VOLUME: 0 is no output level, 127 is full volume. 
The on-screen fader moves as you change this 
value (there is no physical control corresponding to 
this fader).

REVERB: The send level of this part to the tone gen-
erator’s internal reverb effect.

CHORUS: The send level of this part to the tone gen-
erator’s internal chorus effect.
NOTE
The reverb and chorus of the tone generator are not 
connected with the other effects as described in 
“Effects” on page 31, and all settings etc. are indepen-
dent of these “main” effects. It is not possible to use 
these tone generator effects with any sound sources 
other than the tone generator instruments.
In addition to the instrument settings, the last screen 
of the 
GM EDIT series also allows you to pick the effect 
to be assigned to the tone generator reverb and cho-
rus effects. Apart from the type of effect, no parame-
ters are available for editing the effect sounds:
NOTE
If you are playing back an SMF which includes any 
changes to these parameters, or if an external Control 
Change message is received to change any of them, the 
settings you make here are overridden.
Screen 1 Screen 2 Screen 3
Reverb Chorus
ROOM1
Room type reverbs
CHORUS1
Different “flavors” of 
chorusROOM2 CHORUS2
ROOM3 CHORUS3
HALL1
Hall-type reverbsCHORUS4
HALL2 FEEDBACK
Feedback effect
PLATEPlate-type reverbFLANGERFlanger effect
DELAYDelay settingSHRT DLYShort delay
PAN DLYPanned stereo delayFB DLYDelay with feedback 
						

							8 – MIDI
78 TASCAM 2488 User’s Guide
Te m p o  m a p
Creating a tempo map is essential for working with 
beats and bars rather than minutes and seconds. If 
there is no tempo assigned to a song, the 2488 will 
have no way of “thinking” in bars and beats 
(see“Markers” on page 42 for details of how this is 
used), if it is not playing an SMF or patterns. 
1From the SYNC/MIDI menu item, select TEMPO MAP 
and press 
ENTER.You can input up to 9999 tempo changes in 
one song. Tempos can be set between 20.0 and 
250.0 beats per minute.
2Use the cursor keys to navigate around the 
screen, and the wheel to change values.
3Use the INSERT key to add a new line (tempo 
change) to the map, and the 
DELETE key to 
delete lines.
Tapping the tempo
In addition to setting numerical values for tempos, 
you can also tap along to the music in order to set the 
tempo.
1With the transport stopped at the start, from 
the 
SYNC/MIDI screen, select TAP, and press 
ENTER.
2Set the tap DIVISION to either quarter notes 
(crochets) or eighth notes (quavers) and the 
lower parameter to either 
2, 3 or 4 to tell the 
2488 how many taps to expect when working 
out the tempo.
3Press the PLAY key to start playback.
4Press the TA P key to start entering the tempo 
to the map and tap. The time between taps is 
averaged out (either between two taps or four 
taps, as specified above) and added to the 
tempo maps for as long as you keep tapping 
and the transport is moving.
5Press STOP to stop the transport. The tapped 
tempos are now added to the map, which can 
be edited as described above.