Vocal effects on Tascam 2488 MK 2 portable studio
Yes, I have a problem recording vocal effects on the Tascam 2488 MK 2 portable studio. I bought Lexicon effects rack but I'm still unable to properly assign effects internally or externally to the vocal track. How do I get effects to be heard during recording and also have the effect recorded. I will typically go back to the same vocal effect every time.
Audio Players & Recorders - Tascam - 2488 Portastudio Multitrack Recorder System
Answers & Comments
Hi again,
The easiest way to record using an external Lexicon effects unit (without an external mixer) is to connect your mic onto one of the 2488's inputs and assign that input to a channel strip (track). You should have the 2488 sends (output) going to the Lexicon's inputs. Then connect the Lexicon outputs back into another set of inputs on your 2488 and assign those inputs to two empty channel strips (tracks).
Then you will have to take that channel that has your mic input assigned to it and press send and set the levels there to send the signal out the sends (to the Lexicon).
Now you have a channel strip assigned to the mic input which contains your dry signal, and you have the two inputs returning from the Lexicon which contains your wet or effected signal.
You then have some options. You can control the amount of effected signal you hear while recording by adjusting the faders of the two wet tracks and you can either record the dry signal or the wet signal (or both) onto separate tracks.
Typically when recording the singer will want to hear an effect (say reverb) on his voice, but the engineer wants to record only the dry track at recording time (because effects can always be added later, but they can't be taken out). To accomplish this you would use the setup above, but only arm the mic input track for recording. In this way the singer hears the reverb, but only the dry vocals get recorded and the engineer can add reverb to that track again later as desired (and mix it back with the dry vocal etc).
On the other hand if you want to record only the effected signal you would simply arm the two channels to which the inputs coming back from your Lexicon are assigned for recording. This will get you a recording of the effected signal only.
Hope this helps you do what you are trying to do.
Cheers.
bd.