Tascam Guitar Trainer/Recorder Review

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(More customer reviews)I received this last week. The GB-10 Guitar & Bass Trainer/Recorder comes packaged very securely and seems very unlikely to be damaged in transit.

It comes with a 100 page owner's manual (in English), a registration card, an errata sheet for the manual, a USB cable, a 2GB SD card and two AA batteries. Except for the plastic sleeves, everything can be recycled. The batteries are intended to power up the unit to show that it works. The set that came with mine lasted about two hours. Other reviews on the web say that they're getting eight to ten hours out of quality batteries, so you will want to either get batteries by the case, use the supplied USB cable for power or get the power supply (PS-P520). I got the power supply and it works very well.

As I said, the owner's manual is 100 pages and is in English, except for one page. Page 5 contains "IMPORTANT SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS" in Chinese. My best guess is that is is displaying recycling information since it mentions lead, mercury, cadmium and some other compounds.

The manual has an easy to read font. There is a "Quick Start" section that explains the major features. You'll likely be able to use the unit after going through these. The rest of the manual explain what the various buttons on the unit do. It reads like a technical specifications document - press A and B happens. There's not much effort into explaining why you would want to use an effect or how various options interact. In short, it is a manual and not a user's guide. Also, there is no index.

The unit only accepts a Tascam RC-3F footswitch. That model has not yet been released. I contacted Tascam about it. They responded pretty quickly saying that it would be available at some time in the future. I am disappointed that they couldn't time the release of both together.

I used the supplied USB cable to hook the unit up to both a Mac and Windows computer. The unit is USB 2.0 compatible, but doesn't require it. Practically speaking, that means that it is a USB 1 interface.

When connected, the unit prompts you to use the connection as a power supply or for data. If you select power, then the unit will draw power from the computer, not from the batteries. Select data and the unit mounts as a drive, allowing you to transfer data from the computer. You can only use one mode or the other. I didn't find that to be inconvenient since I only transferred files a few times. If you're running off of batteries, though, make sure that you have plenty of power when copying files or you could lose data.

I had no problems with file transfers on the Mac. On the Windows XP box, the drive was very, very slow. I was not able to try it on another Windows computer so I do not know if it is the unit or maybe something like an overly-agressive virus scanner on the computer. I did find it funny that the manual states that it is compatible with "Widnows" (yep, that is their typo).

The unit will play either MP3 (32-320kbps, 44.1kHz) and WAV (16/24-bit, 44.1kHz) files. I used files that I had downloaded from iTunes (in MP3 format) or ripped from a CD (MP3 and WAV). I had no problems with either format. Tascam does point out that if you are using an MP3 file then you may not be able to specify an exact location for the start and end points looping.WAV files do not have that problem.

The files that I copied over sounded very good when playing back. There were no issues with clipping or stuttering. I used the unit as an MP3 player at work one day. The interface is not as streamlined as my iPod, but it worked. I had a little fun showing off the unit as an MP3 player. My co-workers laughed at how big it was. I let a few try it out and none of them preferred it to a dedicated MP3 player. I want to point out that the volume on this unit is unbelievable. I had to put the output to the lowest level possible in order to listen to most music comfortably with the buds from my iPod.

When copying audio files, you can create folders to organize your content. You must do that from your computer since the unit does not have that capability. The advantage of grouping files by folder is seen when playing back files. The interface is streamlined when the songs are in a common folder.

I used the GB-10's features to slow down, speed up and change key on several songs and I was fairly underwhelmed. The unit will change the playback speed by up to 50% while maintaining pitch. When I slowed down "Tom Sawyer", I found that the pitch was preserved but it was still difficult to pick up the notes. To my ears, the effect of the speed change was like having a slow vibrato played on the note. The effect on drums (which are prominent in the song) is actually horrible. It sounds like dropping a marble in a steel bucket. This is a guitar and bass trainer so it is only an issue because it is kind of distracting. Since "Tom Sawyer" has some reverb added to begin with, I had a problem picking out the bass line.

When I tried a simpler song, the results were much better. I listened to a violin piece at half speed and was able to follow along very easily. To confirm, I went through a lot of music from the 80's and 90's. For the majority of the songs, I was able to follow the guitar. The bass was a different story - it came across as very muddy. Switching to a better set of headphones helped and connecting to my stereo proved that it wasn't the unit. It seems that the target audience for the GB-10 will be using headphones most of the time, so this could be a serious issue if you are a bass player. A built in EQ would be welcome.

After trying out these features, I plugged my Fender Jazz bass into the unit. I normally play using the bridge pickup set to 80% and the neck to 20%, so keep that in mind. I'd already tuned using a Korg TM-40 tuner. The GB-10 tuner disagreed, so I tuned to it. The tuner is not hard to use but is not as user-friendly as the Korg. After getting tuned on the GB-10, I went back to the Korg and found that the GB-10 was consistently a few cents higher. No big deal.

Once through with the tuning, I tried playing a bit to get an idea of the tone. I found out that I could not hear myself. I turned up the input to ten and could see on the display that signal was getting through, but couldn't hear a thing. I was puzzled until I remembered that I had turned the output level to the minimum to listen to the MP3s. Turning up the output about halfway allowed me to hear the bass. The tone was pretty neutral, so I recorded a bit and played it back. The volume on the playback was okay. When I transferred the WAV file to my computer and played them back, the volume was much better. And the tone was exactly what I was expecting. It sounded great.

I should point out that the GB-10 will put the recording into the current folder. The manual says that they will go the root folder if you don't specify a location but it turns out that changing to another folder makes the GB-10 dump the recordings there.

When I tried playing along with a music file, I remembered to set the balance first. This is not the "left to right" balance that you would expect but the balance between the input level and the volume of the music file. Setting it from the default of 20 to 8 provided a nice balance between the bass and the music file. You should be careful with this, though. When you unplug the guitar, the balance goes back to that default of 20. In my case, that means that it suddenly gets much, much louder. Painfully louder.

I was worried that recording while having the unit set to 50% speed would impact the recording. It did but not in a terrible way. The GB-10 compressed the notes' duration so that when played back at 100% speed, my part didn't sound slow. When I listened to it on playback, I realized that the balance of 8 was too low since the bass overwhelmed the music. You will have to play with that setting to get a good balance.

I have to say that for training purposes, it works as well as can be expected and I do recommend the product. I would give it five stars if there was a built in equalizer and a better way of dealing with the differences in volume between the guitar input and the music file being played.

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