Tascam GT-R1 Portable Guitar/Bass Recorder and Instrument Trainer

Comments about Tascam GT-R1 Portable Guitar/Bass Recorder and Instrument Trainer:

I use this guitar/bass almost every day. It allows you to record a song and then select a loop of a passage you want to learn. Then you can slow down the loop to make learning even easier. On top of that it can make excellent live recording from the built in microphone. Finally, it allows you to down load recordings onto your computer, so you can transfer to mp3 if you wish. I bought this as a replacement for one I dropped. I could not do without it.

Comments about Tascam GT-R1 Portable Guitar/Bass Recorder and Instrument Trainer:

You won't be able to use all this unit's great features right away. Some trial and error, and some reading is necessary to get the hang of it. It's not that the controls are badly designed, but there are many of them, and they are so rich in possibilities, that I would say this is not the first choice for the plug-and-play user. (Even though basic recording is as easy as with Tascam's simpler units, such as the DR-7. (That one, btw, has ONE feature I missed here: A socket for attaching the recorder to a camera tripod or mic stand. Would be VERY helpful for this one, as well.)

After a short and intense preparation period, this can be your music sketchbook, demo studio and practice trainer, all rolled into one cute candy apple red little package. (The microphones are really sensitive. My advice would be to monitor yourself over headphones so you can spot handling noises or other disturbances early. The unit itself creates no noise whatsoever, since nothing "moves" inside it as it records.)

Actually, for singer-songwriters, you can take this little helper all the way from demo to studio recording. For instance, record your acoustic guitar plus singing through the surprisingly good built in microphones (use a drum beat for rhythmic orientation), then simply drag your WAV file into Logic, and add additional instruments and effects later.

The drum beats are okay, nothing too interesting or versatile, but certainly more inspiring than a simple click.

The electric guitar amp emulations and effects are real good, as well. Don't expect to match a great amp with a great microphone. Obviously. But you can give your band mates a pretty well rounded demo that should inspire them. You also can leave your old POD in the drawer.

Comments about Tascam GT-R1 Portable Guitar/Bass Recorder and Instrument Trainer:

This is a must have for getting your chops right. It has everything needed to practice and record with your favorite music tracks.

Comments about Tascam GT-R1 Portable Guitar/Bass Recorder and Instrument Trainer:

I have a pretty decent home studio set up but I found this small one button recording device invaluable for capturing those fleeting sparks of inspiration that wont wait for you to power up your DAW and set up a mic. From a vocal and acoustic guitar to the jet engine decibel levels of a practice room the GT-R1 will capture those moments of magic that any great song will be based on.

The only reason for not rating this 5 stars is the relatively short life of the rechargeable battery between charges...it will however easily last through a 4 hour practice with change and can be recharged through its usb connection so its not a huge inconvenience.

A definite must for any serious songwriter

Comments about Tascam GT-R1 Portable Guitar/Bass Recorder and Instrument Trainer:

The overall quality of construction on these units are poor. The selector wheel is cumbersome and poorly designed. The LCD screen is even worse. It resembles something from 1995.

Comments about Tascam GT-R1 Portable Guitar/Bass Recorder and Instrument Trainer:

Thought that uploading practice tunes would be easy from Itunes; however with Itune updates, all my music files have become locked MP4 files - which is adding much time in converting the files down as the GT-R1 will not recognize the MP4 files - ugh!

Comments about Tascam GT-R1 Portable Guitar/Bass Recorder and Instrument Trainer:

Hadn't used a portable unit before. Right out of the box I was able to quickly use it to record and playback guitar/voice tracks. It is simple to use. The mics are strong enough to pick up from several feet away, so be careful with background noise. Guitar jack, usb out and headphone all included in this unit. Some features I have not used yet but it seems pretty decent so far.

Comments about Tascam GT-R1 Portable Guitar/Bass Recorder and Instrument Trainer:

Feature-packed and at the B&H price is an incredible value.

On first use was 'moderately pleased' with the quality of the first recording using the Line-In. Had the unit just sitting on the table near the mixer and got what I thought was 'good mixed quality.' Only later did I realize that I hadn't SET the machine to use the line-in source - this near-CD digital quality was being picked up from the onboard mics! I was blown away. GREAT unit with more functions than we can use. Amazing.

Comments about Tascam GT-R1 Portable Guitar/Bass Recorder and Instrument Trainer:

I have a problem when I connect to a computer,cant get any music to load,waiting almost a week for Tascam to answer my email,nothing yet

Comments about Tascam GT-R1 Portable Guitar/Bass Recorder and Instrument Trainer:

Excellent for making Chris Tomlin sing a little lower, or slowing Abe Laboriel down to an attainable tempo. In other words, great for practicing songs in your own key and learning difficult parts by ear.

The GT-R1 makes music elastic, allowing you to shape it however you need. Pitch up or down, time slower or faster, sections repeated over and over while they soak into your brain and fingers -- the GT-R1 gives me all kinds of new ways to practice and improve my playing. I do not use the drum machine or effects much, but jamming along with a beat will be good for warming up at the start of a session.

Controls are not always intuitively placed. Read the manual and it doesn't take long to get working. I don't care for the wheel control, a simple up/down/left/right would be faster to use. It would be a fun project to hack the firmware and remap all the buttons for easier use. And like others have said, I wish you could use it while connected to a USB port.

The player sounds good, and the recorder with the internal mics does a great job. Practicing at any time of day with the headphones is great if you share living space with others.

This device is going to be a regular part of my practice sessions.

Comments about Tascam GT-R1 Portable Guitar/Bass Recorder and Instrument Trainer:

Bought this for practicing and recording rehearsals and gigs. I wouldn't use this for full scale production. Therefore, ot really interested in the drum machine module, or the effects generator.

Pros:
1) Overall the quality of construction is good.

2) The user interface is reasonable using a thumbwheel to scroll through menus.

3) Supports both .wav and .mp3 formats playback and record formats.

4) Has a simple internal metronome that is part of the drum machine section

The cons:
1) The unit is bright red with silver lettering for the control labels. *Totally* unreadable in all but the most perfect light.

2) There is no separate battery charger available for. The only way to charge is in the unit. I like to have one battery in the unit, one on the charger getting topped up.

3) I am no fan of modeled effects, but these sound particularly awful to me. The preamp seems very noisy.

4) The included foam sleeve case does not allow room for extra batteries or memory cards. Also, the manual is just slightly too large to fit in the case.

5) Cannot use the unit when powered by USB, automatically goes to USB Host mode. Must buy a separate wall-wart to use plugged-in.

Comments about Tascam GT-R1 Portable Guitar/Bass Recorder and Instrument Trainer:

Seems very good, my only problem would trying to learn how to use ALL the features this recorder has. I'm not real tech savvy, but seems like very good instruction booklet.

Comments about Tascam GT-R1 Portable Guitar/Bass Recorder and Instrument Trainer:

Wanted something to slow down music and play along with, works well. Would also like to have a built in speaker, i bought small external one.

Comments about Tascam GT-R1 Portable Guitar/Bass Recorder and Instrument Trainer:

TASCAM'S early guitar trainer products utilizing tape and compact discs were great. Many a musician's careers have benefitted greatly from those earlier products but now with the new digital GT-RI trainer musicians are taken into the new millenium on the cutting edge. Keep up the great work in delivering new innovation tools to musicians all over the world. GREAT JOB TASCAM!

Comments about Tascam GT-R1 Portable Guitar/Bass Recorder and Instrument Trainer:

I generally use this to record band rehearsals. I like the fact that you can monitor what will be heard before you actually start recording. You can change the recording gain so that you don't saturate the microphones as well as alter the speaker settings to get the best sound possible. I haven't played my bass through the product yet but I like that you can upgrade the memory card. I bought a 4GB card and it worked fine. I wish it was smaller but you can't have everything.

Comments about Tascam GT-R1 Portable Guitar/Bass Recorder and Instrument Trainer:

I use this product to practice guitar and Bass. You can basiclly build you own song, track by track. I just pick a drum loop, plug in bass and record over the drums, then overdub guitar and vocals. It does so much more than that aswell. It's small, compact,and great for travel. I've found nothing bad about this product.

Comments about Tascam GT-R1 Portable Guitar/Bass Recorder and Instrument Trainer:

This is a Christmas Present to my husband

Comments about Tascam GT-R1 Portable Guitar/Bass Recorder and Instrument Trainer:

Use to play bass with it. the feature I use most is the bass canceler and recording. It work pretty well over all. I wish I can use multiple inputs and an equalyser is missing to ajust sound with the canceler, because the canceler cut more than the bass frequency

Comments about Tascam GT-R1 Portable Guitar/Bass Recorder and Instrument Trainer:

I bought this as a trainer to play guitar or base over jam tracks and to learn riffs by slowing down the speed without changing the pitch. It is much better sound quality and easier to use than the Tascam CD trainer I have. Plus, I don't have to change CDs all the time. I have only made a simple recording so far, mainly just to test it out and it sounded pretty good too. There is a good variety of effects, but not much to describe how the different parameters change an effect; that part is trial and error. The best part is that for the price of 6-8 guitar lessons, this will give you unlimited lessons when used with some good instruction books and CDs (loaded as MP3s).

Comments about Tascam GT-R1 Portable Guitar/Bass Recorder and Instrument Trainer:

This is an incredible practice tool for a musician and might be the wisest purchase I've made. Record your own backing tracks, play along with your favourite mp3s, slow difficult passages down, loop difficult passages, practice with a metronome/drum machine, change the key of the song, really, everything you need to practice your instrument of choice. The effects are really cool too and work well even on my acoustic guitar. I don't practice without it now. The unit is very well thought out, very user-friendly, and the recording quality is great. One tip: make sure you buy the AC power cord. Otherwise you have to wait for the unit to charge via a USB port on your computer. B&H [...] were the cheapest price I could find. Hard to beat.