Portacapture X8 32 bit Float 8 Channel Multitrack Field Recorder

Kind of a multi-tool for audio solutions. I have been using it for a variety of uses with videos for my YouTube channel(Running Into History). I have been using it for folley, ambient sounds, a little ASMR and recently I decided to record my entire narration to a video using the attached mics and it sounds really good. I just pull out the SD card and copy it over to Davinci. I was using a Rode NT1 which sounds pretty good but this things also sounds nice, fat and detailed. I like that I can take it into a quiet area of the house and record the narrative then transfer it over. I also use it to run the Rode NT1 into it for a vocalist and use the attached mics of the unit in Y mode to mic my acoustic and it sounds incredible. With phantom power built in we can record anywhere including a recent video in the middle of the woods while camping. And I can add compression and reverb to both the vocals and the guitar while recording. Although the effects cannot be used in 32bit float. I think the effects are limited to 48khz if I remember correctly. I was using the Zoom h1n for most of my recordings before this and I still use it with a lapel mic when I am walking and talking for video(then synch later). It also sounds great but the 32bit float in the X8 makes post production life so much easier with full control. The X8 inspired me to start completely sound designing environments for my videos. I recently recorded a video in a secluded area of forest but unfortunately a highway passes over the area nearby and it was drowning out the nature sounds. I recorded the quiet nature ambience back at the car and then recorded shoes stepping up and down in place them put this all together with the video to capture the perfect forest experience. The mics are terrifyingly cheap feeling. Every time I switch their configuration I am concerned they will snap or crack open. No issues yet and I'm not sure how Tascam can make something so flimsy sound so good but hopefully they are more durable than they appear. I wish the screen rotated so that I can see it when it's recording my acoustic but Tascam most likely would rather you purchase the Bluetooth adapter, which I am about to purchase. Unfortunately not sold on Amazon. I haven't seen any screen bleed and I haven't ran the unit in anything above 48khz(and then reduced the pitch), so I haven't ran into the hum issue. It's really sensitive to handling noise but I purchased a cheap grip tripod thing that a youtuber suggested and it makes a big difference. I purchased one of the inexpensive pop filter and dead cat wind filter packages Amazon. The pop filter is garbage and does not prevent plosives at all but the dead cat does eliminate them and also cuts down on wind interference effectively. I am thinking about starting a podcast and it seems like this will also work great for that. But the unit has recieved two firmware updates since I purchased it almost two months ago. Unfortunately the updates do not address the podcast feedback issue(I think it's called zero sum or something like that). Other units have it to prevent a callers audio from being fed back to them. The other thing I didn't realize is if you plan on using this as a USB mic, your PC will disable any sound card you have. I have the Scarlett 2in 2out which works great but when the X8 is plugged in, the PC routes all audio to the X8 as an interface. I haven't been able to get them to both work together but it sounds like its a windows driver Asio limitation. It works if you don't use Asio but that introduces some serious latency. But I highly recommend this device if you want one audio unit that does almost everything perfectly.

Overall, I am quite happy with this device, no problems Six Channels: this will record only six (6) input feeds, not 8 that they imply. Yes, along with the 6 it records a mix-down of the 6 to stereo, however I don't care about this and don't see why anyone would because you take the tracks, dump them into Audacity, and mix to stereo there when you can tweak and adjust correctly. There are ONLY 6 inputs to this device, and calling it X8 is a bit deceptive. I have seen magazine articles claiming that this will work as an 8 channel A-to-D converter, but that is wrong, there are only 6 channels of input. I knew it was only 6 inputs when I bought it, so no problem. Simple to Use: Every single time it records all channels, and I consider that a feature. Sometimes those channels are empty if there was no input, and so later I have to delete them, but the advantage is that you never forget to enable the recording of a channel. Mixer and volume settings were obvious to use. Attached mics did a great job. I set it up in the practice room using attached mics, and then additionally fed the vocal mic signal and some instruments, and the result (after mixing) was great enough for demo tracks. Batteries did die in the middle of one session, so you have to watch out for that, but that was after 5 or 6 hours of recording. For a serious recording you want to plug it in to USB power. Was disappointed that the blue tooth functionality required an additional $50 device, however I bought that so I can control it from the stage.

This unit records guitar very nicely, with clear sound all the way down to low E and very low noise. Sound quality is at least an order of magnitude better than sound recorded from a costly Sony video cam. The user interface is OK once you get familiar with it, but there are many options and finding them in the various menu screens requires a learning curve, and it's easy to forget where to find what you want (e.g., enabling/disabling the phantom power). Better user instructions would help, and revising them would be less costly than revising the software. The touch screen has good color and resolution, and the touch function works pretty well. Overall, I'm very pleased with the purchase, and I salute the engineering team that developed the hardware.

Top! Stabile Bauweise, amtlicher Klang, einfach zu bedienen, sehr gut funktionierende Handy App! Nach sehr kurzer Einarbeitung mit BDA und entsprechenden YT Videos (auch die Tipps auf YT der Fa. Tascam sind sehr nützlich) habe ich damit ausgezeichnet klingende Aufnahmen meiner Bands (Drums, Bass, Voc, Sax, Kb) im Proberaum, meines Klavieres im Studio und eines Chores in der Kirche gemacht. Er lässt sich extrem hoch aussteuern ohne zu verzerren, die zwei Mikrophone nehmen alles mit. Multitrack Recording und Overdub funktionieren wirklich wunderbar. Die Verwendung externer Mikrophone, egal ob dynamisch oder Kondensator, funktioniert perfekt. Ein ausgereiftes professionelles Gerät, das sich einfach bedienen lässt. Die Fernbedienung (BT-Dongle muss extra gekauft werden, ist aber den Preis wert) klappt hervorragend. Keine Unterbrechungen, alles lässt sich am Handy mitverfolgen bzw. steuern. Die verschiedenen Aufnahme-Modi sind sehr nützlich und auch übersichtlich in der Bedienung. Zur Übertragung der Spuren auf den Mac muss man den Recorder mit USB-C verbinden, das klappt aber dann auch tadellos. In einer YouTube review wird behauptet der Recorder produziere im 192khz Modus ein störendes hochfrequentes Geräusch, konnte ich nicht nachvollziehen, es traten beim mittlerweile ausgiebigen Gebrauch keinerlei Sound- Artefakte auf. Die 32bit Fließkomma Aufnahmen lassen sich bei extremster Aussteuerung in der Audiosoftware tatsächlich leiser drehen ohne dass irgendwelche Qualitätseinbußen auftreten. Getestet mit folgendenen externen Mikrophonen: - Audio-Technica ATM350U - Austrian Audio CC8 Stereo Set - Austrian Audio OC16 - Shure SM58 Ich habe schon mehrere Geräte von Tascam und die Qualität, Zuverlässigkeit und Klang sind erstklassig. Ich bin mit dem Tascam Portacapture sehr zufrieden und kann ihn zu 100% weiterempfehlen! Edit nach 3 Monaten intensiver Benutzung in verschiedenen Settings: Erstklassig! Nichts zu bemängeln! Eine externe USB-Powerbank ist zu empfehlen, damit ist man bei stundenlangen Sessions auf der sicheren Seite. Die sehr gute Aufnahmequalität wurde mir mittlerweile auch von mehreren professionellen Musikern und Chorleitern bestätigt. Nach wie vor: KEINE Tonartefakte, KEINE Ausfälle, KEINE Probleme irgendwelcher Art. Exakte Abbildung des akustischen Geschehens. Die verbauten Mikrophone des Recordes sind hervorragend! Bravo TASCAM!

The X8 is just a bit too large and conspicuous for me so I got the X6 because it's more useful in more random situations and easier to carry around. I'm an engineer so I took it apart and examined all the circuitry and general build. My conclusion is that TEAC/Tascam did a pretty fantastic job with the design for this unit. Much of the money you're paying, is going into the circuitry - which is indeed complex and high quality. Very good opamps (OPA1678's, which you can replace with OPA1656's if you like, for a little improvement), great ADCs (AKM AK5704's), high quality dual clocks from Kyushu Dentsu (KDK) - one for 44.1kHz, and another for 48/96kHz. The device runs on a single core Cortex-M7 ARM CPU at 600MHz, and it has 128MB of RAM. All the audio routing and processing is done on an CPLD/FPGA from Lattice which costs twice as much as the CPU. I'm guessing that the reverb functionality is implemented through it as well, effectively "in hardware". The good: -What I haven't see anyone mention - you can run the X6 (and presumably X8 as well) from a USB-C power bank, even without the AA present in the unit. I got an estimate of 60-90 runtime hours from a 25000mAh battery bank. It seems to have good power filtering for USB-C as well, so power noise doesn't couple into the analog circuits much at all. -Excellent circuit design (unit is engineered by TEAC with their extensive experience in audio, they have their high-end "Esoteric" parent brand after all). -Internal shielding is fairly elaborate (thick metal plate between digital and analog portions of the circuit, which keeps self-noise very low. BUT, this device is not as resistant to external interference (plastic case and all). If you place a phone or other electronics next to this device, it will pick up various EMI interference which will be extremely audible especially at high gain. So the upside is that the device is light (unlike heavy chonkers from Sound Devices etc), but you don't have as much external electrical noise immunity. Keep this in mind~ -Sealed dome switches for keys (not membranes) - should last for a long time. -Plastic case is actually pretty high-precision and cleverly designed when it comes to molding. Subtle thing and no one likes plastic anyways, but it's well made at least. -Pleasant noise floor signature (gained up to the max, the noise sounds like brown more than white - it's soft) -Built-in mics are very sensitive with low self-noise for the price of the device -Gimmicks aside ("ASMR" mode etc lol), the device is straightforward to use. UI isn't the best nor the most intuitive but you get used to it quickly. Just accept it and move on lol. -32-bit mode is indeed excellent and captures the entire dynamic range of sounds with its dual ADCs per input, so you can recover peaks in post, or gain up the audio with no drawbacks -I tested this device with a Samsung S24 Ultra and it works fine as an audio interface there. I was able to get MotionCam Pro to use this device as a sound input (only when the X6 is set to 48kHz/32-bit), at which point MotionCam Pro was able to include 32-bit 48kHz uncompressed audio from the X6 into the RAW video files, which is what I wanted. You do have to set the audio profile to "Unprocessed" in MotionCam. I've written my own multi-threaded decoder for their .mcraw files for Linux (.mcraw to DNG+Proxy), so I can now have RAW video + "RAW" (32-bit) audio in single files that are easy to edit, which is pretttyyy coooool as probably a world first. The bad: -The #1 issue to me as an engineer (which I haven't seen anyone bring up before for this device), is in how the device handles its high pass filter (low-cut filter) when it comes to the BUILT-IN mics. This filter is applied digitally (post-preamp, post-ADC), which means that when it comes to wind or loud surrounding bass, the built-in mics will already clip the preamp/ADCs, so you're applying low-cut to a clipped waveform at that point, which will retain all the distortion components from that clipping. This is terrible, and I've seen complaints on Reddit about this device clipping lows in unexpected situations. Many external mics have low-cut filters built into the mics - which is what you want. Low-cut filters should ideally happen in the analog domain, before digitizing. This would've required more parts and board space, so I can see why TEAC/Tascam didn't do that. But - that's how you'd avoid clipping your preamps/ADCs. This device saves money by doing this digitally, but that means that to use this recorder professionally in the field, you have to have phenomenal quality wind filters on it. Cheap stuff won't do, cause you REALLY need to get rid of anything that's gonna clip the lows on those mics (which are unfortunately/fortunately great at capturing low frequencies). -Given that all the money went into the circuitry, you sacrifice overall build quality. Almost everything is plastic. Case contact is highly audible with built-in mics, so you need an isolated shock mount etc if you're going to be moving around. -Built-in mics are non-removable on the X6 and removable on the X8, with 10mm capsules on the X6 and 14mm on the X8. The mics themselves are excellent. The way they're installed into the case is kind of cheap, and if you ever drop this unit onto the mics (or have a hard bump into a wall or something), they will definitely smash into pieces - so you have to be careful. On the X6, the mic wires are directly soldered to the PCB with no connectors. In one sense, it might make them more robust than the X8's connectors which might eventually get some corrosion/wear, but replacing mics on the X6 would be troublesome. Still completely possible though, if TEAC sells you replacements. Overall: Best audio quality out of the box for the price, loaded with functionality. BT functionality with dongle for remote recording/adjusting, ability to use the unit as an audio interface in Windows/Android/macOS/Linux, true 32-bit recording, decent battery life, ability to power via USB-C (with a 5V/1.5A capable supply, though the unit only used 5V/200-300mA in practice). Convoluted UI (you'll get used to it) and cheap construction are the only drawbacks.

Profesyonel kullanım için uygun bir kayıt cihazı. Otomatik, manuel, podcast, canlı müzik ve röportaj gibi seçilebilen modları var. Bluetooth adaptörünün hâlâ ayrı olamsı bğyğk ayıp, artık 200 TL'lik ampülde bile wifi/BT varken 2500 TL adaptçr3 vermek geröekten bu iki öarkanın da ayıbı. Kullanımına alışmak zaman alıyor fakat sonrasında oldukça kullanıcı dostu bir arayüzle illemleir kısa sürede hallediyorsunuz. Şarjlı pil taksanız faji type-c bağlantısını yaptığımızda pilleri şarj etmiyor, usb'den güç alıyor sadece. Bu da 1950lerden kalan bir tascam mühendisinin anlamsızlık kattığı bir diğer özellik. 4 alkali pil yaklaşık 7 saat kullanım sağladı (sadece line giriş).

I bought this primarily for asmr it works great and its easy to learn how to use. I highly recommend it

Quiero comentarles que estoy satisfecho con la calidad del producto. Poder grabar a 32 bits flotantes a una alta tasa de muestreo es fabuloso. Con los micrófonos adecuados puedes producir una grabación de alta calidad. Yo lo he usado ya con mi esposa que es cantante de ópera, con el coro universitario de mi trabajo, conmigo que soy flautista y siempre los resultados son óptimos. Los micrófonos que trae son muy buenos, aunque ambientales. Si deseas algo más direccional pues ya puedes conectarle cualquier otro tipo de micrófono. Realmente si eres de los que se graban con regularidad, vale la pena ir por la Portacapture X8. También comentar que es muy amigable el menú tactil. Saludos, bendiciones a todos.