Tascam

Musikmesse 2009: TASCAM, and Garritan Corporation announced the completion of the sale of technology assets relating to GigaStudio, Gigasampler, GVI, GigaPulse and all Giga products.

Gigasampler revolutionized the music industry when it was introduced in 1999 and its importance in the music world cannot be overstated. Giga products enjoy exclusive rights to Endless Wave technology, a patented system which allows large samples to be streamed directly from the hard drive with low latency. Giga became the professional’s sampler of choice for many film, game and television composers, including many high-profile musicians.

The technology looked like it was stuck in a dead-end, though, when Tascam announced it was ceasing development. Read more…

Musikmesse 2009:TASCAM has announced an update for their DR-100 Portable Recorder that supports high-resolution 96kHz/24-bit recording.

The free software update, version 1.10, is being quality tested and will be available for download from the TASCAM website at the end of April. The DR-100 now supports sampling rates from 44.1k to 96kHz, 24-bit or 16-bit WAV recording and MP3 recording.

The TASCAM DR-100 has a pair of XLR mic ins with phantom power for adding pro condenser microphones. In addition, the DR-100 has four built-in electret condenser mics – two cardioid and two omni – and a built-in speaker for playback.

It’s powered either through an included Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery or AA batteries. aAnalog line inputs and outputs are also available, as well as a mic stand mounting hole for recording flexibility.

If you’ve used the TASCAM DR-100, leave a comment with your thoughts!

TASCAM has announced three recording bundles designed to offer everything you need, besides your computer, to record high-quality audio.

TASCAM’s hitting several different price points, to appeal to different budgets and meet different requirements:

• The Track Pack T1 combines the US-122L audio interface with a dynamic microphone, headphones and Cubase LE4 recording software. Track Pack T1 sells for $299 MSRP/$179 street.
• The Track Pack T2 matches the US-144 interface with TASCAM’s new TM-78 condenser microphone. Track Pack T2 sells for $369 MSRP/ $199 street.
• The Field Pack pairs TASCAM’s DR-1 portable recorder with the TM-ST1 stereo microphone. Field Pack sells for $498 MSRP/$349 street.

“The Track Pack and Field Pack bundles give musicians everything they’ll need, even cables and stands, so they can start making music right away,” according to TASCAM’s Paul Jenkins. The bundles are scheduled to ship this month.

TASCAM has apparently decided to kill off its GigaStudio sampler.

I haven’t seen an official announcement on this yet, but a post at Virtual Instruments Composers Forum quotes TASCAM:

“Notice:  TEAC America, Inc. will cease further development of GIGASTUDIO and GIGASTUDIO related products as of July 21, 2008.  Product sales and technical support will continue through the end of the year.”

It looks like TASCAM is getting out of the software business completely. If you check TASCAM’s site, the product category for software is completely empty, and everything Giga-related is now in the legacy software category.

My guess is that the growing popularity of the Mac, combined with solid competition, made further development of GigaStudio impossible. This is unfortunate, because it not only leaves a lot of users high and dry, but many dedicated developers, too.

Over at Create Digital Music, Peter Kirn says “Earth to Tascam: please make some kind of statement to your customers, even if it means a series of messages if the situation is evolving.” I’ll second that.

A new site, Open GigaStudio, has been created to petition TASCAM to open source GigaStudio. I’ll second that idea, too.

“Please consider making GS4 open source. The GS community is more than happy to support itself and GS developers can then at least continue to offer their products while maintaining their livlihood. GS is one of the last bastions of freedom for the user to customize and enjoy their sample content to the fullest in a world of locked samplers.” forum member “Freedom”

I’ve signed the petition, and I’d encourage readers to do the same.