Amidst the news of GigaStudio’s demise, we’ve heard some isolated calls to open source Giga itself. There’s even an Open GigaStudio petition (via musicradar.com). The likelihood of open sourcing a code base as large as Giga’s, though, seems extremely slim. Making an open source project from a commercial developer successful requires a number of critical ingredients. You need the will of the company that owns the code, of course, but also:

• a code base that is accessible to people who have never seen it before
• code that’s free from "encumbrances" or code or concepts proprietary to a third party, such as licensed libraries or materials covered by patents (and thus usually requiring removal)
• an active community of developers
• a process for maintaining development

Or, put more simply: you have to fully own the thing, you have to want to share the thing, and there has to be a group of people who can work on it productively. Even satisfying one of these is unlikely here, let alone all of them.

Tascam has chosen to cease development and support of its popular GigaStudio sampler and product line, including GigaPulse, GigaViolin, and Giga VI, breaking a widely-used product and various other products based on it. I had actually heard this was coming some time ago, but unfortunately couldn’t verify on-record sources in a way that would allow me to share. Now, it’s official.

MusicRadar has the story: Tascam axes GigaStudio

and Film Music Magazine’s Peter Alexander broke the news first:

Tascam Ceases Giga Development as of July 21; Sales And Support End December 31

Tascam has made no official statement, but the report has been confirmed in a message thread by Tascam’s Marketing Manager, and the product has been removed to the discontinued section.

All I can say is, shame on Tascam. It seems this decision was made some time ago, but not announced — all while sales continued. Furthermore, based on the information I’ve been able to find, there seems to be no information whatsoever on the long-term state of availability or support for the product beyond December 31. A company with the size, reputation, and pro relationships that Tascam has ought to be able to present some sort of legacy support plan. Abandoning users in this way risks the trust the Tascam brand has with customers. Gibson Guitar has become practically an adjective because they discontinued Opcode’s Studio Vision Pro following an acquisition. People are still sore about that even a decade later, and they’re a guitar company, not a pro audio company like Tascam. GigaStudio has a similarly loyal following, particularly in fields like film scoring, and — whether Tascam’s business decision was justified or not — you can bet you’ll be hearing about this for some time to come.

So what’s life after Giga? Given that Giga’s audience was fond of massively huge sample libraries, and the tool was Windows-based, I could believe that 64-bit-native sampler applications could be next. (Clarification: GS4 was native 64-bit, but that doesn’t do you a whole lot of good now, of course.) With 64-bit memory addressing, it’s possible to go an order of magnitude beyond 4 GB (or less) memory limits, which would appeal to Giga’s hard-core sampling audience. Cakewalk supports 64-bit Windows for both their host (SONAR) and instruments, but it’d be nice to see, say, Native Instruments Kontakt in a 64-bit version for Vista 64-bit, too. I’d run Kontakt and SONAR together in a second. (Yes, Mac fans, Mac OS theoretically can support 64-bit memory addressing, but no music app on Windows does, either, at present. So, 64-bit Logic and EXS24, perhaps?)

At the very least, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Cakewalk, Native Instruments, MOTU, and others offer crossgrade offers. They all offer very fine sampling products, though I’m not sure that’ll come as much comfort to disgruntled Tascam customers.

It’s also possible that a third party could take up support of the GigaStudio product and continue it for its user base. No one appears to have stepped up to the plate yet, though. Stay tuned.

And, 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. Your website is an official outlet, so moving an active product to the discontinued section of your site can be considered an official statement. Word in audio circles gets around fast even without the Web, and your customers deserve to hear more from you officially. (If we get additional information, we’ll run it on CDM.)

Tascam Legacy Software

The mobile recording space keeps rolling along. Alesis is the latest company to try to turn the iPod into a usable digital recorder. With up to 160 GB of storage, the fact that the iPod is a mobile hard drive you may already own certainly has some appeal. But what about quality?

The Alesis ProTrack attempts to bridge that input divide with internal mics and XLR inputs:

• XY pattern stereo condenser mics (they look a lot like the mics on the Zoom H4)
• XLR and 1/4″ inputs (line/mic) with 48V phantom power
• 1/4″ stereo output, making this interesting as a playback device, too
• LEDs onboard (nice!), limiter
• Tripod mount, universal iPod dock

Recording is limited to 16-bit, 44.1kHz; the lack of 48kHz means a big downside for anyone doing video production. Our friend and roving podcaster / NPR reporter Brad Linder has the full story on his blog:
Alesis ProTrack turns your iPod into a pro audio recorder [Brad Linder's blog]

This does look quite like the Belkin Podcast Studio. I’m not totally sold on Alesis’ quality control of late, but I’m more sold on them than on Belkin, so we’ll see.

Edirol R-09 with more storage

If there’s one mobile recorder to rule them all, it may be Edirol’s trusty R-09. The big news there: support for bigger storage, in the form of firmware updates for the R-09 and new, higher-quality R-09HR. The updates add support for Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) cards, for up to 32GB in storage. The 32GB drives are still mighty pricey, but 16GB isn’t a bad sweet spot.

I hadn’t actually paid attention to the HR model, but it has some nice extras: dedicated analog input control, low-cut filter, limiter/AGC (Auto Gain Control), gain boost, and even a remote.

R-09 HR Product Page [Roland/Edirol]

The Edirol has only an 1/8″ mic jack, but I know people who’ve been very happy with it. It may not work as a primary recorder — for that you may be willing to sacrifice something bigger and pricier. But for quick and dirty jobs and internal mic use, it does look quite nice. I sometimes think I should’ve gotten it instead of the Zoom H4 I bought, but I’ll just save up for a real mic pre for the Zoom and go home happy.

Review: Tascam DR-1

The last bit of news from Brad: a quick review of Tascam’s entry to the increasingly-overcrowded handheld recorder market. Brad writes us:

Seems like a decent, but not great device for recording music and interviews. A friend of mine took one for a spin for a little while and ultimately decided to return it and get an Marantz PMD660. I’ve heard good things about the Olympus LS-10 though, and I might pick one up myself eventually as a backup for my trusty Sony PCM-D50.

Got all those models straight, kids?

The DR-1 does have a 1/4″ jack, though no XLR. Downsides: preamps sound a little disappointing (weak levels), there’s no real mono recording, and, well, a lot of competition. Here’s Brad’s review with sound samples:

A short review of the Tascam DR-1 [Brad Linder's blog]

Tascam showed a FireWire interface developed with Frontier Design Group that combines a 24/192 stereo audio interface with MIDI I/O in a streamlined design that also features transport buttons and 8 short cut keys (plus a shift key). In the crowded field of stereo interfaces, the FireOne’s added control and ergonomics may provide a welcome solution to many home studios. The FireOne is scheduled to ship in March with a street price of $299 and will include Cubase LE or Ableton Live Lite (TBD).

Now we’re talking. Tascam’s upcoming HD-P2 is finally a portable Compact Flash recorder that doesn’t skimp on pro features. Incredibly, its street price will be under US$1000, but the preliminary specs read like a device costing a lot more, and by providing timecode input on a cheap device, it’s an indie filmmaker’s dream recorder:

Up to 192 kHz / 24-bit

Absolutely silent (no transport noise, cough, DAT!), latched CF slot (so it doesn’t pop out accidentally)

Broadcast WAVE recording

FireWire for connecting to PC/MAC for instant file access

Data loss protection (continually re-saves data)

XLR mic inputs with phantom power and analog peak limiting

Unbalanced RCA I/O plus S/PDIF digital I/O

Built-in mic and speaker

Runs on AA batteries for 5.5 hours (battery pack could be an accessory in the future, a la the DA-P1)

Timecode input, video clock input, input chasing

Let’s focus on that last one for a moment: a $900 street recorder will have timecode input for sync in video shoots. That’s something even most DAT recorders don’t have. Edirol’s R-4 recorder is great, and has a 40GB hard drive instead of a CF slot, but it costs $600-700 more and lacks sync.

Timecode in has never been this cheap before. People might actually start syncing their audio recordings. Wow.

I got a chance to handle this box at AES, and quite simply, it’s beautiful. It’s got the same solid, crisp feel as Tascam’s DA-P1 portable DAT I’ve used a zillion times. It’s simple and inexpensive enough that amateurs and education will pick it up, but with serious enough features that it could become a hallmark of video shoots. Bravo, Tascam.

Tascam HD-P2 Recorder [Product Info]

Jerry Halstead has taken a beautiful photo of the Tranzport wireless DAW remote,
my essential tech of the week for Gizmodo, for those of you who can't
get enough of drooling over tech. The device looks just gorgeous; I'll
obviously post when this ships, expected in March 2005. Jerry also
talks a bit about the challenges of product photography, though nothing
may make me any better at it!