2 – Basic operational concepts : Utilities
TASCAM DM-4800
User’s Manual
45
Utilities
There are four
UTILITY
screens, accessed with the
UTILITY
key.
The first of these (
PARAM COPY
) provides a method of
copying values between channel parameters. This is
explained in “UTILITY copying” on page 30.
The second (
EXT. SW
) determines the function of the
external footswitch.
The third (
SYSTEM
) allows CF card management and
date setting. These have already been described in
“Formatting a new card” on page 32 and “Setting the
date and time” on page 35 and are not described
again here.
The last allows the setup of the GPI control protocol
from the DM-4800.
SWITCH utility
When a footswitch is connected to the rear of the
unit, it can be set up using this screen in the follow-
ing way:
Talkback
The footswitch can be set to act as a
hands-free talkback switch, with the destination
being set from the following options: TO
STUDIO & TO
SLATE
,
TO STUDIO
, and
TO SLATE
. In these cases, the
footswitch acts in “smart mode” (see “Smart keys”
on page 19).
Machine Control
Especially in cases where the
artist is also the recording engineer, the following
hands-free transport operations can be very useful:
Punch In/Out
,
Direct Locate [n]
,
Play/Stop
. See “Remote
operation” on page 105 for full details of how these
functions operate. In these cases, the footswitch
operates in the same way as the front panel keys.
Other functions
The following functions dupli-
cate commonly-used keys.
SHIFT
duplicates the use of
the
SHIFT
key (to the left of the unit).
Automation KEEP
performs a keep operation (see the separate
Automa-
tion Manual
for details).
Increment Direct Library Recall
and
Decrement Direct Library Recall
allow direct stepping
up or down through the current bank of the current
library (see also “Recalling library entries” on
page 39).
Tap Tempo for Effects
allows the footswitch to
be used for tapping in the tempo used for a synchro-
nized Effects (useful if both hands are busy playing
an instrument!).
Mute On/Off for Mute Group [n]
provides
easy hands-free mute grouping for a specified group,
and the
EQ On/Off for Current CH
allows easy A/B com-
parisons of EQ settings versus flat response.
Polarity
This is not a function assignment, but
allows the switch’s polarity to be reversed (the DM-
4800 expects a push-to-make momentary switch, but
by flipping the polarity to
INVERT
, a push-to-break
switch can be used instead).
GPI settings
The DM-4800 allows you to send 8 output signals
from the GPI port (‘D’ sub 9-pin connector) on the
rear panel, and control external devices from the
DM-4800.
The DM-4800 allows you to assign different trigger
settings for GPI signal output to each of the GPI
ports.
You can choose the trigger source to be one of the
following: a fader,
MUTE
key control, transport con-
trol, machine control key status and its operation, or
a timecode value.
Figure 2.43: UTILITY external switch settings
