TASCAM's MP-GT1 guitarist mp3 player

[jethro]

Anyone here try this out? I just ordered one.It seems to be just what I've been looking for. http://www.tascam.com/Products/mpgt1.html It won the best at namm award this past show.Let me know if anyone has tried one out.Later,jeff

[Harmonics1978]

Wow that is a nice player! To think its like a ipod, mixed in with computer programs and stomp boxes honestly, thats some crazy stuff and you can play along with it nice find!

[sands4us]

I just got one and am pretty happy with it.

It does:

play MP3s - works with Windows XP no problems - sounds pretty good and has decent controls - can adjust volume of guitar input, music+guitar balance and total volume.
Seems to do as advertized. Great for playing along with favoite songs and practicing.

I haven't really tried: guitar canceling - I played with it for a few minutes and seemed promising but will take some tweaking of settings and may also be dependent on the songs you try it with.

Changing pitch so recording matches tuning of my guitar. So far the couple songs I am practicing are in standard 440 so I haven't needed to try this. I do have some Lightnin' Hopkins I want to learn and he usually tuned down about a half step.

My biggest complaint is the effects. The good is there are tons of different sounds/effects (I think about 100 pre-sets) and each of them can be adjusted. The bad is there are so many different pre-sets and they can all be adjusted. I even read the F*ing manual and the page on the effects is barely a paragraph. I just want a slightly overdriven blues sound, but after going through all 100 presets there is 10 different alien fuzzbox wah-wah what-evers or mega-death-metal distortions....but not a lot of subtle effects.

So I found one that sounded close and started customizing it and got a decent sound, but just don't know how to get say.... half a dozen custom pre-set Effects sounds and then have them be favorites. Instead they are mixed in with all the others and no way to custom name them. Maybe I am missing something?? I didn't find anything in the manual.

I would say so far I am very happy with it. Seems to do most of what it claims. I am hoping that because it is so new to the market...with a little time there will be posts/FAQs that can help me better handle/understand the effects feature so I can get a few sounds I like and manage them conveniently. Please post if anyone can shed some light on this for me !!!!!


Stephen

[sands4us]

Just an update on this:

I have used the feature where you adjust the Tascam Guitar Trainer to match the pitch of the song to your guitar and it seems to work very well. The backing track I was playing was only a couple fine adjustments away from the pitch of my guitar.

It seemed to change the pitch of the backing track so I could match my guitar's pitch with out slowing down or distorting the track in any way I could hear.

After using this for a couple weeks now I am really liking it. Still my only complaint is trying to get half a dozen customized guitar effects set up and remembered and easy to get to...Again if anyone has figured that out.... ???? Let me know.

Overall though I have to say this thing is way too cool !!!!

Stephen

[jjhboots]

I have been anxious to try this mp3 player but have had trouble downloading the songs. I am using Windows XP and iTunes. I can get the songs to show up in the GT's "music" folder on the desktop but none of the songs have been transferred to the player. Any help would be appreciated.

[sands4us]

Originally Posted by jjhboots

I have been anxious to try this mp3 player but have had trouble downloading the songs. I am using Windows XP and iTunes. I can get the songs to show up in the GT's "music" folder on the desktop but none of the songs have been transferred to the player. Any help would be appreciated.

My first guess would be that you downloaded the songs from ITunes and they have Apple's copy protection in them. And/or are in m4p or what ever that funky Apple file format is. Boooo !!! Copy Protection or as they like to call it these days DRM - Digital Rights Management is a rip off to all consumers !!!!!

If my assumption is right then they have been transfered but the Tascam player can't recognize them. Try creating a CD from ITunes with the songs you would like on the Tascam player. Then use an MP3 ripper (Try CDex) or even ITunes to turn the songs on the CD into uncopyprotected MP3's then transfer the MP3s onto the Tascam player.

I am guessing that will work. Of course, if you do have an original CD you can just rip the song to MP3 directly.

Pulling the DRM out of an ITunes song by burning a CD then ripping to MP3 does lose a little of the quality.

Stephen

[rjfoster]

I'd like to hear how this gadget sounds. Can one of you post up a sound sample?

Rj

[T.A.Z]

Looks pretty good that like. I might invest in something like that sometime but right now Im happy jamming with backers and drummers lol

[sands4us]

Originally Posted by T.A.Z

Looks pretty good that like. I might invest in something like that sometime but right now Im happy jamming with backers and drummers lol

Must be nice to have friends :-(

[medusa]

Picked one of these up just last weekend and in general am happy with it. It had looked at it at the London Guitar show and they still wanted £140 for it, so I held off. Glad I did cause the following w'end I picked one upo for a staggering £100 and couldn't go past it.

In general all features are great BUT I don;t think an aweful lot of the effects. Not great sounds and not easy to navigate.

No biggie to me though since i'm using thisa right next to my podxt I just go through that and only use the Tascam as a player. Though it would be nice to throw in the guitar case if I was travelling.

I initially was charging this through USB and it didn't seem like it had an amazing battery life. I now use a 5v power supply which is cool, since I can use it while it is powered, but you could do that while attahced to USB.

Pretty decent bit of kit.

[sands4us]

One more update.

Since I can't seem to find any effects on this thing that I really like.....I have just put a Boss Overdrive pedal between it and my guitar and now get a nice tasty slightly overdriven blues sound.

I do like it for playing back up tracks through my practice amp.

Seems to do nearly everything they say except they really missed on the guitar effects.

Any one else using this and loving/hating it ?

Stephen

[CarlWalters]

I got hold of one of these last weekend and I have to say I'm a bit disappointed with it so far. There are two things that are bugging me about it. First the USB connection seems pretty unreliable 9 times out of 10 if I drag and drop an mp3 file onto it I get a File I/O error. So getting tunes on to it is a nightmare . Secondly I'm not too impresses with the quality of the Variable Speed Auditon. It's OK down to about -16% but slower than that and the sound goes "all wobbly" (and I need to slow songs right down to stand a hope of keeping up ). What I've ended up doing is slowing songs I'm learning down by using the Transcribe program and then exporting this as a .wav, converting that to .mp3 and copying onto the MP-GT1. Which is a bit tedious.

So on the whole I'm disappointed - but it does blend in nicely with my POD2

[dukesup1978]

Hey I just ordered one of these MP-GT1... does this thing cancel all the other instruments to isolate just the guitar? A friend of mine had the drum CD player version a couple of years ago and I remember that one would block out all the other elements of the song just concentrate on the drum part. Does this do that for guitar?

[DaveS]

I gave up on my Tascam after I found my new $50 software that is everything that I have ever wanted in a music slow downer called mTrax by www.TerraSofta.com. Hassle free practice now and so much progress made so fast.
DaveS