Matt Johnson, a popular YouTuber and online videography/film making instructor, employs a TASCAM Portacapture X8 multi-track handheld recorder as a key audio component in his creative toolkit.
Johnson’s subject matter spans a wide range of topics encompassing everything from product reviews to audio/video synchronization to addressing noise and much more. “The TASCAM Portacapture X8 is a remarkably capable tool for capturing high quality audio,” he states. “I’ve been working with it for about ten months, and in that time, it has become essential to the way I work. I love the fact that this compact, easy to transport recorder can record upward to eight tracks. While most of my projects involve two tracks or stereo, the fact that it can accommodate eight tracks provides a lot of creative opportunity.
“I’m a big fan of the touchscreen and how it presents all the info from the recorder,” he continues. “It’s very intuitive and it makes getting around the unit’s many features quick and easy. The Portacapture X8’s Launcher system is terrific. In addition to offering preset configurations for podcasting, field recording, capturing voice and music plus other options, the system lets you create your own presets—quickly and easily. This makes it easy to get started and achieve professional quality results while also providing the flexibility to fine tune settings to one’s own preference. And that’s one of the key benefits of the Portacapture X8. You can go full manual, which is how I prefer to work, but you also have the option of using the presets.”
Johnson also points to the unit’s support for up to 192 kHz/ 32-bit float point recording: “The 32-bit float point audio is fantastic, especially whenever I am recording and don’t have full control over the ambient audio. This makes it much easier to obtain clear, high-quality signal that can easily be refined with a computer. For this, I use the audio effects in Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve’s audio editor known as Fairlight.
“The TASCAM Portacapture X8 is such an incredibly powerful and full featured recorder. I know that having it in my bag means I will be prepared for virtually any audio recording situation I come across—regardless of what I’m filming. This Swiss Army knife of a recorder has everything I need to capture and deliver high quality audio. It’s also remarkably easy to use—so much so, that I have never once needed to contact TASCAM for assistance. I love this recorder and I hope TASCAM will offer more 32-bit float recorders in the future.”
