4 Track Tape Machines

admin · Post by **admin** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 6:54 am

Tony: For those of us on a tight budget, can you still do meaningful work with a four track tape machine?

tony_carey · Post by **tony_carey** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 7:25 am

In a word Peter...yes! Most people are aware of what the Beatles achieved on four track.

Time has moved on though & your modern 4 track is obviously not capable of release quality, but with care, you could certainly get a great demo out of them. Great attention would have to be given to mic'ing & bouncing, but some of these 4 track machines are capable of superb quality. The secret is to keep it simple. Don't try & multitrack a 30 part epic, but keep it simple & the results may surprise you.

A friend of mine has a digital machine which he demos songs on, but keeps any solos on a seperate track. The quality is very good indeed & if he performs the 'killer' solo, it is good enough quality to transfer over to a more pro set up, even if you redo everything else.

These machines really excell in helping with songwriting & simple arranging & can prove invaluable in this capacity.

atomic_punk · Post by **atomic_punk** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 7:29 am

I recently recorded a CD for a band using an 8-track Fostex reel-to-reel machine and was amazed at the old-school warmth of it. It wasn't hard, we did have to limit the number of overdubs and such, but with stereo drums and 3 guitars, bass and vocal and backing vocal track, it worked quite well. 4 tracks would have been a REAL challenge!

tony_carey · Post by **tony_carey** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 8:19 am

3 gtrs would be hard on a 4 track Steve. Two gtrs however....assuming you would have a mixer of some sort....drums & bass on a mono track, gtr on each & vocal on the last. I wouldn't put any harmony vox through it (unless you are particularly outstanding in this department)...they are often somewhat unsuccessful on a 'live' track. If you have a couple of compressors, this could sound pretty good.

trancedental · Post by **trancedental** » Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:25 pm

Beatles used to mixdown 4 tracks to another machines & then start overdubbing again, hard if you can't borrow another machine although you could do it to DAT stereo or similar?

I thought the Beatles used 1" or 2" 4 track which is a bit better than a 1/4" Fostex LOL?

I have a Fostex E16 & fill up the tracks & then sync to Pro Tools LE for extra tracks for mixdown/edits etc;

Of course with decent mics/pres ect & a good engineer you could make a great recording & you've always got the option to finish it off at a studio with better facilities.

beatcomber · Post by **beatcomber** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 5:18 am

I get pretty good results on my vintage Teac 40-4 1/4" 4-track running at 15 ips. I fill up the four tracks with drums, two guitars, and bass (each on their own track, with the drums sub-mixed to mono). Then I mix that to mono onto DAT, and then dump it back to one track on the Teac.

I often record parts "live" while I'm transferring the DAT to the 4T, ie: adding a live tambourine or acoustic guitar to the same track. This is a good way to conserve tracks.

With all the backing tracks on one track, I am left with three open tracks for vocals and any other embellishments.

Most of the time, I mix the final recording to mono.

kcole4001 · Post by **kcole4001** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 7:00 am

I use my Fostex X-26 as a mixer & record direct to the computer using Cubase. It works quite well, though I really haven't had enough time to fully get into it yet. Still just messing around

BobKat · Post by **BobKat** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 1:15 pm

Well, of course, you have to remember that the Beatles were using REAL tape- bouncing on a 4-track cassette machine will cause you to give up a lot in sound quality.

I have owned a TASCAM Porta One since 1989 and have had a LOT of fun with it. I recorded some fairly good sounding demos and basically just enjoyed the hell out of recording with it. You can really learn a lot and if you are doing 6-7 tracks total, turn out a really representative demo.

I am digital now. I use Adobe Audition and a Dell laptop with a Core Duo, 1GB of RAM, and a M-Audio Fast Track Pro USB interface. I really can't see any point in ever going back to cassette. But I can not part with that machine.

I decided that my son should learn the ins and outs of recording on an analog cassette studio, and even then I could not bear to give him mine. I bought him an identical model used and went through it replacing belts and such, and then gave it to him. He loves it.

admin · Post by **admin** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 1:36 pm

And you will too Bob should you come down with a virus!

Scastles · Post by **Scastles** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 1:49 pm

Those Tascams' are durable little machines, and for a cassette recorder, they're not too shabby. A good, inexpensive investment.

admin · Post by **admin** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 2:04 pm

Agreed Stan. Bob is right, they are a great way to learn.

soundmasterg · Post by **soundmasterg** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 3:14 pm

Peter, any person who is recording to computer who is worth their salt will have a seperate hard drive for audio, and a seperate drive for the audio programs, and a seperate drive for internet/normal windows use. Its pretty easy to do with removeable drive trays and isn't too expensive nowadays.

For tape, there are lots of good quality 1/2" 4 tracks (5050 mk.3 is good) on ebay. Otari is a good brand and parts are still mostly available for the later ones. They are very heavy and expensive to ship however, so unless you can find one within driving distance I'd say to pass. If you're talking a 4 track cassette...they're loads of fun and cheap nowadays. I still have a Fostex cassette 4 track that I bought new about 10 years ago. I would think a little digital 4 track would be money better spent though unless you can get a cassette one very cheap. The cassette 4 tracks are good enough for a demo and not anything better.

I got a late 70's MCI JH-16 2 inch 24 track off ebay a couple months ago. I'll have to do some work on it, but when I get it up and running correctly, it will be very nice indeed. I've read online that John Lennon used one of these machines for much of his solo things, so that is high praise right there! Of course something like this wasn't cheap and definitly isn't portable.

jps · Post by **jps** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 5:35 pm

I have a nice Tascam rackmount 4 track cassette recorder. It sounds quite good given that it has dbx NR and runs at 3 3/4 IPS.

BobKat · Post by **BobKat** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 7:08 pm

I must say that I do not use a separate drive. As I am a sysadmin I am pretty good at keeping the malware and virii at bay, and the system has never felt taxed when recording, with the SATA hard drive, Core Duo, and GB of RAM. I do disable my Antivirus software and my Internet connection while recording. It's all on my laptop, the only machine I own these days.

soundmasterg · Post by **soundmasterg** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 8:57 am

With the computer speeds going up and up these days for not too much money, you can get good performance from using the same drive as what you run the OS on, but for not much more cost, you can get a seperate drive and make it portable if you're going to other studios, and you keep it seperate from the OS in case of any OS or virus/spyware issues. It makes sense for me to do this, but with the performace capabilities of systems nowadays, you can certainly run it on the same drive if you like. It will perform almost as well.