Fostex Reel to Reels

[Blue Jinn]

That interesting. The guy I bought it from had a dozen or so reels of !456, which he had striped with time code and put back in the box. And then switched to digital at some point.

[warartistrecord]

@jpmorris, the 1-4/5-8 inputs don't effect the ability to use the machine for multitrack recording, do they. I was considering grabbing this as an introductory multitrack analog device.

[jpmorris]

That interesting. The guy I bought it from had a dozen or so reels of !456, which he had striped with time code and put back in the box. And then switched to digital at some point.

Oh, there is also the issue that you can't switch off the Dolby on track 8. Some timecode readers don't like that.

@jpmorris, the 1-4/5-8 inputs don't effect the ability to use the machine for multitrack recording, do they. I was considering grabbing this as an introductory multitrack analog device.

It'll work nicely for a solo artist or a small band. What it won't work for is live recording where you want to record all 8 tracks in one shot.

If you're doing what I do and build the song up one layer at a time, it will work well enough. If you do want to record a small band, you could record 4 tracks together and then add overdubs on any of tracks 5-8. You're not forced to record all 4 at once, I might add, you can pick and choose which tracks to record, you just have to be a little careful about which ones.

You could do them in order, or in pairs if you're using stereo,
e.g. guide track on 1, then bass on 2, then a stereo pair of drums on both 3 and 4. You could then add keys on 5, vocals on 6 and so on.

What you can't do is record tracks 1-5 because there are only 4 inputs. You also can't record a stereo pair across 4 and 5 (or 3 and 7 or something) because of the way the inputs are split and switched.

[warartistrecord]

You could do them in order, or in pairs if you're using stereo,
e.g. guide track on 1, then bass on 2, then a stereo pair of drums on both 3 and 4. You could then add keys on 5, vocals on 6 and so on.

So unless the tracks are recorded in pairs, will the final product be in mono?

[jpmorris]

So unless the tracks are recorded in pairs, will the final product be in mono?

Not exactly. Each individual track is mono. If you need to record a stereo signal, you have to use two tracks, for left and right.

When you play the tape back, you get 8 outputs which you then feed into a mixer. The mixer outputs a stereo signal, and the panning knobs for each channel determine where the tracks sit in the stereo image.

e.g. if you had the mixer set with all 8 channels centre, you would get a mono output.
e.g. on one of my songs I had:

1. Clavinet
2. Bass
3/4 Keys (organ, horns, mellotron samples) - stereo
5/6 Drums - stereo
7. Electric piano
8. Timecode track

I didn't write the pannings down on the sheet, but if I were mixing it now, I'd set it so that:
1. Pan slightly left
2. Centre pan (bass should be centred, especially if you're thinking of pressing on vinyl)
3. Left
4. Right
5. Left
6. Right
7. Panned slightly right to balance track 1
8. mute (it's digital data to drive the sequencer, you don't want to hear it)

Does that help make things clearer?

[Blue Jinn]

@jpmorris

Which Mellotron sample did you use? There is one available from Mellotron.com. They also have a digital mellotron available now. (Which is weird)

I have the distinct pleasure of owning an actual Mellotron M400S. I'm assuming you have the equally distinct pleasure of owning a Clavinet?

@warartistrecord do you intend to track to tape and dump to a PC and mix in the box? Otherwise you will also need an outboard mixer. There are many many available at good prices. I can't comment on it quality wise, but the Fostex 450 was marketed for use with their 8 tracks. There are a lot of threads here. A lot of frequent posters here tend to be Tascam users, and there are a wide variety of good boards.

[jpmorris]

@jpmorris
Which Mellotron sample did you use? There is one available from Mellotron.com. They also have a digital mellotron available now. (Which is weird)

It's the Mike Pinder set. I took an old PC, wrote some software to play them back in DOS which was fun, accesses the soundcard directly. Figuring out the MIDI protocol was an interesting exercise as well. The advantage (over doing it with off-the-shelf software) is that the machine needs no monitor or maintenance and can be switched on and off at will like an appliance. Doing that with Windows would kill it fairly quickly. If I were to do it again I'd probably use a Raspberry Pi or something, but I liked the challenge of writing the playback engine myself.

Sadly I don't have any classic instruments. At the time that song was made (2005-2006) I would have been using a JV1010. Now I tend to use a Korg Triton instead.
The other thing is that I got into music in a strange manner - originally it was to write incidental music for a game I was working on, so it was all programmed with sequencers, which is why the timecode on track 8 is such a big deal. It was only when people said the music was good that I started doing it for its own sake and the studio sprang up out of that.
Sadly I still can't play keyboards to an acceptable degree, though I'm getting there with the electric bass. And yeah, that means that if it doesn't have a MIDI input, I can't really use it, much as I'd like to have authentic instruments. (That and the cost)

[warartistrecord]

@jpmorris That definitely makes more sense. Thanks for being so helpful man!

[kip4]

Have you considered getting a two track machine with higher IPS tape speed and dumping to PC.(DAW)
Just a suggestion cause this is what i do. That way you have the best of both worlds.
I only mention this as well because since your in north America you have way more choice of machines than us brits and theres so many more good techs over in the US too.
You will get great value for money compared to our choices.
Also i dont know if anyone mentioned it but if your buying second hand be prepared to do some regular maintance too. Not trying to put you off just adding some more options and opinions.
Hope this helps.
And Also they still make new tape in the US.
I hope you find the right machine for you. Its a truly wonderful thing the R2R
Rich

[Blue Jinn]

THREAD HIJACK ALERT! :-)

@jpmorris: I think that's the one -- CD List ?

I actually talked to Dave Kean a long time ago when he was negotiating to buy the Mellotron assets out of the Mellotron Digital bankruptcy. He was in the USA then, a really approachable guy. I have a new set of tapes still on the reel (probably printed thru by now) that I purchased from Mellotron Digital a few years before it fell apart. Venturing well off topic at this point, but the Mellotron uses 3/8" tape, which obviously requires special slitting. It's an interesting story. rework and the restoration process using DAT in between to make new masters.

I like the idea of using DOS for a dedicated task! Less overhead for sure. I'm not a programmer, (except for some simple dBase and Clipper) but I could also see it being way more efficient to right something like that in C or assembler and the result fast and compact.

"Authentic" comes with its own price, although I acquired a lot of the "authentic" pieces when the DX7, Emu, etc were all the rage and an old ARP was an old ARP. The Quadra I have has been the musical equivalent of the MG... But, it's was actually kind of fun to figure out the RAM chip it uses and locating a guy in England who had the firmware.