I'm a complete "newbie" when it comes to home recording of any kind so you'll have to bear with me here, but I'm hoping someone could answer a question for me. I'm not really a musician but I like recording enough that I decided I wanted a 4-track cassette recorder. I went with the Korg CR-4 and it arrived in the mail yesterday. I've been pretty happy with it so far, it suits my needs well. The only problem I'm experiencing is when I get to what the instruction manual referred to as the "final mixdown". When I listen to my recorded tracks on the CR-4 (it has built in speakers) there's a little hissing noise but not too bad. When I record from the CR-4 onto my stereo (the final mix of all the tracks combined) I get a much larger amount of hissing noise. I realize that hiss is common with cassette tape recording but I think I'm getting more than the "normal" amount...
I tried turning all the volume switches (the master and all 4 tracks) up and down (while recording to the stereo) and it seems to sound the best when they're all turned most of the way up, but there's still an overwhelming hissing noise. Am I recording the tracks too quietly? Or maybe too loudly? Is the "TRIM" switched up too high or too low? The instruction manual says not to play it loudly enough so that the light flashes above the "TRIM" switch, and I recorded one song with it flashing and the other without it flashing and I had an equal amount of hiss with each song. There is a noise reduction feature on the CR-4 but the manual claims that it "cuts out the unwanted noise in quiet passages" so I haven't been using it. The hiss is constant, not just in the quiet parts. Should I be using the noise reduction anyway? Also, I read that the shorter the cassette tapes the better but I purchased 90 min. Fuji high bias tapes before realizing this. Can the length of the tape make more or less hiss?
Anyway, clearly I have no idea what I'm doing here. If anyone has any suggestions on what to do or any ideas on what might decrease the hissing I'd really appreciate the help. Thanks!
I tried turning all the volume switches (the master and all 4 tracks) up and down (while recording to the stereo) and it seems to sound the best when they're all turned most of the way up, but there's still an overwhelming hissing noise. Am I recording the tracks too quietly? Or maybe too loudly? Is the "TRIM" switched up too high or too low? The instruction manual says not to play it loudly enough so that the light flashes above the "TRIM" switch, and I recorded one song with it flashing and the other without it flashing and I had an equal amount of hiss with each song. There is a noise reduction feature on the CR-4 but the manual claims that it "cuts out the unwanted noise in quiet passages" so I haven't been using it. The hiss is constant, not just in the quiet parts. Should I be using the noise reduction anyway? Also, I read that the shorter the cassette tapes the better but I purchased 90 min. Fuji high bias tapes before realizing this. Can the length of the tape make more or less hiss?
Anyway, clearly I have no idea what I'm doing here. If anyone has any suggestions on what to do or any ideas on what might decrease the hissing I'd really appreciate the help. Thanks!
