Going to build a cassette mini-studio

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Notes

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Hey, I'm an unprofessional plug and play musician who has to start over with nothing. So, I decided that I'm going to get a cassette multi-track recording machine and set it up in an extra room in my house and that's the way I will do my recording. I owned a Korg CR-4 machine back when they were new in 2004. Man, I had a lot of fun with that thing. Unfortunately, browsing ebay google and amazon it seems like a rare treat if it is ever available at all. Actually, that was a cool machine for it's ease of use and quality of sound, not to mention the effects board, it was like owning several pedals in one.

Now, I'm going to find a new cassette recording device and that old familiar friend is gone so I got to decide on something else. I already told myself "no Tascam!" because well, that machine has no appeal to me. I found many Yamaha MT100, MT50, MT120 machines for sale. What I'm really interested in is a good 8-track cassette machine this time. 4-track was fun but it was limited. I don't really need 32-tracks and I'm not interested in digital right now, so if you got a good suggestion I would love to hear it.

Thanks recording people.
 
No Tascam eh.... That's what I was going to suggest.
Do a search on Casa Cassette. Not sure if you've heard of it. It's a guy in Norway who runs a cassette only studio. I think he records to 8 track cassette too.
 
I'd never heard of that Korg machine before ... pretty crazy. It's cool that it had the onboard effects and all, but it's so strange that they left out so many other features on it, particularly with regards to the mixdown stage. You have no EQ, no effects sends, and you can't even use the onboard effects during mixdown (which means you have to "print" them as you record them to each track I suppose). There's also no vari-speed function, which is just bizarre for a cassette recorder. Anyway .. very odd machine.

Yamaha had the MT8X for 8 track cassette machines. Here's one on ebay now:
Yamaha MT8X | eBay

Fostex had the 460, but they're pretty rare. I don't see any for sale right now.

Other than that, I don't know of too many others if you want to avoid Tascam (which has several of course).
 
famous beagle said:
I'd never heard of that Korg machine before ... pretty crazy. It's cool that it had the onboard effects and all, but it's so strange that they left out so many other features on it, particularly with regards to the mixdown stage. You have no EQ, no effects sends, and you can't even use the onboard effects during mixdown (which means you have to "print" them as you record them to each track I suppose). There's also no vari-speed function, which is just bizarre for a cassette recorder. Anyway .. very odd machine.

Yamaha had the MT8X for 8 track cassette machines. Here's one on ebay now:
Yamaha MT8X | eBay

Fostex had the 460, but they're pretty rare. I don't see any for sale right now.

Other than that, I don't know of too many others if you want to avoid Tascam (which has several of course).
Click to expand...

Yeah, the Korg CR-4 was a plug and play simple machine. It wasn't much different than a simple speaker cassette recorder in function, with a volume/pan mix board for the four tracks. If I got a mix that I liked I would plug the Korg into my Sony stereo system and record the mix to another cassette so I could listen to it in my car stereo. Actually, I prefer how that machine functioned to the standard setups you described. I don't tinker much.

Yeah, the other Yamaha cassette machines look much like the MTX8 you linked to here.

Here's a sale for a Fostex machine Fostex Model 460 8 Channel Professional Studio Mixing Console Fostex 460 Mixer | eBay on Ebay.
 
No Tascam eh? Alright...

Like mentioned above, if you want an 8-track cassette multitracker then you really narrow down yr choices if you are against Tascam. The Yamaha MT8X is the only choice that I've used (I own one currently) and can vouch for. Honestly though man, it's really, extremely, super tough to find a well taken care of machine on eBay and when you take into account that it needs to shipped through the usps, or ups, then yr walking the line when it comes to spending $400 dollars on one.

Those cassette 8-tracks, unless used by someone who cleaned the transport regularly, and used the right tape, are prone to have lousy signal on the outer tracks, tons of cross-talk, and drop outs galore. Make sure it's in good condition and if you buy one from eBay, then make sure it's got a return policy so you can test it out.

If yr serious about doing the whole cassette 8-track thing then drop the bias against Tascam. Whatever bad experience you had, or whatever it is that made you say that weird statement above was most likely a bad brake and at this point they're really yr only choice for what yr looking for.
 
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