Know of any good 4-track(cassette) albums out there?

darrin_h2000 said:
Nope...The Beatles did not record on a cassette based multitrack...they used a wollensak reel to reel machine...and I doubt if cassettes even existed at that point.
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what? the way i'm reading the OP is:

earwhig said:
Has anyone heard any good or fairly decent albums recorded entirely on 4-track OR portastudio-(cassette) OR boombox OR hand held recorder OR answering machine-ect.?
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i realize they didn't record on an answering machine, hand held recorder, boombox, cassette, or portastudio, but it was definitely 4 tracks after they bounced the tracks down.
 
ez_willis said:
this album was ok, i guess. :p

here's the individual tracks:

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This is kind of interesting, especially the runout that on the Lp segues into "Billy Shears......". But as far as I'm concerned, 4-track was too limiting. And even 'Pepper', often hailed as the 4-track meisterwork was more than that. In fact, the very presence of 'reduction mixes'{as they referred to bouncing in the 60s} spelled the death knell for 4 track recording. Bouncing was the English studios way of saying "We want more tracks !!". But you guys in the US had 8 track in the 50s !
 
ez_willis said:
lol. are you sure the beatles didn't track on a portastudio? really really sure?
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Yes Im sure...I had one of those Wollensak machines in the mid 90s...weighed a ton.

And the OP was portastudio specific because there were a buttload of albums made using the reel based machines durring that period before they started doubling the heads and turning them into 8 track reels....which can pretty much encompass the entire late 60s.
 
earwhig said:
Has anyone heard any good or fairly decent albums recorded entirely on 4-track-portastudio-(cassette)-boombox-hand held recorder-answering machine-ect.?
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And this is the OP not the one you re-edited to make you look right.

Im not entirely sure of the Crue record I mentioned...but they were in the ad for the Fostex x-15 and the claim was that it was tracked on it.
 
man, there are so many. i guess it depends what you mean by a good album. do you mean famous? i can think of a lot that are famous or at least cult classics.

Bruce Springsteen
Guided by Voices
Neutral Milk Hotel
Pedro the Lion
Beck
Elliot Smith
Ween
Tobin Sprout
Portastatic
Sufjan Stevens
Sebadoh -- the freed weed
Daniel Johnston
Iron and Wine
The Grifters
Magnetic Fields
The Microphones
Pavement -- westing
Folk Implosion
Hardcore Devo volume 1 and 2 are their 4 track demos. A lot of those are better than the studio versions.
Dinosaur Jr -- Dinosaur (Demos, moved to 8 track for the final).

There are a lot more, and if you move up to 8 track tape there are some legendary albums...probably the only reason they weren't done on 4-track is the artists got discovered and moved up. That limits the # of albums done on 4 tracks more than the medium.
 
Olivia Tremor Control-Dusk At Cubist Castle- I still can't believe they did this on 4-track cassette. The bass sound from "Jumping Fences" is so good. I think this is the pinnacle of what someone can do on a Tascam 424MKII.

Modest Mouse_ Sad Sappy Sucker (old demos recorded on 4-track, boombox, and answering machine. The Trifecta!)
Hayden-Everything I Long For (my girlfriend in high school lent me this)

Boards OF Canada

Early Sebadoh stuff was a mixture of 4-track and studio sessions (III) but the one you mention (Freed Weed) is one of my all time favorite records. I have the re-issue (under the name Sentridoh) where Lou mixed it from the original cassettes and it's so awesome.

Ween did Pod, Pure Guava and some of that GodWeenSatan on 4-track

Pavement recorded that Westing record in their old drummer Gary's studio I thought. I can't remember. I just wanted to comment cuz some of my fav albums are on this list and I never get to talk about em.
 
I really cannot get the point of a discussion about the possibility of produce a good album out of a cassette recorder. Are we talking about "good" sound or "good" music?

If we are talking about SOUND quality, well... I think that no one in a reasonable state of mind will use such limited equipment to produce an album when there is too much better and easy to use tools. Unless of course that the guy just wants to be worshiped by some audio nerds that will consider him a genius able to extract gold from crap. But the audience itself won't take it in consideration and will just like or dislike the album. Period.

I don't think that the albums that were recorded with cassette recorders were done this way because they wanted it, but because that's what they had available at the moment.

Now if we are talking about the MUSIC quality it doesn't matter how you recorded it. There are plenty of great vintage albums with an horrid sound quality.
 
Spotify says manu chao's clandestino was done with a portable 4 track. While he bummed around central/south america.
 
Yes. A lot of early recordings were done on 4 or less tracks. Even early Soundgarden stuff, and of course the Beatles. Having more tracks is nice, but it's amazing what can be done within limitations.
 
MrUserNameIV said:
Yes. A lot of early recordings were done on 4 or less tracks. Even early Soundgarden stuff, and of course the Beatles. Having more tracks is nice, but it's amazing what can be done within limitations.
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Those were 2" 4-track machines synced together, not 1/4 inch tape.
Though, many great records have been done on 1/4 inch tape, too.
 
Nola said:
Those were 2" 4-track machines synced together, not 1/4 inch tape.
Though, many great records have been done on 1/4 inch tape, too.
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You sure about that....I've never heard of 2" 4-track machines....or did you mean to say 24-track machines...?
 
miroslav said:
You sure about that....I've never heard of 2" 4-track machines....or did you mean to say 24-track machines...?
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Sorry, I meant 1".
I believe they used 1" tape synced to get 8 tracks. I'm trying to remember this from articles i read years ago so maybe slightly off. But when people hear "4-track" they think they used like a 1/4" tape and that's not right.
 
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