Tascam 488 Question

[pulse]

I had a question I was hoping someone could help me with.
I borrowed my friends Tascam 488 (which doesn't have a manual) and haven't tried it out yet, but I'm doing some research before I start using it. This site has been soooo helpful!!
Anyways, there's 5 members in my band and since it was an 8 track, I assumed that we could record all 8 tracks at a time. I was disappointed to find out that we can only record 4 tracks at a time. Is this true? I'm new to recording, so I may sound ignorant when I ask this, but what is the purpose of having 8 inputs when you can only record 4 tracks at a time? Is it because you can record 4 tracks, then record 4 more tracks? Any info will be greatly appreciated.
Thx in advance,
Pulse

[The Ghost of FM]

The 488 is a 4 buss recording system so yes, you will only be able to record up to 4 tracks at any one time.

For your band's recording, you may want to consider recording the drums in stereo on two tracks, the bass and rhythm instrument and then over dub the remaining parts.

If it is a live situation we are talking about and needing to record the entire band in one pass, you will have to do a 4 track rendition of it to tape so, you might consider recording drums, bass and rhythm parts to two tracks as a separate stereo recording and use the two remaining tracks for a vocal on one and a lead instrument on the other to have some form of multitrack to play with afterward. Then, back at the studio,(your house), you will still have 4 more tracks to add additional parts to the live recordings.

As a sidebar;

Famous musicians like Frank Zappa used to do this with his recording quite often, taking a live recording from a show and adding more stuff, in studio, afterwords!

The 488 was designed for the home recording enthusiast who might be working alone or with another person at the most.

TASCAM did offer other 8 track units in the past that would accommodate 8 tacks being recorded simultaneously like the 238 and 688 and of course all their reel to reel decks that were 8 tracks or more.

Cheers!

[pulse]

Thanks for the info!

[Be Loveless]

Like the ghost said. You have all those inputs so that you can still use multiple mics on a single instrument. I would keep it simple for now though. But then I'm a pussy.

[Songwriter333]

Another note, if it helps: When I was recording 'the band' with the 488, we had occasion to put many mics on the drums, and since there is a maximum 4 track simutaneous input, I would run all mics through a separate mixer board, and then output from mixer to tracks one and two. This allowed some 'dial-in' of each individual mic channel and with the sound checks up front, I was rarely in need of the separate individual tracks for drums that are using more than two mics. Good luck.