Tascam 424 mkII problems

[Boba Fett]

I'm sure this will be no problem for experienced users. I just got a 424 mkII and when I use it, I can record tracks 3 and 4 so that I can hear them on the headphones, but when I put the tape into a separate tape player, only tracks 1 and 2 show up. I've tried panning all over the place and other stuff, so I am assuming that I am missing something highly obvious or that I have a faulty piece of machinery. This is making me very unhappy, in an I'm-going-to-throw-my- new-toy-out-the-window kind of way.
Any help would be appreciated and you would immediately be my best friend for the week.

[Hard2Hear]

My Star Wars friend...

Your 4 track recorder uses all 4 tracks of your cassette going in 1 direction (left and right of both directions). Your tape deck is playing back only the left and right tracks of one direction. The tapes you make on your tascam are not compatible with a casette recorder.

PS - when I got my 424 about 6 years ago, I was frustrated by the exact same thing. Oh well, we learn as we go.

Hope this helps!

[Boba Fett]

So any suggestions for a mixdown deck? I don't seem to be having any success hooking up my regualr old cassette player....

PS- Thanks Hard2Hear.

[virtual.ray]

One possibility would be a 2 track Minidisc recorder like they sell in the Best/Circuit type stores.For not a lot of bread you get a good sounding representation of your tracks and the discs are pretty cheap these days.I have a Sony JE-510 and I like it 'cause it's fast and easy.Another trick would be to record/mix your 4 tracks to the Minidisc and then record that back onto your 4 track to get another 2 tracks.I wouldn't do this more than once,though.Cheers

[Hard2Hear]

I always ran the L&R line outs to my casette deck. If the deck has rca inputs it should work fine. Sometimes I found that it sounded better when I ran from the monitor outs...but you're probably not supposed to do this.
If you're talking about creating more tracks, if you leave 1 track open you can bounce the other tracks to hat one and then record more on the now open tracks. It describes this in detail in your manual you should have gotten.