Animatronics and Tascam 44s

T

The Great Cobb

New member
I bought a Tascam 44 months ago and found out that it was once owned by the animatronics studio that created the ShowBiz Pizza animatronic characters. And once in awhile i go on ebay to see if any other 44s pop up, but they rarely seem to. But today i found a guy selling one and it looks like it too was used by Creative Engineering for animatronics in Florida just like mine.

Heres the listing:

http://cgi.ebay.com/TEAC-TASCAM-44-...tem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item563e1431bd

His looks a lot nicer. Mine runs really well in the transport section but there is a TON of noise on all tracks except number 2, and a 0 db tone is seen as plus or minus a few db randomly across all tracks. Same for playback. I kinda like the 44 for its looks. It reminds me of the look of the 80-8, but all cream colored and with bigger VUs (and only 4 tracks of course).

They should revive animatronics and make it look and sound exactly like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxR4kHde6gk

Id hang out at a place where bands got onstage and sang/played tunes of that caliber. No fluff. No ego. Every note, chord change, lyric, and rhyme coming around like clockwork again and again. Slightly off topic but, when i watch vids like that, its really depressing how much of a lost art good songwriting is. The problem with trying to start a good band these days is, hardly anyone is any good out there. I mean, you got yer shredders and yer dudes who can play super technical stuff, but its like nobody gets technical about composition these days. Well, almost nobody. And, hardly anyone digs real tunes anymore. Thats just how life goes i guess, but people move on to new things even though the older things literally took feats of human being accomplishment to create. I hear modern pop songs at my work, and there is maybe a tenth as many hooks, if any at all. All the songs are massive tributes to the inflated ego, and yet are the equivalent of a fingerpaint made by a monkey compared to the songwriters from the 60s and 70s. People have big egos these days despite not much talent. So maybe lets build an animatronic 70s pop band to fill the missing gap. Build some robots to play the hits of the 70s. Robots never age and theyll play only the hits.
 
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It comes with a road case! How awesome! I think you might like some of my music. I will show you once its done!
I agree with you though...where is all the good music?
 
Very tempting, for some reason. I could drive up the road and pick it up. The case with wheels is a nice addition too.
 
The Great Cobb said:
I kinda like the 44 for its looks. It reminds me of the look of the 80-8, but all cream colored and with bigger VUs (and only 4 tracks of course).

Slightly off topic but...its really depressing how much of a lost art good songwriting is. The problem with trying to start a good band these days is, hardly anyone is any good out there. I mean, you got yer shredders and yer dudes who can play super technical stuff, but its like nobody gets technical about composition these days. Well, almost nobody. And, hardly anyone digs real tunes anymore. Thats just how life goes i guess, but people move on to new things even though the older things literally took feats of human being accomplishment to create. I hear modern pop songs at my work, and there is maybe a tenth as many hooks, if any at all. All the songs are massive tributes to the inflated ego, and yet are the equivalent of a fingerpaint made by a monkey compared to the songwriters from the 60s and 70s. People have big egos these days despite not much talent. So maybe lets build an animatronic 70s pop band to fill the missing gap. Build some robots to play the hits of the 70s. Robots never age and theyll play only the hits.
Click to expand...

What you say about the early 44 is the same reason I like the 40-4.

As far as music today goes, and though some of these go back a FEW years, check out anything from Jeff Buckley, Shudder To Think, Jason Mraz, Jack Johnson...maybe I'm not reading your somment right but there is some really great writing in that material and some stunning performances.
 
yes

As a big fan of all music, i have found an uncountable amount of decent modern musicians. But

but


BUT...

There is just something about that good old classic style writing that relies heavily on sky-high harmonies and hooks.

Right now alot of popular music is drunk with its own power being able to create something pretty much "unhuman". Its a sound and a style. I dont discredit that sound or method. But a ton of modern acts are getting by just riding the coat tails of that trend, without much actual good writing going on behind the music. Its funny to me that without technologys help, people sang better and wrote better songs. But dont take that as i am against technology and i wont listen to anything that isnt a jugband. I like alot of stuff, even fakey stuff. But there is just something about the good old days style writing and singing. I even like the older style production better. Id kill to get my snare to sound like that.
 
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