Any other way to transfer tracks from 4 track to daw on laptop besides having to buy an interface with 4 line inputs?

[tapejake345]

I have a tascam 424 4 track and I want to transfer tracks to my laptop on logic and i know the way to do that is by connecting the rca into the back of the tascam for all 4 tracks to another rca on the back of an interface which is the line inputs. the cheapest interface i found thats has 4 line inserts is about 130. Im just curious if theres any other way to go about this. Say if in the future i buy an 8 track would i then have to buy an interface with 8 line inserts , forth on and forth on. Whats the difference between an audio interface with line inserts vs a mixing board with line inserts. Just curious about all of this and want to gain some knowledge in this . thank you.

 

[TalismanRich]

It depends on what you are talking about here. You have "mixers" like the Behringer 1202FX which has 4 inputs but no digital output. The 1204USB has digital output but it is only 2 channel, so you could use that to transfer the 4 tracks at once but you would end up with a stereo recording because it only has two channels. Essentially you are doing a final mix from your cassette. This would be no different from just running the stereo line outs of the 424 into a 2 channel audio interface, except that most interfaces will do better bit rates and depth, and have better noise specs. If a 4 channel interface is $130 and a mixer like the 1204USB is $180, it's because the mixer has lots of extra stuff like EQ knobs and pots, a compressor, faders, etc. You won't get all that extra stuff for free! You give up things like very low noise, better DA converters and multiple output channels.

If you want to preserve the original tracks, you transfer all 4 at one time or you transfer 2x2 and try to adjust for track drift due to speed inaccuracy. If your songs are only a few minutes long and you don't have any common audio, you might be able to get away with stretching the tracks digitally if you can set some type of marker (like recording a click before and after). If you have any common audio between tracks, you can expect phasing issues.

The issue is that ultimately, if you want to move the individual tracks, then you need to have the same number of digital inputs as you have tracks. I didn't want to have the restrictions, so my first interface was a Tascam16x08 with 8 preamps and 8 line inputs, and will feed the computer with 16 digital tracks. Problem solved.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

I don't think you mean inserts, but inputs. An insert allows you to patch in a processor, like an analog compressor, between a mic input and whatever comes after that (like the analog to digital converter).

Pretty much the only sensible way to digitize analog multitrack is to do all the tracks at once through an interface with the proper number of inputs. I picked up a used Scarlett 6i6 specifically for that purpose.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

A mixing board combines inputs and routes them to outputs. In some cases a mixer will have a USB interface built in, but you would have to verify whether that interface could send all its inputs separately to the computer or if it only sends a stereo mix.

 

[famous beagle]

Like Talisman said, you can bring them over two tracks at a time, panned hard right and left so they each end up on their own track in the DAW.

Then it's a rather simple measure to time stretch one of the pair of tracks to line up with the others. With four clicks before and after the song, like he said, it's not a big deal at all.

I've done it several times.

It's certainly easier to transfer them if you have an interface with enough inputs to do it all at once, but it's quite easy and fast to do them in pairs and time stretch them as well. It'll just take about 10 extra minutes (depending on how long the song is).