Fostex Reel to Reels

warartistrecord

warartistrecord

New member
I've been recording for a few years in the digital realm and have recently been very interested in getting into analog recording. On ebay I've seen a bunch of Fostex 8 tracks going for pretty cheap. I'm wondering if they are a good quality tape machine for someone starting in analog?
 
Hello warartistrecord,

I can't speak for the eight track units. But Fostex as a whole I've found to be a very robust mfg. I have previously owned a G16S (the S for S Dolby). An E-(22) the 1/2 tape version of the more common E-2, A 820 mixing board, A 16 channel board, A 2016 line mixer. Synchronizers and controllers. I still have a pair of the 6301B personal monitors.

All I have found to be great stuff. Is there better..yes. Is there worse..absolutely!

I have no reason to believe any of their other products are different. they are affordable and still plentiful. Parts are avail. on ebay too!

but, keep in mind. With a Multi-track tape machine you will need an (interface) otherwise known as a mixer. You wont be able to just plug in your headphones to monitor. And you will need tape, head cleaner, De-magnatizer for the heads, Cable/snake, at least two x8. One going in, and another coming from.

It is a lot of fun tho!:thumbs up:


Ron
 
ron-e-g said:
Hello warartistrecord,

I can't speak for the eight track units. But Fostex as a whole I've found to be a very robust mfg. I have previously owned a G16S (the S for S Dolby). An E-(22) the 1/2 tape version of the more common E-2, A 820 mixing board, A 16 channel board, A 2016 line mixer. Synchronizers and controllers. I still have a pair of the 6301B personal monitors.

All I have found to be great stuff. Is there better..yes. Is there worse..absolutely!
Click to expand...

Agree with Ron here. A Fostex R8 paired up with a Fostex 812 is a very good mixing/recording combo to work with. Have been using this combo a lot and never really given me any trouble.

The transport on the R8 is a bit flimsy with all the plastic components but there is no other 8 track reel to reel that is so portable and easy to move around.

If you're using Neumann mics through a Neve board then I wouldn't suggest Fostex tape machines. Actually, if you are planning on tracking and dumping through the 8 track tape machine then into a DAW and mixing everything in the box, I probably wouldn't recommend the Fostex machines either... the DAW plug-ins weren't programmed for tracks recorded through tape and hence I find the plug-ins tend to be mostly unusable in this scenario.

My experience tells me the Fostex 8 tracks are best suited to decent outboard gear and mics, through a Fostex or Tascam mixer (due to the -10dBV level). DAWs work better with the high-end mixers and 2" tape machines IMO the weaknesses of the Fostex tape machines are really exposed when you try to incorporate them into a digital set-up. Depending on your setup, you will probably need to change your process/work flow to achieve desirable/best results with the tape machine.
 
Fostex made some great analog gear back in the day. The first 8-track on 1/4" tape I ever heard was a brand new Fostex A8... a recent purchase by a friend in the mid 80's. It was ok, but honestly I felt my Tascam 244 cassette Portastudio I had at the time sounded a bit better. When the the Fostex Model 80 came out it was leaps ahead of the A8 and even though I'm partial to Tascam I would have no difficulty making great recordings with the Model 80 or the R8, which came after it. If you can find either of those in great condition, complete and in good order you can't go wrong. Shop wisely, ask a lot of questions and don't go for the cheapest price, but rather the best condition and a seller who knows his product.
 
I got a Fostex Model 80 and love the sound of it. The R8 sounds nice too but has shitty plastic components making it a bit unreliable.
The Model 80 and the E8 is the most solid models.

Be aware that the A8 can only record four tracks at the time if you plan recording a band live in a room.
 
Parts availability is the only real issue here. I have one A-8 and two 80s, one of which is a "parts machine." Also, I haven't had time to really take any of them apart, but they do seem a bit harder to work on, e.g. the head leads are soldered, not socketed like the Tascams; I broke one of the plastic nuts, trying to take the bottom off, little stuff like that. Also, the LED displays are notorious for crapping out, and I have yet to find a viable solution. AFAIK the transports are the same, or close enough in the A-8 and 80. The A-8LR has 8 ins, but they are comparatively rare.

I've only done some fun stuff on cheap tape on the A-8, but was pleasantly surprised even at that.
 
Thanks for all the replies. After careful consideration and watching the current ebay trends, it looks like my current budget won't get me anything better than a Fostex A-8. Would it be worth my time/money as a foray into analog recording, or should I wait and save up for something better?
 
I think it's only mentioned in passing, but it may be a showstopper - remember that the A8 can only record up to 4 tracks at a time. It has 4 inputs on the back, which you can switch between 1-4 and 5-8, but you cannot record all 8 tracks at once.
It will of course play them all back together, but this could be an issue if you're trying to record a live band rather than overdubbing and it will make it significantly less useful if you're trying to do the dump-to-DAW technique.

I have to confess my first multitrack was a cheap A8 and it wasn't a terribly happy experience. Your mileage may vary, but once I got the TASCAM TSR-8, I never looked back.

I still have the A8 somewhere actually, never quite had the heart to get rid of it.
 
Ebay prices are, let's just say, somewhat lacking in logic sometimes, and all three sometimes are all over the place. ' Wolf is correct about the A-8 having only four ins. There is an A-8LR which has 8. There is a guy in LA who is on teh forum who may be selling one, but they are otherwise fairly rare.

I bought my A-8 for a pretty screamin' deal from a guy locally, same as I actually paid for the "parts" 80.

The upside with these is the lower tape costs. I've not had a chance to use the 80's yet, and the working machine has some uneven head wear, (the parts deck pretty decent heads) my intention at some point is to relap the worn heads and have the head stack mechanically aligned. I need a clean bench to actually dig in and take it apart though.

@jpmorris: what was unhappy about the A-8? Beck made the same comment about the sound being not so great. Another wonder is if the cards from the parts 80 could be swapped in? MMmmmmh.....Time to dig out the service manuals and take a gander....

I've not used mine much yet except for goofing off.

Interesting side note the 1-4 inputs on the 80 are normalled to 5-8 also, so you have the option to use a four buss mixer and not repatch.
 
Blue Jinn said:
@jpmorris: what was unhappy about the A-8? Beck made the same comment about the sound being not so great. Another wonder is if the cards from the parts 80 could be swapped in? MMmmmmh.....Time to dig out the service manuals and take a gander....
Click to expand...

Had mine been brand new from the 1980s it would probably have been amazing. However, the example I have was in dire need of servicing and frankly wasn't an economical repair. One major problem I was having was speed fluctuations on the capstan, and they did not seem to be belt-related. Personally I suspect the machine got knocked in transit - after I stripped parts of it down to inspect the regulator board, it was a lot happier.

However, it had a major problem with hum on one channel and on the others the sound quality was not great. Recapping it would probably have helped greatly, but it was my first multitrack and I didn't really know what I was doing. The A8 also had a lot of issues with crosstalk - my intention was to use track 8 as the sync track and that gave me a lot of problems with bleed or the control track being damaged by the adjacent channel.
 
That interesting. The guy I bought it from had a dozen or so reels of !456, which he had striped with time code and put back in the box. And then switched to digital at some point.
 
@jpmorris, the 1-4/5-8 inputs don't effect the ability to use the machine for multitrack recording, do they. I was considering grabbing this as an introductory multitrack analog device.
 
Blue Jinn said:
That interesting. The guy I bought it from had a dozen or so reels of !456, which he had striped with time code and put back in the box. And then switched to digital at some point.
Click to expand...

Oh, there is also the issue that you can't switch off the Dolby on track 8. Some timecode readers don't like that.

warartistrecord said:
@jpmorris, the 1-4/5-8 inputs don't effect the ability to use the machine for multitrack recording, do they. I was considering grabbing this as an introductory multitrack analog device.
Click to expand...

It'll work nicely for a solo artist or a small band. What it won't work for is live recording where you want to record all 8 tracks in one shot.

If you're doing what I do and build the song up one layer at a time, it will work well enough. If you do want to record a small band, you could record 4 tracks together and then add overdubs on any of tracks 5-8. You're not forced to record all 4 at once, I might add, you can pick and choose which tracks to record, you just have to be a little careful about which ones.

You could do them in order, or in pairs if you're using stereo,
e.g. guide track on 1, then bass on 2, then a stereo pair of drums on both 3 and 4. You could then add keys on 5, vocals on 6 and so on.

What you can't do is record tracks 1-5 because there are only 4 inputs. You also can't record a stereo pair across 4 and 5 (or 3 and 7 or something) because of the way the inputs are split and switched.
 
jpmorris said:
You could do them in order, or in pairs if you're using stereo,
e.g. guide track on 1, then bass on 2, then a stereo pair of drums on both 3 and 4. You could then add keys on 5, vocals on 6 and so on.
Click to expand...
So unless the tracks are recorded in pairs, will the final product be in mono?
 
warartistrecord said:
So unless the tracks are recorded in pairs, will the final product be in mono?
Click to expand...

Not exactly. Each individual track is mono. If you need to record a stereo signal, you have to use two tracks, for left and right.

When you play the tape back, you get 8 outputs which you then feed into a mixer. The mixer outputs a stereo signal, and the panning knobs for each channel determine where the tracks sit in the stereo image.

e.g. if you had the mixer set with all 8 channels centre, you would get a mono output.
e.g. on one of my songs I had:

1. Clavinet
2. Bass
3/4 Keys (organ, horns, mellotron samples) - stereo
5/6 Drums - stereo
7. Electric piano
8. Timecode track

I didn't write the pannings down on the sheet, but if I were mixing it now, I'd set it so that:
1. Pan slightly left
2. Centre pan (bass should be centred, especially if you're thinking of pressing on vinyl)
3. Left
4. Right
5. Left
6. Right
7. Panned slightly right to balance track 1
8. mute (it's digital data to drive the sequencer, you don't want to hear it)

Does that help make things clearer?
 
@jpmorris

Which Mellotron sample did you use? There is one available from Mellotron.com. They also have a digital mellotron available now. (Which is weird)

I have the distinct pleasure of owning an actual Mellotron M400S. I'm assuming you have the equally distinct pleasure of owning a Clavinet?

@warartistrecord do you intend to track to tape and dump to a PC and mix in the box? Otherwise you will also need an outboard mixer. There are many many available at good prices. I can't comment on it quality wise, but the Fostex 450 was marketed for use with their 8 tracks. There are a lot of threads here. A lot of frequent posters here tend to be Tascam users, and there are a wide variety of good boards.
 
Blue Jinn said:
@jpmorris
Which Mellotron sample did you use? There is one available from Mellotron.com. They also have a digital mellotron available now. (Which is weird)
Click to expand...

It's the Mike Pinder set. I took an old PC, wrote some software to play them back in DOS which was fun, accesses the soundcard directly. Figuring out the MIDI protocol was an interesting exercise as well. The advantage (over doing it with off-the-shelf software) is that the machine needs no monitor or maintenance and can be switched on and off at will like an appliance. Doing that with Windows would kill it fairly quickly. If I were to do it again I'd probably use a Raspberry Pi or something, but I liked the challenge of writing the playback engine myself.

Sadly I don't have any classic instruments. At the time that song was made (2005-2006) I would have been using a JV1010. Now I tend to use a Korg Triton instead.
The other thing is that I got into music in a strange manner - originally it was to write incidental music for a game I was working on, so it was all programmed with sequencers, which is why the timecode on track 8 is such a big deal. It was only when people said the music was good that I started doing it for its own sake and the studio sprang up out of that.
Sadly I still can't play keyboards to an acceptable degree, though I'm getting there with the electric bass. And yeah, that means that if it doesn't have a MIDI input, I can't really use it, much as I'd like to have authentic instruments. (That and the cost)
 
Have you considered getting a two track machine with higher IPS tape speed and dumping to PC.(DAW)
Just a suggestion cause this is what i do. That way you have the best of both worlds.
I only mention this as well because since your in north America you have way more choice of machines than us brits and theres so many more good techs over in the US too.
You will get great value for money compared to our choices.
Also i dont know if anyone mentioned it but if your buying second hand be prepared to do some regular maintance too. Not trying to put you off just adding some more options and opinions.
Hope this helps.
And Also they still make new tape in the US.
I hope you find the right machine for you. Its a truly wonderful thing the R2R
Rich
 
THREAD HIJACK ALERT! :-)

@jpmorris: I think that's the one -- CD List ?

I actually talked to Dave Kean a long time ago when he was negotiating to buy the Mellotron assets out of the Mellotron Digital bankruptcy. He was in the USA then, a really approachable guy. I have a new set of tapes still on the reel (probably printed thru by now) that I purchased from Mellotron Digital a few years before it fell apart. Venturing well off topic at this point, but the Mellotron uses 3/8" tape, which obviously requires special slitting. It's an interesting story. rework and the restoration process using DAT in between to make new masters.

I like the idea of using DOS for a dedicated task! Less overhead for sure. I'm not a programmer, (except for some simple dBase and Clipper) but I could also see it being way more efficient to right something like that in C or assembler and the result fast and compact.

"Authentic" comes with its own price, although I acquired a lot of the "authentic" pieces when the DX7, Emu, etc were all the rage and an old ARP was an old ARP. The Quadra I have has been the musical equivalent of the MG... But, it's was actually kind of fun to figure out the RAM chip it uses and locating a guy in England who had the firmware.
 
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