Getting more than 4 tracks

K

kobra

New member
Hello
A while ago I was askin for a link to a site which I guess nobody had, so I'm gonna ask the question and maybe I can get the answer this way. What are some good techniques for getting more than 4 tracks out of my 4 track machine? I ahve a Tascam MKII Portastudio, and 5 mics. In addition, I am currently getting an 8 channel mixer.
Thanks
 
Look in the manual... there is something there about how you record on the four different traks and then when you are mixing down you can record a track along with the othere 4 on to tape/cd/pc what eva you recording to.

you could also go to radio shak and get something that will convert two mics in to one input

In mic ----\
------ Out recorder
In mic ----/

something like that
 
The 'infamous' 10-track bounce...

...or - how to get 10 tracks on a 4-track recorder.

This method more or less presumes a mono mix...

- Record on tracks 1, 2, 3
- Bounce T1, T2, T3 over to track 4 (while at the same time adding a part to track 4 live) - 4 tracks total used so far
- Record over on tracks 1, 2
- Bounce T1, T2 over to track 3 (while at the same time adding a part to track 3 live) - 7 tracks total used so far
- Record over on track 1
- Bounce T1 over to track 2 (while at the same time adding a part to track 2 live) - 9 tracks total used so far
- Record the final track over on track 1 - 10 tracks total used


The issues...
...you have to be damn sure about the level and tone at each submix, since you lose the ability to make changes after bouncing the tracks.
...you really need to plan out your track deployment to make most effective use of this technique.
...in theory, you could get more than 10 tracks if you then "bounce the submixes", but that would mean you're down 2 generations from the original tracks, which will pretty much sound like shit on a PortaStudio format. This will be less of an issue on digital PortaStudios though.

Bruce
 
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