Hi I am new to this board and I have just recently obtained a x-34. This came as a result of my tascam porta 7 dying on me after many years of faithful recording. My question comes after my attempt at solving this problem through reading the manual has failed. Unless I am missing something here, which I hope I am, I may not be very happy with the x-34. On my porta 7 when I had recorded a track or two I could listen to those tracks while hearing myself practicing the part I was going to laydown next through the monitors. On the x-34 once I have a track laid down if I push the play button to hear the track I can find no way to also here lets say a guitar part that I am working out to record. The only way I can hear that new part I want to record and the parts already recorded is to actually press the record button on the tape controls. I imagine that if I have to do this several times till I get the part right eventually the tape quality on that track will decrease. Like I said I hope I am missing something that will allow me to hear the recorded track and my-self working out the new part without recording to do so. Hehe reading this message again I hope it makes sense and I thank you in advance for your time.
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Help with the x-34
- Thread starter salty09
- Start date
I had an X-34 for a while and I found the same problem. I hated it. I would have to play along with the music on the headphones and hope that it sounded reasonable when I actually had to record. Good thing I had no idea what I was doing and didn't really use the unit all that much, because that is a pretty serious shortcoming for a multitracking setup.
So you need a pedal, hunh? That's really strange. Pretty foolish to have something aside from actual punching in to record require a pedal, particularly something that important.
So you need a pedal, hunh? That's really strange. Pretty foolish to have something aside from actual punching in to record require a pedal, particularly something that important.
Yeah I have gotten used to the pedal thing now it was kind of akward at first but I got the hang of it now. The things I dont like about it now are the fact that it doesnt have a auto stop at 0 when rewinding which my acient porta 7 had and the effects loops can only be used for mix down(My porta 7 had seperate controls so you could use the effects loop during tracking) There is a way to hook effects into the 1/4 jack on track 4 and use them during tracking but it only works for the xlr jacks in the back kind of lame. Well thats what I get for oredering a machine online that I had never actually played with before. The track down button is kind of cool and the auot bounce is so so I hate that alot of times something happens that causes alot of feedback or something when you try to bounce to tracks that are next to each other. Overall I wish I could get my porta 7 fixed and get rid of the x-34. I should have just waited and got a digital 8 but they are kind of out of my price range. What did you end up going to instead of the x-34?
Well...first I got a real job, cause I wasn't going to get squat without some loot.
But here goes...a brief lesson in research for you.
I started out with just the X-34 for a while. Then I got that job. I got a decent mic cause the direct in with my acoustic/electric was not nearly cutting it.
Realized that I had bought a decent CONDENSOR mic (requiring 48V of power) and found I could get a digital mixer for a great price that had phantom power. (I wanted a stand alone mixer/multitracker with phantom power but couldn't find one at the time.)
Realized that I needed a lot more equipment than I wanted to purchase in order to work between my analog and digital units (X-34 and Tascam TD-1000 mixer).
Then I found the Fostex VF-08 and VF-16 digital mixer/multitackers (WITH phantom power). I had found my answer. I returned the mixer, sold my X-34 on eBay (perhaps to you ; )) and found a VF-16 on eBay for a great price.
Maybe you know about these things that I didn't realize when I started buying equipment, but if you don't, noone will tell you unless you ask. Hell, I was playing my Fender Deluxe amp for about a year before I found out you need to let the tubes warm up to protect them (pretty bright hunh?).
This site is brilliant and as far as I know, unparalleled for combating this eternal quandry of ignorance, so use it with abandon.
Anyways, I've probably wasted enough of your time but if you can swing it financially, the VF-08 is a good option. All the complaints about convenience of punching in and editing, etc. tend to disappear in the digital medium. But as you said yourself...try everything out before you buy, or bank on the return policy of a retailer after you've spent some time with something.
But here goes...a brief lesson in research for you.
I started out with just the X-34 for a while. Then I got that job. I got a decent mic cause the direct in with my acoustic/electric was not nearly cutting it.
Realized that I had bought a decent CONDENSOR mic (requiring 48V of power) and found I could get a digital mixer for a great price that had phantom power. (I wanted a stand alone mixer/multitracker with phantom power but couldn't find one at the time.)
Realized that I needed a lot more equipment than I wanted to purchase in order to work between my analog and digital units (X-34 and Tascam TD-1000 mixer).
Then I found the Fostex VF-08 and VF-16 digital mixer/multitackers (WITH phantom power). I had found my answer. I returned the mixer, sold my X-34 on eBay (perhaps to you ; )) and found a VF-16 on eBay for a great price.
Maybe you know about these things that I didn't realize when I started buying equipment, but if you don't, noone will tell you unless you ask. Hell, I was playing my Fender Deluxe amp for about a year before I found out you need to let the tubes warm up to protect them (pretty bright hunh?).
This site is brilliant and as far as I know, unparalleled for combating this eternal quandry of ignorance, so use it with abandon.
Anyways, I've probably wasted enough of your time but if you can swing it financially, the VF-08 is a good option. All the complaints about convenience of punching in and editing, etc. tend to disappear in the digital medium. But as you said yourself...try everything out before you buy, or bank on the return policy of a retailer after you've spent some time with something.