I Want Your Crappy 4-track recordings!

groucho

groucho

Member
Okay, it's kind of quiet around here, what with the lack of trolls and no one arguing about anything, and for chrissake it's been at least a week since Chris Harris posted a tune by his daughter...:)

Anyway, a couple people (me included) recently posted some old cassette 4-track recordings and I LOVE that stuff, so I'm starting a thread and requesting you let me hear something dusty from your closet.

The idea is: something old and primative and embarassing from your old Portastudio days when you didn't know anything - when you didn't even *know* that you didn't know anything - and just set the mic up and opened the beer/packed the bowl/cut the lines/cooked up the shot/etc. and just slapped something sloppy and ugly and REAL on tape.

C'mon, I know you've all still got those old cassette tapes and I know you listen to them once in awhile.

So let's hear em! Not for critique, just for fun. Of course if critique happens that's cool too I suppose. Anyway, I'll start it off.

Here's one recorded (with a drunken friend badly out of time on shaker) in one take (other instruments added later - also in one take) on a Portastudio that occasionally just erased whole tracks for no reason. Added an element of danger to the whole process.

"The Final Friday Night"

 
Why not?

Hey there Groucho,

This is pretty cool. I'm listening to your tune right now. This sounds pretty good for just a four track old recording. Doesn't sound embarrasing at all...Nice job! I like the story of it and it actually sounds well recorded.

I like this thread, but I'm not sure if you mean for us to post new threads or just use your thread to post our old, embarrasing stuff.

Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and post mine in your thread (hope that is okay) ...

Here is real embarrassment. This one was recorded way back in 1990 by a friend of mine (Mark Collier) and myself. He is on vocals and I do the rest. Really crappy sounding and a song that goes nowhere...recorded on a 4-track cassette portostudio and one of my first forays into trying to bounce and manage tracks. Quite a lot of hiss on there and the eq is all over the place.

The song is called "I'm Not The Greatest" - (how's that for a sappy, self-degrading, over-the-top title?) It is the last song:

http://www.nowhereradio.com/theinside/singles

:D
 
That's not crappy!
Hell. I wanna learn that tune! I'd rather play that than half the crap I get asked to play! The vocal sounds fine, yeah some of the pickin' gets a little hairy here and there, but the harp sounds good, It sounds like live music.
You wanna hear crappy 4-track? - wait till tomorrow - I've got some gems. Gotta convert them to mp3 first - if the cassette mechanism still turns!

I like that tune, man!!
MC
 
Oh man, now THAT's what I'm talking about, boydrj! I love it! I've got "I'm not the greatest..." stuck in my head already. That's a frighteningly catchy song. Great keyboards.:)

And yeah, y'all can post them here or in a seperate thread - either way.

Let's hear em, MC!

Chris
 
My daughter and I did some several years ago on an old Fostex X-15 ? not sure of the number of the recorder, but I think thats it.

Had an old Yamaha keyboard doing drums and bass, then I added a guitar to it. We bounced all that, then she sang the parts on the three tracks left after the bounce.

I recorded this one to the computer by recording it on a freeware sound recorder program off the sound card. Lot of noise got in with it..

Anyway, she was proud of this - first song she ever recorded :)


 
Hey Tom D -- This is pretty cool. Your daughter can really belt it out there and it is impressive that she is doing all the parts.

Sometimes these old 4-track recordings have a charm that is lost when the "production" starts to creep in...

Very cool!

:D
 
You asked for it...

Here ya go, with "Liner notes".

http://www.mp3.com/yesterdayschild/

(You'll be asked for some info - if ya think it's nosy, lie to 'em)

There's three songs up here:

"Been There All Along" and "Children of Illusion" were done "live" with two mikes into a Tascam 414.

"Bringing Me Down" was done with two mikes straight into a regular stereo cassette player.
 
I haven't listened to my old cassette tapes in YEARS!!!

I'm too scared to!! :eek:

Seriously, I've never owned a 4 track. Most of my recordings back in the day were done with a boom box and a panasonic tape recorder.

Talk about hiss issues... :rolleyes:
 
Dusty rat doodie

I have just been up to my attic and guess what I found, the old yamaha MT-120. It needs a refurb so I'm going to order the parts and DIY.

You will be hearing from me on this thread G.
 
groucho

I'm not sure if this qualifies, it is more of a crappy 2 track recording done in a bar on a tuesday night in 1986.
This was my favorite 3 piece lineup.
I'm the frontman singing and guitaring but the real magic is the rhythm section in this one
 
Funny you should bring this up

I've been meaning to transfer some of my 4-track stuff onto the ol' HDD, and have done a couple that turned out better than I thought they would.

In terminator voice:

I'll be back.....

:D
 
Okay, this thread is now officially worthwhile because it allowed me to hear SheppardB's "whisker biscuit blues. That one just went straight to my hard drive. Awesome! And pretty decent sound too.

Track Rat: bring on the 8 tracks!

Moonrider: I liked "Been there all along" - you have an "updated" version of that one? If not, you oughtta.

Hevy: Yeah, nice rhythm section all right! Sounds like a fun night. I can hear that band really kicking you in the ass.

Loving it, folks. And yeah, it's funny how there's a certain feeling present in some of those old recordings. Sort of innocent. Not that I exactly want to go back to the sound quality of those days, but I think maybe it's good once in awhile to listen to where we were at before we got tangled up in audio knowledge... back when things were a little simpler (and a lot noiser).

Keep it coming.

Chris
 
I must really like you folks! Here ya go - 10 years ago. It was the first thing I wrote using the TASCAM 464. Until then I had a Porta 05 and that stuff is horrendous! This stands alone as being pretty bad - but if you make this into a contest, I've got the hands-down winner - I found an unbelieveable relic lurking in the midst of my 150+ cassette "masters."
You'll love the drum machine - it was a little thing made by Sony. It had a button for kick, a button for snare, a button for cymbal and a button for clapping! (ooooohhhhhh!!!) I had to push each button for each beat. I recorded a click track by micing a Seiko electronic metronome. Baby - this is ANALOG!

It's called "Tired of Waiting
http://www.nowhereradio.com/MCGitarz/singles
MC
 
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