Looking for opinions on a Tascam 32 reel to reel...

Buy the TASCAM.

It's stereo and 40 years newer plus, you can still get parts and service on it if it needs any. The Ampex is only mono and harder to find parts and someone old enough to work on them as they are going on 50 years old at this point.

Cheers! :)
 
jake-owa said:
Why would anyone seriously mix to mono??

Many AM radio are mono and use mono equipment in some cases.

Dispatch for fire, police and ambulance are recorded in mono.

Any professional recording from the mid fifties and back used mono in the studio. And, probably that old Ampex AG440 recorded many high fidelity mono productions in its day.

I remember once seeing a re-print of an ad for Ampex tape recorders from 1949 with Bing Crosby pitching the merits of the 300 series mono recorder in Mix magazine a few years back.

When adjusted correctly, those machines sounded as lush and full as anything put out by any "modern" deck of the same format. Maybe even better considering is was 1/4" tape for one chanel only. That equals FAT sound!!

Cheers! :)
 
Right, I get that but why mix in mono when a good stereo mix that has been checked in mono will collapse fine and be as useable.

Who the hell is mixing for AM radio these days?
 
I'm not exactly going to use the ampex for mixing down to, where as I would with the tascam it being stereo and all. I was thinking of just using the ampex to track to for various things like getting REAL tape saturation or just warming things up and then throwing them into the computer. And getting that FAT sound!
 
I don't see your point on the tape generation loss. But since your sugesting a compressor what would you recomend?
 
I guess the tape loss would be minor but I doubt the benifit would be enough to justify the price of the machine and tape. "Phat" and "warm" are just different flavors of distortion. A good compressor will do more for that in my opinion. A good tape machine will just sound clean but a not so good one may just add hiss and remove some clarity.

My next compressor will be a two pack of RNCs in a 1 space rack plate.
I've heard these and they sound great for the money.

www.mercenary.com/2rnhousinfun.html
That's four channels for under $400, not bad at all.

Hey Aloha, what's with the username, are you from Hawaii?
I'm in Aiea.:cool:
 
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