Hello everyone,
i'm new here so please bare with me if these are pretty basic questions, but i'm new to analog and could use some help. I am in the process of getting a 244 and putting it like new through tascam europe, and was wondering about a number of (very basic) things...
1. i would like to know if the mic line ins are balanced...i know the other ones aren't right? if they're not, how do we get around to do this? DIs can only do unbalanced to balanced, so they wouldn't work in this situation since my preamps all have balanced outs. Are there any adapters that can be used here? I have pretty good all valve pres, ancient stuff but stuff that i really want to see well represented in the cassete audio, so getting a simple balanced to unbalanced cable without a transformer in the way is kind of not what i had in mind..
2. how many aux sends and returns do 244s have? i would really like to use at least two fx units...
3. is there anything actually balanced on 244s, excluding headphone ins of course? like the tape/monitor outs?
4. how many bounces can be done on the 244 before some degradation starts to kick in?
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I was hoping to not have to start another thread for my next very basic questions, so i'll just post them here as well, hope it's ok...
5. how do you folks go about to use your tapes? do you put more than one song on the same tape? cause the way i see it, for instance a 60 minute tape will have 30 minutes on each side, so that's good enough for maybe 3 or 4 songs right? do folks usually record on both sides?
...or is it advisable to use a tape per song and just forget the remaining space...
I was born in 81, i had a lot of cassetes growing up, and i remember them well, i just never got into analog recording, so please excuse if this is all very basic.
6. last question would be a request...i would really like for you folks to recomend a very very decent 2 track reel recorder to master my stuff (analog and digital) to if possible...my budget is 200-500 bucks for this particular reel to reel. i really want something that can come up with some real record sound (i know most folks recomend the 22-2 or the 32-2, but i was wondering if that's a good spot to aim, or if i could go a little higher for not much more money). This is mainly for my digital studio, the porta will work for my obcession with Springsteen's Nebraska ramblings, but i really hope to make some records with it.
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Last thing...where does everyone stand on the cassete debate? Meaning, is it going away? I know that Maxell and TDK, and Sony (right?) still produce tape, but i also know it's never been of worse quality as it is now...still, i would really like to know if i'm getting myself into something that will be completely over (in terms of means to record to - cassete) in a year or two...
i really hope not.
Thank you very much and please excuse the long post.
i'm new here so please bare with me if these are pretty basic questions, but i'm new to analog and could use some help. I am in the process of getting a 244 and putting it like new through tascam europe, and was wondering about a number of (very basic) things...
1. i would like to know if the mic line ins are balanced...i know the other ones aren't right? if they're not, how do we get around to do this? DIs can only do unbalanced to balanced, so they wouldn't work in this situation since my preamps all have balanced outs. Are there any adapters that can be used here? I have pretty good all valve pres, ancient stuff but stuff that i really want to see well represented in the cassete audio, so getting a simple balanced to unbalanced cable without a transformer in the way is kind of not what i had in mind..
2. how many aux sends and returns do 244s have? i would really like to use at least two fx units...
3. is there anything actually balanced on 244s, excluding headphone ins of course? like the tape/monitor outs?
4. how many bounces can be done on the 244 before some degradation starts to kick in?
-----------------------------------------
I was hoping to not have to start another thread for my next very basic questions, so i'll just post them here as well, hope it's ok...
5. how do you folks go about to use your tapes? do you put more than one song on the same tape? cause the way i see it, for instance a 60 minute tape will have 30 minutes on each side, so that's good enough for maybe 3 or 4 songs right? do folks usually record on both sides?
...or is it advisable to use a tape per song and just forget the remaining space...
I was born in 81, i had a lot of cassetes growing up, and i remember them well, i just never got into analog recording, so please excuse if this is all very basic.
6. last question would be a request...i would really like for you folks to recomend a very very decent 2 track reel recorder to master my stuff (analog and digital) to if possible...my budget is 200-500 bucks for this particular reel to reel. i really want something that can come up with some real record sound (i know most folks recomend the 22-2 or the 32-2, but i was wondering if that's a good spot to aim, or if i could go a little higher for not much more money). This is mainly for my digital studio, the porta will work for my obcession with Springsteen's Nebraska ramblings, but i really hope to make some records with it.
----------------------------------------------------
Last thing...where does everyone stand on the cassete debate? Meaning, is it going away? I know that Maxell and TDK, and Sony (right?) still produce tape, but i also know it's never been of worse quality as it is now...still, i would really like to know if i'm getting myself into something that will be completely over (in terms of means to record to - cassete) in a year or two...
i really hope not.
Thank you very much and please excuse the long post.