Tricks and secrets of recording on a four-track

assman

Member
sup guys, been lurking this site for some time now, but never really posted anything

in here i'll be sharing some of my "tricks and secrets" for anyone who is recording on a four track cassette recorder and also feel free to share some of your tips and stuff. (NOTE: I'm tired of seeing threads talking about how to bounce on a four track, so don't post em in here unless you think the technique employed affects the sound of your recording in a special way)


1- RECORDING WITH THE DBX NOISE REDUCER ON AND THEN TURNING IT OFF DURING PLAYBACK/MIXING. I've found that if you use your dbx the normal way (recording with it on and letting it on during playback), a big range of frequencies will be lost (mainly high end) in exchange for less "noise", which is tape hiss.

But if you record(dbx on, then off during playback), say, a drum, you will get a particular sound that feels more compressed. Like a hiss then compression every time you hit the drums. this applies to all other instruments.

What it'll do ultimately is: boost your higher frequencies, and up the tape hiss, which is not necesserally a bad aesthetic for some.


2- Second point connects with the first one.
RECORDING (DOUBLE TRACKED) VOCALS WITH A MIC THAT IS PLUGGED STRAIGHT INTO THE FOUR-TRACK
. I used to record my vocals with an effects filled amp that would be mic'd. Now i've found some cool natural effect by pluggin the mic directly into my four track and singing in it.

Using the same technique said in the first point, I record my vocals with dbx on, then turned off. And i will record the same vocal part on two tracks. the effect is this: solid compression on the voice, a higher frequency voice that sounds apart from all the other tracks but in a well balanced way, also, a light natural flanger-y type voice.

3 - PANNING YOUR GUITARS IN EACH CORNER OF EARS, i.e LEFT AND RIGHT.
during my process of recording post-rock type music, i've found that mixing your guitars apart from each other gives a fuller sound when listened in stereo and is overall more interesting.

This is great for creating what they call "angular guitars" with guitar melodies that make harmonies with each other. it makes the harmonies more noticable.

4- DOUBLE TRACKING.
I've recently got back into double tracking my instruments. First time i did purposfully was with two acoustic guitars doing the same fingerpicking. So basically you record guitar 1 and then you re-record the same guitar part with guitar 2/track 2.

It gives, again, a fuller stereo sound and a flanger type of sound, that is if you don't change your guitar tone for both guitars (because the frequencies of each guitar are slightly different because of "phasing" or slight tape flutter i'm guessing, creating oscillations with each other) What is interesting with double tracking guitars is that you can be kind of sloppy (playing notes that are slightly delayed from the other guitar) but in a way that doesn't negatively affect the tempo or time of the song.

That's it for now, I will keep updating this thread and hopefully yall's are going to share some of your recording "secrets" with a four-track or a reel-to-reel or any analog equipement (like a compressor or anything like that).
 
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Tape flanging effect also a good one.

YouTube

Also tape delay (utilizing the gap between record and playback head). Monitoring off the playback head for a single slapback effect or feeding this signal back into itself for multi delay.

Not necessarily tape based but definitely 'analog' is getting a spring reverb tank and feeding an amp'd signal (like from a headphone amp) into it then mixing in the return wet signal with your dry signal for a super dirty reverb sound.
 
sup guys, been lurking this site for some time now, but never really posted anything



1- RECORDING WITH THE DBX NOISE REDUCER ON AND THEN TURNING IT OFF DURING PLAYBACK/MIXING. I've found that if you use your dbx the normal way (recording with it on and letting it on during playback), a big range of frequencies will be lost (mainly high end) in exchange for less "noise", which is tape hiss.

If you "lose" high-end using dbx during record & playback, it's either because of incorrect alignment, recording too hot, or both. The whole point of the dbx system is to achieve quieter recordings at lower record levels and thereby preserve a wider dynamic range. Recording hot defeats the purpose, promotes high frequency loss and unwanted breathing/pumping artifacts.
 
RRuskin

I totally agree. I almost don't know where to start with the comment

"But if you record(dbx on, then off during playback), say, a drum, you will get a particular sound that feels more compressed. Like a hiss then compression every time you hit the drums. this applies to all other instruments.

What it'll do ultimately is: boost your higher frequencies, and up the tape hiss, which is not necesserally a bad aesthetic for some."


Tape hiss was ENEMY #1 in my book. It wasn't an aesthetic, it was a pain in the butt that built up every generation you added. Plus if you want to boost your highs, there's that EQ knob that does it properly. In the end, its a fix for a really basic fault of those systems.

As for getting compression on the tracks... well DUH! Its a compression / expansion system. Properly set up it should be transparent. Like you said, it designed to fix the relatively low dymanic range of a cassette tape system. A DBX encoded track that wasn't decoded just sounded bad to me.

I don't even have golden ears, but for me the cassette systems were never an attraction. The advent of digital audio recording finally make it possible to make what I consider good recordings without the couple thousand $$$ outlay that even a good basic 4 channel 1/4" tape system would cost (and those were 1970s dollars, not 2020 dollars).

You couldn't pay me to go down that path.
 
^ I get where you are coming from, but this thread is for achieving "alternate" sounds that people don't usually know of. There's even people putting tape plugins on their songs to make it sound "lo-fi". You don't enjoy the sound tape hiss and that's fine, but there's alot of music out there taking ADVANTAGE of that sound.

also, why are you browsing the analog threads if you don't even have appreciation for cassettes and tapes.

i don't want none of that purist shit in here, thank you.
 
... "alternate" sounds that people don't usually know of.

Trust me...many of us here know those sounds all too well, from way back when home recording wasn't even a term, and when equipment was very limited and low-quality.
There was no effort involved getting those "lo-fi" sounds...the real effort was in avoiding them.
Those are not really "secrets"...though I guess to some who have never experienced those things, they may seem like something special, something secret that they have discovered.

What many people these days call "lo-fi"...back in the day we called "home demos"...or "garage/basement demos".
I don't particularly find that adding hiss is really any kind of "alternate" sound...it's just the sound you recored + hiss.
Now maybe that seems exciting and interesting to some folks...but I never felt it was.
"Lo-fi" sound was never a goal...it was just something you were stuck with because you couldn't go beyond due to gear and/or techniques and skill.

To me...the interesting thing about "lo-fi" recording, is more about dealing with the limited track count, and the basic approach to recording tracks and forming a production within that limitation...but AFA sound quality...the goals always was and still is to get as clean and pro sound quality as possible...THAT was the challenge and goal...
...and that pretty much coincides with how the pros worked back in the day, with limited gear and minimal track counts, but always trying to get the best quality possible. There was never any attempt to create "lo-fi" recordings. That was something that was never appealing when it did happen.

Somewhere in more recent years...some people have made "lo-fi" an actual goal, and that's their choice...but there's no secret or special processes needed to do that.
 
^ I get where you are coming from, but this thread is for achieving "alternate" sounds that people don't usually know of. There's even people putting tape plugins on their songs to make it sound "lo-fi". You don't enjoy the sound tape hiss and that's fine, but there's alot of music out there taking ADVANTAGE of that sound.

also, why are you browsing the analog threads if you don't even have appreciation for cassettes and tapes.

i don't want none of that purist shit in here, thank you.

I guess I thought that maybe you had actually come up with a trick that made a cassette recording sound really good.

For years people complained about "digital high frequency problems" and how its unlistenable compared to tape (I never had that complaint. I LIKED hearing cymbals with sparkle, not rolled off). In contrast, hearing a DBX encoded track without the decoding is in "ear bleed" territory for me, even without being able to hear 15k anymore. Undecoded Dolby B cassettes were bad enough.

But, if that's your thing.... have at it.
 
^ I get where you are coming from, but this thread is for achieving "alternate" sounds that people don't usually know of. There's even people putting tape plugins on their songs to make it sound "lo-fi". You don't enjoy the sound tape hiss and that's fine, but there's alot of music out there taking ADVANTAGE of that sound.

also, why are you browsing the analog threads if you don't even have appreciation for cassettes and tapes.

i don't want none of that purist shit in here, thank you.

If you don't want comments, don't post on a public forum.
 
If you "lose" high-end using dbx during record & playback, it's either because of incorrect alignment, recording too hot, or both. The whole point of the dbx system is to achieve quieter recordings at lower record levels and thereby preserve a wider dynamic range. Recording hot defeats the purpose, promotes high frequency loss and unwanted breathing/pumping artifacts.

What I was thinking, but with more detail.
 
Have you listened to some of the tracks I posted on here? I'm essentially trying to recreate the sound of artists like White Fence, who recorded on a 424. If you haven't checked him out, look up the album Cyclops Reap. That is the sound that I'm going for, and i've found that recording with the dbx technique that I mentioned, I can achieve a similar sound. There's not only one way to record with these machines. I get that the real effort is to make it sound good, without tape hiss and stuff, but do you actually have any examples of your own demonstrating that "good quality"?

I don't know how old you are, but there's shit going on right now that sounds wayyy different than the standard "quality" that you might be used to, i'm more interested in that. Don't get me wrong, i've recorded stuff in the past, trying to make it sound as good as possible, but then I discovered all these artists that don't go for the clean ass nickleback type of distortion.

all these recordings that sound too clean are sickening to me. it feels like you've put so much effort and time to achieve a sound that is so clean, yet it lacks the soul and feel of it.
 
all these recordings that sound too clean are sickening to me. it feels like you've put so much effort and time to achieve a sound that is so clean, yet it lacks the soul and feel of it.

You're talking about two different things.

There are a lot of recordings that have soul and lots of "grit"...BUT...sonically, from a production and engineering perspective, they were recorded at the highest, state of the art audio quality....in order to capture the most subtle expression of that soulful sound.
You don't need to "mask" with tape his and odd DBX tricks to do that....rather do it at the source.
 
I like White Fence and similar stuff - I don’t think Tim was really going for these things as a particular goal, but it’s just kind of the result of his working methods.

IMO the only stuff that sounds authentic are the ones in which the sound kind of happens as a result of the process. That is to say, trying to get “that White Fence sound” by mutilating the signal will not yield those same results. This is akin to the “analog frosting” the digitalists like so much ha.

Also - I do have to agree none of the stuff in the thread seem like secret tricks to me. They’re things most people have encountered using 4-track cassette. Most of which I personally never preferred. It’s also too unique to each machine. For instance, I liked the way that some things sounded bounced in Sync mode on a Scully 280 but I generally only used them if the workflow kind of supported that being a viable option. I often bounced one lead vocal to another track while recording another lead vocal

4-track cassette IMO is not vibey enough to do anything intentionally - it’s a battle to get a reasonable result in my experience ... to the point where I mostly just did whatever I could to preserve the sound of the original track with the least amount of degradation because it was already pretty damn degraded on the initial result ha. This is in sharp contrast to something like a 1/2” machine, where the bounce of a group of tracks actually sounded better after the bounce. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tim Presley felt the same but no idea ha.
 
IMO the only stuff that sounds authentic are the ones in which the sound kind of happens as a result of the process. That is to say, trying to get “that White Fence sound” by mutilating the signal will not yield those same results. This is akin to the “analog frosting” the digitalists like so much ha.

:thumbs up:

I also agree with you about the track bouncing...that it's not something that always can change in a good way, no matter what machine/format you use.
 
IMO the only stuff that sounds authentic are the ones in which the sound kind of happens as a result of the process. That is to say, trying to get “that White Fence sound” by mutilating the signal will not yield those same results. This is akin to the “analog frosting” the digitalists like so much ha.

Totally agree. Trying to emulate a particular sound (that was achieved at the time by simply making use of the technology available) by degrading it after the event seems shallow to me. It's like artificially ageing furniture to igve it an 'authentic' look.
 
... also adding Mr Assman - I took a listen to your recordings (just the first two) in the other thread, and I think they sound real cool and I like them. I also think they’d sound real cool done on a Scully 280 4-track ?

Also, you asked someone for an example of the “other” way or whatever -

Here’s one - Jack Ccoper “Sandgrown” is a 4-track cassette record that has a cool production, not slick and sterile, but also pretty clean and “good” sounding:

https://youtu.be/s2Jzp8AHLcM

Here’s another - Kelley Stoltz “Past Was Faster”:

https://youtu.be/4Ugqx7wQQtU
 
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I also particularly love the sound of overdriving a four track.

In the video you linked to...he says in the description that he's overloading the mixing section...but that's not accurate.
What he is overloading into distortion is actually the cheap preamp circuit at the front end, before he ever gets to the mixing section.

Hey...if he likes that sound, OK...and there's all kinds of distortion/clipping flavors...but I find that when you overload cheaper solid state components into clipping, the distortion is kinda ugly for my taste, and very unflattering, compared to say, tube distortion or tape saturation...which have more "organic" flavors...
...but again, if he likes it, then it's good for him. :)

It's often the same thing that happens when people try to use achieve tape compression on inexpensive, consumer decks, by hitting it real hard...and they get some hair and even distortion...but it ain't the tape in most cases, because it's usually the cheap front end preamp/amp sections that have gone into clipping long before the signal hits the tape...yet they think they are getting tape saturation/compression.
 
welp, this thread turned to shit, but i don't care! i'll carry on anyway. (i actually am grateful for some of the feedback on here, even though some of you are asses).

5 - RE-RECORDING ON OLD CASSETTES THAT HAVE CLASSICAL MUSIC ON THEM

Oh yes! i'Ve FoUnD that when you record a song, there's a 1/100000 chance that you will play a note that will coincide with a classical piece that is on, say track 3 of the cassette. Use this to your advantage! as you can fade in the classical music for a millisecond and then fade it back out, you'll sound like a hip hop producer, kinda like madlib!

6 - STRETCH YOUR CASSETTE'S TAPE
to make weird noises during playback!
 
... also adding Mr Assman - I took a listen to your recordings (just the first two) in the other thread, and I think they sound real cool and I like them. I also think they’d sound real cool done on a Scully 280 4-track ?

thank you man! i'm currently recording on a yamaha mt400, prior to that i had the mt1x, which sounded kinda better, even though it was older. i have a 3340s that i still havent started recording on yet. i don't think there's any DBX NOISE REDUCER ON THAT ONE so i wont be messing around with that.
 
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