Adding Effects During Mixing on the Tascam 244

[Illsidgus]

Now, before I get a lot of advice to "read the owners manual," I have and for some reason I can't make heads or tails out of it. It's not that I am stupid, for nearly 25 years, using Technical Orders, I worked on the most sophisticated munitions systems ever developed. I have a BA in Anthropology and well as a Minor in Music and graduated *** Laude. So what I am saying, is that I know how to read and follow instructions.

Let me use this as an example; I double track a guitar part and want to mix them down to one track. Is it possible with the 244 to add some, let's say, stereo chorus effects to one of the tracks during mix down using the aux subsystem. There is a switch labeled pre-off-post in the aux subsystem so I am assuming that the post position is for doing something after the track has been recorded. While I said earlier that I'm not stupid, as far as this is concerned I feel dumber than a box of rocks.

Thanks for any advice that anyone can give me.

 

[jpmorris]

Okay. I haven't used the 244 specifically, but there are some things I should be able to help with.

Firstly, the 244 doesn't have any built-in effects, as you may have gathered. The Aux channel is used to connect an external effects unit to the machine, e.g. a Zoom RFX-2000 is fairly cheap and cheerful.
Adding effects at mixdown usually works something like this:

1. You should have a 'Send' socket. If you turn up the AUX knob on the mixer, audio from that channel will be sent to the 'Send' socket. You would connect this to the input on your effects box. Turning up AUX on multiple channels will mix them together before sending them to the effects unit. Bear in mind that the SEND line is usually mono.

2. The Pre/Post thing specifies where the signal sent to the effects box is taken from - usually it's referring to the fader, so it's probably Pre=Taken from before the fader and Post=Taken from after the fader. AFAIK Post is more useful, but you can do some interesting effects with Pre-send.

If it's not pre/post fader, it is sometimes pre/post the EQ section.

3. There should also be some kind of effects return input, usually stereo. You'd plug the output from the effects box in here. The 'Aux RCV' knob will determine how loud the effect is relative to the rest of the mix.

That would be enough to add a stereo effect to one or more channels while mixing down to another recorder. However, it sounds like you're trying to mix (say) channels 1 and 2, add a stereo chorus and dump them onto track 4. That won't actually work... the important thing to remember is the each channel is mono - the panning knob determines if it's left, right or centre.
Hence, you could bounce tracks 1 and 2 to track 4 in mono, but if you wanted to keep them in stereo, you'd have to dump them to tracks 3 and 4, which kind of defeats the point in most cases.

What you can do (and this was how, e.g. The Beatles would do it) is to use all four tracks, mix them down to one or two tracks on a second 244, use the rest, mix them down to another tape on the first machine and so on. That's cumbersome, but hey, there's a reason studios upgraded to more tracks :-/

Anyway, I hope that's useful...

 

[The Ghost of FM]

The 244 uses a stereo aux/effects send and receive system. So, you'd actually want to take advantage of a stereo reverb processor like a Yamaha REV-500.

To hook it up, you'd take the aux send stereo outs and hook that up to the processor's stereo inputs and then with another patch cord, hook up the processor's output jacks to the 244 aux receive jacks.

And then through the individual level pots create a mix to feed the reverb unit and the receive level pot to mix that signal back in with the over all mix which can then be fed off to a two track stereo recorder to make a stereo master tape from.

The aux send switches should be in the "post" position so that when you fade a channel down, the effected reverb sound will also fade down with it.

Cheers!

 

[Illsidgus]

Thanks for the info Ghost and Tape Wolfe. I don't know why this is so hard for me, maybe if the owners manual had been written like and Air Force T.O. it would have said "if you want to add reverb during mixing then do this and then this and ..." A step by step instruction. Ghost, you mentioned a Yamaha REV-500, well the only kind of effects that I have are guitar stomp boxes. Will those work ok?

 

[The Ghost of FM]

Thanks for the info Ghost and Tape Wolfe. I don't know why this is so hard for me, maybe if the owners manual had been written like and Air Force T.O. it would have said "if you want to add reverb during mixing then do this and then this and ..." A step by step instruction. Ghost, you mentioned a Yamaha REV-500, well the only kind of effects that I have are guitar stomp boxes. Will those work ok?

You didn't list what those stomp boxes were but odds are, none of them are reverberation effects, which is the most common effect that is used with a recording set up.

A unit like the one I mentioned will allow you to make your recorded tracks sound like they were played in a much larger space like a hall or a theater or even a stadium, which can come in handy on things like vocals, drums and guitars. And your stomp boxes can still be used for their original purpose on your guitar tracks.

Cheers!

 

[Illsidgus]

You didn't list what those stomp boxes were but odds are, none of them are reverberation effects, which is the most common effect that is used with a recording set up.

Cheers!

I have gone back to my guitar playing roots of the 60s, I only have three stomp boxes, a DOD FX65 Stereo Chorus, a BOSS Metal Zone MT-2, and a Dunlop Original Cry Baby Wah. And, I'd like to get rid of the Metal Zone and get a good old fashioned Fuzz Box like the Jimi Hendrix Fuzz Face. The Metal Zone has about 3 tons to much distortion.

I have five guitar ensemble pieces for three guitars that I wrote in 2005 that I would like to get down on to tape. They range from Renaissance to Classical to Baroque in style and I want to record them in the clean style that this kind of music is usually recorded in. But, I would like to experiment a little bit too by adding some stereo chorus to a track or two or setting the wah pedal in one position or the other to see what kind of affect that would have. So what I want to do is add the effects during mix down and leave the original tracks clean. I can mix down to my unused fourth track or to my Akai 1722W reel to reel. I feel like a kid that has been bed ridden from some illness for a long time who finally gets to run outside and play. I want to play with my toys.

I know the equipment (toys) that I have to play with are antiquated and in the case of the Akai reel to reel that I am stretching its abilities beyond what it was designed for, not a mastering or mix down deck, but that is what I have to work with. My reasons for writing and recording at this point in my life are probably different than about 99% of everyone else on this forum. I am not trying to make Demos or albums or sell my songs on itunes or have millions of views on YouTube, I just want to leave behind a part of me when I die, a legacy of sorts. Something that will still be around long after I'm gone. If I do manage to create a decent track or two then I will probably post it on YouTube or my FB page. If I could get my work to vinyl that would be great. I may be mistaken but I believe that vinyl, when properly protected, has a much longer shelf life then either tape or CDs.

Here I am rambling again, but I have no one to talk to about this stuff and at least you are in the same decade as me. One last thing, last night was the first night of rehearsals for the 2012 season of the Southern Kentucky Concert Band in which I play the Euphonium (my 9th year). I learned something that I didn't know. Our conductor, informed us that "you all think that you were born in the key of B flat, well you weren't, we were all born in the key of E flat". I know that sounds silly but it makes a kind of sense to me.

Tot Ziens

 

[The Ghost of FM]

OK, so you've got a stereo chorus stomp box which I assume is a single channel input with a pseudo stereo output. That could be incorporated into the effects loop hook up that we discussed earlier only that you just be using one of the effects sends to feed it a signal to work with, which would still give off some nice effects if its set up decently.

In all your "ramblings" there, I didn't hear you mention that you're willing to purchase and make use of a decent reverb unit so I'll assume you're still thinking about that.

There is of course a few ways to get around having one of those and the most obvious way is to actually record in the type of environment that would best suit the music you're recording. So you might want to look into gaining access to a larger sized room to record in and use a dual Mic set up where you're capturing the direct dry sound of the guitar and also another Mic in that room placed further away which is picking up the echo/reverberation characteristics of the room. This is the more old school approach that studios used before the days of digital reverberation and for a lot of classical music, that method is still the preferred choice for getting the most genuine acoustics. Getting all of that right is going to take time and experimentation on your part to keep trying different Mic setups until you get the balance you're after.

Cheers!

 

[jpmorris]

What you can do (I'm not sure I mentioned) is mix down to the Akai, and then copy the Akai mix back onto the 244 (preferably in a new stretch of tape). That gives you more generation loss than copying to a second 244 would do, but it will give you more tracks.

And you can probably also use the Akai to add tape delay while recording to the 244...

 

[Illsidgus]

Thanks again for all the advice Ghost and Tape Wolf. It has got me thinking about other solutions to get some reverb. I decided that although I am a pretty good guitarist, been playing for 45 years, I am not even close to being a real concert guitarist so why worry so much about my initial tracks being clean and pure. Sure if I were Alexander La Goya or Christopher Parkening or someone of that caliber that would probably be important. So what I have decided to do is run my guitar through my old Peavey Special and use the amps reverb. I'll just need to play with it a bit to get just the right level then Bob's your Uncle.

Tot Ziens