4 track question.

[FenHatesYou]

Im just dinking around with this 4 track... im just wondering when i take the tape out stick it in my stereo... it plays in slowmotion... when its in the recorder it plays fine... i tried messing with the pitch dial... nothing. just wondering if this thing is busted. or if im just not aware of something.

 

[Ronan]

Most cassette 4 tracks record at twice the speed of your regular consumer cassette deck. This improves the quality of the recording. especially the signal to noise ratio.

If there is a switch on you 4 track to record at regular speed and double speed, have some fun with it. play along to tracks at the wrong speed and then switch back to the right speed. your tracks will be an octave higer or lower (but still in tune). its a cool sound and very different than using a digital pitch shifter.

 

[A Reel Person]

Uh,...

It's normal, and you have to learn about, and perform the "mixdown" function, where you'd play your 4-track master back on the 4-tracker, and record on a "normal" stereo cassette, Cd recorder or puter soundcard.

The typical Tascam Portastudio records and plays back at 2x normal speed (High Speed), which is a method of boosting the fidelity.

Mixdown is an essential step, that you'll have to get familiar with.

 

[radiorickm]

even more fun

not only do they play at 2x speed.....
if you record onto ONLY 3/4, they will play backwards in your normal cassette!

 

[thembuzz]

Yeah, that's good for reverse leads and reverb effects and shit... Once get your head around which channel's which when you turn the tape over in the 4-track, that is

 

[TrippingTheRiff]

A good rule of thumb is to do a mixdown of your tune first, and then record it on a cassette out of the 4-track into in a regular deck.

I find that bouncing track's (in the 4-track) to achieve a stereo mix will degrade the quality when it's done more than a few time's.

it's better to just record on all 4 track's and then do a good mix.

if You need to do an overdub just ffwd the 4-track tape past the ending of your song. Record the mix you just recorded into the regular deck back onto the 4-track tape. Then you got 2 more track's to do some overdub's.

Repeat this as many time's as it take's to complete your song.

Here's the sequence in order.

1)Record all track's, mix, dump onto regular tape deck.
2)ffwd 4-track till blank tape, record mix from regular tape deck into 4-track.
3)use open track's for overdub's.

Repeat step's 1,2,3 till song is complete.

The idea here is that you'll be using a fresh part of tape (on each deck)everytime. Therefore no real loss of quality.

of course I agree that the method I'm suggesting is a bit primative, but it work's the best to achieve the highest quality IMO. especially when you're working with only 4 track's, and using cassette tape.

Buy a digital 16 track studio next time damn it HAHAHAHAHA


Tripp.

 

[Ronan]

Buy a digital 16 track studio next time damn it HAHAHAHAHA

Fight the power!!!! Keep the 4 track!!!!!! Really, cassette 4 tracks kick ass and its a great way to get your recording skills in shape. The rest of TrippingTheRiff's advice is great.

 

[johnnymegabyte]

A friend (before Cubase VST) would record 4 tracks at high speed.
Then MIX out to a hifi VHS
Hifi VHS sound quality is supposed to be almost CD quality

Depending on the song, he would copy from VHS to track 1 and 2
Then record on 3 & 4 --- or --- record 3 or 4 when copying from VHS

Repeat the process, as many times.

Then, you'll end up with the final mix on VHS.

The final step is to copy the VHS to tracks 1 and 2 at regular speed. You will now be able to play on a standard cassette machine.


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On a personal note, I copied some CD's from my DVD to VHS and played them back on a different VHS and the sound quality what that damn good.