Alright, the Rack, and with m rack gear, 488MKII vs MSR-16 how much difference?

[Seeker of Rock]

Sorry to troll here, but how much difference will I hear between 488MKII 8track cassette and MSR-16 (or 8) 1/2" reel? Got my LXP-15 V2 and Pro VLA from advice here...any ideas on the difference between cassette vs. 1/2" reel?. My guess is it may be worth the $700+, and I am an alnolog fan, btw...No digital sales, any ideas?
troll, troll, troll...

 

[mr.rich]

seems to me the 8 track will have a higher noise floor. i used one of those rack mount cassette 8s for a long time and things were often real mushy. upgraded to a otari 1/2" 8 and the sound quality improvement was massive. i think a casette is around 1/8th width so that in itself is a pretty damn small space to go jamming 8 trcks of material. if you try hard enough you can get ms16s for under a grand these days i beleive. those are nice quite solid machines.

 

[diogo]

Seeker,

i dunno if this is possible, but here's what im thinking for myself:

tascam 488 or 424MKIII (havent decided yet) = 4 tracks - play those 4 tracks to a tascam 246 into 1 track. then go from there.

u can always put things in a computer and then back out if u have a soundcard...thats what i plan on doing.

just a thought.

 

[Grunk]

488

I started with a 488 a long time ago back in the early 90" if you get that machine make sure you buy custom lenth tape like 30 min or 15 min long in time it will sound better. Also set the tape speed to the highest setting for the speed of the tape you will get better sounding recordings And watch your levels's and especialy when you mix down say your first six tracks to 7&8 for a stereo mix so that you can go back to tracks 1thru 6 to over-dub any new tracks to your project. Also leave the Dolby switch on the back of the unit to on to tame your noise floor, it does work. it is a pretty good machine I got 5 good year's on it and some fine recording and a lot of fun learning different tricks for getting good sound from sources and tracking, I wish I had kept it for mobile recoring session, oh well!!