Bouncing tracks....a to d, and back

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Godsguitarist

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Hello!!! I was recently reading on one thread in here about someone bouncing tracks from their tape 4-track (I think it was)to an MD recorder and back to the 4 track. It was also mentioned that they had some decent results. This is also supposedly in the newest edition of "Recording" magazine I think it was. I was wondering, since I'm on a limited budget, if it would be worth it to save a hundred bucks and try this with a Hi Fi VCR to use for bouncing and mixdowns. I have recently ordered a Tascam 424 MkIII and I am looking for something to mixdown to, and now that the idea is in my head, bounce tracks using one of these methods. Any other suggestion is also very welcomed. Thanks guys in advance!!!
 
Also, are their any suggestions for ways of doing this? I have specific questions, like, if I was to bounce all four tracks, and want to add more, how would I, if possible, do these plus the other three that are left after bouncing, get the whole thing in stereo? I know I have more specific questions, but I guess those will have to wait. Thanks!!!
 
That method is the poor man's way to get more tracks out of a PortaStudio, but it works....

The idea is to mix your 4 initial tracks to a stereo submix onto your HiFi VCR or MD. Then transfer the stereo submix back to say tracks 3/4 on your PortaStudio. You can then add new material on tracks 1 and 2. You can repeat the whole process over and over but keep in mind that each progressive bounce will cause some signal degeneration in your submixes. (This will be less noticeable using the MD... back in my 4-track days I could only perform a single submix bounce onto a HiFi VHS before degradation was too significant for my tastes...)

Good Luck!

Bruce Valeriani
Blue Bear Sound
 
Thank you so much!!!

Thanks alot Bruce!! That helped me out a lot!! I will probably see if I can get a MD recorder, they're not TOO bad expensive, and maybe I can strike I deal with my parents to help me buy it because I've also got to get some tapes, mic stand, some sort of monitoring system, etc. and I'm on a very limited budget, at a minimum of $60 and a max of $170, if I play my cards right with my parents :). I really appreciate your input and response, I now have a better idea of what I want to do!!! :) My band and I have our first coplete song, with about 4 more that are on their way, so this will come in REAL handy because we're a "five way band" with two guitars, one bass, one drum, and vocals in the mix. Again, thanks a lot!!

Brandon
 
You might consider mixing down to your computer before you dole out the cash for an MD recorder. Even with one of the cheaper audio programs out there, you can spruce things up with eq, compression and what have you, and burn cd's. Seems to me it would be much more versatile and would also give you direct access to medium more common than MD.

Shortly before I abandoned my 424, I started doing my bounces to vcr and computer. I found it worked much better than internal bouncing. And its way more flexible! I could bounce 4 tracks rather than 3 and I could decide if I wanted to run it back in mono or stereo. you'll be well on your way. Good luck to you and your band.
 
Thanks lazy boy!! The only thing is, to get my computer up to specs for recording to, would cost about twice as much as a minidisc recorder because it's a 166 k6 with 32 megs of ram. The good part is, I am soon to be opening a small computer shop with my band (all of us, except our drummer, is decently experienced with comps) so we have access to "direct" prices. I don't know though, I'll see what I can do, I may end up talking my parents into buying a new comp because this one keeps acting up. I appreciate your input though, and this was actually my original plan, but we'll see what happens, it all depends on how much money I get, etc. because I may just build my own comp specifically for recording for me. My bassist is going to build a comp soon focused on recording with his mom's income tax refund (yeah, she actually trusts us to build it for her:) so that will be a help too. Anyways, thanks again!!!

Brandon
 
Hmmm... forgot a small detail - when you are doing your submix, you have to essentially treat it as if you're doing a final mix in the sense that the way the submix sounds is the way you're going to here it in the final mix.

This is not as easy as it may sound since it's tough to predict how you want basic mix elements to sound without having the remaining tracks to build around.

Bruce
 
along the lines of what bruce was saying...

Or...(since cassette tapes aren't extremely expensive) you could keep your original tape and bounce the submix to a new tape. That way if you weren't happy with your first mix, you still have the original.
 
rtzstudios said:
Or...(since cassette tapes aren't extremely expensive) you could keep your original tape and bounce the submix to a new tape. That way if you weren't happy with your first mix, you still have the original.
Click to expand...
I didn't specify that 'cos I thought that it was apparent enough, but that may not be as obvious to everyone! Good point!! :)

Bruce
 
I tried to use my comp to do this very same trick about a year ago. It ended up sounding really bad. I recorded two guitars, a bass and vocals and mixed that down to the comp. I put them on one track and then recorded drums on the rest. When I went to mix that down I found that the guitars and bass were all terrible. One guitar ended up dying and the one that was supposed to be in the background was louder than the vocals at some points and absent at others.

I think you said that you were recording your band. Maybe this would be a possibility.... You could stick a mic or two in the room and record the band playing the song live on to one track. Then you could record the other instruments on the 3 remaining tracks and finally record over your scratch track w/ vocals. That will get you a demo good enough at least for listening to yourself for songwriting, or even for a little demo to get shows or even sell at your shows depending on what sort of band you are.

When I was in my second year of highschool my band recorded a BAD demo at our guitar players house. We didn't even have a four track then. We just had a little radio shack mixer and we ran that into a tape deck. It was actually a series of mixers. Oh did that sound bad! Somehow we managed to sell 90 of them at school and shows at two bucks each. That ment that we had $180 to go into a "real" (actually semi-pro) studio and record a couple songs for a proper demo. Fun.

~james
 
Hmmmmm....

These are all really good suggestions, and I appreciate them. I never had (boy, do I feel dumb :)) thought about the suggestion that rtzstudios brought up. That's a groovy idea, as well (pardon the lingo :)). I may try to mix down and see what happens with my current comp set up and possibly get a new sound card, probably a Sound Blaster Live MP3 5.1, instead of a new desk for my four track and just sit it on some boxes or somethin :). The funny part is, James, that I am actually in my second year of High School and I am going to seriously consider that!! I'm sure we could have something decent by the end of the school year with at least 3 songs, and since we have come to the age of CD-R's, we could sell demo cd's for about the same price and still make a little bit of money. We're a Christian Metal/Grunge/Punk/ a lot of other influences/ band, but our high school, very luckily, doesn't contain many snobs, and there are a lot of metal heads out there in our school that we know that we could even get The Gospel out to if they enjoy it!! But I guess that's kind of beside the point. I think that's a really awesome idea to record everyone on one track and then do the rest, finally going over the "scratch" track with vocals. Thanks alot to everyone and if anyone else has any suggestions or just comments, please post 'em!! Thanks again!!

Brandon

[Edited by Godsguitarist on 01-03-2001 at 22:36]
 
Re: Hmmmmm....

Godsguitarist said:
I'm sure we could have something decent by the end of the school year with at least 3 songs, and since we have come to the age of CD-R's, we could sell demo cd's for about the same price and still make a little bit of money.
Click to expand...

Just to add to the terribleness (not a word) of our tape, it was 22 songs long! I knew very few people who actually listened to the whole thing. We really pounded out songs back then. Verse x4, Chorus x4 Verse x4, Chorus x4, Slow part, Chorus x4. We had about 15 songs that fit that formula. By the way we were PUNK RAWK!!!! I'm actually really good friends with a lot of christian bands in my area. In fact soon I'll be recording one of them (the first band I've ever recorded other than my own). If you have anyone in your band that is remotely popular in school, you'll be ok for selling a bunch of CD's, even more so because they are CD's. We had a lot of people saying "Dude, I don't even know if I have a tape player." Of course each of our subsiquent releases sold less and less at school. Man, that was fun.
~james
 
heh heh!!

That's kind of cool!!! I don't know about 22 songs (scary!!!:)) but we should have a few, at least enough to keep SOMEONES interest!! hehe. That's cool that you are good friends with some other local Christian bands, let me know how the project turns out, if you can. I'd really like to hear their music, too, if you are able to put it up on mp3.com or something, we should also have one of our songs recorded within a little while. Plus, like you said, it will be fun more than likely anyways!! Thanks again James!! Anyone else?

[Edited by Godsguitarist on 01-03-2001 at 23:50]
 
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