Buying a secondhand Portastudio -- need advice

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mbenga

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Hi everyone,

I am looking to buy a secondhand Tascam Portastudio for lo-fi recording and I am choosing between two sellers. One is selling one made from China, 414 mkII complete with box, manual and adaptor for USD150.

And one without an adaptor, made in Japan 424, mkII, looking mint, but significantly cheaper - USD45.

As a beginner interested in making lo-fi, garage-y recordings, what would suit my needs best? What things should I look for when buying secondhand? What damage should I keep an eye out for?

Thanks in advance!
 
Not to familiar with those but do they both burn the CD within the unit? If so I would check to make sure that they do record without any mishaps.
 
Thanks for the response. Well, it is actually an Analog 4 track from Tascam that records to tape. Any advice?
 
If it works (make sure it works - especially the transports) I'd go with the 424 mkii. If you look on ebay the 424 mkii generally sells for much more, and it "looks" like a fairly sturdy built unit w/ what seems to be more features. (I like the 4 mic inputs myself).

If you want the 414 I wouldn't pay $150, you can get them quite a bit less on ebay. IF you need portability the 414 seems somewhat more portable.

I haven't used either one (I had a very old Tascam Portastudio 20+yrs ago that I liked, but that won't advise you much on the new one).

Here's a comparison from Sound on Sound that's probably worth reading.
Tascam 424 MkIII & 414 MkII
 
A lot of lo-fi garagey recordings are made with high quality equipment in expensive studios. The lo-if ness is a production technique. Just sayin'...
 
Using 4 track acssette is great if that's your way in but it won't give you "lo fi" inherently. In fact you can get rather decent quality from one of those machines if you keep them well and have your brain sorted for recording to 4 tracks. It's quite an art doing multi track on a 4 track so think about it. You can get an interface for the rpice of the dearer model and record as lo fi as you like in a computer.
More than $75 is just wrong for that type of machine, its age and the difficulty obtaining chrome tape to record with.
I know because I have 2 yamaha 4 track cassette machines & a store of tape that took a lot of time to aquire and it wasn't cheap to get either.
In terms of damage you'd need to have a chance to get your hands on the machines, chck the transport works, that eveything worlks really, that the tape speeds work, that the noise reduction works, that the record erase head isn't damaged, is aligned, is properly biased etc etc etc.
 
Chances are they will crap out on you in a year or two (at best) so spend as little as possible. Ususally its the tape transport system that fails (motors, drives, gears, belts). You'd do better to buy a small digital recorder, if you want portability, or move up to computer recording and save a lot of wasted money and time ...
 
thanks everybody for your responses.

going with what mike said, i was curious if i could achieve this lo-fi garage-y sound with just an MBP 13" using garageband and say, an SM-57. if i were to go down this route, what would be the absolute basic necessities i'd need in order to create such recordings?

peace.
 
For computer recording you need an audio interface. As has been said 'lo-fi' is usually recorded (these days) like everything else, and then processed to sound 'lo-fi'.
I'd highly recommend going with an interface and computer recording as you can always expand, move up - with a stand-alone recorder (cassette or digital), you're pretty much stuck with what you got.
Note that for any recording, you'll want headphones, monitors, etc.
 
mbenga said:
going with what mike said, i was curious if i could achieve this lo-fi garage-y sound with just an MBP 13" using garageband and say, an SM-57. if i were to go down this route, what would be the absolute basic necessities i'd need in order to create such recordings ?
Click to expand...
Mike always cracks me up with his decidedly anti standalone recorder posts, whether tape or digital. He's like a reformed smoker {the cigarettes being standalones} on a crusade against cigarettes !
But you'd be wise to take on board what he says because unfortunately, standalones are getting rarer and rarer and especially the tape ones. And while I don't agree that they'll inevitably crap out in two years, especially if they weren't used much, they will one day. And their rarity means that parts to replace what needs replacing are rare and more significantly, the people that maintain and fix them.
You can certainly use your MBP to record lo~fi recordings. As Armistice said, lo~fi records are recorded in big, well equipped expensive studios by people who know what they're doing and create that trashy sound deliberately. The other type that excel in lo~fi are those who don't know what they're doing and that which they often do, they don't do properly. If they could make higher fidelity sounds, they would.
What sort of instruments are you looking to record ?
 
Primarily guitar, as I am interested in recording feedback and noise looping experiments, plus rudimentary bass and drums and a little vocals. What's a good starting kit using Garageband?
 
edit:.... I just noticed you said you've already decided to go another route... I'll leave this comment for others who may be reading.

re: stand-alones

Having used both PC (Paris DAW, Acid Pro, Ableton Live) and standalone (Tascam Portastudio from 80s), one thing to be aware of workflow and that the technology you use doesn't get in the way of what you're trying to do.

For some things I think a simple/easy to use standalone is the way to go. You're limited in what you can do - but that often means you hit the record button and focus on the music. If your stand-alone is a cassette - bouncing more than once may produce a noticeable drop in sound quality. For durability my machine lasted me for years though before transport became a little unsteady. I transferred cassette audio to PC several years ago to remix in digital - but they'll never be top quality audio - but then I was using cheap everything because that's all I could afford when I was young - and I didn't know what I was doing anyway.

My PC setup now sounds lots better and way more flexible and powerful, but the negative to keep in mind (at least for me) is it's a bigger deal to just get around to making music. And it's not very portable like an all-in-one. Sometimes just figuring out new software and hardware is an inspiration killer, or having an idea and booting up, opening software, pulling up files, setting up routing, etc.

For ideas I'd go for simple. Sometimes you have an idea and want to hit go.
For more polished product I'd go PC - but it might not be best to start out with - especially given that one of the machines is $45. I wouldn't give it a second thought as long as it worked. You can definitely learn on the cheap with it, and you'll find out if your want to spend alot more $ on the hobby (which is possible.) all imho. good luck and have fun.
 
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