well, I'm really not too sure. mixing is a world that is totally foreign to me. I generally record very crudely with a tascam 424, adding more tracks by making stereo mixes of what I've got onto another tape to free up two more tracks. that means I really only have four tracks at a time to mix, but I realize there's tricks with my 4-track that I've really yet to explore.
I guess in the future 8 or 10 channels would be great. I hope to get an 8-track some time in the future, after I feel like I've really mastered everything there is to do with the 4-track (something I'm not even close to doing yet).
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SEMI-UNRELATED QUESTION: I was going to make another thread about this but I might as well drop this here while I'm at it... most of the music I've recorded over the past few years is free-improv/noise music where I basically only do two tracks at a time. however, I've started a band and we've been recording with the tascam 424 mkIII and I'm having some problems separating the tracks. for example: when I record four tracks at once, tracks one and three (left) are basically same, just a combo of what was plugged into either channel. same goes for two and four.
I'm certain this is just something I've missed the many times I've read the manual but does anyone know why this is happening? is this just what happens when you record four tracks at once? how in the world do you record four entirely separate tracks at once with minimal to no bleed-through?
I might repost this in another thread if no one checkin out the mixer question wants to answer it. I really mean it when I say you guys are awesome, you've bailed me out of some real messes before.