Cassette 8-tracks...

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I currently have a Tascam Portastudio 04 - it's a simple 4-track, but I want an 8-track now (didn't know they existed on tape). There's 2 - Tascam 488 mk and Yamaha's similar model. For some reason Tascam's 488 is not on their website and not offered in most on-line stores (musiciansfriend.com). Is it discontinued? And anyway, what's a reasonable price for the new 488 mk unit?

Also, those who already have it, does it really give you much more freedom than a 4-track (is it worth the money?). How's reliability?

Thanx!
 
Realize that with cassette 8-tracks, they have to squeeze twice as many tracks on the same width of tape. I've never used one, but I'd be wary of the amount of sound they are attempting to record on a skinny cassette tape. Reel-to-reel would be much better, IMO.

8 tracks gives you a lot more freedom over 4. If you're pushing the limits of your 4-track and have to bounce tracks, you'll save a ton of time with an 8-track and gain flexibility. At least until you start pusing the limits of the 8-track.

I tend to think "bigger" with arrangements when I get more tracks to work with. I outgrew my digital 8-track in only a couple of years. PC recording is great, fairly inexpensive for what you can get, and you can upgrade as hardware and software improve (without having to revamp your entire rig). It can also be frustrating to learn and set-up for some people. I lost some hair getting things to work more smoothly, but it is turning out to be more than worth the effort. A lot of mixes I'm working with these days have 12 to 20 tracks. I'd hate to go back to a fixed track limit, now that I have things working okay.
 
Forget about the 8 track, buy a digital 16 track and you may very well never have to buy anything of this sort again-thats if you have the money of course.
 
16-track? Ok, how much is that realistically (new)?

Also, I had the impression that most digital recorders only let you record 1 or 2 tracks at a time, I really didn't like that. If you have as many as 16 tracks, you'll wanna record your drums on separate tracks and have multiple tracks for vocals, guitars, bass, but how're you gonna do that? Thanks!
 
YO YO YO: Dealer of Junky Funky:

DON'T BUY ANY 8 TRACK TAPE RECORDER. You will be living in the past, WAAAYYYYY past.

You can get a digital 8 track; take your pick. 8 tracks will do most folks fine; you don't have to bounce and louse up the EQ.

The Yam MD-8 is what I use; however, you can pick and choose from several models of other brands.

The MD-8 is NOT QUITE cd REPRODUCTION; however, I just did few tracks with my favorite canary using CD-music as a background and the final mix was very good. However, I must tell you, I spent 4 hours doing the final mix. That's where it is at: no matter how many bits your recorder can do, it is the final mix that makes the cut.

Hey, have fun; but, get an 8 track something or another.

Green Hornet

[This message has been edited by Ben Mocini (edited 07-05-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Ben Mocini (edited 07-05-2000).]
 
Is there a way to compress all 4 tracks while recording? I was looking at getting a Behringer Composer, would that be able to do it for me?
 
To clear things up:
Yes, most digital multitracks can only record on two tracks at a time. Some on four, and some an all 8 or 16 tracks that they have. If you are going to buy one new, you'd need to give out at least $800 for an 8-track. If you want to record an more than two tracks at once, you'd probably end up needing to buy pro equipment, costing twice that. The fostex D-108 for example is suggested retail of $1495. A 16-track, like the D160 is $2195. And, please note, these aren't portastudios. You'll need an external mixer to, which will cost you about the same, and then you also need some way of backing up the recordings, to a CDR or something...

So, maybe we should cool down a bit with all the shouting about "analog is living in the past" and "forgetting 8 tracks". ;) It's not that easy, because it comes at a price! 8 tracks of course are more limited than 16, nd 16 is more limited than 24, and so on.
You get what you pay for,essentially... :p
And yes, of course, the high end digital stuff does give you a better sound quality. But if you have been living in a four track casette world, my bet is that the rest of your equipment can't give you that sound quality anyway, so you'll need to put ot ANOTHER $2000+ bucks on microphones, preamps and effects. Well, after spending $5-7000, you then you have a nice semi-pro studio. I do get the feeling however, that this wasn't really what you were asking for... :)

If your on a budget, there are three ways to go:
1. Old analog stuff. Forget about the 8-track casettes. Reel-to-reels are getting cheap now, and sound much better. I payed around $300 for an 8-track Fostex A-8LR. It's old, but it works, and it can record on all 8 tracks at one time. Somebody else here got a similar Fostex 8-track that can record on 4 tracks at the same time, including a mixer for $300. You'll never get a digital that cheap. 16 tracks are more expensive, of course, but still cheaper than the digital variety.
2. Digital portastudios. They are more expensive, I think the cheapest one are the BR-8, for around $800 or so. These will not be able to record more than two tracks at once. But they will probably have lower noise than the reel-to-reels, and most of them have built in effects. They are smaller too. An analog 8-track and mixer takes loads of space. :)
3. Computer HD recording. Now, for this you need a computer, with a soundcard and loads of extra harddisk space (and some kind of backup-system). That's not cheap, but if you have one you can use, getting started is cheap. The number of tracks you'll get out of this is depending on the computer, and so are the amount of effects processing you can do. If you need more tracks or more simoultanous effects you'll need to upgrade the computer so that can get expensive, since you often need to buy a new computer. The sound quality will be crappy, unless you buy a high quality soundcard. If you want multiple inputs and output, that will again be expensive. But you can get started for $39 (which is what n-track costs), and you'll probably get more than 4 tracks out of a decent PC. Also: If you have loads of external effects, like reverbs and such, you can basically forget to use them when mixing. Integrating them with a computer is complicated and expensive.

That's basically it, I think!
 
I recently upgraded from a 4 track cassette recorder and I too, considered an 8 track cassette recorder. By the way, to answer one of your questions, that Tascam 488mk11 or whatever, is $879 in the AMS book. You may be able to get one cheaper if you shop more. But anyway, this is why I got a digital 8 track. I bought an MD8 by Yamaha for about $200 more than the 8tr cassette. I was interested in removable media (minidisc) and simple operation (the Yamaha operates very similarly to a cassette multitrack). But there are a lot of digital choices for about the price you're gonna pay for an 8tr cassette recorder. If you're interested in hard disk, there are 3 or 4 units in the 700-900 dollar range. BTW you can record all 8 tracks simultaneously on the MD8. I think it's the only stand alone unit you can do this on. What other equipment do you have? Some of the digital units have built-in effects.
 
I gotta admit that I like Yamaha portastudios! They just seem to do things the way I want them. :) I love the MT2X I used for 10 years to record things on. And it was also was one of the cheapest then that could record an all tracks! And the direct outs made it easy to hook up to an external mixer (I synced MIDI equipment to it).

The MD8 is $2-400 more expensive than a Boss BR-8 though, and has no internal effects, so, as always, recording on many channels comes at a price... But if recording on many channels is needed, for doing live stuff, the Yamaha seems to be a "cheap" digital alternative.

Just curious: The mixer on the Yamaha is analog, right? Theoretically that should add noise. Is it noticable? It's IS nice with a proper mixer instead of fiddling around in a menu... :)
And it has direct outs so you can hook it up to an external mixer too. Najs. Supernajs.
 
Regebro, thanks a lot for understanding, man! You're right, I don't have much money to spend on this, I'd rather not spend any! I really don't wanna go the PC route - I work with PC-s for many years now (programming, assembly, support) and I grew to hate them!
One thing that attracts me in digital is the effects! I figure that if they're built in, than you can add them to a track w/o re-recording it, right?! And you can apply different effects (or amounts) to separate tracks. That is SO much better than processing each input with a bunch of pedals, wires, etc. BTW, everybody says not to record with effects, but to apply them later. I don't suppose that's an option with my Tascam Portastudio 04 :)

Maybe you guys can help me with this question: a buddy of mine has the same 4 track as mine. Is there a way to sync the two to have "8 tracks"? Also, another friend has the sweet Tascam MK 424 Portastudio 4 track, which I could also borrow. ???

Thanks again for your support, guys!
 
What you need to add effects when mixing is a proper mixer with effect sends. The smaller Tascam portas usually don't have this, so i guess that goes for the Porta 04 too, but the 424 should be able to do it. Most digital recorders have this, or at least they have internal effects to do the same, and also if you buy an 8-track with mixer you'll get this functionality. You'd get at most one or two simoultaneous effects this way, but that way you can have reverb on drums and guitar and a delay on the song so it goes a long way.

When it comes to syncing: No can do.
There are to my knowledge no portas that support this. And besides, you'd only get six tracks, since one track in each porta goes to syncing. You can however, synchronize MIDI-equipment to some portas, if they have direct outs for each track. I don't think the porta 04 does. It would still use up another track though (Except on one of the HUGE Akai-portas, who has some separate track with another azimuth or something, to record sync-signals. :cool: ) and you need an external mixer.

But with two portas you do get something that is pretty nice: 4-track bouncing! You record four tracks on one porta, mix them down to stereo and record on the other porta. Add another two tracks, and repeat until finished! Each "bounce" will add a generation of tape degradation, so you'll only be able to do this two or three times, but you'll still get 8 tracks out of it.

How to most efficiently use a porta is quite dependant on what music you play. When I was in a band playing pretty straight rock'n'roll, but with a drum-machine, we would sync the drum-machine to the MT2X, and record bass, guitars and keyboard on the remaining three tracks. Mixed this down in stereo to a Fostex or Tascam (can't remember) and record vocals and backing on the remaining two tracks. Worked GREAT!
Later, being alone I did most of the stuff with syntesizers and sequencers, recorded that to stereo on the Yamaha, and added voice and backing/acoustic guitar/something else on the fourth track. Also worked fine!
 
I'm sorry for misleading everyone, I meant to say that I have the Portastudio MkII 414. I don't suppose there are "04"-s. Everything said still applies, though.

If I get a used 488 and it needs repair, does Tascam still offer that, even though at a price? Could it be costly? Thanx!

P.S. I'd like to ask some more details about effects. My 414 does have effects loop(s). Do I still want to process during the tracking or after I've recorded? Even though I could apply an effect to more than one track, it seems it would just be the same type of effect - just the reverb or whatever. Is that practical? What about compression? Thanx.
 
The only price for the Tascam 8-track I've seen is $300, which I think is kinda hefty, since you can get a reel-2-reel 8-track and mixer for $300-500. Repairs would however be costly for all of these I'd imagine...

Compression you want to do before recording rather than after, because of noise levels. Leave the effect send for reverb during mixdown. Putting on reverb in advance is tricky, and you might want it on several channels, like drums + acoustic guitar or so.
This of course means that any other effects, like a delay on the singing, for example, has to be applied while recording, OR, if you have direct outs and direct ins for each channel, you can take the signal out of the direct out, put it through the effect and then put it into the direct in again. I like putting the delay on while recording anyway, since I put the delay before the compressor.
I've also used an external mixer for a long time now (it's a Boss BX-16, saw one mentioned for $200) and always took the four direct outs out of my Yamaha and never used the Yamaha mixer at all... The Boss isn't any better except that it has 16-channels and two effect sends, and since I often sync synths I need more than the 6 channels on the Yamaha mixer...
 
You can put a compressor in between your recorder and your mixdown unit and compress all tracks at once. Come out of your recorder through the stereo outs, in to your compressor then out to your mixdown deck. It may require a patch with 1/4" on one end and rca plugs on the other. I use light compression on the mix on some of the rock music that I do and this is how I do it.
 
Which compressor do you use, Ray? And are you an analog man or digital (and what unit do you use to record)?
 
I record digitally now, but I use to record on a 4-track cassette. I have a Yamaha MD8 now, and I have an Alesis nanocomp, which is not a very good compressor. The Behringer you're considering is probably much better, and not much more expensive. Since I've started recording digitally, I've found the need to compress the bass guitar and the bass drum and snare. I usually compress them on the way in. In other words while I'm actually tracking. But I have used my compressor on the whole mix when recording some of my heavier stuff. The nanocomp is adequate for compressing on the way in, but I wouldn't recommend it on the mix, unless its very light compression.

I'm re-reading your question right now it says can you compress all tracks while recording. If you mean while you're recording the tracks, you can if you are recording them one and possible two at a time. Do you record by yourself? Or are you recording tracks simultaneously with other musicians?
 
El Barto, you'd need four mono or two stereo compressors to do that. On the other hand, you might not need to compress all four tracks, it depends on what type of signal it is. Of you want to record a band live on four channels, four compressors actually might be a good idea, and may not be a really huge investment. A bass player often already has a bass compressor stomp box, or at least he might want one. :) But the most important part to compress I think is the vocals. You'd probably be able to do a decent rock'n roll recrding with just the vocals compressed.

Compressing the mix is another thing, really. There you don't compress each sound individually, and therefore get a completely different effect. It's hard though. Every time I try it sounds like shit. :p


[This message has been edited by regebro (edited 07-07-2000).]
 
In re: the compressor thread, I tried my RNC between my mixer and my mix-down deck, compressing all eight tracks at once. It was a decidedly different sound and monumentally more difficult to like. I ended up sticking the RNC back in the insert jack for my drum tracks, and now I'm considering buying two more RNCs ($400 in total). I'm cheap, but even that doesn't sound too bad. Have you heard the RNC compressor? It's really smooth and responsive.
 
Ray, right now with my band, we're recording drums, guitar, and vocals live. I have no desire to compress guitar, just mainly vocals and bass, and probably drums too...although I won't need to compress drums as much/at all once I have 7 mics on the drums like I plan to eventually. I'm gonna try to get this Tascam 688, which looks sweet, and has 10 inputs. So basicly, I just need to compress vocals on the fly while we record, which isn't a problem. But here's the question...is there a way to compress a track which has multiple channels going to it? For example, 7 mics (7 channel) to one track. So should I go with the Behringer? The $159 unit has 4 channels I believe, the $149 unit has 2...but the 4 channel unit doesn't have the expander/gate I believe.
 
I think you can do that, but I think I'm gonna let someone else take this one. All I really know about compressors is what I've done with mine. I never used one before I went digital. Sorry I couldn't be more help.
 
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