Do i have room for a teac a3440?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Steenamaroo
  • Start date Start date
Steenamaroo

Steenamaroo

...
Hi folks.

I think i might be receiving a teac a3440 soon, and as much as i'm looking forward to playing with it, i'm not sure how i'll integrate it into my setup.

If it was an 8-track, there'd be no problem. I'd have the option of tracking drums to it then importing to the daw.


At the minute, everything I do is tracked straight into protools.

I have 8 channel analog summing option that can go straight back into the daw, or onto a 22-2, then to the daw when i'm finishing sessions.

I have 16 analog line ins and outs, so there's room for it that way but,

How do you guys integrate reel to reels into your digital setups? What do you use them for?
 
In my band we're using a Fostex A4 4-track machine for recording drums, bass, guitars and sometimes synths live then mixing down to DAW to overdub vocals, percussion and additional synth. If we have a nice recording done on DAW before we got the Fostex we do it the opposite way. I prefer the sound of going directly to tape, however it gives a nice flavour to digital recordings too.
Do you record live or do you record a track at the time?

I'd say go for the Teac 3440 if it works. It will make your drums, bass and guitars sound different and I'll say better.
Record in the best possible sound quality on the DAW, otherwise you'll miss the wider frequency range of the tape recorder.

If you get the TEAC don't forget to buy a demagnetizer (tricky to use, be carefull), some isopropyl and cotton swabs for the heads (the isopropyl should be at least 91%). You'll need some pinch roller cleaner as well; however I'll let some of the experienced guys answer what you product you'll need for this.
 
Here we dont intergrate our reel to reels into our digital setups we intergrate a little digital into our Analog setups when we have to. Not cause we want to.
But for your setup it sounds like you are using a whole bunch of mics on drums. If you could cut that down to just 4 mics or 4 tracks then you could use the Teac to a great advantage and track drums first to tape then dump into your computer.
 
Useful answers; Thanks folks.

Say for arguments sake i had a full song tracked with nothing but vocals left to do.

What would be the best way to use the teac for recording and bouncing the vocals into the daw?

Is the speed of these things accurate enough to rely on for recording overdubs to tape, then bouncing into the daw and lining up with the mix?
 
Steenamaroo said:
Useful answers; Thanks folks.

Say for arguments sake i had a full song tracked with nothing but vocals left to do.

What would be the best way to use the teac for recording and bouncing the vocals into the daw?

Is the speed of these things accurate enough to rely on for recording overdubs to tape, then bouncing into the daw and lining up with the mix?
Click to expand...

nope, they will not line up exactly. it CAN be done manually (lord knows I have done it), but it's not 100% accurate. and it can be accomplished with a sync track perhaps, but i don't know that world at all (no computers in my setup).

best bet is to record whatever you want on the tape first, then put into computer for the rest. but those are the limitations of analog, especially small-track count decks. in my opinion, you must embrace the limitations (rather than fight them) to obtain good results.

good luck, i'd say give it a shot! you might like it.
 
Just thinking, i could do that 'live' right?

As in, singer into mic into reel to reel which is recording. At the same time the teac line outs are being sent to my daw and are recorded digitally.

That way i'd get a digital recording with latency, so i'd have to move it, but the timing would be consistent with the rest of the song yeah?
 
I would say no. I think you will be waisting your time and energy. That machine will not fix what you want to fix with the sound of your recordings. If you want to fix your sound then I would recommend you buy a 8 to 16 track analog machine and track everything to it and then mix down to a cd.
 
I'm not buying anything; I'm receiving an a3440. ;)

I also don't wanna fix anything, but i don't want to sell this deck for profit (moral thing about gifts), and i don't want to let it sit gathering dust either.

May as well try to integrate it and get to know it. If it can offer me an alternative flavour in any way, then it's as useful as a new mic or new pres or whatever.

I'm just trying to get advice on practical ways to use this as a tool within my setup, rather than as the focal point.
Thanks for your honesty though; It is appreciated.
 
Heres a idea for you. why dont you try using it for a whole project with out the digital stuff till final mixdown. You may suprise yourself and learn alot. It can be fun working on nothing but a 4 track reel to reel. Good luck with your machine. when I was 21 we would have kissed a fat baby,s butt for someone to give us one of those
 
Yeah, that's a good idea. I probably would have done that anyway, for fun if nothing else.
Are these considered to be high quality units?



Harking back to the live processing thing.

If i plug in a mic, hit record on blank tape, and monitor the line outputs,

Am i hearing just
hearing mic->preamp->out
or mic->preamp->tape->out?
 
Steenamaroo said:
If i plug in a mic, hit record on blank tape, and monitor the line outputs,
Am i hearing just
hearing mic->preamp->out
or mic->preamp->tape->out?
Click to expand...

Depends what you're monitoring. If you monitor the sync head it will be the first one. If you monitor from the playback head, it will be the second. Obviously there will be a delay between the record and playback head.

Some people do do things this way. You could also use it as a 4-channel tape delay if you can't think of anything else to do with it...
 
That's fantastic; I can use it the way i had hoped then.

I'll fire an mp3 into pro tools and record it that way through the tape, then compare to make sure the timings are sweet between the two.

If they are, win!

thanks jp.
 
Steenamaroo said:
Yeah, that's a good idea. I probably would have done that anyway, for fun if nothing else.
Are these considered to be high quality units?

I never tried the 3440 but there's a good chance it will sound good - a lot of people love the Teac/Tascam stuff. It's not really pro but it wouldn't surprise me if a fair deal of punk and indie records have been recorded on 3440 or similar machines.
However I think most major label records of the 70's and 80's is done on Studers, Otaris and Ampexes (mostly in the US). But those things is usually goddam expensive and takes some serious tech skills to keep alive.

The 4-track used by The Beatles was a Studer J37 with "2 tape - this one is the same amount of tracks on "1/4 so you probably won't be able to copy endless times without some serious noise build up. But it will sound good if you're patient, play well and the thing is working like it should.

Personally I only have first hand experience with Fostex A4 (which is 4-track 1/4" too), Revox A77 and cassettes, so I'm just refering to general forum-consensus and theoretical articles about analog recording.
Click to expand...
 
Steenamaroo said:
Yeah, that's a good idea. I probably would have done that anyway, for fun if nothing else.
Are these considered to be high quality units?



Harking back to the live processing thing.

If i plug in a mic, hit record on blank tape, and monitor the line outputs,

Am i hearing just
hearing mic->preamp->out
or mic->preamp->tape->out?
Click to expand...

they are considered high-quality within the "pro-sumer" realm of their design. they were made to the standards of high-end home stereo equipment, as opposed to "professional" grade. in other words, most "classic" albums that you have heard and are familiar with would have been recorded on higher-end "professional" machines, namely: Ampex, Studer, 3M, MCI, etc.

That said, many classic underground albums (particularly among the DIY-ers of the '70s-'80s were done on this deck. they have their own sound, a little bit "lo-fi" in some ways, but can sound very good.
 
If my TEAC A-4300SX (a 1/4" auto-reverse stereo deck) arrives in good working order, I'm just gonna use it as a mixdown deck with the multitrackers, or to mix several MIDI keyboards in one go. I don't have a way to get more than two tracks (the main outs) out of my sound card. I can't imagine it sounding much better than cassette anyway - if it's even that good.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top