Fostex A8 recording advice

[HendryJ]

Hello, long time forum lurker here.

In a few weeks Im planning to record my band using my Fostex A8 machine and a Fostex 450 8ch mixing desk, and I just wanted to ask if anyone here got some good advice for me. I have made some simple recordings myself on it previously with varying results but overall I am quite happy with them. Someone here got experience with a similar setup?

I have mostly recorded one track at a time though and now we will be recording atleast bass and drums, and preferably guitar too, live, and then add other tracks. I like the drum sound i get using few microphones (sometimes only a large condenser and one mic for the kick and/or the snare). We will have access to two rooms so leakage wont really be a big problem.

One thing I am most worried about is the sound "dropping out" while recording. It has happened a few times before that when listening back to what i recorded the sound fades out and then comes back again in the middle of the song. This was quite some time ago that this happened last time and it might as well just have to do with a bad tape or something but if not, maybe someone can shed some light on the matter?

The only processing units I have available for the recording itself is an old boss 2trk compressor and a reverb unit. Should I be using these when recording or is it better to add this later? I also play my guitar very reverb heavy. I should also say that we will mostly use some cheap but good dynamic microphones, two warm nice sounding large condensers and maybe some other kind of mic if i manage to borrow one.

Thanks alot for your help.

 

[WarmJetGuitar]

Spend lots of time making a good submix of the drums and send them to your A8. Many cheaper mics is very bright - personally I prefer to roll off a bit of treble on the overheads of the drumpremix to avoid harsh cymbals.

Depending of the stuff you're doing of course and your taste, leakage ain't nessesarily a bad thing. IMO it often binds the mix nicely together and adds a room sound and live feel you can't easily archieve in other ways.
For the freak-out psychedelia I'm playing some leakage makes the sound better IMO.
For folky stuff Roy Halee who engineered Simon and Garfunkel loved leakage and didn't try to avoid it. Others will freak out if their headphones will get picked up by the mic when dubbing vocals.

Dropouts is unfortunately quite common on quarter inch 8-track due to the tracks being very narrow and therefore sensitive to imperfections of the tape and the recorder. You might have heard this thousands of times before but always clean your recorder carefully before each session and degauss on a regular basis.
The A8 is the first machine in this narrow track format, it's from around 1981. So the problem you're experiencing could be caused by inexperience with the format from the designing engineers, the age of the machine or probably shitty tape. Try avoiding putting the most vital/loudest instruments on the edge tracks. I often had the same problem on my Fostex R8 however it's worse with some types of tape than others. However my M80 is totally reliable and will sound great with almost any kind of tape and the E8 is said to be great too.

That being said you're lucky to have a three-headed machine as you can make tape delay and hass effect on it and its easier to calibrate than the later two-headed Fostex machines.
I also love the individual monitoring feauture and the jumping needles compared to the later LEDs. Getting visuals of LEDs when you're trying to sleep can be an annoying experience

As for the effects on the way in: there are no rules. Many musicians get more confidence and perform better if they can hear their prefered sound while they're recording, but for vocals and synths there are ways of effecting in the monitoring only. Your choice mate

Can the A8 record all eight tracks at once?

 

[diggy_dude]

In most cases it would be preferable to get a good dry recording first, then add effects afterwards. If you record your tracks with effects and aren't pleased with the result, you'll have to re-record the track. The tracks with effects might sound completely different when the tracks are mixed down too. A typical goal of engineers is to make all the musicians sound like they were playing in the same room, which makes a strong case for applying effects at mixdown. But as WJG said, there are no hard and fast rules.

 

[HendryJ]

Spend lots of time making a good submix of the drums and send them to your A8. Many cheaper mics is very bright - personally I prefer to roll off a bit of treble on the overheads of the drumpremix to avoid harsh cymbals.

Depending of the stuff you're doing of course and your taste, leakage ain't nessesarily a bad thing. IMO it often binds the mix nicely together and adds a room sound and live feel you can't easily archieve in other ways.
For the freak-out psychedelia I'm playing some leakage makes the sound better IMO.
For folky stuff Roy Halee who engineered Simon and Garfunkel loved leakage and didn't try to avoid it. Others will freak out if their headphones will get picked up by the mic when dubbing vocals.

Dropouts is unfortunately quite common on quarter inch 8-track due to the tracks being very narrow and therefore sensitive to imperfections of the tape and the recorder. You might have heard this thousands of times before but always clean your recorder carefully before each session and degauss on a regular basis.
The A8 is the first machine in this narrow track format, it's from around 1981. So the problem you're experiencing could be caused by inexperience with the format from the designing engineers, the age of the machine or probably shitty tape. Try avoiding putting the most vital/loudest instruments on the edge tracks. I often had the same problem on my Fostex R8 however it's worse with some types of tape than others. However my M80 is totally reliable and will sound great with almost any kind of tape and the E8 is said to be great too.

That being said you're lucky to have a three-headed machine as you can make tape delay and hass effect on it and its easier to calibrate than the later two-headed Fostex machines.
I also love the individual monitoring feauture and the jumping needles compared to the later LEDs. Getting visuals of LEDs when you're trying to sleep can be an annoying experience

As for the effects on the way in: there are no rules. Many musicians get more confidence and perform better if they can hear their prefered sound while they're recording, but for vocals and synths there are ways of effecting in the monitoring only. Your choice mate

Can the A8 record all eight tracks at once?

Thank you for the great response and pointers I can record 4 tracks at a time with it which is pretty much ok for me. Think Ill do as you suggest and send a submix of the drums into two tracks and then put bass and guitar on the two others. Gonna try it out some before our "big" recording session.

Guess Ill just have to cross my fingers the sound doesnt drop out then, although I am pretty sure I was using older tapes when this last happened. Ill try again with some fresh ones and see how that goes. I always make sure to clean the heads of the machine before recording but two things I have yet to look into are degaussing and calibration. I have come across this a few times reading on forums and magazines but I've never quite gotten how it works and what tools are needed. Havent looked too much in these forums about this but Ill be sure to do that (if no one feel like summing it up here for me

 

[Blue Jinn]

There are factory recommended degaussing of the heads after a period of use. the manual should indicate (don't have that info handy at the moment.) As far as calibration is concerned, you need the service manual, and you'll need a calibration tape, and some time. There are a few threads here about that. I think the A8 was designed for a different spec then the 80 or R8. Review the threads on DIY alignment and calibration. Also, there is an old thread on operating level that really explains what that means. I think 'sweetbeats' started the thread and pretty much walks thru the what is this to the now I get it.

 

[HendryJ]

Thank you, yeah I've been looking around a little and see that there are some good explanatory threads about this. I actually managed to find and download the manual for my machine just a few days ago so that'll make things easier.