Going from computer to 4-track is quite an experience

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strat0tele

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I've been recording for 3 years now. I've always used computer to record and I have gotten so used to having everything seperated in tracks and the ability to splice and dice mistakes so easily.

My computer died last week and I had to wait on a motherboard, so I couldn't record on the computer. I bought a 4-track a few months ago thinking I was going to use it as a demo style thing but it never happened. I pulled it out and damn what a pain in the ass compared to computer. I recorded drums and guitar on the same track, bass on another then mixed all 3 into one track. The rest is annoying.

Mixing these things are even more of a pain in the ass. Since I had a few different things on one track as overdubs or stuff I wanted to mute, I had to actually mix the thing live :eek:

Quite a difference from my regular procedure.

This is the result of using a four track compared to computer, I don't think it sounds too bad for being on a cassette. I feel that the 4-track does a great job for making something sound darker. I don't know what is it.

The end solo guitar I know starts out a bit too high and the first chorus vocals are a bit too low, other than that their isn't any other big mix problems

 
strat0tele said:
I've been recording for 3 years now. I've always used computer to record and I have gotten so used to having everything seperated in tracks and the ability to splice and dice mistakes so easily.

My computer died last week and I had to wait on a motherboard, so I couldn't record on the computer. I bought a 4-track a few months ago thinking I was going to use it as a demo style thing but it never happened. I pulled it out and damn what a pain in the ass compared to computer. I recorded drums and guitar on the same track, bass on another then mixed all 3 into one track. The rest is annoying.

Mixing these things are even more of a pain in the ass. Since I had a few different things on one track as overdubs or stuff I wanted to mute, I had to actually mix the thing live :eek:

Quite a difference from my regular procedure.

This is the result of using a four track compared to computer, I don't think it sounds too bad for being on a cassette. I feel that the 4-track does a great job for making something sound darker. I don't know what is it.

The end solo guitar I know starts out a bit too high and the first chorus vocals are a bit too low, other than that their isn't any other big mix problems


It's so funny hearing people talk about 4 tracks as being so limiting. Those of us who grew up with them were always thinking ... "oh my God! FOUR tracks!" We used to bounce endlessly on a normal tape recorder to get four tracks. Now we had a machine that did it for us, and much better! When you learn on those machines, you start to get a system down, and you can coax some pretty decent sounds out of them. Springsteen's "Nebraska" album was recorded on a cassette four track.

You had to mix it live!!?? Holy shit ... that's almost like .... mixing!

Is this half speed?
 
famous beagle said:
It's so funny hearing people talk about 4 tracks as being so limiting. Those of us who grew up with them were always thinking ... "oh my God! FOUR tracks!" We used to bounce endlessly on a normal tape recorder to get four tracks. Now we had a machine that did it for us, and much better! When you learn on those machines, you start to get a system down, and you can coax some pretty decent sounds out of them. Springsteen's "Nebraska" album was recorded on a cassette four track.

You had to mix it live!!?? Holy shit ... that's almost like .... mixing!

Is this half speed?

You can do awesome things with a 4 track. If you know Ween, you can see a huge influence of them on my stuff. Two of their albums were done on a 4 track and they are awesome. One vocal is down speed, the other during the chorus is up. The rest of the song is in normal speed.
 
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