Hooked up my Tascam 38... man I've missed it

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Nate74

Nate74

HR4FREBR
About 7 years ago, I went from using a Tascam 38 exclusively to a setup with an Alesis HD24. That led to me mixing in Sonar and now I have a Motu 828 that records straight to my PC. A few weeks back, I got around to doing something I'd been meening to do for years and that was to transfer about 20 rolls of 1/2" tape to my PC. I setup the 8 outputs from the Tascam 38 to feed the A/D converters on the Motu and now have them all archived digitally.

The process got me wondering about tracking to the Tascam 38, but mixing in my DAW. Today, a singer-songwriter friend of mine came over to record some demo stuff. I usually put a pair of SM81's on his Martin and a Rode NTK on his vocals and just let the PC run. But I decided today to offer up the Tascam 38 instead, to which he seemed really confused.

"How do you know it's recording if you can't see the waveforms being written?"

But after recording the first couple new tunes, I repatched and played the tracks back through my MixWiz. Even with just the built in effects on the MixWiz, we were both really impressed with the sound.

He later confessed though that seeing those reels spinning made him feel a little nervous.

I'm thinking I'm going to try tracking some other projects this way. I may go back to the way I recorded bands 10 years ago with only 3 tracks for drums etc.

Really brought back some cool memories and you can't argue with the sound :)
 
Cool… welcome back! For the guy who's nervous about the spinning reels I would make up some stories about people getting their arms caught in them... or maybe a neck tie tangled up and they're killed in the recording studio. For effect you can tell the stories as the machine is in fast forward or rewind. Just when the air really starts to move with some noise, grab him and scream, “Look out!” Analog can be fun! ;)
 
Beck, I may send him your way... he's sort of a big dude :0
 
Great! 38! You're the man!

I've not used my 38 in years, and I'm getting an urge to splurge. ;):eek:
 
ARP - cool to see your name pop up here. I've always enjoyed your analog-ish posts (is that word?).

I'm actually considering tracking my blues/roots band with it in a few weeks. I think we can get everything on there with a stripped down mic setup. I have to confess, I may have to mix in the box though... I've lost my touch with a board as of late :(
 
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