Linking two 488's
- Thread starter Fireside
- Start date
Tim Brown
New member
Fireside said:
Well, I'm not familiar with the 488.
But if you're trying to do what I think you're trying to do-it won't work.
I haven't seen a Cassette Multitrack set up that you can Synch together in a Chase/Lock situation yet..Ok well, there WERE those Fire-something? brand of 6-track cassette recorders that supposedly allowed you to "lock" them together as 1 big unit.
But I haven't seen it with any of the tascams, unless they switched something after i'd made the Jump to digital....
Tim
Gear_Junky
New member
Fire, I thought of it too, and to my knowledge that's not possible. You can play the existing 8 tracks from one unit and record with it onto another unit, but later you won't be able to sync the two tapes. You could "bounce" tracks from one to the other, but then, you can do that within 1 unit. I still wanna say, compared to 4-track, I'm feeling pretty free right now even with just 8 tracks! I have yet to run out of tracks.
Tim Brown
New member
Gear_Junky said:
Hi Gear Junkie,
Even though I went to 16 Tracks-for my Own Personal recordings-I haven't used over 8 tracks myself.
When I've tracked friends, alot of them wanted to have like 5 guitar tracks-so I did it for them.
On my own personal stuff I use 3 tracks for the drumkit(Snare, Kick, and a mono overhead of the kit), a Bass Guitar Track, 2 Guitar tracks, and 2 vocal tracks.
We do plan to Rerecord everything, and My Bass player wants me to break the drumkit into 8 tracks, so that we can have complete control of it.
I'm Happy with what I'm getting-but he wants us to get an even "bigger"/bombastic /HUGE (as he put it) drumsound; so We're gonna Mic each drum individually, and use a ton of reverbon the kit.
That's HIS deal though-he wants a monsterous drumsound, to go with his "Freight Train" Bass sound. (Okay, so he's got several thousand watts going through 8 15" speakers! And yes, it DOES sound like a Freight Trainbarreling down on you! Hahahaha
Tim
Gear_Junky
New member
Thanks, Tim. Of course, if I had my way, I'd close mic every drum and I'd want a couple tracks for basses and guitars and so on, but... "reality gets ya". The truth is it's possible to make good sounding recordings even on 4 tracks, it's just a little easier on 8. I don't think I'm gonna "go digital" any time soon, unless I make a business out of this.
Tim Brown
New member
Gear_Junky said:
I know that I personally fought against Digital for YEARS; because Bad Digital is WAY WORSE than Bad Analog. I was vehemently against Digital, but then I heard some things a few friends were doing-and it changed my mind on the whole Digital Issue-the key was doing some things that were kind of unorthodox-such as using Distortion on the Drums to simulate tape distortion, and making perfectly sure that you had the sound you wanted as it was being printed to tape-you also have to watch out how much you E.Q. things-especially if you're on a cheap board like I am (a Mackie 1604 Vlz Pro) You just have to learn the limitations of your system, and work within those parameters-that applies to Analog as well-it's just that you have to pay a little more attention to the details in digital; things that you could "get buy with" in Analog, will stick out like a sore thumb in Digital.
To me, it's worth it to lose the Hiss; plus-I LOVE the fact that the Digital recorder will capture the "kick" of my Kick drums- they go at least an Octave below what my 1/4" 8-track can capture(about 40Hz)-and man, even though I wind up rolling off the low end a bit on playback-it THUMPS bigtime!
I swear to God, if Drummers would try using 28" Kicks, they would probably never go to anything smaller! (okay, so it's not really "portable"-but it's worth hauling them around to me!)It's literally changed the way that I play.
But Like I said, Bad Analog is better than Bad digital-Bad analog will just sound like a messed up tape, Bad digital you can't even listen to.
They both have their fine points. I know that those who are "purists" would have a fit at some of the unorthodox things that I do, such as the mentioned Distortion on Drums, or the fact that I compress the heck out of everything.
But for me, I KNOW what I am after-and I know what it will take to get the sound that I want on tape.
I just look at digital as being a better tool for the way that I work. That's all.
And remember, I was Anti-Digital for years.
Actually, When I bought the machines that I have-I had bid on an MCI 2" machine with 16 & 24 blocks for $8,500, along with an old Trident board. The Board was kind of ragged out-it was about 8 feet long, and about a billion lbs., AND I was going to have to go to Toronto, Canada (from Jacksonville, Florida) to pick it up. Somebody else got that setup-and I decided that IF the guy SELLING that Stuff was going digital, maybe *I* should look into digital...
Well, you won't catch me completely recording on a PC, because I'm not into all the "Plug-in" crap; I'm a "knob twisting" kind of guy_ I like Mixers and Effect units-actually, I use alot of Old Spring Reverbs on things-and I find I actually PREFER "Mechanical" Reverbs with Digital.
I use a Spring Reverb on my Drumkit and LOVE IT with Digital, but when I was recording Analog-the same spring reverb didn't sound so great on the drums! Go figure! Hahaha
Tim
[Edited by Tim Brown on 09-20-2000 at 15:04]
Gear_Junky
New member
I hear ya, Tim. I'm not totally against digital, but I don't got the dough. Also I don't want to give up my knobs. My Virtualizer Pro is a good example. It's got good effects, but they are controlled by these digital buttons - a combination of codes. That stinks! My Boss Chorus Ensemble or my old analog DM-2 delay are more versatile to me, cuz I can adjust them without consulting the manual. I find myself learning to program my own drum-machine. I HATE THAT! We're not even talking quality here. I just don't want to! Am I intelligent enough to program my own VCRs? Yes, but I don't want to 
I do plenty of programming at work. I think those new digital devices with analogue simulated controls are great. Well, enough of me yapping I really just can't afford it. I have everything I need to record, got my lovely Tascam 488 mkII, can't ask for anything else! I'd rather buy a big good mic.
I do plenty of programming at work. I think those new digital devices with analogue simulated controls are great. Well, enough of me yapping I really just can't afford it. I have everything I need to record, got my lovely Tascam 488 mkII, can't ask for anything else! I'd rather buy a big good mic.