Mixdown

[b0dh1sattva]

Hello, just wondering if there is a better to way to mixdown my rough tracks from my Tascam 464. Currently I'm use a stereo RCA down to a 1/8" jack into my laptop stereo in that is feeding to audacity (which I know is not great).

Does the DAW that I use have a real effect on the sound that's feeding through? Plus is there cables (in this case 4:1) where I can take the Tape Cue/individual track feeds to the laptop, and have the four tracks independent?

Cheers.

 

[The Great Cobb]

mix

If i understand correctly, you just need an interface that has 4 inputs right? Something like a Presonus Firebox, but im not sure how many inputs that one has.

Also, if you need a decent audio program, use REAPER man. Its free, you can make it look however you want, and you can fully customize every single detail of how it works. Once you get your 4 input box, you could even create a project template in REAPER that automatically opens up with all the inputs ready to recieve from the specific outputs on your tape machine. That way you dont have to do it every time you want to take a song off tape. Heres the link:

www.reaper.fm

Yeah i just checked, the Presonus Firebox has 4 line ins, so you could bring your tracks over all at once and be able to control the gain coming into the program. Also, there are 2 monitor outs as well as 4 line outs on the Firebox. What that means is you could use REAPERs "Re-insert" plugin to add external effects to your digital tracks, just like a normal analog mixer does. Youd just send your digital track out to your effect box, then back in one of the inputs and sent to the track with the re-insert plugin on it. Its kind of a nice feature those multiple outputs.

Or if you dont want to spend any money, just record a sound like a clap or a click at the start of the tape across all 4 tracks, then bring them into the laptop one at a time, and then line up the clap or click visually (since it will be on all the tape tracks in the same place).

 

[samth3mancgp]

When I used audacity several years ago, I had no noticeable issues with sound quality until I saved the file I made in audacity. (although this was several years ago and I was just starting out recording of any kind.) Different versions of the LAME mp3 encoder that has to be downloaded separately from audacity yielded different results for the final product. Some sounded just terrible. I would save what is sent to audacity as WAV first and then convert it to mp3 using something else, even iTunes was better than some of the different LAME encoders with audacity.

It might be more comfortable having it sent to another DAW like protools or sonar with a better interface, but audacity wasn't a bad program. I moved onto this http://www.acidplanet.com/downloads/xpress/ shortly after audacity because it had more features and just seemed more professional and reliable.

 

[b0dh1sattva]

Cheers for the replies, I'll look into the interface idea and download Reaper.

You've also prompted to me to have a go using the tascam as an "interface" then feed that signal through the laptop to a DAW, even if that may mean one track at a time. I think that'll have a better sound quality then having a "7 track" mix on my deck then mixing down to a stereo signal. But then a problem is latency, but its worth a try.