more questoins on track bouncing

[moriluk]

Why is the standard consensus that 4 track recording yields 7 tracks? Other than fidelity, what is preventing infinite track bouncing?

In other words, the standard method is this; record 1, 2, & 3. Now what? Bounce them to track 4. And then you record 1 & 2 again then bounce them to 3, leaving you with up to 7 tracks on a 4 track.

But if you can bounce 1 - 3 on 4 and so forth, why can't you then bounce tracks 3 & 4 to track 1? And then record 2 and 3 and bounce all those to 4 again and keep repeating the process.

For simplification:
track 1 (a)
2 (b)
3 (c)
bounced - 4 (abc)

record again, track 1 (d), 2 (e) bounce them to 3(de).

now you have 3 (de) and 4 (abc). If I can bounce 1 - 3 to 4, why can't I bounce 3 & 4 to 1?

now you have track 1 (abcde),. then record track 2 (f) and 3 (g). repeat process (track 4 = abcdefg) leaving 1 - 3 open again?

If the answer is fidelity that is understandable, but fidelity is an issue in the first place, this does not mean that you are limited to 7 tracks with a 4 track.

I will probably skip all of this and just mix 4 tracks to CDR and then record that to a new tape.

 

[Chibi Nappa]

I imagine the limiting factor is how good of an engineer you are. Every bounce locks all previous mixing descisions in stone. So if you are some super Jedi who knows he will never need to change a single thing and does every bounce with perfect mix settings... Sure. Bounce until the cows come home.

Until fidelity hits you over the head.



There is also the likely scenario that if you are 4-tracking in the first place, you have a killer band in a killer room playing live through a console to 2-track and everything else is "extra" overdub stuff. So you probably don't really need to bounce to more than 7 total tracks.

 

[mjbphotos]

What recorder are you using? I assume a 4-track cassette? It may only be pre-wired to bounce to track 4/back to 1.
Have you ever tried this? What were the results - you're lucky if you can get the volumes and tones set correctly first go-round.

 

[Bristol Posse]

What recorder are you using? I assume a 4-track cassette? It may only be pre-wired to bounce to track 4/back to 1.
Have you ever tried this? What were the results - you're lucky if you can get the volumes and tones set correctly first go-round.

And if thats the case that you are using cassette and the recorder will allow just think about what you are doing to the audio

1st bounce is a clean bounce of 1,2 & 3 to track 4
2nd bounce is a less clean affair your rerecording over 1 & 2 and potentially having artifacts of the original recording and then copying that over the top of what was on track 3 and mixing in track 4
3rd bounce and on is now so many copies of copies re recording over previously recorded tape that the fidelity is going to go to hell very quickly. quite aside from the inherent hiss and machine noise you record on every bounce

I think your idea of Bouncing to CDR and then back to fresh tape each time is going to get you a better result unless you are looking for a 1920's kind of sound