new MKIII owner....recording on channel 5 and 6???

[gtrimeloni]

on my tascam 424 MKIII....is it possible to record on channels 5 and 6 as a seperate channel, or are they used to record over top of another track on channels 1-4??? i'm new to the four track world and need some help! if you respond...thank you so so much!!!!

[This message has been edited by gtrimeloni (edited 03-02-2000).]

[This message has been edited by gtrimeloni (edited 03-02-2000).]

 

[chipper]

hi, gtrmeloni;
Tracks 5 & 6 are there for you to use just prior to final mixdown, basically. They could be used to record a normal track, I guess, but the idea is to "bounce" some of the tracks to one or either (5 or 6) to let you pan them as you like. In other words, you might want to put tracks 1 & 3 on track 5, panned to the left, and tracks 2 & 4 on track 6 panned to the right. Once that's done, you play the tracks out of your console into your cassette (or CD) deck. I believe this is correct and ask anyone in-the
-know to let you know if I'm wrong. At any rate, I hope I have been of help to you.

chipper

 

[guitar kid]

Yea, you can record through channels 5&6. I know I use them for drums so I can have 6 mics and 6 channels to mix them. I suppose you could plug a mic into the first channel, and use mixer channel 5 as extra EQ. But I mainly use them for drums.

 

[Dex]

I think the point got missed here, somewhere.

You can record to any track from the 5+6 channels (using the on-board bussing) but there aren't actually tracks 5 and 6 on the tape. There are only 4 tracks; on playback these correspond to tracks 1-4, but when recording you can route and number of channels on the mixer to any track on the tape.

I know that's even more confusing, but the important point is that there are only 4 tracks on the tape.

Example of what tracks 5+6 can be used for:

channel 1 - kick mic.
channel 2 - snare mic.
channel 3 - vocal mic
channel 4 - guitar mic
channel 5 - Left drum overhead mic
channel 6 - Right overhead mic

With instruments/mics plugged in this way, you can route the channels on the mixer this way:
1 - 1/2 panned centre
2 - 1/2 panned centre
3 - 3/4 panned hard left (odd)
4 - 3/4 panned hard right (even)
5 - 1/2 panned hard left (odd)
6 - 1/2 panned hard right (even)

What you end up with is this:
Track 1 - drums mixed from channels 1, 2, and 5 (the right drum track in stereo)
track 2 - drums mixed from channels 1, 2, and 6 (the left drum track)
track 3 - the vocals only
track 4 - guitar only

See the progression? The extra channels can let you bring in additional sources to put multiple channels of the mixer on 1 track of the tape.

Chipper had it right. I just had the time to put more into this, probably.

(This is just an example, remember)

 

[gtrimeloni]

thank you all for the help....dex you cleared up the most. i pretty much understood that i could buss channels 5 and 6 to any of the four tracks...but now i see why i would need to and how i can put it to use. thanks again