Porta Two Newbie

[Sheff37]

I understand the "romance of vintage analog". The biggest problem these days is that the equipment is now pushing upwards of 20 to 30 years old in most cases. Parts slowly become unavailable, and there's the unavailable wear and tear/disintegration of moving parts. Reliability sucks unless you have the time, money and expertise to maintain the devices.

It's like the romance of vintage automobiles. I would love to have a '59 or '60 Vette. I always thought those were the coolest style and they are relatively simple to work on. To have one in the garage would be a dream come true, but to drive one 10-12 hours to get to the beach? No way. They are rough, noisy, and generally a pain in the ass to ride in, literally! I'll take my Ford Taurus any day. Huge trunk, 30mpg on the road, and a few years ago I drove 9 hours to visit my son, with one stop for lunch and 2 stops for gas, and when I got there at 4:30, was ready to go shopping for furniture, put together his bed, dresser and entertainment center, and then go out for dinner.

Trying to do anything meaningful on a 4 track cassette would be torture for me. I can add hiss, and surface noise to a pristine digital recording, compress it a bit, roll off the top and bottom a bit, and it sounds JUST LIKE A RECORD!

Bingo. And that is where l am at. I love the feel of my 388 and even my MTX-8 console. Just the way you sit and fiddle on it. I pretty much rebuilt my MTX-8 but it's still almost 30 years old. What if halfway through it craps out? But l am still not happy with my guitar tone when l record to DAW, even with all the plugins. And the tape sim plugins are 100% there. But the way tape scoops the highs up and warms the mix just isn't happening in any DAW for me. Plus DAW recording, mixing and mastering takes hours and hours longer. The more apps you have, well all that drives me just mad.

I'm hoping the new Tascam Model 24 has got that worked. Fortunately by the time all my old analog gear craps out, and it will, the new digital stuff should be 100% there.

 

[Sheff37]

The Yamaha MT4X is a great machine. You're gonna love it.

As for the comments about "adding hiss," etc., the use of noise reduction pretty much makes hiss negligible, even on a cassette 4 track. I'm speaking from lots of experience here, as I've used DOZENS of different 4 track cassette machines over the years. My last one was actually a MT4X.

So, if you want some hiss, you can leave the NR off. But if you want a clean sound, you can use NR.

My years of experience with these machines also means I've seen plenty of issues that have been addressed here regarding their unreliability. And that is a true concern. In fact, it's why I sold my MT4X recently, and why I plan to be 4-trackless for the first time in my adult life.

It got to a point where I was spending more time fixing machines or looking for replacements than I was actually recording music. I'm a huge analog lover and very nostalgic. I still have a Tascam 388 reel to reel that I use. And I've always had a cassette 4 track as long as I can remember. But I finally made a decision that, once they go, I won't replace them with other analog decks. (At least ... not until I strike it rich and can afford to pay a tech to repair anything, which isn't likely.) The MT4X went belly up a month ago, so the 388 is my last soldier standing.

I just can't afford to spend more time fighting the technology instead of recording. That's not to say that digital recording doesn't have its share of technical issues. It does. But in my experience (I've owned a digital DAW rig as well for years that I've used for work purposes), digital rigs are much more stable than analog ones, simply because they're not vintage.

Anyway, I truly hope that your Yamaha behaves for you and that you enjoy years of trouble-free recording. I chased that dream for a long time, but I finally had to let it go. Best of luck to you!

You pretty much described my situation to a T. I still have my MT4X 4 track, and at the end of the day l prefer it even to my old 244. But.... it's any day before it buys the farm, and l am not going to fix it. The 388 is still hanging in, but quality 1/4 tape is kind of no more. You can still get it, but it isn't the same as the tape we bought in the 80's and 90's. So that world is about to come to and end.