Starting a new studio, help on equipment..

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chris Fallen
  • Start date Start date
Chris,

The Tascam 414mkII is the current mid-level Portastudio, and is a fine place to start recording. Many people have 414mkII's and love them. The 414mkII Portastudio is a worthy and decent 4-track recorder, and you can take your basic recording to a relatively high level, with the 414mkII alone. If you have the 414mkII, you're fine to start recording, in basic 4-track format.

Production on the basic 4 track Portastudio is a little limiting [than having more tracks would be], and you will have to combine certain parts down to one track, but that's normal, under the circumstances.

4 tape tracks gives you the basic environment to lay down drums-bass-guitar-vocal arrangements pretty directly, with other more complex production techniques being tricks of the trade, like "bouncing", or "packing the tracks". The step-by-step procedure of recording on the 4-track Portastudio, such as the 414mkII, is not hard, but may be a little more complex than can be explained on a bbs. Consult the Tascam manual for recording, starting off from scratch.

Once you've recorded a little on the 414mkII, you may record your mixed down work to wav files on the 'puter, then burn CDs of the songs, and that's relatively easy.

If you want to start recording on the 414mkII, then transfer 4 individual tracks to a computer, continuing the multitrack process on the 'puter, then you're getting back into the realm of computer/DAW recording, requiring special software, and a multi-in-out soundcard. This type of transfer, or production method, would be a more advanced technique, or idea.

Recording tunes onto the 414mkII, in 4-track cassette format is very easy. Then, mixing down your Portastudio 4-track work to basic stereo wav/song files is also very easy, requiring little more than an RCA-to-1/8" stereo adapter cable.

Without embellishing any more than that, the 414mkII is the currently new, mid-level Portastudio, and is a fine place to start recording music and composing, etc. Good Luck. /DA
 
Thanx, -gas

I posted that no more than 5 minutes ago. Glad to see you're really on top of things, haha.

T/Y later, Dave.
 
Re: Re: Re: Starting a new studio, help on equipment..

Chris Fallen said:


Schooling is where you learn. I'd like to learn. I don't eat at french resturants, fancy or otherwise. My 'sweet spot' means that I can pick up two or three items of said price per month. I'm not going to learn cooledit and protools unless I have to. Computer software always has around 400+ features that aren't even needed, and I need to know what is and isn't without wasting months of my life figuring it all out with trial and error. I know how to play the guitar, bass, drums and the saxaphone. I don't see what learning about computers has to do with recording, but I know enough to run programs, just not enough to build my own.
Click to expand...

there ya go...eat at McDonalds, buy the porta studio, screw learning anything involved with *unknown* software, head off to the Art Institute, and especially don't let 'em shove Protools down your throat....hell it may have 800+ features you'll never learn about.

Seriously, live the dream, good luck, and keep us posted.:D
...drums???....bummer!!!...ever get locked in a car??:D
 
So what else would I need? I know I'll need monitors.. Anything else?

Who knows what are good monitors for cheap (125ish)?

Christopher
 
Chris, in general,...

you apparently already have the Tascam 414mkII Portastudio, and that is the perfect place to start, to learn the ropes, and to get your 'sea legs' in recording.

Later on, when you've mastered 4-track multitrack production on the Portastudio, you'll inevitably look for a recording system with more tracks and channels, maybe 8, 16 or 24. At that time, having already cut your teeth on a Portastudio, you'll know better what you may want, and the direction you want to take your next recording system in.

You've got the 414mkII Portastudio, right there, ready to go. You could pop a cassette in and start recording imediately. You've also got a state of the art computer, but working it up into a DAW recording system would still take more investment in hardware and software. Nothing says you can't do both, Portastudio/cassette and 'puter/DAW. They're both good, viable options, but IMO, you'd be best to learn the ropes on the basic Portastudio, first, then work your way up.

I'd recommend you get your feet wet with Portastudio recording, instead of jumping right into the deep end of DAW/puter recording. The Portastudio will be easier, all around, and make lots more sense at first, especially to the recording novice.

You may learn 'puter recording, etc, and there's nothing wrong with that, but by the time you've truly outgrown your 414mkII, computer recording technology will have changed, several times over.

Nothing against the 'puter people, though.
 
Well, for right now I'm just going to pick up some monitors and start using my 4-track to record some stuff. I'm going to be picking up a 424MKIII in the near future and sell off my 414MKII, but because it has a few more features. Maybe I'll post some of my work sometime when I feel it's up to par and you guys can tell me what I'm doing wrong with it. Thanks for all of your help (especially you, a reel guy).

Christopher
 
thanx, & no problem.

You should be fine recording on the 414mkII, but admittedly, the 424mkIII is a slightly better unit, worth trading up to, eventually. In the meantime, the 414mkII will be more than adequate to start on. Once you've learned the ropes on a Portastudio, you can translate that knowledge to bigger systems.

I'm probably one of the most opinionated people on this board, but I won't pull your leg, I'll just tell it the way I see it.

You've got a nice new 4-track Portastudio, right in front of you, IMO, your best value is to get into using it, learning basic recording methods, etc, and get your best sound on the 414mkII, before looking over the horizon at another, bigger system.

The 424mkIII has a few more primo features than the 414mkII, but with a quick review of both units, I'd say you can do practically everything on the 414mkII that you could do on the 424mkIII, with only a few exceptions.

-See, I started in 1982 with a 244, so I don't see anything inadequate about the 414mkII, although the 424mkII is better, they are both fine, worthy machines.

Good luck. Dave.
 
Go to your Pawn broker for the Monitors, I recently picked up a pair of ns10s for only 75.00 and they were perfect.
 
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