Tascam 414 high speed recordings

J

jac.pic

New member
Hi there guys, I hope you can help me out. I have a Tascam 414 that I'm planning to record an album on (I'm into lo-fi recordings).
I discovered after the fact that this recorder records cassette at high speed.
I would like to get the recordings from the Tascam, which play at twice the normal speed, onto my computer for mixdown.
How would I do this??? Is there a simple way to do this with relatively cheap gear or would I be better off getting a normal speed recorder?

P.S. I'm very new to recording. I have a basic understanding of terms and very limited understanding of gear. (That's why I bought a 4-track!)

Thanks guys
 
bouldersoundguy said:
It plays at the same speed it records. Press play and record the output on your computer.
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Okay cool, can you explain to me how I would do that? I have a plain old Dell laptop with Studio One software from an Audiobox USB. I've been using that lately with a condenser mic to make recordings but don't quite understand how to get the recordings off the tape.

If I plugged my Tascam into the interface would my software detect it? Could I just plug it into one of the instrument ports then just press play and record at the same time?
 
jac.pic said:
If I plugged my Tascam into the interface would my software detect it?
Click to expand...
The software detects the interface, it doesn't care what you plug into it.

jac.pic said:
Could I just plug it into one of the instrument ports then just press play and record at the same time?
Click to expand...
If you only have a single mono signal recorded on the tascam, you would plug the output of the tascam into the input of your interface. You would hit record in studio one and hit play on the tascam.

Just to be clear, the software records what ever you plug into the interface. It could be a mic, a guitar, a CD player, the audio from a DVD player, your iPod, etc... All you have to do is play the tascam into the interface and record that into studio one.

If you have more than one track on the tascam, you might want to send a stereo mix into the interface, which would require two connections.
 
Farview said:
If you have more than one track on the tascam, you might want to send a stereo mix into the interface, which would require two connections.
Click to expand...

Awesome, thank you for the reply.. Most of my songs have 3 tracks but my interface only has two inputs... how would I work around that??
Also, is sending a stereo mix into the interface the same process as sending a mono mix?

Hopefully done with the questions for now! thanks
 
If you only have two inputs, you will have to mix the three tracks down to two on the tascam. then take the left right outputs into channels 1 and 2 inputs on your interface.

Without an interface with more inputs, there is no way to get all three discrete channels into the computer with them staying in time with each other. Even if you played it into the interface on a separate pass, the nature of cassette playback would keep it from being 100% in time.
 
Ahhh I figured. In that case I think I'll probably invest in a interface w/ more inputs.
Now when I record the tracks from cassette into the software is it going to be altered in any way? I'm looking for it to be as authentic as possible to the original recording.
 
No, it shouldn't be altered. I haven't seen your model of tascam for about 20 years, Does it have 4 discrete outputs that you can send each tract to separately? If it does, you are in business. If it doesn't, there is no need for a bigger interface.
 
Farview said:
No, it shouldn't be altered. I haven't seen your model of tascam for about 20 years, Does it have 4 discrete outputs that you can send each tract to separately? If it does, you are in business. If it doesn't, there is no need for a bigger interface.
Click to expand...

The photos I found show individual track outputs.
 
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