Solved Tascam 424 Mk III Help

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Joronamo

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Hey guys,

I have just started learning how to record with my Tascam 424 MkIII portastudio. I am a complete novice with recording so bare with me. I am currently recording some scratch tracks (ideas) to show my friends so we can record a professional demo for my music project. Its a demo for a demo if you will.

Anyways I want know whether its possible to record my songs one bit at a time? If I try and record the whole thing in one take I will be bound to make some mistakes which I know I can go over later with punch in/out but thats a little messy like patchwork.

At the moment I cannot figure how to record one bit at a time whilst staying on the same track/channel and continuing off from exactly where I stopped the last take? Is this possible on analog machines? Any help or advice welcomed.
 
For cassette, punching in is pretty much the best way to do it. If/when you make a mistake with laying down the basic tracks you can punch-in before the mistake and continue, or punch-in and back out on the other side of the bad take (If the machine is that precise). Something else you can is do is track another take on a second track and combine the best of the two while bouncing to a third. Besides do-overs, this is how it was done when tape was all we had. Most people just did takes until they got it right. If you have lots of spare tracks you might keep several takes and use the best to piece together a finished product. Most importantly, have your parts down… practice, practice, practice before you ever hit record.
 
Also one more question - Is it fine to leave the cassette inside the deck of my portastudio when im not using it in or should I always put the tape back in its case and leave the deck empty when idle? Also, if I do 30 retakes will the quality go down every time or do High Bias Cro2 tapes have really good endurance and takes heaps of retakes without losing quality?
 
Joronamo said:
Also one more question - Is it fine to leave the cassette inside the deck of my portastudio when im not using it in or should I always put the tape back in its case and leave the deck empty when idle? Also, if I do 30 retakes will the quality go down every time or do High Bias Cro2 tapes have really good endurance and takes heaps of retakes without losing quality?
Click to expand...

In my experience, there's no danger in leaving the tape inside the deck when not in use. Someone else may be able to add to this, but I think it's pretty much the same as storing it in its case.

Technically, you will lose a slight bit of quality with each take, so it's best to try to limit them as much as possible. Having said that, I know I've done more than 15 takes over the same tape, and I wasn't able to detect any loss in quality. That doesn't mean it wasn't there, of course, but if it was, it was below my threshold of detection.

I think with 30 takes, there would definitely have to be some measurable loss of hi-end at least. But again: "measurable" and "audible to most people" are often two different things.

Glad you're enjoying the 424 MK III. That's my 4-track cassette machine as well, and it's a great one.
 
Thanks mate. Someone told me if you leave it on for a while with power on and connected it can easily overheat and fry - is this true? Is does get pretty hot when I leave it on. Also is there any routine I should do before turning it off ie, disconnect all cables, turn mic's off, turn all channels off and return all knobs faders to 0? I would prefer to leave my settings as they were so I can continue from a previous session but they may not be healthy. Thanks.
 
I don't know about it overheating if left on. I know I've left mine on by accident overnight with a tape left in it and everything connected, and it was fine. As a rule though, I don't make it a habit of leaving it on.

And no, you don't need to make any changes when you turn it off. You can leave everything connected and leave all your channel/EQ/fader settings the same. However, you should always turn off your power amp (or boombox or whatever is driving your speakers) first, because if you turn off the 424 first, it could cause a pop in the speakers and possibly damage them.

That's one of the neat things about working with analog after having worked with digital before. There's no "saving" of your work or anything. You just turn off the machine, and the music's on the tape.
 
Beck said:
Something else you can is do is track another take on a second track and combine the best of the two while bouncing to a third.
Click to expand...
Is it possible to bounce to the left? So If I want to record a take on track 1, then a take on track two and combine, I can bounce track 1 to track 2, then bounce track 1+2 back to track one and keep repeating the process?
 
one take on track 1, one take on track 2, then combine to 3 or 4. No, you cannot continue this process over and over. each bounce is a generation and each one will have rincreasing frequency loss and higher noise floor. Its kind of like xeroxing a picture, and then copying the copy, then copying that copy etc. Before long is is unrecognizable.
 
Yeah I'd try to limit my internal bouncing to once or twice at the absolute most.

You can get more mileage out of an external bounce --- AKA a pre-mix or sub-mix. That's where you fill up all four tracks and then mix those down to something else. In your case, I'd suggest mixing it down to your computer. You could either mix them down to one track or a stereo pair.

If you mix them to one track, then you'd record that back onto your 4-track at a different spot on the tape --- so that your original 4 tracks are still there. That way, you can always revert back to that if you don't end up liking the sub-mix you did. Remember that this will be a mono track, so everything will be panned together. This requires a bit of panning. In other words, you'll need to be sure that everything on that track is something you want to end up being on the left, in the center, or on the right of the stereo spread. After you record that track back to the 424, you'll have the other three tracks open for more recording.

If you mix them to a stereo pair, then you can pan everything the way you want it. Then you record those two tracks back onto 2 tracks on the 424 (1 and 2, say) and pan them hard left and hard right. This way, all the instruments will retain their pan position. The drawback is that it only leaves you with 2 more tracks to fill up instead of 3.

Of course, once you filled up the remaining tracks on the 424, you could repeat the whole process again if you'd like. But I'd probably limit it to two bounces if I were you, or the quality loss will start to become a concern.

This takes planning, of course, because once those instruments are sub-mixed together, you lose individual control over the them. If you combine a bass, tambourine, snare, and kick all on one track, for example, and then you realize that the bass is too loud, you can't turn it down without also bringing down the tambourine, snare, and kick. This is one reason why it's a good idea to, if possible, combine instruments at extreme frequency ranges when bouncing. It allows you at a little control later on to adjust volumes with EQ. In the previous example, for instance, you could turn the bass EQ down on that track and, depending on the frequency of your bass EQ, not effect the tambourine much at all and not affect the snare too much.

Anyway, I really enjoy working this way and many times prefer it to the unlimited tracks/unlimited effects way of computer recording. As funny as it may sound, I sometimes find the infinite possibilities a bit stifling. It's also easy to get derailed and start trying everything under the sun just because you can. With the 4-track, you've got to have a plan and execute it, and there's little room for goofing off.
 
I had the 424 MKIII before I bought a 488MKII. I can't remember for sure, but I think those higher end cassette models had programmable punch in-out times you could set on the digital counter, which is a really nice feature for what you are doing and may be able to achieve the effect you want to get for song continuation, or at least close to it.
 
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