TASCAM 488 MK II - Linking two machines together. Anybody tried this? Thoughts pls

gentlejohn

gentlejohn

New member
Hi! I'm in the fortunate position of owning not one but two working (touch wood!) TASCAM 488 MK II machines. I got a good deal on the second one and thought it would be wise to grab it incase my main machine went down. I'm now considering recording an all-analogue album and it crossed my mind: "HEY! WHAT ABOUT LINKING THE TWO MACHINES UP IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE A HIGHER TRACK COUNT?" That's as far as I've got really! Anybody care to chip in with any thoughts on this idea?

PS: The type of music I make is predominantly acoustic-based. I don't rely on sequencers/timecode/SMPTE or any of that 'modern' jazz! Striping a track with 3 minutes of metronome is about as technical as I get (although I usually multitrack to my own often off-kilter built in rhythm!)
 
Someone here did try linking up a pair of 688s, but it didn't go brilliantly. There was a lot of drift which they eventually put down to the cassette tape stretching slightly.
The other thing is crosstalk. To make it go you will have to stripe timecode on track 8, which means that your maximum track count will be 14. On my old Fostex A8, it was dense enough to recording anything on track 7 would either swamp with the timecode being played back (and in some cases damage the timecode recording) or the timecode would leak through into track 7. 8-track cassette is twice is dense again. Depending on what happens there you might need to leave a guard track, which means you're down to 12 tracks.

You can test for crosstalk by generating a few minutes of timecode (This site generates WAV files of them on-demand El-Tee-See ) recording that to track 8 and seeing if there are any problems with track 7 afterwards. Though making sure it decodes will be more difficult if you don't have a timecode reader.
 
Thanks JP! Like I say, I know nothing of timecode and sequencers and stuff like that - it's all finger-in-the-ear-hey-nonny-no stringed instruments this end so I wouldn't know where to start with what you've mentioned above. (THat said, thanks v. much for taking the time to put it down! I'm sure it'll be of use to others who understand that kinda thing).

Having pondered some more on this topic I'm thinking perhaps a way to go here what with owning two identical model machines would be to fill all eight tracks on one machine then do a submix onto the other (from the RCA LINE OUTS of Machine 1 > the 2TRK RCA INs of Machine 2 perhaps?) Once I have all eight tracks tranferred to Machine 2 (as either a single mono track or two tracks in stereo) then I could carry on filling the remaining tracks on the second machine. Yes, there's that scary machine -to-machine submix right in the middle of proceedings to contend with but no 'in the box' bouncing were I just to stick with recording on the one machine. If mixing from Mach 1 to Mach 2 in MONO say, that's a potential 15 tracks by my reckoning. What d'ya think?
 
Since the 488's don't have any kind of sync port,capstan motor speed drift will always be your enemy.Bouncing tracks to a extra machine has two problems,1. You are locked into the mix when you do the bounce,and 2.You are adding extra active circuitry both sending and receiving the mix-adding a certain amount of noise.
 
That's a good point - I didn't think to check if the 488 does support sync. If not, that at least solves your problems with the timecode leakage because it can't be done.

That being the case, the 8->2 bounce on the second machine is pretty much the only way to do it, and this was how things were done in the days of 1" 8-track. As wkrbee mentioned, this has the disadvantages that you can't alter the mix after bouncing, and it will increase the noise. But if you only have one bounce it does mean that you'll have 6 tracks to spare on the second machine. It's something you'd want to plan carefully in advance.
 
gentlejohn said:
Thanks JP! Like I say, I know nothing of timecode and sequencers and stuff like that - it's all finger-in-the-ear-hey-nonny-no stringed instruments this end so I wouldn't know where to start with what you've mentioned above. (THat said, thanks v. much for taking the time to put it down! I'm sure it'll be of use to others who understand that kinda thing).

Having pondered some more on this topic I'm thinking perhaps a way to go here what with owning two identical model machines would be to fill all eight tracks on one machine then do a submix onto the other (from the RCA LINE OUTS of Machine 1 > the 2TRK RCA INs of Machine 2 perhaps?) Once I have all eight tracks tranferred to Machine 2 (as either a single mono track or two tracks in stereo) then I could carry on filling the remaining tracks on the second machine. Yes, there's that scary machine -to-machine submix right in the middle of proceedings to contend with but no 'in the box' bouncing were I just to stick with recording on the one machine. If mixing from Mach 1 to Mach 2 in MONO say, that's a potential 15 tracks by my reckoning. What d'ya think?
Click to expand...

Yes what you're describing is known as an external bounce, and people did it all the time back in the day (and still do it). Normally, people would bounce down to a stereo machine and then dump that stereo mix back onto a fresh portion of tape on the multritrack machine. This would leave the original mix intact so that you could always go back to it in case you realized that the submix wasn't going to work.

Since you have two identical machines though, you wouldn't have to dump the mix back to the multi-track machine. As you said, you could just continue on with the new machine and start adding more tracks.

There's no reason you'd have to use the 2 track in RCA jacks on the second machine though. You could simply run the submix from the 1st machine into the track 1 and 2 inputs on the 2nd machine. This would allow you to add some additional EQ on the way in if you wanted.

Also, if you're really wanting to increase your track count, you could also record a new instrument/vocal to the new machine while you're doing the bounce. This could either be added to track 3 (let's say) of the 2nd machine or be added to the submix that's going to tracks 1 and 2 of the 2nd machine. It wouldn't really make sense to do the former, because you could just overdub that after the bounce. But if you do the latter, you'd essentially be combing 9 tracks into a stereo (or mono) mix instead of 8. The caveat, of course, is that you'd have to get the part in one take, and you'd have to get it mixed properly as well. It takes some planning, but it's certainly doable. I've done a similar thing with four track machine many times --- i.e., mixing tracks 1-4 to a stereo DAT and then, while dumping the DAT mix back onto a fresh portion of tape on the 4-track, adding another live track to the mix. Just make sure it's something that's easy to perform! :)

However, if you're doing mostly acoustic-based music, I would think that 14 tracks (a stereo mix of tracks 1-8 from the 1st machine plus tracks 3-8 on the 2nd machine) would probably be enough, generally speaking?
 
Hmm ... on the back panel (on both my machines inbetween the dbx and phantom power switches) there IS a switch that's marked 'SYNC' NB: I've never used this feature (incidentally, if anybody has a link to a Tascam 488 MK II manual I would be very grateful!)

As for my idea of submixing to the second machine, I hadn't thought about the addition of active circuitry noise. This being the case, I suppose just sticking with the conventional bouncing within the one machine to Tracks 7/8 in order to free up six tracks saves having to unplug everything when moving to the other machine (meaning there's nothing to be gained from attempting to link the two machines if I can free up six tracks on the one right?)
 
gentlejohn said:
Hmm ... on the back panel (on both my machines inbetween the dbx and phantom power switches) there IS a switch that's marked 'SYNC' NB: I've never used this feature (incidentally, if anybody has a link to a Tascam 488 MK II manual I would be very grateful!)

As for my idea of submixing to the second machine, I hadn't thought about the addition of active circuitry noise. This being the case, I suppose just sticking with the conventional bouncing within the one machine to Tracks 7/8 in order to free up six tracks saves having to unplug everything when moving to the other machine (meaning there's nothing to be gained from attempting to link the two machines if I can free up six tracks on the one right?)
Click to expand...

I had no idea the 488 mkii had phantom power. That's awesome!

I don't know what the "NB" would mean, but if your back panel is similar to this:
http://pdf.textfiles.com/manuals/ELECTRONICS/AV/BROCHURES/488mkII_faxback.pdf

Then this SYNC switch will defeat the NR on track 8, which is where you would record your sync tone. (You don't want to use NR on the track with the sync tone because it will make the sync tone unreliable.)

Regarding the added noise JPMorris was mentioning, I'm pretty sure he was just talking about the one generation of recording to tape. This would (theoretically) be the same whether you were bouncing internally to the same machine or bouncing externally to your second machine. You're still just recording to tape one extra time, and I'm pretty sure that's what JP meant.

There's plenty to be gained by bouncing to the second machine, if you consider two extra tracks being plenty. If you bounce internally only to one machine, you can only bounce 6 tracks (tracks 1-6) down to two (tracks 7-8), assuming a stereo mix. If you bounce externally to your second machine, you can fill up all 8 tracks on the first machine and then bounce those to tracks 7-8 (or 1-2 or whatever) of your 2nd machine. So you'd get two extra tracks before the bounce.
 
famous beagle said:
There's plenty to be gained by bouncing to the second machine, if you consider two extra tracks being plenty. If you bounce internally only to one machine, you can only bounce 6 tracks (tracks 1-6) down to two (tracks 7-8), assuming a stereo mix. If you bounce externally to your second machine, you can fill up all 8 tracks on the first machine and then bounce those to tracks 7-8 (or 1-2 or whatever) of your 2nd machine. So you'd get two extra tracks before the bounce.
Click to expand...
And there's my answer right there. YES! Thank you. OK, how do you guys so your final 'master mix' ie: what do you mixdown to? DAT has been mentioned. Is it worth investing in a DAT recorder or will my Roland Duo-Captuer MK II interface running into Audacity suffice? Again, all insights much appreciated! Really trying to get into this of late!
 
I used DAT back in the day, but now I just mix into my computer. Yes I would recommend your A/I.

If I had a nice stereo R2R, I would do that (and then transfer to computer to share with everyone), but since I don't, I just use my computer.
 
I would avoid DAT. Leaving aside that it's digital, it's 16/48 which is slightly better than CD, but not as good as most computer interfaces today (24/96). But the main problem is that the machines are complex, fragile, and more difficult to repair than a reel-to-reel. They're basically miniaturised video recorders plus all a bunch of digital audio circuitry on top.
If it were me, I'd look for a stereo reel-to-reel machine for mixdown, but the good ones seem to have quadrupled in price recently.
 
gentlejohn said:
CHEERS! What would you consider 'a nice (affordable!) stereo R2R'?
Click to expand...

That's the big question, really. And 'affordable' is quite a flexible term. I'm currently using a Studer A807, which I got before the prices suddenly shot up. It looks like some guy in Derbyshire has grabbed all the ones he can find and is selling them at eye-watering prices.

TASCAM Decks are worth considering and tend to be more affordable. I always wanted a Tascam BR20, but the last one I saw on ebay went for about £350. It was untested, missing some parts and had rust on it. So I let it pass. The one before that was £650 I think and I kind of wish I'd grabbed it.

It might be worth looking for a Tascam 32, those tend to be fairly cheap, but make sure it's in good condition. Mine wasn't and I wasn't as good at bringing it up to spec as I'd imagined.
I can see a Tascam 22 on ebay at the moment, £250, supposedly serviced recently. The main drawback of the 22 is that it only takes 7" spools, which means that it will top out at 16 minutes, 24 if you use thinner tape (RMGI LPR35?). A 10.5" machine will give you about 32 minutes on standard tape, enough for one side of a vinyl album.

Other machines to consider for stereo mixdown are the Revox B77, but make sure it's the HS (high speed) model. The standard for mastering is 15ips on 2-track stereo. Consumer machines like the Akai decks are cheaper, but they run slower (3.75ips or 7.5 if you're lucky) and record 4-track stereo, which allows you to flip the tape over and record on the other side, but at the expense of sound quality. The regular B77 will top out at 7.5ips like the Akais, so take care. I used the B77 mk2 HS before I got the Studer. Mine developed a problem with the pinch roller mechanism which I haven't been able to fix so far, but is otherwise pretty sound.

It might be worth looking at the Revox PR99, which is the professional version of the B77. The mk2 and mk3 have LED counters instead of the mechanical ones which are driven by a rubber band and may not be so accurate. AFAIK the PR99 is always high-speed, but some of the ASC ones have been modded to be playback-only so make sure it can actually record.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top