Tascam 488 MK II: Outboard gear recommendations ...

[gentlejohn]

Apart from my instruments all I have is a Tascam 488 MkII (well, two actually!) I'm just getting back into this (ie: analogue recording) after a long lay off and I was just wondering what sort of outboard gear folks would recommend for my existing set up as I don't have any.

BACKGROUND
I record in a box room in a terraced house on a residential housing estate so cranking up a 100 watt ammp say is very much out of the question (or any amp really). I'm enjoying making music again but everything I do, erm, sounds like where it's recorded ie: boxy. I've never been very good with the whole processing side of things (eg: compression; blah blah blah) as, having sttempted this many moons ago, I admit I didn't really know what I was doing with all the periphery stuf and, well, nothing much has changed. Now that I have instruments and the means of recording them then ... WHAT ELSE DO I NEED???

 

[RFR]

For years i used a cassette 8 track (tascam 238) paired with a 16 channel mixer.

Got by nicely with an alesis midiverb and the 3060; compressor, plus a Quadreverb. Didnt need more than that.

I still have the midiverb and quadreverb.
Still are useful and sound good to me today.

Yamaha spx90's are great as are dbx 166 compressors (anerican made)
You can find any of these outboard pieces on ebay for less than 200 bucks.

 

[sweetbeats]

I love my Quadraverb.

It has some great sounding effects on it in a 16-bit way that just work well with certain things. There are a couple effects that sound kuh-RAZY if you set them up in a feedback loop on a mixer. You have to be careful with that, but some really wild sounds are lurking in a Quadraverb. My brother got one when new. It died and sat for many years. Then I snagged a free parts-or-repair one on Craigslist, and between the two dead units made a good one...happy to have one in the rack.

But yeah what he said ^^^^...a decent stereo compressor to use for tracking with dynamics on kick and snare, or bass...other things, and then can be used during mastering for peak limiting (so something like the 3060 is good...they are cheap, they work, and have the features to accommodate things you want during tracking like two independent channels that can be linked for stereo, soft and hard knee compression and variable attack/release/ratio and makeup gain...), and your favorite stereo or dual mono multi-effects processor. There are lots out there on the used market. Yamaha stuff ages well...Zoom M300 is another good option that are pretty affordable. But you've got the mixer and recorder already...adding some dynamics processing and multi effects capability opens up lots of fun possibilities and I don't think much more than that is needed.