Tascam 488mkII V.S. Yamaha MT8XII

[Theorld]

The prices are good and its about that time where i could definitely use a good analog 8-track. Does anyone have any knowledge and/or experience with both the Tascam 488mkII and the Yamaha MT8XII? Because of my lack of experience with cassette 8-tracks in general, i am pretty much at a loss as to which way to lean. Any opinions/facts would be greatly appreciated about both pieces of equipment. And if You know of any other strictly CASSETTE 8-track recorders that are pretty good feel free to let loose.
Thanks.

 

[Pelaphus]

MT8X -- Half a Year Later

Just stumbled upon the website and read your post.

No TASCAM experience, but my first musical theatre demos were done on a Yamaha MT8X (not even the MT8XII, but the *debut* unit) and it was just fine. I dumped fully orchestrated MIDI tracks to channels 7 and 8 and recorded the vocals (separately) on 1 through 6.

For theatre performances, I found the default Dolby setting annoying -- I had to remember to disable it before recording (preferable to have the mild hiss but still capture all the highs and sibilants) -- and manual mixing is not easy. The more complex and shaded the performances, the more you have to rehearse your moves and do multiple mixdowns before getting the one you'll use. (With longer numbers, you sometimes have to locate convenient musical pauses, so you can conjoin sections from different mixdowns to create a composite master.) During mixdown, too, you need to be aware of how many channels are open, because each open "pot" compounds hiss.

For example: Say you have six actors in a longish musical scene; your mix also has to account for places where certain actors are tacit, so you can temporarily close their channels. I found it easier and more accurate to remember to pushbutton on/off than to pull faders down and then hope to reposition them accurately. Though the more tracks in the mix, the more ambient hiss you have, this is not an aesthetic problem so long as there is musical content on the track. It's the SILENT open track that you notice.

Also, very subtle, very soft punch-in/punch-out ticks can be heard in places where the music is spare or very "exposed."

All this said, I LOVED the Yamaha MT8X, and the demos I did on it are STILL massively impressive. Furthermore, when I jumped up to a Roland VS1680 and wanted to remix some older analog recordings for a revised demo (combining previous analog and new digital material), I dumped the unmixed masters, channel to channel, onto the digital box -- and was simply blown away by the fidelity of the original recordings. They stacked up fantastically against the digital selections. So much so that a few of my revisions COMBINED new digital with old analog vocals, undetectably for any practical purpose.

And THAT said ... you can be in the digital domain with at LEAST as much flexibility fairly cheaply, these days ... so I'm not sure what allure analog can have ... even if you're on an austerity budget.

 

[The Green Hornet]

Yo Theo:

If you don't mind waiting for the tape to rewind, you can make some good recordings with the Tascam 488--I had two of them before going to the MD8 and now the Yam 2816.

Of course with digital, you can merely push a button and you're right back at the beginning or any point you want to punch in.

I remastered many things I did with the 488 from my SIAB and got some great results--but, as with all things there is a small downside. If there is any slight hiss in the cassette product, it becomes even clearer in the digital remake.

The 488 is nice but it is old technology. You should really check out the digital SIAB's available.

Happy Spring
Green Hornet

 

[ngregson]

I have owned both, many years ago, so the memory is hazy. I bought the MT8X initially and took home a demo model, waiting for a new one to come in. I had it for a couple of months, but when I went back to the store, the 488 Mk2 had been introduced, which had some features I wanted, so I took that home instead. Overall, the 488 Mk2 is superior. It has sweepable mids on the eq and also phantom power which I don't believe the MT8X had. The main thing is the sound quality is better with the 488 Mk2 though. I think the cassette deck part of te machine must be higher quality as I remember getting significantly better sound and less crosstalk out of the 488 Mk2. You must be able to get these things for a song nowadays. When I traded my 488 in against a VS880 at Sam Ash back in about 1998, I only got $300 or so (Paid about $1300 in 1995!).

Hope this helps.