Tascam tape speed conversion

P

pherball

New member
Hey I need some advice. I have stacks of 4track recordings I made with my long departed Tascam 246. I’d like to digitize them for safekeeping and sampling but I don’t want to pay $1k+ to replace it.

I can get a Tascam MF P01 for about $100 which is acceptable but I assume there will be an issue with tape speed. I ran the 246 mostly at high speed but the P01 I believe only runs at low speed.

Does anyone have any interesting work arounds for this issue, perhaps in the digital space? I thought about recording them into my MPC and using timestretch, but I think the degradation will be significant.
 
I would actually not be too worried about the tape speed. You could double it after it's digitized. What wouldn't be so good is if you used noise reduction on the originals. I don't think you're going to be able to accommodate that with the new machine.
 
I've been in situations where I had to play dbx'd material at a different speed than originally recorded, corrected inside my DAW, and had perfect decodes.
 
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Thanks for the input, guys. I guess I should have mentioned that I work “dawless” so time stretching is more of an obstacle. I mostly didn’t use noise reduction on these recordings so it won’t be an issue.

My main concern is getting the tape speed accurate —either during the transfer or in post— without having to spend a ton on a new (old) machine.
 
You could play the tape on a 234 that had pitch control but how would you know the speed was off unless you had perfect pitch. Many people's machines were not exactly on speed when they used them. These were not production devices but for trying out an idea and then using a real studio to do the real recording. People that think you can use Cassette for the entire production process are probably millennials. At least use a Tascam 1/2 track or a 38 minimum.
 
Just found this thread. How many tapes do you have? I transferred a 246 tape to digital for a member here a while back and have also done transfer work for other folks outside of this forum. I have a perfect, well maintained 246. PM me and we can work something out if you want me to digitize the tapes for you (shipping, etc.).

Regards - Ed
 
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