Will masters work in a different 4 track?

[qcelt]

-I have old tapes (in great condition) that I recorded on a 414 TASCAM 4 track, but I got rid of the 4 track a few years ago.
-I'd like to edit these recordings, so I'm looking at buying another TASCAM 4 track.

My questions: if I put them in a different 4 track version (IE, in a 424 instead of a 414), will the music be accessible? Furthermore, would the music even be accessible in another 4 track of the same version (IE, tapes recorded on a 414 in another 414). Has anyone ever done this before?

***Note, I saw someone made a similar post. I'm not asking how to edit the music, just whether the music would be accessible in the 4-track under these conditions.

Thanks,
Evan

 

[Jidis]

Evan-

I just replied to someone in the "How to play 4 track tapes" about that stuff. Short answer would be "theoretically, yes". I doubt there are Tascams which don't use their normal head config. You will obviously need to match the speed and get a unit with whatever noise reduction was on yours.

Now the bad news- The tapes will sound the same if both units are aligned and calibrated the same (or to original specs). That's why people would print reference tones on master tapes. DBX is also sort of unforgiving about calibration, so if they're far enough off it may do weird stuff (like pumping sounds). Hopefully the two will be close enough to sound decent. I used to swap between a Yamaha and a 246 when I was younger, and they were not only not likely to have been in perfect alignment, but the head layout probably wasn't even the same. It never really sounded horrible or anything.

Take Care