How to get all 8 separate tracks together out of the TASCAM 488

grimtraveller

If only for a moment.....
I come bearing glad tidings.
It is possible to get all 8 tracks out of the Tascam 488 mark 1. On this page, a guy called Dragon describes how to do it with the Mk2. He references a guy called Les Cargill who sometime in the 90s had worked out a way to do this. But Dragon says he didn't understand it so he modified it and worked out another way.
The combination of these two plus an innovation of my own is what I'm about to share so I take no credit at all. Without these two guys, I would never have dreamed how it could be done.
I tend to be "technical by accident".
Let me also add that what threw me {and I first came across their plan in 2005} was naming things like "Sub select outs" and "inserts 1&2". I have no idea what they are and on the MK 1, there are no inserts.

But enough preamble. The fans want action, not waffle ! :listeningmusic:

There are 4 main 'destinations' to receive 8 separate tracks that I can think of 1}An interface with 8 or more inputs that will connect to a DAW via computer 2}A tape based reel to reel with 8 or more inputs 3}A standalone DAW that is capable of simultaneous recording on 8 or more tracks or 4} 2 standalone DAWs, each taking 4 tracks each {more on this later}.

The way I managed it needed five RCA/phono to 1/4" jack leads and three 1/4" jack to 1/4" jack {guitar leads} cables. I used a set of headphones to monitor from the 2 DAWs. You could use two if you like, one on each. Or you could connect to monitors. The leads that you use will depend on the input sockets of whatever recorder you're transferring to, so some ends might have XLRs. Bear in mind that this describes how I did it. There may well be differences as different people will transfer to different equipment, have different numbering systems, think differently etc.
the three.JPG

TRACKS 1~4.
Connect 4 of your RCA/phono ~ 1/4" jacks. The phono ends go on the back of the 488 on the section that says "Group out". The 1/4" jack ends {or whatever your particular machine is taking} go into tracks 1~4 of your interface/DAW/recorder. You set the interface/DAW/recorder up for however you want to record the incoming signals.
It makes life easier if you correspond numbers, so 1/L on the 488 goes to your track 1, 2/R to your track 2, 3 to your 3, 4 to your 4.
On the front end, turn the "Tape Mix/Cue" knob fully left to "Mix" for tracks 1~4.
Press down the "assign" buttons for tracks 1~4.
Track 1 - 1/L~ 2/R
Track 2 - 1/L~2/R
Track 3 - 3~4
Track 4 - 3~4
Pan tracks 1 and 3 fully left, tracks 2 and 4 fully right.
Set the master faders of both 1/L~2/R and 3~4 to 7. Also set the volume faders of tracks 1~4 to wherever they need to be for you to get the signal you want without clipping.
the five.JPG
You have probably already discovered during mixdowns that you can mix out through any of the group outs {1/2, 3/4, 1/4, 2/3} in any combination as long as they are in odd/even pairs. So sending signals out of the "group outs" is the easy part. You can mess with the EQ on tracks 1~4 though that's not really a good idea. Far better to leave it flat and mess with all that once the tracks have reached their destination.
The one.JPG
TRACKS 5 & 6
I remember being really surprized to read from Dragon and Les Cargill that you could get separate tracks out via the effects sends. On reflection, it's actually quite logical. But neither guy tells you how to do it and from a MK 1 perspective it's confusing. Because when you use the effect sends, you get a mix of 3 or 4 tracks. So if you find you've got this, then you know you've gone wrong.
Fiddling around, I found this works.
Connect 1/4" to 1/4" leads from the "Effects sends" sockets at the back of the 488 to your interface/DAW/recorder inputs. For my own ease I connected "Effects send 1" to track 1 of my 2nd DAW and "Effects send 2" to my 2nd DAW's track 2. But to make it easier to understand, I'm going to call tracks 1,2,3 & 4 of my 2nd DAW tracks 5, 6,7& 8. So connect "Effects send 1" to track 5 and "Effects send 2" to track 6.
On the front side, turn the "Tape mix/cue" knob fully left to "Mix", just like you did for tracks 1~4.
Turn the two "Effects send masters" fully right.
The effect knob for track 5 turn fully left {this is for what comes from effects send 1}.
The effect knob for track 6 turn fully right {this is for what comes from effects send 2}. the four.JPG
No need to touch any of the assign buttons.
Use the track 5 and 6 volume faders to control how much signal you want to come from tracks 5 and 6. As you can see from my picture, the 5 and 6 are down low. It gets loud via the effects sends !

TRACK 8.
Go to the back of the 488. Turn the "Sync" button to ON. Use a RCA/phono to 1/4" jack lead with the RCA/phono plugged into the "Sync" OUT socket. The jack end goes to track 8 of what you're transferring to. You control the level of the signal from your interface/DAW/recorder. That's all you need to do. It's crude and simple and offers no control from the 488 but it works and works well.

TRACK 7.
While thinking about how the tracks could be gotten out, I could see a logical flow for 7 of the tracks. But this one stumped me. I don't know what the "inserts" Les speaks of are. Whatever they might be, the MK 1 doesn't have them. Neither does it have the "monitor cue out" that Dragon spoke of. I wondered if the headphone socket would work but I dismissed this because I thought that tracks 1~4 would bleed in. After all, they do while mixing down. You can mix up cue and monitor signals.
But not if none of the monitor buttons are on !
So I just took a guitar lead, plugged it into the headphone socket and fed it to "track 7" of the DAW and with some fiddling, wham ! Sound. Good sound. The two.JPG
So, in the "Monitor" section, press down the "cue" button but leave the group 1,2,3 & 4 buttons up.
Turn the "Tape mix/cue" knob fully right to "Cue".
Use the Cue "master" and "phones" knobs to determine the level of the signal going out.

The pan button has no effect for tracks 5~8.

Although my DAW can simultaneously record 8 tracks, with 6 inputs, you need an optical digital cable for that {which I have} but the 488 is an analog machine with no optical outs. An AD/DA converter would cost more than what the three machines combined are worth ! the six.JPGBut with two DAWS, I figured it could be done, if it was possible to get the 8 tracks out separately but simultaneously.
OK, it meant that I then had to fly in 4 tracks from one DAW to another but this was no problem really. Half an hour out of my life for a 21 minute tape. That's why I threw in the "2 DAW" option, in case there are some out there with 2 DAWs that want to transfer all 8 tracks intact.
I suspect there aren't that many 488 users out there these days but every so often, one is looking for a way to get the tracks out and unlike some 8 track portastudios, the 488 isn't supposed to offer that.

But now we know differently. :D

So there you have it. The reason it's long and wordy is so that it's hopefully easy to understand. An almost step by step guide.
I hope it helps.
 
Hi Grimtraveller

Was so, so pleased to read your workaround for bringing Tascam 488 tapes into the digital age... esp. as its specifically for the Tascam 488 mk1, the one I have.

So... I'm now going to try out your method of converting my old tapes. Being a newbie to recording digitally I was going to first try recording them into Garageband which I'm pretty sure can take 8 tracks at once.

However, first I know I'll need an interface, so I'm wondering if a converter like the Behringer Ada8000 would do the job connected up to my Mac?

Any thoughts

Cheers
Malco
 
This is brilliant, grimtraveller! A buddy of mine and I who recorded lots of stuff together back in the days of the Fostex X-15 and the Tascam 488 will be getting together for a few days next month to mix down all our studio tapes to digital (Zoom R-24). These instructions of yours are going to be priceless for us. We were thinking we'd have to dump down four tracks in two passes and then sync them up later in Reaper, but this is so much better and easier. Thanks so much for taking time to put this down in so much detail.
 
Grimtraveller,

I wanted you to know that while I've been a frequent reader and of posts here, I have not been registered. Your insightful and helpful post on the TASCAM 488 has inspired me to register so I can thank you. I have been considering the purchase of a 488 for some time now and was harboring reservations about the available outputs. I especially like your style of writing, and love how you refer to "Les" and "Dragon" in almost reverential language, as if they were the authors of two lost gospels.

Well, that's all I wanted to say. I hope all's well in your world.
 
Will this work with 488 mk2?

Do you or anyone know if this work flow is compatible with the Tascam 488 mk2?
Could I do this with my 488 mk2?
Thanks ahead for any information you can give me!
 
Will this work with 488 mk2?
Do you or anyone know if this work flow is compatible with the Tascam 488 mk2?
Could I do this with my 488 mk2?
Thanks ahead for any information you can give me!
Yes, you can get all 8 tracks out of the mkII on separate outputs using the methods outlined above.
 
This is an oooold thread, but I wonder if anybody figured that track 8 out the sync hole probably bypasses the noise reduction decode processor...
 
Well, People that go hooking outputs to any old part in a deck can easily get into trouble but then when your unit does not work for one reason or another and you take it for service- when they see this hodge podge mess they may refuse to work on it as modified equipment is the first kind of thing to be refused to be worked on. I have some messed up units here with all kinds of RCA jack on the back and I can tell you most certainly that they never consulted the manual nor do they know anything about electronics when they do these things. Just be warned- I don't think it is so cool, wait until it has a problem and see how cool it becomes.
 
This is an oooold thread, but I wonder if anybody figured that track 8 out the sync hole probably bypasses the noise reduction decode processor...
Yes and yes.
It is an old thread but what can one do ?
There are still people that might have a 488 MK1 and may want to transfer 8 tracks simultaneously.

I somehow doubt that rbeau was waiting around for 4 years for their answer ! Although it took me 8 years before I finally was able to work out how to transfer all 8 at once.

As for the "track 8 out the sync" part, that's probably the first thing someone discovers when they try this method. As I said in the original post,
It's crude and simple and offers no control from the 488
but it's less a problem than not being able to get out 8 tracks at once ~ and easily surmountable. It all depends what is on that 8th track. Most of the time, I used to have drums on track 8 with bass on track 7. But I also have a Dynafex noise reduction unit which did wonders on the raw track if it was hissy.
🗣 Well, People that go hooking outputs to any old part in a deck can easily get into trouble
I don't know if you still frequent this page SkywaveTDR, but if you do, what in the world are you talking about ?
This isn't some naughty 12 year old kid with a mild interest in electronics putting the wires in leads together and then putting them into a socket and pressing the switch to get a loud bang.💥
but then when your unit does not work for one reason or another
I bought the unit in 1992. I sold it on Xmas eve 2018. I got 26 years great service from it and not once did it not work. I recorded close to 200 songs on it over thousands of sessions. The only problem I ever had with it was after I'd had it 3 months when track 1 would show a healthy level while recording but on playback gave out a low volume. That was repaired and for the next 25 years, other than the usual wear and tear {headphone socket, play and rewind button, drive belt} issues, never had a problem. Always cleaned the heads before and after a session, regularly degaussed, kept the unit in pristine condition.
and you take it for service- when they see this hodge podge mess they may refuse to work on it as modified equipment is the first kind of thing to be refused to be worked on.
What hodge-podge mess are you talking about mate ? Every one of the outputs that I describe in this post are supposed to have something connected to them ! When I take the unit to be serviced, I'm hardly going to do so with the cables all connected up. Maybe some people would. Not I. I pack away my gear after each use.
And how is this modified equipment ? I stuck some cables in the places the cables are meant to go ! That's like saying that when you drive, because you use the windscreen wipers, a garage may not service your car because it has been modified.
But even supposing that were the case and they refused, not every tech is that petty. Tech's gotta eat too. Someone will service it.

Actually, I did modify it slightly. The pitch wheel could alter pitch 3 semitones either way from standard. I painted a mark at each place on the wheel path where the pitch changes.
What a naughty boy I was for doing that ! 🏴‍☠️

I have some messed up units here with all kinds of RCA jack on the back and I can tell you most certainly that they never consulted the manual nor do they know anything about electronics when they do these things
How much electronics does one need to know or how much of a manual does one need to read to attach an RCA cable to the back of a unit that requires.............an RCA cable ? When I buy stuff, for the the last 40 years, just by looking, I have known what cable is needed to connect stuff.
I may be stupid, but I'm not that stupid.
Just be warned- I don't think it is so cool, wait until it has a problem and see how cool it becomes.
I managed to transfer the 118 songs I needed to from the 488 onto my DAW and in the process, I also worked out a way to get all 8 tracks simultaneously onto just the one DAW by using an optical cable on a second DAW. I actually took my own advice from this post. It was cool advice.
Nothing blew up. 💣 🗯
Nothing burned out. 🕯🎇
Nothing cracked or got stuck. 🔣 🧩
No nation got invaded. 🇬🇧 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿
No birds attacked towns with no explanation. 🦜
 
I for one am glad you got what you needed. My thing was that IF the original tracks were recorded with the deck’s own Dolby system turned on, then everything on the tape has that multiband compression baked in. If you play it back without the Dolby enabled, you don’t get the expansion part that makes it sound normal again. They used to use it as a “trick” to get some extra “excitement” in certain tracks. You know, back in the 80s when cocaine was an important part of the process.

But, see, even if you do turn it on for playback, track 8 does not go through the decoder on its way to the sync jack, so you end up with 7 normal tracks and one coked out whackjob. Yes, depending on which instrument it is, it might be ok. You definitely can hack together multiband expansion to fix it reasonably well fairly easily. If it happened to be part of a stereo pair, you’d want it to match as closely as possible. I’d want both tracks to go through the same decoder.

Now obviously if you didn’t have the Dolby on when recording to begin with, it’s not an issue. And I suppose even if you did, you could leave it off so that all 8 tracks are as high as they can get and then “decode“ them all once they’re in the box. Or like if track 8 was the right side of the drums but track 1 was a vocal which didnt have to match so closely, you could just flip the tape. Now track 1 is track 8 and the stereo drums are tracks 1 and 2. :) Course there are time constants involved in the decoding, so running it backwards might not work perfectly, but I’d bet it would be close enough, and if nothing else it would be the same on the two tracks that need to match.
 
Because in the main I'd have drums in track 8 {and I always recorded with Dolby}, the drum track sometimes sounded a bit, raw, I'd call it. Sometimes a bit hissy. The Dynafex always sorted that out though. It was a while before I thought of it but I'd just connect the sync out to the Dynafex then into my DAW. Lovely !
I remember in one song, on track 8 was a harp which is supposed to sound lovely and mellow but it came out pretty fizzy and even the Dynafex didn't clear the fizz to my satisfaction so I just re-tracked the instrument ~ 12 years after it was originally recorded ! That was the only one of all the hundreds of tracks I ever transferred that I had to actually re~do. I was in two minds because there was nothing on track 4 and I could have just bounced the original harp to track 4 but in the end it was a simple part so I just re~did it.
Before I discovered how to get all 8 tracks out simultaneously, I spent many hugely frustrating evenings trying to do 4 tracks then the other 4 and no matter how many times I attempted it, the tracks never matched up. I used to marvel in my murderous anger at how tape never runs at exactly the same speed twice. Scientifically, it's a wonder. In actuality, you could bake cakes on the heat my rage gave out !
 
I had a project a while ago unfucking some old recordings. It’s a half-assed off-the-board mix of uninspired performances of old tired songs recorded to tape forty years ago, transferred to CD 20 years ago, and now it sounds really bad. After fighting with it for a while, I ended up in a situation where I was doing a bunch of multiband expansion to make it sound anywhere near normal. And then it hit me... I don‘t know for sure which version they used, but setting my expander to mimic parameters I found via google, it was pretty close to where I was at already, and worked quite well. Was a bit finicky, though.

Then I found this plugin for Winamp which just did it and did it quite well: http://www.hansvanzutphen.com/tape_restore_live/
 
Really old thread. Anyone still here? I am wondering: Why not use the headphone jack and a Y cable for outputs from tracks 7 and 8? It's a stereo output, right? That would obviate the need for using the sync out, although that is pretty clever.
I'm about to record a single loud click at the start of tracks 1 and 5. I hope this will allow me to line things up easily once I've united 1-4 with 5-8.
 
Yeah I think that works too.

Alternatively you could just use the MONITOR OUT jacks for tracks 7 & 8…assign channels 7 & 8 to GRPs 3-4, PAN channel 7 hard L, PAN channel 8 hard R, select GRP 3-4 in the MONITOR select switchrack, and now you should have track 7 discretely on on the MONITOR OUT L jack and track 8 on the MONITOR OUT R jack; also headphone L & R respectively, but I’d use the MONITOR OUT jacks before tapping signal off the headphone amp. And for tracks 5 & 6, do the same by assign to the GRP 1/L-2/R busses panning channel 5 hard L and channel 6 hard R and then those are the only two channels going to the LINE OUT jacks (track 5 discretely on LINE OUT L and track 6 on LINE OUT R), and then continuing down the track list as the guide mentions.
 
Really old thread. Anyone still here? I am wondering: Why not use the headphone jack and a Y cable for outputs from tracks 7 and 8? It's a stereo output, right? That would obviate the need for using the sync out, although that is pretty clever.
I'm about to record a single loud click at the start of tracks 1 and 5. I hope this will allow me to line things up easily once I've united 1-4 with 5-8.
I assume that means you're going to do this in two passes. That might work, but with analog there will be drift. The question is if it's enough to notice or not. I'd much prefer getting all the tracks out in one pass.
 
I assume that means you're going to do this in two passes. That might work, but with analog there will be drift. The question is if it's enough to notice or not. I'd much prefer getting all the tracks out in one pass.
@bouldersoundguy that’s the whole point of the procedure in discussion. It allows a single-pass transfer of all tracks discretely from the 488, which is an 8-track machine. All 8 mono input channels of the 488 mixer are sourced to their respective tape tracks, track 1 is tapped off of channel 1’s insert send, track 2 off of channel 2’s insert send, and then we transition to alternate methods because only channels 1 & 2 feature insert points…track 3 is accessed via channel 3 and the effect send 1 which has its own output, track 4 via channel 4 and effect send 2 ala track 3, track 5 is assigned to program group 1 via channel 5 and its pan control, and group 1 propagates to the LINE OUT L jack via the GRP 1/L fader, and is discrete as long as nothing else is assigned to that buss, track 6 is similar to track 5 only assigned to program group 2 via channel 6’s pan control and the GRP 2/R fader…outputs to the LINE OUT R jack and is also discrete as long as no other sources are assigned to the GRP 2/R buss, and, as explained earlier, tracks 7 & 8 can be discretely and respectively assigned to program groups 3 & 4 via channels 7 & 8 assign buttons and pan controls and the GRP faders, and then in the MONITOR select switchrack, if the only source chosen is GRP 3-4, then the only signals at the MONITOR OUT jacks will be program groups 3 & 4, GRP 3 (track 7) on the MONITOR OUT L jack, and GRP 4 (track 8) on the MONITOR OUT R jack.
 
Yes, I know that. But if someone is putting reference clicks on tracks 1 and 5, it suggests that they're going to transfer them four at a time.
 
Yes, I know that. But if someone is putting reference clicks on tracks 1 and 5, it suggests that they're going to transfer them four at a time.

I assume that means you're going to do this in two passes. That might work, but with analog there will be drift. The question is if it's enough to notice or not. I'd much prefer getting all the tracks out in one pass.
To clarify, I don't have the interface to record 8 tracks on a single machine, so I have been simultaneously dubbing tracks 1-4 to GarageBand and tracks 5-8 to a Tascam 788 (digital). Single pass. Once that's finished, I fly the sound files from the 788 into GarageBand and reunite them with 1-4. There's no drift, but I have to align 5-8 with 1-4. My intent next time around is to align them visually by having recorded a simultaneous click on tracks 1 and 5 before doing anything else. (Or any track 1-4 and any other track 5-8.)
 
To clarify, I don't have the interface to record 8 tracks on a single machine, so I have been simultaneously dubbing tracks 1-4 to GarageBand and tracks 5-8 to a Tascam 788 (digital). Single pass. Once that's finished, I fly the sound files from the 788 into GarageBand and reunite them with 1-4. There's no drift, but I have to align 5-8 with 1-4. My intent next time around is to align them visually by having recorded a simultaneous click on tracks 1 and 5 before doing anything else. (Or any track 1-4 and any other track 5-8.)
If the clocks in the two ADC devices don't match exactly (e.g. being clocked together), there will be some drift. It might be so little that they won't drift noticeably for an hour or so, so one song would be fine. If they do drift noticeably, it should be extremely steady drift, so you could time stretch one to match the other. If you did it in two passes, the drift would vary over the course of the recording, which is much harder to fix (though perhaps Celemony Capstan could do it).
 
To clarify, I don't have the interface to record 8 tracks on a single machine, so I have been simultaneously dubbing tracks 1-4 to GarageBand and tracks 5-8 to a Tascam 788 (digital). Single pass. Once that's finished, I fly the sound files from the 788 into GarageBand and reunite them with 1-4. There's no drift, but I have to align 5-8 with 1-4. My intent next time around is to align them visually by having recorded a simultaneous click on tracks 1 and 5 before doing anything else. (Or any track 1-4 and any other track 5-8.)
An update: it was not hard to record a single click on tracks 1 and 5 of the cassette, and as I'd hoped, it made aligning the 1-4 block and the 5-8 block easy, once I got them all together on GarageBand.
 
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