Introduction to tape recording

[honkyjonk]

Since we're extolling the virtues of digital, I should mention that I tried. I mean, I really tried hard to keep this current album on my 1/2" 8 track. You know, just man up?

THere were a couple songs with like 5 things bounced to one track, appearing at different moments in the song. I tried to eq them correctly and get the level right on the bounce(s) so that I wouldn't have to be adjusting eq during the mix. Well, after like 50 mixes, I found digital very welcoming.

I could split that track out onto 5 tracks and eq them all differently and just put the fader up at the proper level and leave them. 3 mixes later I'm done with the song.

Fucking A man.

Anyway, just get a 4 track for fuckin' with, Keep your current digital thingy and go from there? (4 tracks that sound not bad from my experience are Tascam 424, 464, 244, and the 234) Others too, that I haven't heard.

[tjcasey1]

Actually, to give your teacher the benefit of the doubt:

He MAY have suggested getting a couple of ADATs because your audio interface may have one or two optical inputs on it. If so, many interfaces allow you to plug an ADAT into them via these connections and therefore get 8 or 16 more simultaneous inputs into the computer (you'd let the signals go through the ADAT and into your DAW, but you wouldn't actually use the ADATs as tape recorders).

So if you had been talking about getting more inputs, the ADATs would be the cheapest way to go. You may have misinterpreted the conversation and thought he was recommending them because you had also mentioned that you wanted to try analog tape.

Anyway, even if you went this route, ADAT converters suck. Things have improved massively since they were manufactured.