4 Tracking

[A.David.MacKinnon]

I recently re-bought the 4 track cassette machine I has as a teenager. It's an insanely high-end Yamaha thing from the 80's with a stand alone cassette deck, separate mixer and patchbay.
It looks like this -



I've more or less shelved the mixer and just plugged the deck right into my regular studio gear. It sounds fantastic (in a slightly but not really crappy way). Now I've got a major urge to make a real record on this thing. I'm not much interested in doing something where all the parts are overdubbed and bounced but really into the idea of tracking a band live off the floor to 4 track.
is anybody here doing this sort of thing? Any pointers? I'm thinking of tracking things as they would pan out in a LRC scheme - Drums and bass on track 1, Left side (guitar, whatever) on track 2 , right side (other guitar, whatever) on track 3, vocals, BVs, solos etc on track 4.

If you're doing this let me know your method(s).

Thanks

[kslight]

Hmm packing a lot down on just 4 tracks?but assuming this was the required configuration, that would probably be the way to go, though I wouldn't be afraid to put candy (bkgd vox/etc) on track 2/3 either?and I would maybe even consider trying bass with the vocals on track 4, depending on their frequency range it would probably make it simple to sorta "separate" the two out if for reason you wanted to later.

[ott0bot]

It's been a while, but I used to do a lot of 4 trackery for local bands back in HS, and later used a trusty Tascam 424 mk2, for my demos. Broke it out recently for some wacky overdubs using the tape speed adjustment to distort some vocals. had fun, and I would like to to a project 4 track only again with my nicer gear.

I like submixing the drums to 1, bass to 2 (keys submixed here if live), guitars to 3. Scratch vocal to 4 if needed... maybe it's a keeper, but not usually. Not sure why, but I've always done in that way, maybe habit from live sound arrangements to make it easy. Then, if needed, I'd bounce 1-3 to 4, and use 1-3 again for final vocals and any overdubs.

Now that I have digital, I'll dump all the original tracks into the DAW before the bounce, so I can always redo the bounce if needed by recording them back to a new tape or later in the tape if there is room.

I try to only do 1-2 passes for a song to keep the tape clean, and just do multiple takes later in the tape. Even the best cassettes seem to get muddy after too many overdubs.

As for as the LCR assignments, I record them L/R to keep separation, but for the bounce it moves it all to center if you do 1-3 into 4, so I just focused on mono compatability if I needed more than 4 tracks. On most of my personal projects, they were essentially demos, so I'd just stick to 4 tracks, and pan them wherever needed.

.

[lyman]

I feel like the outcome of this potential project depends less on track assignment and more on selecting the right artist/band for this recording medium. I might be wrong though.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

I feel like the outcome of this potential project depends less on track assignment and more on selecting the right artist/band for this recording medium. I might be wrong though.

You are not wrong. The artist needs to be on board and know that they'll have to work within the limitations of the medium. The person I have in mind as my first victim is perfect for this project. We've done a bunch of records together and he's a master of "genre' music. We've made a few surf guitar records, a couple of dub reggae EPs. He's always game for a challenge.
We're in the planning stages right now but I'm aiming to track everything live with limited or no overdubs.