Hey 4-track Cassette Users!

chovie d · Post by **chovie d** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:11 am

I am seriously considering going back to cassette after a couple very frustrating years with a Roland hard disc 8 track. But how to convert the casette to cd? me not smart.....

I'm Painting Again · Post by **I'm Painting Again** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:22 am

chovie d wrote:I am seriously considering going back to cassette after a couple very frustrating years with a Roland hard disc 8 track. But how to convert the casette to cd? me not smart.....

buy some gear to do that with or send it off to a transfer facility?

chovie d · Post by **chovie d** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:47 am

what would the gear be? an rca to usb cable of some sort?
people must do cassette to cdr conversion often.
I do mini disc to cdr conversion by going mini disc into hard disc, hard disc optical out to usb into computer into Cooleditpro then thru any cd burning app. Guess I could just go cassette into hard disc, otpical out etc..... hey wait a minute i already Have the equipment! Me AM smart afterall!

globalsize · Post by **globalsize** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 11:14 am

As far as digital conversion, I plug my 4-track into an Alesis USB mixer.

A safer way to demagnatize a 4-track is getting a TrackMate cassette head cleaner/demagnetizer. It's got some magnets in it that do the trick perfectly, and it has a brush to clean the capstan and erase head too. I picked one up at Radio Shack for 20 CDN$

;ivlunsdystf · Post by **;ivlunsdystf** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 2:06 pm

Tascam 424mkiii - scored a few weeks ago - has an output for each individual track which seems to bypass the mixer - preamp section is annoying because there apparently are no balanced ins, but now I'm glad I hung onto my ART toob MP, which inputs just fine to the Tascam.

The auto punch system (even with the help of a manual) is pretty strange in how it is set up. It works just fine though. I am having lots and lots of fun with this whole gizmo. It's pretty tricky to go back to linear-style recording after being so addicted to punching and looping on a computer/soundcard system for the past few years. Before I press 'record' I actually need to have a plan, because I can't just edit my way through each track.

asmara · Post by **asmara** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 2:10 pm

This is my first post and firstly i want to thank all who are here and have provided a wealth of tips and opinions that have been most helpful.
I have had a few 4-track cassette units and loved the yamaha the best feature being the 4 individual outputs so you can transfer easily to a computer if you want to further edit. not sure why more units never adopted that design. As for now i am using the fostex MD8 HD and its great for writing sketches and portable recording. good luck

I'm Painting Again · Post by **I'm Painting Again** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:04 pm

chovie d wrote:what would the gear be?

it depends if you want to capture all the outputs of the tape source to keep them to different tracks or not..if not and you only need stereo..sony makes a nice stereo cd-burner hardware deck..there is the alesis masterlink also..that one has an internal hard drive..if you need to keep the tracks seperate you can get a 4 or more channel computer interface thingie and do it on a pc..you could also do the first stereo way with the pc of course..

lobstman · Post by **lobstman** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 4:43 am

Just last week I dug out my trusty old Yamaha MT1X that I bought used in 1992- I paid $300 for it at the time, which was a good deal because it was one of the few that would record 4 tracks simultaneously, and had 4 tape outputs.

Right now I'm going through and transferring tapes I made back then to my PC, to mix in Audacity. I've gotten out of music making/recording so I don't want to spend any money on this project, which means I have a pretty convoluted system-

I record two tracks at a time into a standalone CD burner, then import into the PC as wav. files. I then sync 'em up in Audacity. The trick is, there are 6 tracks spread over two tapes- we recorded Drums stereo on 1&2, Guitar 3, Bass 4, then submixed these into a stereo pair on another cassette deck. Then we added two more tracks (vox and lead gtr) onto that tape. Naturally, the second deck ran at a slightly different speed than the MT1X, so the "overdub" tracks don't sync up to the "base" tracks on the other tape. Good thing for the "speed" adjust in Audacity!

Anyway, I was amazed at how good these tracks sounded- we recorded in an unused bedroom in the basement (amps in the hall), with a borrowed Peavey mixer and bagfull of SM58s. The Peavey and Yamaha sat in the garage "control room"- this was a pretty bigtime setup for 4 trackers in 1992! I didn't really know what the hell I was doing and some of my experiments were dumb, but the Yamaha never let me down.

Some friends of mine made a CD on a 488 cassette 8 track, and it sounds like total shit. I never heard anything done on cassette 8 track that I thought sounded good.

This project is what got me to drop by the TOMB for the first time in about a year... and it's just as cool as ever!

dino · Post by **dino** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 5:19 am

I still find uses for my Tascam 234. It's a deck only, no attached mixer. When fed from some decent front end gear, it has a great sound considering the usable track area of cassette. I have used it as sort of a mixdown effect for some stuff. It doesn?t sound like 2 inch obviously, but there is definitely a tape compression thing going on there. Sort of a poor mans Distressor.

DinoG

andrewfoshee · Post by **andrewfoshee** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 5:20 am

Here's a dumb question. Can you record to both sides of a cassette, or if I record on side B is it going to mess up what I've recorded onto side A? Also, I am recording at 9.5 cps. If I buy 30 min tapes (15x2) does that mean I'm getting 7 1/2 minutes of recording time?

PS - I love my new 4-track!!!!

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 5:47 am

Yes. As long as you remember to keep the same pair of tracks armed. When you turn the cassette over you'll be presenting a new pair of tape tracks to the two record heads.

Yes. 30/2/2.

chovie d · Post by **chovie d** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 7:27 am

recording on the other side of the tape is the poor mans way of getting those backwards subliminal satanic message on your recordings. "Chovie is dead, Chovie is dead, SATAN!"

puls · Post by **puls** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 3:20 pm

I tried that recording on both sides of the tape think & ended up w/ a lot of noticable bleedthrough. Just a word of caution, may want to test it out on something non-critical first.

jwp

The Real MC · Post by **The Real MC** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 1:42 pm

I still record with a Tascam 246, bought new in 1989. The mixer isn't the greatest but it has plenty of patch I/O to a better board and the fidelity of the tape system is excellent. How many cassette multitracks have dual FX busses and two band sweepable EQ?

KennyLusk · Post by **KennyLusk** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 1:58 pm

The Real MC wrote:I still record with a Tascam 246, bought new in 1989. The mixer isn't the greatest but it has plenty of patch I/O to a better board and the fidelity of the tape system is excellent. How many cassette multitracks have dual FX busses and two band sweepable EQ?

Way cool RMC! Beautiful!

And like pouxhawk's 234, I love the sound of Tascam's built-in levelar's. Tascam stuff has always had such a great 'discreet' sound.

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Hey 4-track Cassette Users!

recording to both sides? cassette speeds/tape length

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