Portastudio vs. "Real" Analog Rigs

[Judas Jetski]

Are you recording with dbx on or off? Ideally, you don't want to hit dbx NR very hard, unless you like things to sound companded. I wonder if you're over-smushing everything on the compression side of the noise reduction.

[song-writer]

No one on this thread has made mention of standalone (non-computer based) digital workstations as an option, like the Tascam 788 and 2488 Portastudios.

I did a lot of songs on a 244 PortaStudio over a number of years - even an 11 song rock opera. It was a great machine and I still have it. However, I inherited a Tascam digital 788 (now discontinued) from my son when he moved on to a 2488. The sound on the 244 was very good, however, the 788 just blows it away, plus it has 8 tracks. Also, the 788 just has so much capability and so many features that I'm pretty sure are the types of things you can do with Pro Tools. The downside of the 788 and the 2488 (24 tracks), however, is the steep learning curve. I was pulling my hair out learning the intricacies, despite my years of 244 multi-track experience. However, once you finally get the hang of it, these standalone DAWS provide great capability at reasonably low cost without the necessity of buying a lot of software like you have to do with a computer based DAW. Another downside, however, is they lose value as Tascam keeps moving to put out newer and more advanced versions. Still, to me, this is the way to go for a home studio, vs. dealing with the maintenance issues of going to a reel to reel tape system, plus the high cost of tape. But if reel to reel is your thing, by all means go for it.

John

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No one on this thread has made mention of standalone (non-computer based) digital workstations as an option, like the Tascam 788 and 2488 Portastudios.

Quite true and that's because that's not mentioned as a possibility in the name of the thread...

[rwc]

IMHO

the noise reduction schemes like dolby SR, which is one of the best, is like a filter.

I can imagine what the cheaper noise reduction does.

[calaverasgrandes]

I actually know a few cats, mostly hip hop guys, that started off on portastudios and made awesome cuts on those. A lot of that early hip hop sound is a result of the crappy multitrack medium. If you have 16th and 32nd hihats all over the place it masks the hiss a bit! Its also hard to replicate the sound of an 808 (or even hr16b) kick getting flattened by DBX. Dbx sounds awful on guitars and vocals but does neat things to bass, synth and drums.
If you focus on writing arrangements that occupy the limited bandwidth well you will be very adept when you move to bigger rigs.
I know I miss the ability to have it all in one box like that.
Sure my daw does unlimited tracks plus midi and my main problem is too many plug in choices. But it also takes me several minutes to patch a mic pre, compressor etc to my AD, start the computer, warm up the tube gear etc.
Portastudios have that simplicity goin for them. I know platinum recording artists that still write on those. Because its faster.

[Judas Jetski]

IMHO

the noise reduction schemes like dolby SR, which is one of the best, is like a filter.

I can imagine what the cheaper noise reduction does.

I think you're wise to see it that way, because it kind of is. But don't forget that there's an element of scale involved. From what I've read of your other posts, you're used to some pretty high fidelity stuff. When it comes to this level (tape, at slow speeds, with incredibly tiny track width) there's a lot you don't hear. (IMHO, that's the genius of the 424--what you don't hear. It seems to mask a lot of the sucky stuff.) I've never heard anyone complain that the stuff I recorded on my 424 sounded "companded" at all. The same goes for my 1/4" 8-track. It just sounds open and clean, with surprisingly good dynamic range. And I'm using garden variety noise reduction with both. (That'd be 150 for the R2R and the on-board dbx for the cassette.) It wasn't until I started messing around with my TSR-8 (1/2" 8-track) that I began to hear recognizable artifacts from the dbx. I didn't like what I was hearing, so I tend not to use it on that deck.

As for Dolby C (stock NR on my R2R's) I have to say it tends to leave a stronger "signature sound." I've found it fairly easy to counteract most of that with careful EQ, but it's still a factor.

And I don't mind digressing from the OP's topic a little here, because when you're dealing with small-format analog, Noise Reduction is key. Use one, or the other, or none at all--but whichever choice you make is going to have a huge effect on the final outcome.

[Judas Jetski]

....I can't really edit. This has forced me to get good takes the first time, which is great, but I would like to be able to do some sort of editing nonetheless.

Yep! That's a tough one right there! There is a foot-switch available for the 424 which is probably a big help, but there's just absolutely no comparison between analog and digital when it comes to editing. Which is either an advantage or a disadvantage depending on your workstyle and mindset. Possibly both. I find it to be both.

I sure wish that there was something that I could do to get much better much faster so I wouldn't have to wander around in the wilderness making mistakes forever!! I know that's part of the learning process, but it sucks.

OK, see, here's another place where the 424 is helping you, even if it doesn't feel like it is. You're getting all of your mistakes out of the way at the same time! I can't tell you how many times I've been ready to start banging my head against a wall over some annoying problem that just won't go away, and then I think "well, what would I do if I was still using my 424?" I do that and the problem dries up like bad acne facing good zit cream.

Of course that meant I had to make a whole bunch of half-@$$ed recordings first. Frustrating. Although now when I look back, my songwriting chops weren't that good then anyway. Which is another good point about the 424--it's hard to take cassette recording too seriously, which results in better takes, and yet the machine's got the quality to deliver the goods if you really nail a performance.

If I was you, I'd start seriously looking into a way to bounce tracks externally. That was when my 424 really blossomed for me--I could mix four tracks of cassette to two tracks of CD-R, then bring them back to a fresh cassette to layer on another couple of tracks. This "progressive mixdown" process is less destructive because you can always go back a layer and re-mix if you need to. Perhaps more importantly, the fidelity is much better. I never got great results using the internal bouncing capabilities of my 424.

[calaverasgrandes]

for years before I had a multitrack I just did it the old fashioned way. I would use 2 cassette decks or consumer reel to reels to bounce back and forth. Playback one deck while recording bass or whatever alongside onto deck 2. Eventually I had some weirdo decks that would allow me to record only the left while playing back the right or vice versa. But yeah, bouncing tracks is great. Its one of those things we lost when we went to DAWS. The cohesive sound of a drumkit bounced to one channel so we could make room for the rest of the stuff. Sure its in mono but it sounds better!

[markesquire]

It sounds like the Portastudio serves as a sort of training period that most have gone through! I'll just keep practicing on mine and try to get better. Please post more Portastudio recordings of your own!

Like you've mentioned, I often want to bang my head against a wall because I feel like I'm doing all that I can to get the best recordings possible, but something always seems to go wrong!

[Judas Jetski]

Have you got any stuff we can listen to? It'd be interesting to hear what you've got.

[rwc]

IMHO

the noise reduction schemes like dolby SR, which is one of the best, is like a filter.

I can imagine what the cheaper noise reduction does.

I think you're wise to see it that way, because it kind of is. But don't forget that there's an element of scale involved. From what I've read of your other posts, you're used to some pretty high fidelity stuff. When it comes to this level (tape, at slow speeds, with incredibly tiny track width) there's a lot you don't hear. (IMHO, that's the genius of the 424--what you don't hear. It seems to mask a lot of the sucky stuff.) I've never heard anyone complain that the stuff I recorded on my 424 sounded "companded" at all. The same goes for my 1/4" 8-track. It just sounds open and clean, with surprisingly good dynamic range. And I'm using garden variety noise reduction with both. (That'd be 150 for the R2R and the on-board dbx for the cassette.) It wasn't until I started messing around with my TSR-8 (1/2" 8-track) that I began to hear recognizable artifacts from the dbx. I didn't like what I was hearing, so I tend not to use it on that deck.

As for Dolby C (stock NR on my R2R's) I have to say it tends to leave a stronger "signature sound." I've found it fairly easy to counteract most of that with careful EQ, but it's still a factor.

And I don't mind digressing from the OP's topic a little here, because when you're dealing with small-format analog, Noise Reduction is key. Use one, or the other, or none at all--but whichever choice you make is going to have a huge effect on the final outcome.

I haven't got to use it.

I got to align, bias, and azimuth so other people could use & make cool records on it.

which is why i quit. heh.

i did get to hear stuff often that ppl worked on and without SR was always better than with SR. by the time you add up the noise of the console, the old compressors, guitar amps, i'd rather have the 3 db extra noise than the waves x-noiseish filtering.

some people like that flavor of dirt with their stuff. I'm guessing with cheaper decks the noise floor is high enough that the slight filtering of something like that is well worth the noise reduction.

[markesquire]

I'd like to post some of my recordings, but don't have a *good* way of getting them onto my computer. I have Reaper and an M-Audio Fast Track digital interface. However, any time I try to feed signal into my computer, it sounds horrible; it either sounds really dull (low signal) or gets a lot of digital distortion even at moderate signal levels.

Any advice on this? My recordings are not of completed songs, but are mostly multitrack "sound check jingles" that I've made while getting to know the 424's intricacies.

[Judas Jetski]

It sounds like the Portastudio serves as a sort of training period that most have gone through!

I would totally not have put it that way at the time, and it would have annoyed me to hear someone else tell me that this is what I was doing, but in a way that's about exactly right. It sure didn't seem like it at the time, though. At the time (eight or ten years ago) it was a pretty amazing tool for someone who didn't have a ton of money and was just starting out.

One really good thing about the 424 Mk. II and III is that it's got enough features to function pretty well on its own, but has plenty of room for expansion. You can start out using the on-board mixer, but as soon as you get anything better (anything!) for mixing you'll be making a big step up. As soon as you start messing with outboard gear, you're making another big step up. And the preamps in that thing are not awful.

For me, the process went like this:

1) 424 + mix with headphones + bounce internally + mix to cassette = decent demo quality, not great.
(At this level I could still get better results using my Fostex X-18.)

2) 424 + mix with headphones + bounce internally + mix to good quality CD-R = good demo quality.
(At this level I got some pretty good results, which when mastered sounded good enough for radio airplay--still identifiably lo-fi, but not horribly so.)

3) 424 + 16 channel Behringer Eurodesk (and cheesy Eurodesk effects) + bounce and mix to CD-R + monitor thru good headphones or crappy stereo = consistently usable results.
(Still demo-ish, and sort of uninspiring, but not awful. This is where I started using my Fostex 1/4" 8-track as well; 8-track results were somewhat better. I used both the Tascam pres and the Behringer pres. The Behringer pres sounded fuller, but the Tascam pres sounded "better" overall.)

4) 424 for drums via direct outs to Behringer, mix using power amp & monitors or headphones, dump stereo drums from Behringer to R2R, use decent outboard gear to process drums. Record everything else on R2R. = consistently "not bad at all."
(At this point I started to hear the limitations of the Behringer; one time I recorded drums direct to R2R and they sounded much better; at this point I had to spend quite a bit of time & money sorting out things like which tape I wanted to use and how to properly use and maintain an entry-level R2R which was kind of a hassle but worth it in the end.)

5) 424 for drums via direct outs to Ramsa WR-S (far superior to Behri), dump four-track drums to R2R (using the right tape) and mix from there with decent monitor setup & good outboard gear which I now knew how to use = very satisfying results.

6) Upgrade R2R deck to 1/2" 8-track, ditch the NR unless necessary. 424 winds up used primarily as a songwriting tool.

Step 4 was where I really started to feel my gear limitations. Before then some things sounded better, worse, or were easier. But it was really only at step 5 where I actually knew enough about what I was doing to know what I wanted gear-wise to be able to make informed choices. There are so many variables that it was hard for me to figure out what action was causing which effect. I think that's where the 424 shines--it eliminates unnecessary variables so you can tell what you're doing. Once you've got your M.O. down, you can rock increasingly better gear, the 424 will work with that gear, and when you upgrade you'll know what to upgrade and more importantly why.

Does this make any sense at all? (Seriously--I just woke up & I'm afraid I'm less coherent than I think I am. )

[joel hamilton]

It seems people either outgrow a lesser format, or grow into a greater format, depending on the availability of money at any time in their development as an engineer.

In my opinion, your choice is fairly simple:

Learn a LOT with your current setup, by recording with it frequently. Learn to hear the difference between ITS shortcomings, and YOUR shortcomings, without defensive, insecure ego based judgement.
OR:
Get rid of your current setup, get something considered professional, then learn to hear the difference between ITS shortcomings and YOUR shortcomings, again without ego.

In both cases, the learning part is the most important, but in the latter o the two, when you are getting decent with your professional gear, you will eventually be making recordings that stand up to anyone else,if that is you goal. In the former situation, you would not be making "professional" recordings, which may or may not be important to you.

[asmara]

I would say at least 90 per cent of the participants on these boards will have learned the basics of the art of recording through the portastudio path. If nothing else, learn your chops well on that unit, after a few critical tape drop-outs from punch-in recording and the occasional eaten master tape, you may want to replace with a digital solution. But you will never forget your porta-studio days. I bought a 424mkII NOS a couple years ago to return to tape and I rejected it because I could not wait for the tape transport to rewind.