Tascam 4 track into DAW

[Bill@WelcomeHome]

You'll get a lot better result using one of the DAW tape emulators. The pro-sumer Tascam/Teac/Akai/Pioneer etc tape machines never ever did make that 'tape' sound about which people wax so poetic. Those sounds came from pro machines in studios.

[chessparov]

+1 what Bill said.

IMHO sometimes a good use of "lo-fi" is to record an acoustic guitar through a cheap cassette recorder-to sound more "electric". This is basically what Keith Richards, for example, did on on a mono Phillips cassette recorder for "Street Fighting Man".

Chris

[OldTimey1]

to the OP, people do what you propose all the time.

you can't record to tape and digital simultaneously on a portastudio. you need a three-head tape deck to even dream about doing something like that, and it won't work too well on drums.

what you do is start your song on the portastudio, then dump it to a daw for overdubs. you can't go back and forth w/out serious hassle. yes tape has a different "concept of time" as digital. it drifts.

what you get is what you have...a portastudio sound.

Just like 8mm film is film, it's not 35mm film. they are completely different in so many ways. same with cassette and what people usually talk about with "tape" (reel to reel machines).

personally, i use everything at my disposal, portastudios, reel to reel, tape simulators, to get interesting sounds.

[zealy]

wonder if the high-end machines drift?....relative to a computers concept of time

I'm interested in the drift, maybe this has a lot to do with people liking tape; because it is a mechanically moving medium, the human brain interprets the audio signal in a different way to how it interprets a computer spitting out binary code...



it 'sounds' nicer...

[fastlanestoner]

the "tape" sound you're after is reel to reel, not cassette

[chessparov]

I personally also prefer high end 2" reel to reel sound over high end digital (yeah been lucky enough to ear-witness them A/B'd). But comparing cassette is sorta like comparing a go-cart to a dragster, both cool but way different.

Chris

[Black Shadow]

Originally Posted by OldTimey1

Tape has a different "concept of time" as digital. it drifts.

This is the main problem. If you digitally build a song around imported drum tracks, BPM, click track and MIDI are basically out the window.

If you can live without the grid, I say go for it.

[Christopher G.]

There's something interesting about running a source into a 4-track cassette machine and into a DAW, making sure you get the meters on the "tape machine" way up into the red. I don't usually hit the record button to do this though. Of course, this can be done 1,000 different ways, but think I sort of like the sound of shitty electronics being pushed too hard.

This also works with pro-sumer tape machines of a slightly better class than a Portastudio (I have a 424 I do this with sometimes.) Sometimes if I'm starting a song with a drum machine or synth part, I'll run that through an economical tape machine (1/2" or 1/4") like my Tascam 38 and hit that really hard. Of course, I'm not really a grid guy, even when I'm using programmed rhythm stuff, so I don't worry about that. It's pretty much an effect, not a smooth tape sound.

[jdsowa]

Doesn't the noise reduction on these cheap 4-tracks make tape saturation an impossibility?

[Christopher G.]

On a cassette machine, I think the term "tape saturation" is too kind.

[NikMuso]

A lot of great points already made... The hiss I'd get from the Tascam Porta was always a shortcoming, even with high quality cable. It certainly is not "reel" tape. The kind laypeople revere anyway. Reel to Reel is the hautness You're probably after, ideally.

[johnnygri]

If you find it inspiring, do it! Music first! I frickin' love doing it.

I played an engineer a song I tracked on a 424. I told him it was to tape but didn't specify what flavour. He said it sounded great (he was right IMHO). Then I told him the good news! He was most surprised.

To my mind, this served as a reinforcement of the notion: writing and performance first, everything else second. And also, people can't necessarily truly discern (I'm sure there are plenty of folk around here who can). Same goes for pres/mics etc. Of course, it doesn't hurt having a top quality mic and pre, and a "high speed" 4 track, Ampex cassette, using only the channels without EQ for the cleanest signal path.

[gravyface]

I listened a bunch of old tapes I recorded on my Yamaha MT-50 in the mid 90s when I truly had no idea what I was doing (not sure if that's changed sometimes) and was amazed at how good some of the tracks sounded when a "high end" mic locker (which we fought over where to use) consisted of a SM 58 and a SM 57; the rest were Radio Shacks and other assorted dynamics.

Now when I got my Tascam M308, this improved the sound quality immensely, because I was actually providing proper gain and impedance for the microphones, which reduced the noise on the way in considerably. Comparing the early tapes using the built-in preamps is night and day.

Having said that, it's hard to objectively say whether the sonics were truly good or whether nostalgia and the music itself are clouding my judgement. I certainly had a smile on my face the entire time I was listening to them.