A 4-track tape recorder made me fall in love with music again | Hacker News Reader

A 4-track tape recorder made me fall in love with music again

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138 pointsgribbitss91 comments

OMG, what a flash back for me. When I was about 14, my favorite uncle, you know, that cool uncle, he became a lawyer but when he was in college, he worked part time as a DJ at an underground FM rock station in Portland Oregon. Later, they went out of business and he was handling their chapter 11 or whaqt3ever. He knew I was a nerdly kid and was enthralled by all things electronics and said he would take me there and I could salvage some things which, now I realize he probably paid for but as a kid I had no idea at the time of course. They had this amazing TEAC 4 channel reel to reel, and boxes full of tapes. I grabbed that tape deck, the tapes and a sound board, a mic and whatever else. I was in heaven of course as a dumb kid. Later in college, I used that stuff and me and a some friends had a shitty punk rock band. But as a kid, way back in the 1970's I, for whatever reason, decided to listen to some of the tapes before recording over them. What I found on them was, The Fuggs, Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa and a lot more. I changed/warped my life and led me to be in a punk rock band, but also, got my Masters in EE and eventually, a responsible life blah blah, but... It was so cool, like I some how tapped into some secret trove of... no idea. But I used that tape deck to make a demo tape that got us a single that well, no one cared about but for about 10 seconds, it was like I was cool. Sorry for the kooky memory. :)

Thanks for sharing. Your uncle sounds a lot like my uncle, actually :)

Great story!

> a demo tape that got us a single

Can you dig up the single and post it someplace where we all can hear it?

I grew up with a Tascam 4 track and tascam half track for the master in my parent's small recording studio, where they had recorded local country and western artists in the early 80's. There are so many memories for me in that recording room for me that I cannot escape my nostalgic biases: It was cool as hell.

This article is close, but IMHO, misses the real killer feature. The no-screen makes a big difference, but the real one is: There is no undo!

I have listened to a number of very good producers talking about how a 4 track reel to reel (the higher-fi equivalent) was a game changing addition to their workflow because of this. With a modern DAW, one is faced with decision paralaysis, the capability of layer forever, and ability to tweak for ever. With a four track reel-to-reel, you need to make decisions way earlier, you can't just keep adding tracks (the noise floor grows), and you get shit done. Like Sgt. Pepper's.

That said, I have not personally been brave enough to do this. It would probably be very good for me, ha!

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was recorded despite the limitation of 4-track recorders, most certainly not because of it!

They used as many as three individual Studer J37 4-track recorders with 1" tape, bouncing tracks across machines, and preserving the original generation tapes so they could bounce down again without cumulative noise. And, for "A Day in the Life", they synchronized two 4-track machines together with a 50Hz control signal so they could record all of the orchestral parts.

But sure, for bedroom musicians who aren't The Beatles, forced limitations can be freeing!

Right, I know that from the fantastic book, "Good Vibrations." But note that none of it provided an "undo", which was my point.

Great read btw, if you're into that sort of thing!

Except it did provide it in a pro studio session. They could drop in and out, overdub and cut and splice tape if they wanted.

But your original point of not having an undo being liberating is IMHO correct.

Well, if you punch in over a track that already has content you are deleting previous content via the eraser head, so there's no undo for that. Unless you have "backup", which is obviously a second generation recording.

If you "fix it in an overdub", then maybe but it makes mixing more difficult. Or you gotta do a bounce which is, once again, second generation.

Of course something being second generation is not the worst thing in the world, but if you bounce a lot, noise and distortion will creep in.

Not the same at all as undo. Fwiw I've done sessions both ways, totally different mental effect. Like, completely different.

And the people I'm referring to were not bedroom musicians. I mean folks like Jamie Lidell.

It doesn't have to be so binary. It can he both, or a spectrum.

They had an aural vision. They also had limitations (i.e., only four tracks). But that's what artists [1] do...They challenge limitations. They challenge expectations. They bread down barriers. They see scarcity as a feature, not a bug.

Where others cowered at the confinements of the medium, The Beatles, George Martin, Geoff Emerick (engineer), and Ken Townsend (technical engineer) rolled up their sleeves and when to work.

Overcoming the medium was part of the challenge. That albatross contributed to the creativity, ingenuity and innovation. It's was part of the problem *and* the resulting solution.

[1] I'm using the text book definition of artist. Today mear pop stars are given credit for being artists. Nah. They don't technically qualify but their publicist, manager and label probably believe it's good for PR, as well as the overly fragile pop star ego.

Have a look at how Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart produced the very first version of 'Sweet Dreams'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Dreams_(Are_Made_of_This...

It's amazing they got out of that gear what they did and I'm pretty sure that in their case it's exactly like the last line in your comment. And it still rocks.

> but the real one is: There is no undo!

The undo sort of exists - it means you have to simply record the part again.

This has two effects:

a) it makes you play / practice more, so what you record gets better over time

b) if you make a mistake you may be more keen to keep it rather than record again - which leads to the recorded stuff having more character and spice.

A perfect example of how scarcity drives innovation / creativity.

Pardon the use of cliche but...The limitations of the box force you to think and act outside the box.

> The cost, of course, is that your mistakes get baked all the way in, for better or worse. No undo buttons here. You have to move slowly and skillfully to find success.

From the article, so it points out this feature exactly.

Consider an OP-1, same idea just more convenient and with cool synths and a radio built in :)

So ... there's a bit of a misconception here IMO.

The way music used to be recorded "back in the day" involved (at least) two distinct groups of people: the actual musicians, and the audio engineer(s). The work of the latter before the advent of automation (which is essentially, a kind of "undo") was long an arduous, and it's easy to understand why they were so happy when mixing consoles began to have recallable settings & automation of parameters. None of this impacted the musicians' work, or barely affected it.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, you had people like Eno (and to some extent Zappa, not to mention the electro-acoustic traditions in Europe) who started to use the studio as an instrument. That is, it was precisely the capabilities (or lack thereof) of the recording and mixing technology that was the subject of a "performance".

Meanwhile, the bass player played bass. If called for, they played it again. And again. And then they went home.

Modern DAWs would not change this at all, were it not for two notable changes.

First, the job of audio engineering has been taken over, not completely but extensively, by musicians and "producers" themselves. This means that making a piece of music now tends to include a series of decisions and processes that used to be the domain of the engineers.

Secondly, the phenomenon of composing/producing "in the box" has emerged, in which there is no actual recording of any sort of instrument that exists outside of the DAW (or computer), and thus working on a musical composition now frequently means working in a DAW rather than working on whatever instrument you might have played back when Fostex was a company.

Both of these things mean that the tweaking/recall/automation/editing features of a DAW, once "reserved" for audio engineers, are things that "just musicians" consider to be a part of their own toolkit.

I think this also explains in large part the change in Steely Dan's sound in the 70s/80s vs in the 90s/00s. The significance of perfection changes entirely when you can ctrl-z.

Great case in point is "The Second Arrangement": https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jun/26/the-most-impor...

This is weirdly true. One of the reasons that I've stuck to doing a lot of my (semi-pro) photography work on film, even when the quality on digital got 'good enough' for me is that you shoot it, and you're largely done. Most of your planning and decisions are locked in when you shoot and...I kinda like that.

Yeah, 4-tracks are a big inspiration for this Track8 I'm currently building.

My goal is to provide a similar experience. Immediate, tactile controls. Directly writing to a digital "tape". But without the analog restrictions like the need to rewind.

I now use it all the time for laying down new ideas, and only use the DAW for Mixing/Mastering.

Restrictions can sometimes be really liberating.

https://thingstone.com

That looks like a really interesting device, are you involved with the design?

One thing I used to really love with the early four and later eight tracks, was they had a mini mixing desk in them, and you could do things with them such as taking a line out and putting it into another channel, through some effects or playing the faders.

This is currently a one-man-show. So I'm doing everything by myself.

I have a simple mixing section (Volume/Pan) for each of the 8 Tracks. And there is a TrackFx (Filter/Compressor/Delay-send/Reverb-send) and MasterFx (Compressor/Delay/Reverb)

You can route the audio out back into the input(with a cable, no internal routing). But you can also do automation per track. Currently only Volume/Pan, maybe also Fx Parameters in the future.

The hardest part of adding features is always, how do I make them accessible to keep the immediate feeling.

Here's a video from SuperBooth where I describe some of it's features. I added a lot of stuff since then ... and I'm not a sales dude so the interview was quite awkward ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8u0Z55G2-0

How did I miss this? Thought I had seen all the YouTube videos on Superbooth! And you shouldn’t think you have to make excuses for the presentation - it was great, your sense of enthusiasm for it really came across as well as what it’s capable of and why you are doing it. Fantastic stuff.

Now I will be spending the day working out whether this is something I need in my studio ( the price puts it into a category where I really want to make sure it is something I will be using rather than buying it because I think its cool).

Yeah pricing is always an issue. I obviously can't compete with bigger Companies on price. I hope to have a first Batch of 100 Units ready at next SuperBooth. And at that Batch size, everything is quite expensive.

I also didn't want to compromise on Component quality. So I decided to order double shot Keycaps from the best Keycap Manufacturer in the US (solutionsinplastic.com). The case comes from a small Manufacturer in Poland. The PCB is produced by a Company in South Germany that also does Prototypes for Mercedes.

This all adds up. But I thought, if I can't compete on Price, I can try to compete on quality/repairability.

If I can prove product market fit, maybe I'll do a cheaper, less boutique version in the future.

That's pretty limited on input count even compared to original Tascam. I'd think having to fuck around with cabling or having whole extra mixer just to swap what it is sent to it might be pretty annoying.

One idea to get around that (provided the whatever CPU you use there have that feature) would be USB host mode, many of the more modern devices have USB audio mode where they present themselves as soundcard, or user can then just use normal audio interface to give it extra inputs.

Thats a feature request I get quite often.

From a hardware perspective it's already possible to attach a 3rd party core audio USB Audio Interface. I've just not implemented the feature yet.

It's simply not a use case I have. I usually only record one Input at a time. Track 8 has 3 Inputs (Stereo/Mono/XLR) and I can wire up all my gear to these inputs and then select from what source to record via the Mechanical Rotary Switch. That's very easy to use and intuitive.

If I'd add more Inputs (like the tascam) I'd have the same Issue they have: how to map an Input to a track. Or have a fixed mapping (Input 1 only records to Track 1). In find both scenarios quite inconvenient for an intuitive workflow (I tried a lot of Multitrack recorder before deciding to build this)

So yeah, Track8 is quite opinionated in regards of workflow and features. But I don't want to turn this into a can-do-it-all DAW in a box.

And for me it's fine if it's a niche product.

So long as you can export to USB all the tracks i'd call it good. Record in peace, then if you want more take those tracks to a real DAW for editing. The easy to record where you are is a major feature as setting up a computer in a different room for a 5 minute song is not worth it.

I'm looking for an easy way for my kid to record himself, so i'm more concerned about durability as it will be abused. To that end i'd prefer to see features like take an mp3 from the instruction book website and play along (this is often hard to download).

Yes there is a Stem export to USB Drive (besides a mix export). This gives you 8 WAV files. 1 per Track.

In the latest Hardware revision I added the capability for a USB Device mode. So you can attach Track8 to a PC and directly access the internal SSD.

Idk if Track8 is suited for kids. Sure it's durable. But because of the heavy weight and metal case there might be accidents happening when dropping it on siblings ;) Also it might be a bit complex to operate depending on the kids age.

There's an Audio import from USB, but currently it only supports WAV. I still have to find the time to include a mp3 decoder.

Track8 has no Wifi/Bt/Internet connectivity whatsoever. (because the certification is a big pain). So you'd have to copy everything you want to import to a USB Drive.

> If I'd add more Inputs (like the tascam) I'd have the same Issue they have: how to map an Input to a track. Or have a fixed mapping (Input 1 only records to Track 1). In find both scenarios quite inconvenient for an intuitive workflow (I tried a lot of Multitrack recorder before deciding to build this)

I didn't mean recording on multiple channels at once, just purely ability to select inputs easily instead of moving cables. But yeah, there is real cost in analog ones, both in parts and panel size.

USB on the other hand could lead to some neat workflows, just connect a synth and drum machine via one USB cable to hub and that's it. No audio cabling, no MIDI cabling etc. Just allow for one-input-at-time recording for the sake of simple workflow.

Then again that of course depends what you record. I have few devices doing USB audio, but obviously that's not all that useful feature to someone doing that with mic, some old synth, old drum machine and a guitar.

Absolutely awesome. Is it available to outsiders already?

It's still not for sale.

I sent the last prototypes to a couple of Beta Testers (Actual Composer/Music Producer, no Youtubers) and took their feedback to make a lot of Hardware/Software improvements.

If you're a professional Music Producer and want to test a Prototype, just send me a mail via the website.

The next batch of Prototypes, planed for EoY, will be a bit bigger, to get even more feedback and there are a lot of requests from reseller that want to try it out extensively (Thomann for example). I'll also have to do a new EMI/ESD check (hopefully the last one)

As I said in another comment, I aim to have a Batch of 100 ready for sale around May next Year. But lets see how this plays out. Hardware is hard ;)

I know hardware is hard (I've built a bunch of electronics for machine control and in the dark ages of IT electronics was my bread and butter). These days I'm active as an investor and consultant to investors as well as with my own music related project (pianojacq.com). If I can be of any use to you let me know, email is in profile, I've just subscribed to your newsletter. I'd love to see this project succeed.

♥

I took a quick look at pianojacq.com and can relate to the sentiment you expressed with "I wanted to concentrate on making music, not on endless runs and other boring ways of practicing"--although in my case it relates more to creating new music rather than performing.

Interested to hear more about your experience with VexFlow if there's anything more to share on top of it being "very nice". :)

I think VexFlow was one of the projects I encountered when I was recently looking for musical score rendering solutions for a somewhat non-typical context[0].

In the end I settled on using a Standard Music Font Layout (SMuFL) reference font directly rather than a higher level engraving library which led to a result that was...mixed. I share (a.k.a. rant about :) ) my experience more toward the end of a HN comment[1] in case the topic is of interest.

[0] A 7-day game jam entry created with Godot 4: https://rancidbacon.itch.io/stave-off

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35139269

VexFlow is kind of tricky to use but extremely versatile and probably saved me a year (or two) in getting pianojacq.com up and running but I am still in the process of optimizing the code, last year during a holiday I did a complete refactoring to make it all more readable and I still have a plan to re-work the interface to VexFlow into something nicer than what is there right now. The problem is that there are 6 different representations of the score in memory right now (midi, VexFlow, visual (bitmaps), timing (milliseconds), pianoroll (for the sustained notes) and finally beats and bars. All of these serve different functions and have to be kept in sync so the bookkeeping gets to be a bit ugly. There is yet another representation used to reverse from pixels on the screen to notes. I suspect every program like that suffers from a similar problem that in order to do things fast you need to keep it around in the representation that is most suitable for the problem you're solving at that moment in time. For instance, during midi decoding I don't have time to parse the whole data structure but I do need to know if a note is still sustaining.

Edit: I looked at your stuff, did you know about:

https://guides.loc.gov/music-notation-preferred-preservation...

Wow, this seems absolutely amazing for my use case.

Seems a perfect machine to just connect a nice synth with a multi fx pedal, and crank out a new song in a couple of hours! No distractions.

I guess I wont be able to justify the asking price you seem to be avoiding mentioning (which I can totally understand why, don't get me wrong), but I will surely follow the progress with great interest!

In any case, congrats and best of luck!

Ahh yeah, price :sweat_smile: with 100 Units as a first batch I'd have to ask for EUR 1500 (incl. 20% Tax) or EUR 1250 (without tax to non EU customers).

Anything below, and it would be hard to make profit if sold via a reseller. (they grab like 30-40%)

Not my thing personally, but would you consider making a kit version like other manufacturers? At least for the early adopters could be a nice route and lower the price somewhat.

Although you did not mention it I never expected a sub 1000€ price tag.

That would make it the most expensive piece of gear in my home studio, if you do not count the laptop.

As I said, it certainly seems to tick all the boxes, but hard to justify. I still hope that you can validate the concept and in a couple of years I can grab one for around 500€.

Once again, best of luck on a very interesting if very niche project!

I briefly thought about making a Kit version ... but this actually does not make it much cheaper. As long as there is anything pre soldered to the Board, you'd need CE to comply in the EU. (some manufacturers simply ignore that) Besides this, PCB assembly is pretty cheap compared to all the Component Costs.

And as I'm currently doing the end assembly by myself, for free. There is no cost saving in this either.

I might be able to make a cheap version in the future. But this would probably be a completely different product (no full size connectors, smaller display, made in china, ...) It would only share the software with the current version.

Have you considered pricing the first batch at EUR 4000 each? :)

To quote myself[0] from too long ago:

"Very rarely will someone tell you that you're not charging as much for something as you should (perhaps with the exception of patio11 because he wants us all to make more money :) ) but generally there's always someone who will say something costs too much."

Due to a number of factors (including some past experience with hardware development & a recognition that most people purchasing low volume hardware do not have a realistic perspective on the costs involved) one of my hobbies is suggesting low volume hardware developers consider increasing their prices in order to potentially create a more financially sustainable business over the long term. (An outcome which is both better for the developer & their customers.)

Of course, such suggestions cost me nothing (as I don't currently have the disposable income either way) and their worth can be valued at the price you paid for them. :)

(And if @jacquesm advises you otherwise, I'd advise ignoring me. :D )

On the other hand if you decide to increase the price by even EUR 100 and you still sell out the batch, well, "it's free real estate" as they say...

Anyway, the prototype unit you demo in the SOS video looks really slick, so, nice work. :)

In case it's helpful here is a link dump[1] of various hardware-related manufacturing/pricing resources I've collected over the years, in rough suggested reading priority order:

* Case study of mechanical keyboard kits and "Vickrey auction as price discovery mechanism": https://kevinlynagh.com/notes/pricing-niche-products/

* Advice via "co-founder & former CEO of Contour" action camera company (esp. excellent section on pricing): https://learn.adafruit.com/how-to-build-a-hardware-startup?v...

* "Hardware by the Numbers (Part 2: Financing + Manufacturing)": https://blog.bolt.io/hardware-financing-manufacturing/

* "Will Your Hardware Startup Make Money?": https://blog.bolt.io/make-money/

The more VC-funded startup focused info may be less directly applicable to your situation but still has value.

Also, if you haven't already I'd suggest looking into the journey of the Synthstrom Deluge[2] (& maybe contacting them) as it seems to share some characteristics with you & your product in terms of market, pricing & team size. (I'm familiar with it primarily from meeting some of the team early-ish in their journey due to living in the same city at the time.)

Hope some of this is of use & either way, best wishes for the journey ahead!

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8453391

[1] Mostly extracted from an earlier post/rant of mine here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15444477 (Also, archived link of a couple more: http://web.archive.org/web/20160330204925/http://www.labrado... )

[2] https://synthstrom.com

I’m a big fan of the Roland VS digital multi-track recorders from the early 2000s. I used to have a Roland VS840 8-track recorder, with which I recorded some guitar and vocal songs back in around 2006. I’ve been looking at picking up another VS recorder lately, probably the 1680, 1880 or 2480. The 2480 was really cool, with VGA out and mouse control. The Roland VM7200 Video Mixer came from that era as well and shares some of the architecture.

Yamaha had a smaller competing series of digital multi-track recorders around that time. The AW4416 being the last one made, and the AW1600 before that. I know little about their usage but I am a big fan of the Yamaha O2R and DM1000/2000 digital mixers from that time period.

This era of digital recording tech really deserves a blog post or YouTube video going into the history and development. Perhaps this is a long shot but I’d love to hear from anyone that may have worked on those series of hardware products, about the dev process and the technologies involved in creating the hardware and software.

Yeah, still have my VS-880 (expanded). I got it out and decided to record on it again. Having just the 8 tracks suddenly seems kind of cool to me now. Keeps the music a little more minimal.

I picked up a VS-1824 a decade or so ago when they were cheap on eBay (are they still?). But I think I am inclined to stick with the 880 for now.

Tascam (I think still?) makes DP-03 SD which is basically 8 track digital version of the portastudio. Weirdly enough, with less inputs

I still have a Yamaha AW4416 sitting around upstairs somewhere. I remember it being pretty confusing at times. I always wished it had a network interface to get the tracks out of it more conveniently. I eventually got an ADAT module and an RME Hammerfall PCI card to transfer tracks to PC, before that, I burned CDs. The best thing I managed to record on it was the rhythm guitar tracks for this: https://soundcloud.com/stephen-cameron-456738857/rocket-sled...

Love this, reminded me of the Yamaha MT100 I had as a teen - well before I got into using my first DAW. The name of that DAW I've never been able to remember - it was on a Mac Classic...

I've noticed two things when it comes to inspiration / creativity (around music, but probably other creative endeavours) which are both sort of connected to this piece and the comments:

1. You need some kind of workflow that removes as much friction as possible. I know when writing music that ideas are extraordinarily fragile. You have to sort of tease them out like a wild, untamed animal hiding in the bushes - if you move too quickly in one direction, look the other way or go in the wrong direction then it just disappears. This is what I've really loved about Ableton (vs other DAWs) - it is so quick to just "get going": drop on an instrument, push record - done.

2. Simplicity - and in fact, positive lack of options and input methods - is so often lost in this (granted - amazing!) world of endless VSTs, synths, mics, desks, etc. I know too many musicians who spend all their time fiddling with the gear (I'm guilty too..) and not doing the really important thing which is laying down ideas and building on them. One specific thing I've really noticed using Ableton Note (the amazing but very limited iOS app) is that for me (as a 40+ year pianist) is that not having a (proper) keyboard interface and instead using a grid to input notes actually really helps me - and the reason it helps is that it prevents me from falling back into familiar, known shapes of chords, notes, progressions - and the consequence is that I'm writing weird stuff that I never would have written with a keyboard.

In short: simplicity and limitation can be extraordinarily inspiring!

> I know when writing music that ideas are extraordinarily fragile.

This is very true and I've found that it goes for programming too but in a different way. With music it's themes that are incredibly hard to hold onto in the face of distraction, with programming it's to hold the whole running construct in your head while you're building only a small part of it. This is why scope reduction and abstraction have such incredible pay-offs. For musical ideas a simple voice recorder can be very useful, just whistle or hum your idea and then it's safe to forget about it for the time being.

I've only ever made music with tape: cassettes and 1/4" reels. I'm not nostalgic or in search of any "lofi" sound (if recorded right, it shouldn't be that noisy anyway). I just really don't want to use a computer after work. My bet at the time was also that tape is more future-proof. Steve Albini has written about this.

I'm not so sure about the latter point. Can still get new reels, but I don't think they make the type II cassettes anymore. I also got my Portastudio for 30 bucks, but they go for 500 now, since all the chatter I've heard suggests Tascam has no interest in ever making something so complex and mechanical again. Sourcing tape heads for the RTR might also be a problem in the future.

Don't regret the decision though; just think I was lucky getting into the game 10 years ago. So much of my favorite minimal synth, industrial, and post-punk was made the same way, so it just makes sense to compose around this interface.

> Steve Albini has written about this.

Would you mind sharing a reference? I found a short but interesting digital-vs-analog take by Albini on Youtube: https://invidious.protokolla.fi/watch?v=8ibDfUU7cKw

EDIT: Here's a good, lenghty masterclass with Albini: https://invidious.protokolla.fi/watch?v=sKEzHie9tAI

As an European and non-musician, this is actually my first encounter with him; I now, however, cannot stop listening to the way he expresses his thoughts. Really interesting, deep and well-articulated guy.

You might like his music too, which might be described as harsh guitar-driven industrial punk. I'd start with "The Rich Man's 8 Track Tape" by Big Black.

Apologies, but my memory is hazy. The more I think about it, the more it might have been a video interview, but no luck zeroing in on it on Youtube. His points boiled down to:

- Tape is a dead simple concept that's been around for ages. It will continue to be understood.

- Failures in analog media are more salvageable than digital ones.

- Importing a DAW session from 20 years ago and trying to reproduce the work while dealing with incompatibilities, DRM, drivers, etc is way harder than just spinning a reel.

- If you've captured the feel you're going for in the initial recording, you don't need the intricate processing options a DAW offers.

I mostly disagree with his first point. I'm not an engineer, but I'm under the impression that some precision work goes into the mechanics of these things. I can envision a future where the market just isn't there to pay anybody to make them correctly. Finding repairs is already hard enough.

I'm not a massive fan of Albini, but he is a well-spoken guy who seems to know his stuff. My favorite musical work of his is probably "Songs About Fucking," and his best production job is "Thank Your Lucky Stars" by Whitehouse. Both are so noisy but audible. The professional/alien sheen of the latter work is a major outlier in the genre of power electronics, which is usually very DIY and unfortunately rather murky despite the extreme frequencies employed.

Thanks for such a detailed reply. His (or other analog audio devotees') thoughts on the environmental impact and ecological footprint of tape recording would be really interesting to hear.

It is tempting to state "digital is more environmental friendly". But developing new hardware and software obviously bears an ecological burden as well, whereas that old analog gear can be used more or less "as is" for decades.

I'm interested in analog mostly because I feel DAW screens are tiring for the brain. And, as an occasional producer of a long-form radio program, I often think whether a show produced in a more "analog manner" (solely relying on my ears, not my eyes during montage) would have a different "feel".

For that reason, CLI-only software like ecasound or mixer4 [1] have been interesting to me for a long time; so far, during real montage work, I have nonetheless always opted for DAW-based solutions, or maybe simple destructive audio editors. Still like the idea of not having to look at the waveform for making my cuts, though.

1: https://ecasound.seul.org/ecasound/, http://www.acousticrefuge.com/mixer4.htm

+1, I got into eurorack to get away from screens. My workflow goes into a 6-channel Allen & Heath mixer, and while I'm still outputting to garageband on an ipad, the whole point was I wanted to make the kind of music I liked - shitty mix tapes of early electronic and industrial music played through a radioshack ghettoblaster or cheap headphones. I don't care about the affect of expensive production, I want to hear what the musician thought was cool in the context of the original constraints.

Tangentially related: a fascinating documentary about Julie McLarnon, tape-only recording engineer in Northern Ireland: https://invidious.protokolla.fi/watch?v=zMiuZ7mYWE4

As a long-time public radio program contributor, I've been pondering about the possibility of screenless or waveform-less, CLI-only audio montage setups for 10+ years. Multitrack DAWs are tiring for the eyes sometimes; you'll end up trusting your eyes more than your ears. In this regard, the linked documentary (author: Myles O'Reilly) about Julie McLarnon really is full of philosophical gems (backed up by her interpretation of scientific findings as to how our senses work and cooperate). What a deep movie.

"No computer needed" really does a lot for the creative process, imo. It's a big reason why Teenage Engineering's OP-1 is so successful, despite its very high price.

I have great memories of that time, when home recording was becoming possible thanks to these little devices. I never used one, though, as I already used to bounce stereo tracks from my Dolby C equipped Aiwa cassette deck (ADF350 if memory serves) to a friend's Akai tape reel recorder. That allowed us to obtain a less hissy sound (multitrack cassette recorders frankly sucked) while also maintaining decent dynamics. Then a few years later I spent most of my earnings from working in the military to buy the Fostex A80 8 track recorder plus the 450 mixer and some outboard rack effects, which I also used to record some rock band demos aside my own tracks. I have some good memories from that era, like when I had to sleep on the floor in a abandoned house in a high crime area that band used as rehearsal room because a recording took longer than planned, so we would continue the following day, and it was granted that if I left my gear alone it would be gone by the next morning. Good times!

I'm 53. Those things were the absolute most lusted for device among the amateur musicians I knew in college and soon after; the ability to record with any complexity at all at home like that was insane. Before that, demos were just played live to a tape recorder, with no ability to multitrack or overdub or any such thing.

I'm sympathetic to the motivating factors of deliberately limited workspaces, but at the same time I am astonished and deeply happy about how this particular barrier to home recording has been more or less completely removed. The average laptop owned by a college freshman is far more capable, given the right software. That's astounding, and has allowed far more creative freedom, which is a boon we all enjoy.

But yeah: sometimes working with a form is interesting. And, for someone of a certain age, the powerful shot of nostalgia from working on something like this could definitely be motivating. That said, though, the tagline is bullshit: The cassette was never cool.

Reminds me of a recent thread discussing Ardour (I think?). I mentioned that I wanted to make a headless synth for my 10yo nephews. I thought about using a Korg nanoKONTROL2 to operate a "headless" DAW. Paul Davis even replied and said that, for a bunch of 10 year olds, a DAW was overkill. Right on! But as this article says, the ability to record multiple tracks easily will make you fall in love with music again. Reading it, the thing that jumped out was when the author rejoiced at the fact that they didn't have to look at a fucking screen! Nailed it.

Unfortunately I haven't progressed much with the kids headless "studio", except that I've decided to use 2x Raspberry Pis. One will be a headless synth only. The other will be a headless multi-track recorder, using the nanoKONTROL2 as the interface. Gonna be a pain in the ass to build, but if I get it working to any degree of usefulness I'll post.

Oh, this is my favorite way of making music! Also, im making a portable 4-track digital audio sketchbook with tape emulation, if you interested, check out in progress stuff is on IG(sorry) - https://www.instagram.com/its_your_bedtime

It’s always been a fond memory from high school watching one of my teachers with a TEAC TASCAM 4 track Cassette Portastudio.

He was just there doing a rhythm track using a pair of those things you shake that rattle (pretty sure that’s the technical term for them).

It was a keen insight at the time on how music was created and recorded, and something as a consumer we take for granted.

We may be aware of the process of music recording or film editing in the abstract without really realizing the complexities involved. We’re used to the final products, not the bits and pieces they’re built from.

I thought it was a really amazing piece of kit, while realizing its limitations and why it ran at double speed. (there’s only so much you can squeeze onto a thin cassette tape). But there he was in his living room with this thing on an end table, it was an empowering piece of tech.

As a teen, the Tascam 424 was my absolute dream piece of gear, and I remember being so proud the day I actually bought one. I was 13 or 14 when I was introduced to it, and it was the first time the concept of tracks on a cassette tape was even given any thought by me, and I no longer had to try to play music in reverse on a turntable--it was the 80s, and it was all the rage <facepalm>. it did get me very interested in how it worked from the record/playback heads, the type of tape, how it made an 8-track make sense, and then that led into how VHS tapes worked. After high school, I went to work for a film post house and learned that they made a magnetic audio format on 35mm film. Crazy how influential that little 424 was in where I am now.

A TASCAM DP008 could be had for less than 70-80 and is also quite limited and simple to operate and conducive to similar creativity though there is a little screen on it and very shallow menu diving at times when needed but it's portable.

New they run a bit more, but, yeah, these might be the modern equivalent.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B9060X6/

If anyone is interested in a 4-track cassette recorder on steroids, check out the Akai MG614, which has a 6 channel mixer and a lot more I/O possibilities. They are fairly expensive on the used market but built like tanks.

Another less expensive alternative, and more similar in design and feature to the Tascam offerings, would be the Yamaha MT4X and MT8X. The latter having an 8 channel mixer. Of course these still record down to only 4 channels on the tape.

There’s also the Yamaha MD8 digital minidisc recorder with an 8 channel mixer, if you’re feeling adventurous.

So much amazing dedicated audio recording gear came out in the 90s.

The MG614 was something I really wanted when I was younger ( when i wasn’t dreaming about 2 inch tape and an SSL)

BTW the MT8X was actually an 8 track on standard cassettes, same as the Tascam 488 and a couple of others I believe.

There was also a lot of crap gear that came out in the 80s and 90s.

I have several of these! From the original 424 up to the MkIII. And have developed the skills and resources to restore them as well. I'm currently working on a restoration of an RCA SRT-301 reel-to-reel tape machine. It's mono but with a couple of these you can make really long loops and delays. I love working with tape machines.

If you like tape as much as I do check out Amulets [0].

Musically I'm only getting my setup going but it's some of the best stuff I've made.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/@amuletsmusic

Amulets is great. I love tape. I've played around with tape loops and a 4 track recorder a bit over the past few years because of all the cool stuff I saw on YouTube. It's so much fun

I’ve had a lot of fun over the years with a 424 mk1, which I picked up at a garage sale for very little, probably 20 years ago.

I recently used it again for a period, and this time invested in some other analogue gear, preamp, decent mic, few reverb and delay effects, compressor.

There was something about the limitations that just made it more fun. And the simplicity of having just a few pieces of gear to experiment with.

It’s unfortunate that they’ve become such expensive items to buy. I’d never pay $1000 for one, which they seem to go for on reverb.

Something about the creative process really likes limitations

Even in tech, some of the most creative ideas are basically hacks to work within some kind of restraint.

Somehow when every option is on the table, you don’t see such flashes of pure creativity.

And something about being poor too.

A friend (in the 80's) had a cassette 4-track that he loaned me for one weekend. (I could not afford the $400 price tag at that time.)

In that one weekend I recorded an EP's worth of original stuff I had written (and one cover, I think Lennon's "Cry Baby Cry").

Now, with cash enough to buy something much nicer, I sit on my ass and watch YouTube.

Limitations force you to explore deep. You don't learn how to make one tool work well when there are 1000 more to try. A couple settings and move onto a different effect means you don't learn what this effect can do in all combinations of settings, and you won't even remember you have it as an option when you get around to recording and it would fit. Pros who record all day should know a lot in depth, but it takes years to develop the sense of what effect would be good and how to use it. So for someone who isn't an expert a couple good choices lets us focus on the art.

Ah, Tascam 4-track tape recorders, brings the memories flooding back.

I studied Music Technology for one of my A-Levels (blends performance, composing and recording versus a traditinal A-Level in music which is performance and composing). This was the first year the A-Level was offered, and while the school was building out a recording studio with ADAT 8-track recorders we "made do" with a Tascam. It was a fantastic piece of kit, and really great if you wanted to go and record out in the field.

I'm still trying to relive the good times that I had recording with a Fostex 250 4 track in the 90s. Maybe I just need to set the DAW aside and try one of those little Tascam 6 tracks.

pic of the fun 80s design: https://images.reverb.com/image/upload/pck8xkwntfldgcx9x7eo....

I want to get one 4-track tape recorder record some bass / saxophone music at home. Is there any other options for comparison?

I would skip the tape and get a Boss digital 4 track like a boss br-532. It has a drum machine, some basic effects. Each track also has 8 "virtual tracks", so you do have some room to record variations, but more importantly, it lets you record 4 tracks and then "mix them down" to a virtual track, allowing you to record 3 new tracks on top. You can even keep mixing more and more tracks down (though you lose the ability to mix them all independently). But because you have "virtual tracks" all the original tracks are still there and you can always go back and remix them.

I looked into this (de-DAWing) quite a bit too.

Ended up buying a Fostex VF160 EX, which is a beautiful machine, but huge. It's similar to the tape recorders except it uses a hard drive instead of cassettes and can write audio CDs with the final result.

The Zoom R16 / R20 is also pretty much the same thing except it writes to SD cards, is much smaller, and can be battery powered.

But in the end, the best of them all seem to be the Zoom H4N Pro / Zoom H6 / Zoom H8. They offer a "multi-track" mode which behaves in the same way, but... they are tiny in comparison and you can use them for many other purposes as well!

It's cool to bring back old technology, but sometimes you also need to KISS. These multitrack recorders are huge, while a Zoom H4N Pro / H6 is something that does the same job - and more - and you can carry everywhere in your pocket.

https://www.amazon.com/Tascam-DP-006-Pocketstudio-Multi-Trac...

Four track (2 stereo tracks) recorder! Cheap! Small! Good! UNDO BUTTON!!!! For those of us that can't afford an OP-1!

I totally agree. I've had audacity and pro-tools setups before, but my best songs came out of a Boss digital 4-track. I was also insanely fast on it, too. I could come home from work on lunch break with a song idea and bang out a near complete song in like 15-20 minutes.

  Programmers don't burn out on hard work, they burn out on change-with-the-wind directives and not 'shipping'.
  – Mark Berry

Sigh. This really haunts me, not just when I tried to make some noises and sounds, or programming but in everyday life.

The author has a section "Featured in this track:" and "Like any amateur analog artifact, this track contains mistakes encased in amber." but I can't find anywhere to actually listen to the track in the article. Am I blind?

Possibly one of these from 6 days ago: https://soundcloud.com/eric-limer "Volca Jam 1" likely given the instruments involved and his description of it.

Highly likely the track the author is mentioning: https://soundcloud.com/eric-limer/volca-jam-1

I use a Zoom H4N for similar purposes. Has a few more bells and whistles than a tape based 4-track, but I find it's a similar experience in terms of removing all the complexity that computer based recording brings.

A long time ago, Tascam had some b-stock that had a screwed up label printing that cut off. The labels all said "port-a-stud" and I would love to find one of those some day.

My brother still has one, it broke years ago, he fixed it himself (some soldering for the sliders and other bits, I think he said) and he's never, ever, no way, not selling it. Ever.

I spent a lot of quality time in the 1980s recording with 4-tracks and editing with splice blocks. I do not miss it but I miss the live performance it necessitated.

Tascam and Zoom still have a modern range of x-track recorders that are standalone and don't need PC.

is there a good shootout between proper studio grade adc (analog to digital convertors) and the adcs on something like zoom 8 trackers, and equivalents? i would love a screenfree recording solution. Alesis have their 24 track modable units which are good to consider too...

Why? I feel the more “accessible” 8 track products are usually good enough these days and it isn’t the aim of them to go up against 8 channels of Prism/weiss/Burl or whatever. And those high end convertors are often used in places where everything is at least very good to among the best (whatever that means), including the room and the operator(s) of the equipment.

Most of the rest of the chain would be a weaker link to producing a track including the person writing it, than some of the modern mutlitrack recorders.

I would focus instead on usability.

i guess i like the idea of things like this - without sacrificing audio quality. Though - as folk on gearspace commented - you can just grab something like a mackie universal controller with MMC and just turn off your monitor. Best of all worlds + editing later.

def agree these arent aimed at competing - i was just curious though - as the "low end" keeps getting better as time goes on :)

Just get one with SPDIF in. Then you can use whatever converter you want.

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