Planning to buy a 4-track...

[DK3691]

So what would be a good one to buy? Not really for a serious project, just so that the recording quality is relatively good. Any suggestions? Cheaper would be better.

[moaner]

tascam MFp-01 or if you can afford it tascam porta 02 MK2

[Phototropic]

Yeah Tascam MF-P01 is what I started out on and I made some pretty great songs with it :)

The quality isn't fantastic, but if you're just starting out you won't even notice

I've had mine for over 2 years, even upgraded to an 8-track digital recorder but I still use my 4-track now and again

[you want romance?]

if u can save up a little more get a zoom mrs4 digital recorder, ****ing good sound, easy to use and all !!!!!!!

[airborne50caliber]

something by tascam if your goin tape, no reason to get anythin else

[you want romance?]

man tape is cool but if u have a computer go digital!! the sound is way ****ing better and u can have fun on the computer mixing and all, i'v had tape and now have digital (for about the same price range) and the second is the best i personaly think

[moaner]

man tape is cool but if u have a computer go digital!!
me chuckles.

the sound is way ****ing better
I call bullshit.

and u can have fun on the computer mixing and all
computer mixing is often easier, but more fun? no way. there's nothing more fun than actually haivng knobs and lsiders to use, instead of typing in numbers with the keyboard.

i'v had tape and now have digital (for about the same price range) and the second is the best i personaly think

please, name the 2 so i can compare their features for all.

[you want romance?]

ok wait a sec then, i'll go check out, u'r the pro after all, i'm just an *** hole, so u'r the man to talk to and to take advice from! i just prefer digital and that's all there is to it!! and the sound is better and dosen't get worse with the time! now u can't say the contrary!! even with like gold quality tapes man! tapes get used to quick, digital is a sequence of 1's and 0's never changed, it's a memory bank that can not b ultered ! be back in five with all the stuff++

[you want romance?]

http://www.wwbw.com/Tascam-414MKII-i66755.music
this is what i had before
http://www.wwbw.com/Zoom-MRS4B-Digital-Recorder-i149332.music
and what i'v got now, and like i like both but the second one just allowes more fun, it's faster and the final result is better!

[moaner]

ahu. the digital will be more convininent. 4 tracks can be a bit limiting, especially in panning options. Thats one thing i do like about digital- its easy to keep things in stereo.

but, as with most of those digital multitrackers, they're really stingy with the memory. the k informs me you can get 1gig flash cards, which'd be great, but 32MB isn't enough for an EP or even a long demo.

[moaner]

oh, and for the record, i'm not a pro. i just take my hobbies seriously. :lol:

you're not an *******, and i appreciate the mature attitude you take. diagree with most people and you get attacked like anything.

as to the tapes deteriating with age- veyr true. however, the fact that all tapes have poor recordig quality is a bit of an "urban myth"- you can get nice results with it. famously, even in some modern computer based studios they like to pass the volcals on to an expensive analogue tape recorder to add warmth.

[you want romance?]

yeah i heard of that but like in the end u end up paying much more. and i
yeah i have to say i'm totaly in agreement with u for the poor memory part! it's a ****ing payn in the ***, that's very very tru!!! that's the crap part of it, the good part is that if u buy a bigger card than the one they give u (about 17 minuts of music) it never get's used..so i guess in the end it's just up to personal choice.
o yeah and seen we are on this, i have a question for u, it's shurely all reday been covered but i'll still ask , maybe u can help...when i record some demos with mic four track i do like a guitare a bass and like on any recorder u get a little...how to say , a littel sound going pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff over it, but on my mic (akg 660) u get a really big one! how the hell do i get it off? like i found a way in mixing by changing stuff in the equalizer, like the high pitches but then it takes some part of my voice's sweetness and leaves me with a deeper voice (not many people hear the difference, i do it being my voice and it's a payn in the ****ing ***)
thanx very much for the help and i totaly agree with u man!!!!
--------->diagree with most people and you get attacked like anything.
=)

[moaner]

yeah i heard of that but like in the end u end up paying much more. and i
yeah i have to say i'm totaly in agreement with u for the poor memory part! it's a ****ing payn in the ***, that's very very tru!!! that's the crap part of it, the good part is that if u buy a bigger card than the one they give u (about 17 minuts of music) it never get's used..so i guess in the end it's just up to personal choice.
o yeah and seen we are on this, i have a question for u, it's shurely all reday been covered but i'll still ask , maybe u can help...when i record some demos with mic four track i do like a guitare a bass and like on any recorder u get a little...how to say , a littel sound going pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff over it, but on my mic (akg 660) u get a really big one! how the hell do i get it off? like i found a way in mixing by changing stuff in the equalizer, like the high pitches but then it takes some part of my voice's sweetness and leaves me with a deeper voice (not many people hear the difference, i do it being my voice and it's a payn in the ****ing ***)
thanx very much for the help and i totaly agree with u man!!!!
--------->diagree with most people and you get attacked like anything.
=)

hum?

well, there are many sources of hum. Its hard to find it usually. is it only with that one mic? have you tried any others?

[airborne50caliber]

noise... wow, you're the first one to discover that!

[you want romance?]

nice comment airborne man, very inteligent i like it!!!! and yeah i'v also tried a shure in studios with my four track and it's the same thing, like a hum over all the time i record the vocals, i'v changed the jack and bought a really good one and it's still the same, i used better mics and same drill...

[airborne50caliber]

so maybe its your four track?

hey, my compressor has hum and listens to the radio channels.

[you want romance?]

yeah but likee then why does it just do it with the mic, like i can choose from four tracks and two inputs and whatever i get the hum with the mic, like elecrtique and electro acoustic guitare is fine but vocals always go like that!!!

[KKKKKocaine]

ok wait a sec then, i'll go check out, u'r the pro after all, i'm just an *** hole, so u'r the man to talk to and to take advice from! i just prefer digital and that's all there is to it!! and the sound is better and dosen't get worse with the time! now u can't say the contrary!! even with like gold quality tapes man! tapes get used to quick, digital is a sequence of 1's and 0's never changed, it's a memory bank that can not b ultered ! be back in five with all the stuff++

It's alot easier to keep a tape recording safe than it is to protect a cd/harddrive/flashcard/whatever from file corruption/random crashing/accidental deletion e.t.c.
A tape needs a cool dry enviroment away from sunlight, kept in it's case, it will last more than long enough, if you leave tapes lying arond anywhere, of course they will get worse with time, the same way running a razorblade down a cd will cause skipping.

Digital has marginally better sound with a different tone to analog, analog is much more warm which is sometimes preferred, However there is a wide range of recordings that you could have been released into a music chart and gone hand in hand with digital quality. However, I don't see the massive skip in quality between digital and tape, a type II high bias cassette can reap commercial results thus anything else, is purely window dressing.

From a very purists view, you could attack digital for not actually being the real recording.
You mentioned binary.
To elaborate on this, You have your kick drum creating a waveform, this is picked up in mr mirophone and send into the digital unit, who then goes into an analog to digital converter which converts this waveform into a series of 0's and 1's in order to tell the digital to analog converter before your headphone, or speaker output what the waveform looks like.
So in this case you could argue that digital is not really the sound you recorded.
Of course that's just silly and pointless, but I felt I'd throw it into the air all the same.


littel sound going pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff over it, but on my mic (akg 660) u get a really big one! how the hell do i get it off? like i found a way in mixing by changing stuff in the equalizer, like the high pitches but then it takes some part of my voice's sweetness and leaves me with a deeper voice (not many people hear the difference, i do it being my voice and it's a payn in the ****ing ***)

This could be any number of things.
Cable hum pickup.
Guitar pickups picking up mains frequencies.
Natural unit self noise not being countered by correct input level.
Microphone self noise.
Microphone placement.

Start by checking your signal path, try using other cables with your equipment and check if the 'pffft' changes drasticly, if it does, you will have a cable or connector issue that is at fault.
Then check your guitar itself, make sure that your connector for the 1/4 jack hasn't been bent or isn't loose. Then listen to your amp whilst playing nothing.
It is likely you will hear some hum, this is from the pickups picking up mains hum due to frequency issues, the ways around this are to either get humbuckers, or to take the guitar as far away from mains as possible.

Next check your input meter when recording, on a digital unit you should hit -12, any higher and distortion will be created, too low and you will not have sufficient input volume to counter the units self noise, you can afford to drop below -12 for a few sections of playing, but take a while to PFL and check your input is arond -12 most of the time*
Next check your microphone specs, check your self-noise isn't above 24dBA.
Then check you have your microphone placed at a correct distance, don't record a guitar amp with a dynamic microphone from 6 meters away.

If this is all fine, you should contact the manufacturers of all your equipment about possible faulty gear that they may need to replace.
Hope that helped.

*One last digital vs tape issue, Tapes normal input level is 0 on the input meter, it then goes to +3dB and +6dB, tape can often hit +6dB before distortion becomes apparant, wheras on digital it appears almost the second you exceed the -12 mark, analog just tends to have more headroom in that respect.

[airborne50caliber]

digital samples the waveform, it isn't the whole waveform, just a pretty accurate reconstruction of it.

[KKKKKocaine]

digital samples the waveform, it isn't the whole waveform, just a pretty accurate reconstruction of it.

Makes you wonder how we can hit a string, have it play through an amp almost immiedaitely , then be converted to binary into a recorder and send back out through headphones as waveform again in all but a second....
Yet we can't stop dropping bombs on each other :rolleyes:

[moaner]

Makes you wonder how we can hit a string, have it play through an amp almost immiedaitely , then be converted to binary into a recorder and send back out through headphones as waveform again in all but a second....
Yet we can't stop dropping bombs on each other :rolleyes:

the k gets philosophical on our asses..

[bobthellama]

Tascam 414MKII <--- thats what i have, its not the best quality, but its easy to use, and you can go all 4 tracks at the same time. A computer program is much easier to use though... but i have the tape one, so i can take it wherever i need it, then i can mix it onto the comp and do cool stuff w/ computer programs.

[you want romance?]

hey kkkkkk man, thatnx very much for u'r help, very apreciated! i'll b trying all that stuff out now (k) thanx alot...

[KKKKKocaine]

the k gets philosophical on our asses..

Last night, I swear Kate was giving the bassist head, they both said it didn't happen, but I heard slurping, and I don't think they had a mcdonalds medium coke under the sheets y'know?

Oh by the way Moaner, buy me a Mackie d8b please. :)


hey kkkkkk man, thatnx very much for u'r help, very apreciated! i'll b trying all that stuff out now (k) thanx alot...

It's cool, might be worth seeing about cleaning all your connectors and cables as well, just as that might drop your noise down a bit too.

[moaner]

Last night, I swear Kate was giving the bassist head, they both said it didn't happen, but I heard slurping, and I don't think they had a mcdonalds medium coke under the sheets y'know?

Oh by the way Moaner, buy me a Mackie d8b please. :)



It's cool, might be worth seeing about cleaning all your connectors and cables as well, just as that might drop your noise down a bit too.

rofl

and, no.

[groomits]

a bit out of the thread here, but what would be the better and the cheaper recorder with cd burner?

[airborne50caliber]

roland?

bah