[HN Gopher] A 4-track tape recorder made me fall in love with mu...
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A 4-track tape recorder made me fall in love with music again
Author : gribbitss
Score : 126 points
Date : 2023-10-11 12:12 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.gearpatrol.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.gearpatrol.com)
| iainctduncan wrote:
| 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!
| driggs wrote:
| 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!
| iainctduncan wrote:
| 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!
| timc3 wrote:
| 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.
| whstl wrote:
| 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.
| iainctduncan wrote:
| Not the same at all as undo. Fwiw I've done sessions both
| ways, totally different mental effect. Like, completely
| different.
| iainctduncan wrote:
| And the people I'm referring to were not bedroom musicians. I
| mean folks like Jamie Lidell.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| 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.
| jacquesm wrote:
| 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.
| varispeed wrote:
| > 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.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| 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.
| adamors wrote:
| > 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.
| fassssst wrote:
| Consider an OP-1, same idea just more convenient and with cool
| synths and a radio built in :)
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| 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.
| lachlan_gray wrote:
| 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...
| eschneider wrote:
| 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.
| RileyJames wrote:
| 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.
| mingus88 wrote:
| 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.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| 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.
| bluGill wrote:
| 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.
| onemoresoop wrote:
| 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.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| New they run a bit more, but, yeah, these might be the modern
| equivalent.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B9060X6/
| reassembled wrote:
| 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.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| 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.
| ilyt wrote:
| Tascam (I think still?) makes DP-03 SD which is basically 8
| track digital version of the portastudio. Weirdly enough, with
| less inputs
| smcameron wrote:
| 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...
| agentultra wrote:
| 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
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| 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
| zw123456 wrote:
| 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. :)
| monitron wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. Your uncle sounds a lot like my uncle,
| actually :)
| pjmorris wrote:
| 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?
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| 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.
| whartung wrote:
| 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.
| jebarker wrote:
| 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.
| jim-jim-jim wrote:
| 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.
| marttt wrote:
| > 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.
| mypalmike wrote:
| 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.
| jim-jim-jim wrote:
| 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.
| marttt wrote:
| 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
| motohagiography wrote:
| +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.
| ohitsdom wrote:
| "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.
| slmjkdbtl wrote:
| I want to get one 4-track tape recorder record some bass /
| saxophone music at home. Is there any other options for
| comparison?
| codexb wrote:
| 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.
| ibz wrote:
| 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.
| ambyra wrote:
| 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!
| codexb wrote:
| 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.
| marttt wrote:
| 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.
| an_aparallel wrote:
| 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...
| timc3 wrote:
| 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.
| an_aparallel wrote:
| 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 :)
| windowliker wrote:
| Just get one with SPDIF in. Then you can use whatever converter
| you want.
| dylan604 wrote:
| 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.
| itsyourbedtime wrote:
| 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
| reassembled wrote:
| 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.
| timc3 wrote:
| 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.
| col_rad wrote:
| 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
| timc3 wrote:
| 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.
| col_rad wrote:
| 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
| timc3 wrote:
| 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).
| col_rad wrote:
| 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.
| ilyt wrote:
| 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.
| col_rad wrote:
| 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.
| bluGill wrote:
| 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).
| col_rad wrote:
| 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.
| ilyt wrote:
| > 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.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Absolutely awesome. Is it available to outsiders already?
| col_rad wrote:
| 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 ;)
| jacquesm wrote:
| 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.
| col_rad wrote:
| follower wrote:
| 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
| jacquesm wrote:
| 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...
| iosonofuturista wrote:
| 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!
| col_rad wrote:
| 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%)
| iosonofuturista wrote:
| 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
| 1000EUR 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
| 500EUR.
|
| Once again, best of luck on a very interesting if very
| niche project!
| col_rad wrote:
| 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.
| follower wrote:
| 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
| philjohn wrote:
| 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.
| jb1991 wrote:
| 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?
| speps wrote:
| 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.
| anjc wrote:
| Tascam and Zoom still have a modern range of x-track recorders
| that are standalone and don't need PC.
| diimdeep wrote:
| 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.
| speps wrote:
| Highly likely the track the author is mentioning:
| https://soundcloud.com/eric-limer/volca-jam-1
| bregma wrote:
| 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.
| porbelm wrote:
| 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.
| dmje wrote:
| 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!
| jacquesm wrote:
| > 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.
| caseyf wrote:
| 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....
| ubermonkey wrote:
| 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.
| xtrohnx wrote:
| 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.
| raffraffraff wrote:
| Reminds me of a recent thread discussing Ardour. 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 the ability to record multiple
| tracks easily will make you fall in love with music. And reading
| this, the thing that jumps out to confirm this, is when they
| rejoice that you don'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.
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