Hey Toomanyhelicopters,

Good points there....this is sort of the message I was shooting for. I sorta turned it into the analog vs. digital thing...nearly, but really tried not to. These are the exact points I wanted to bring up.

IMO, get good shit. Looking back on all the crap products I bought over the past 10-15 years....I wish I'd just bought one really good mic, or pre or whatever and worked on that. A room full of mediocre gear will give mediocre results.

I just think too many young guys think that they can take all that same mediocre gear and record it on a cheap, worn out tape deck and it'll sound like albini.

Later,
m

hmm, i'm slowly coming to realise that sales gumph is just that: gumph. i've got a quite a few cheapy, knock-off mics, effect-boxes, heck; even my mixer's not that great.
so i'm starting to slowly build it up again - i'll get some good mics, then hopefully a decent mixer. i'm happy with the 8 track i have, though: a tascam tsr8. sounds lovely, if a little bit hissy.
don't buy shit!

toomanyhelicopters wrote:is this for real, that there are cassette-based recorders that can rival 15ips 1/4" tape? aren't even the fanciest of newer cassette 4tks using much, much lower tape speeds than that? i mean, i got some sounds outta my old tascam cassette 4tk that i was proud of, and am still proud of, but how bad of shape does a 15ips 1/4" machine have to be in before it sounds like 3.75ips cassette?

I had a 3340 years ago, and the sound quality at 15 ips, even when the deck was perfectly aligned and well-maintained, wasnt significantly better than my latter generation Tascam cassette 4-track (a 424? 446? I can never remember the model numbers). It was way better than the cassette 8-track I had though, that's for sure. So yeah, I'd say the cassette 4-tracks of the late 80s/mid 90s are about as good sounding as the prosumer R2R 1/4" 4-tracks from the late 70s.

bump.

So, I'm also looking to get an open reel deck such as a TEAC 2340 or 3340s to record a solo record on. I want something cheap and a sliver better quality than the Tascam 4-track I've been using (414 mkII).

I used to have a TEAC 3340 and I remember it sounding fuller and bassier than the Cassette 4-tracks I had used up 'til that point (Tascam 424, porta... etc.) but with a little more noise. This machine was never calibrated but was in excellent condition.

I have a hard time believing that with proper calibration and a clean quiet signal path before the deck one wouldn't yield excellent results.

Has anybody else done any recent comparisons of cassette 4-track vs. 1/4" consumer open reel 4-tracks?

What tape formulation is ideal for these decks?

What is the best way to avoid noise problems due to the unbalanced architecture of these decks?

Any recent or old wisdom is appreciated.

Cheers,

Think of this as an analogy to being a listener deciding between CD and vynil.

If you only have $100 to spend, buy a damn CD player. It's going to sound much, much better than a $100 turntable. Which will be a piece of shit.

It's not worth it to buy the turntable unless you're willing to make the investment to do what is necessary to make it sound as good as (and then better) than comparably priced CD players.

Any yahoo can go buy digital recording tools to make one's home computer into a serviceable recording device, usually for < $500. To get an analog system that sounds decent or better is going to be a much larger investment. So only you can decide whether it's worth it. Do you have the money to invest? If so, are you willing to invest it? There's little doubt that analog provides a superior product. But to a young person starting out - unless they happen to be independently wealthy - it makes far more sense to go digital.

g&t,

Thanks for the advice... but I'm not exactly sure this answers my question...

First off I appreciate your CDP vs. RP comparison, I do understand that. I have a turntable worth about 4 times my CDP and I used to work in a Hi-end Hi-fi shop.

I do like the feature of long term archiving with reel to reel tape. I have quite a bit of unfinished 1/4" 4-track stuff from years ago that may or may not be a part of this project... as well as some 1/4" 2-track masters.

I would rather spend a few hundred bucks and some of my time to acquire and calibrate a tape deck than to save up for a appropriate computer, interface and software to do the same thing. One is a format I am relatively familiar with and would only need on more piece of gear the other would require me to learn a whole new process as well as possible $1000+ worth of equipment.

My real concern is the argument above about the quality of 1/4" 4-track consumer decks VS. the casette 4-track format and the respective sound quality issues.

TheMilford wrote:g&t,

Thanks for the advice... but I'm not exactly sure this answers my question...

First off I appreciate your CDP vs. RP comparison, I do understand that. I have a turntable worth about 4 times my CDP and I used to work in a Hi-end Hi-fi shop.

I do like the feature of long term archiving with reel to reel tape. I have quite a bit of unfinished 1/4" 4-track stuff from years ago that may or may not be a part of this project... as well as some 1/4" 2-track masters.

I would rather spend a few hundred bucks and some of my time to acquire and calibrate a tape deck than to save up for a appropriate computer, interface and software to do the same thing. One is a format I am relatively familiar with and would only need on more piece of gear the other would require me to learn a whole new process as well as possible $1000+ worth of equipment.

My real concern is the argument above about the quality of 1/4" 4-track consumer decks VS. the casette 4-track format and the respective sound quality issues.

I think your memories are about right.

You wrote:I used to have a TEAC 3340 and I remember it sounding fuller and bassier than the Cassette 4-tracks I had used up 'til that point (Tascam 424, porta... etc.) but with a little more noise. This machine was never calibrated but was in excellent condition.

And I think you're right. As I recall, at 15 ips the TEAC did have a little better bass response/reproduction (a little) and was noisier (actually more than a little) than a latter-generation Portastudio.

Without getting into sound quality specifics, (the + and - of each deck), that's more or less what I said.

Just before that, I wrote:I had a 3340 years ago, and the sound quality at 15 ips, even when the deck was perfectly aligned and well-maintained, wasnt significantly better than my latter generation Tascam cassette 4-track (a 424? 446? I can never remember the model numbers).

Then, a second later, I wrote:So yeah, I'd say the cassette 4-tracks of the late 80s/mid 90s are about as good sounding as the prosumer R2R 1/4" 4-tracks from the late 70s.

That's all. The later portastudios are not significantly better. A 3340 (actually, I recall now that I had a 3440, but theyre basically the same deck) is not significantly worse. Theyre about the same.

My 3440 did yield excellent results. So did my (and other folks') later (and even earlier) portastudios that I used. But even taking my respective recording skills at the time I owned each deck out of the picture, I dont think anyone would have confused the fidelity of a recording from either deck with something done on a 16 or 24-track pro deck running 2" tape.

I think you should get one. Theyre wicked cheap these days.

As someone who was in your situation about 15 years ago, I hope you enjoy the experience of making half-assed recordings with borrowed/semi-broken gear as much as I have.

I found a Teac 40-4 at a local thrift store, paid Tascam like 70 bucks for a photocopy of the original service manual, borrowed some electronic equipment from my grandfather, and came out of it with a serviceable 4-track recorder. It sounded great to me with my new Mackie 6-channel mixer and a couple of AKG3000B's I used my student loans to buy. Real drums sounded roomy and cool, without any compression (other than tape compression). It was still pretty noisy, but boy did it sound better than cassette 4-track and cheap Soundblaster A/D converters.

I think digital recording is a great way to affordably learn the processes involved, which is what you are really looking for. Hard drive space is MUCH cheaper than tape, and you can rapidly delete all evidence of your mistakes. Once you genuinely understand those recording principles and processes, you can go to a studio/guitar center/wherever and apply that knowledge to higher quality gear. For me, this became a wildly satisfying, hopelessly frustrating, and ultimately expensive experience.

I have now made a pile of reasonably cool 'experimental'- type recordings, as well as many so-so recordings of what are usually so-so performances by my own bands and friends who can't/shouldn't pay to record at real studios. I like doing it a lot. It is a fun, expensive hobby. I love having piles of clear, detailed documentation demonstrating how sloppy my playing can be...

When my band cleans up, I'm gonna save to fly us to Chicago and record at EA.

TheMilford wrote:What is the best way to avoid noise problems due to the unbalanced architecture of these decks?

Unless you live in a power station or a machine shop, noise induced during the cable transmission is probably the least of your noise worries. Also, stick with unbalanced gear throughout and you'll have far less wacky interconnect issues to deal with (which can be hellish if you don't make your own cables). I had/have a Tascam 38 and the M8 (?) board that it was designed to work with and the two play really well together - better than they play with other gear, that's for sure. It seems totally valid to match up some key pieces of gear (board and tape machine) since they'd be designed for each other and tested well under those circumstances. I can tell you that having two pieces of gear now which were never designed to be within spitting distance of each other (Neotek Series IIIc board and Tascam MS-16 tape machine), it can be quite shitty to go the other way. Your mileage may vary.

Dan

Hey you gotta start somewhere. I think that the issue here may be of diminishing returns for what you spend on that make/model recorder. The real thing is to be honest with yourself. I know when I started, ADATs and 2"s ruled the scene. I used tape, went digital, and I now use both. When I went back to tape, people made fun of me. Whatever....If its something you want to learn....Only one way. Jump in. Dont be afraid. As long as you are cool with the learning curve(time money etc)and and you are having a good time....fuck everyone else...
Awesome.
Matt