Home Recordings Help

Subject: Help:Home Recordings
From: The Lighthouse
Date: 05 Apr 00 - 11:54 PM

Looking for some recording advice. Has anyone recorded from home on a 4 track and had it produced as a CD or cassette. How was the quality?? I am looking to make an instrumental CD with all acoustic instruments (no drums or keyboards). Any particular brand name for a 4 track that would produce the best results, and is it worth making these tapes into a CD??????

Subject: RE: Help:Home Recordings
From: GUEST, Threadie
Date: 05 Apr 00 - 11:57 PM

Get back to you on this one, but check the MP3/Wav thread.

Subject: RE: Help:Home Recordings
From: GMT
Date: 06 Apr 00 - 09:03 AM

Lighthouse

I use a Tascam 242mkII which gives very good results. However you may need a preamp to run the mike through. I use a little mackie mixer.

Quality will depend on record levels and the mike you're using, and the end result would benefit from a little reverb if you don't have a good room to record in.

It's a pretty broad subject but good results can be had.

Gary

Subject: RE: Help:Home Recordings
From: Willie-O
Date: 06 Apr 00 - 09:24 AM

I've used a Tascam 244 for years, a high-quality machine now available for about $300 I think.

Best quality 4-track cassette machines run at double-speed (3 3/4 ips) using a DBX noise reduction system, the 244 does both. (It's nice to have a machine that you can run at either speed, to get maximum usability out of it.) Avoid Dolby C, it's just plain ugly-sounding.

Also avoid track bouncing--if you limit yourself to 4 tracks only, use the best mikes you can get ahold of, and make a nice clean recording, you can then take your master tape to someone with a decent mixing board etc to do a stereo mix--you can add a bit of reverb and such at that point.

As to whether its worth making a CD, well do people want to hear your music? That matters a lot more than audiophile qualities. Bruce Springsteen's album Nebraska was mastered from a 4-track demo cassette he made at home, as a pre-production rough take to teach the songs to his band. He carried it around in his shirt pocket for a couple of weeks before he decided that the minimalist production was just right for the songs and album concept, and they didn't need the full band treatment.

I bet he used good mikes though.

Willie-O

Subject: RE: Help:Home Recordings
From: SDShad
Date: 06 Apr 00 - 09:29 AM

Yep, Nebraska is kind of the ultimate home-recording. I've always felt the actual sound quality, while better than sitting down and singing into a condenser mic, surely, wasn't really up to snuff--a little flat and lifeless. But there's nothing flat and lifeless about the actual music--the quality of Springsteen's performance, and the stark minimalism of the arrangements, more than make up for it. I can see why he made that choice.

Chris

Subject: RE: Help:Home Recordings
From: MK
Date: 06 Apr 00 - 11:42 AM

Yamaha makes a digital 4 track that uses mini disks...the quality far surpasses anything you can get out of an analog 4 track using cassettes. I can say this with authority as I used a Tascam 246 for many years and the difference is like night and day especially in terms of sound and headroom...and it's very affordable....The sound is damn near CD quality. Check it out on Yamaha's website...under digital recorders..

(I use their 8 track version and love it.)

Subject: RE: Help:Home Recordings
From: GUEST,bayou sam
Date: 04 Apr 02 - 08:01 PM

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