4 track users: Questions re: recording to tape

[Big Mon]

Anybody besides me doing all their recording with a 4 track( as in, the kind with tape)? How do you go about it,direct? Mic'd? Just looking for a few ideas/tips. Thanks!

[karmablock]

I used a small mixer in front of the four track.

[coldbrightsunlight]

I've done a few sessions with my band using a 4 track, we mic'd bass, guitar and drums (maybe 2 overhead tracks, can't remember) all live in the room, mixed them and bounced to one track, then did overdubs, being really careful with mixing and bouncing things to get more room. Got 2 vocal tracks and a couple of instrument solos on top easily, no real loss of quality. If you had a big enough mixer you could record a whole band onto 1 or 2 tracks, but you would have to make sure the mix was right first, because you would have practically no mixing ability afterwards.

It's a fun way of recording, I think the limitations lead to cool approaches and new ideas sometimes. Plus pushing an old tape machine a bit can sound really nice.

[charles]

My band did a lot of stuff on a 4 track. We went direct for a long time, but when we got a mixer and some microphones the quality of our recordings increased dramatically. At first we did stuff in pairs, like bass and drums, then lead and rhythm guitar, then keys and vocals by themselves. When we got a mixer we started recording the whole band play, then overdub lead guitar and vocals. It was a lot of fun.

[dubkitty]

when i was using 4-track cassette to record by myself i wasn't using drums much, so i'd typically do two guitars + bass + something else on all four tracks, mix that out to a 2-track stereo mix, and then transfer the cassette with the 2-track mix to the 4-track and record onto the 2 blank tracks. i never liked bouncing down on the original cassette because then you lose the ability to go back to the original tracks.

nowadays i'd probably approach it the same way i'd approach recording on the laptop, which is to put down drums and a guide guitar part or a bass line i could EQ out later, mix that out to 2-track, and then proceed as above. i might commit audio heresy and run the drums in mono to get more track room, or use a stereo mixer to dub stuff over a stereo sub-mix when transferring stuff to the 2-track (which was common back in the 60s...the CD reissues of the early Who albums are missing some Townshend solos and other bits that were dubbed during final mixdown).

i mic the guitars, incuding the electric guitars which always run through amps, and usually plug the bass right into the deck or into some kind of processor that then goes straight into the deck; i've only recorded with an actual miked bass amp a couple of times. keyboards are usually recorded through a miked guitar amplifier. i may use the PodXT for guitar recording; i haven't done any guitar recording since i got it, and have about 40 amp models i set up and elaborately tweaked myself.

[Big Mon]

Hats off, ILF-Sound advice in this thread.

[Chumley]

Want a four track muchly >.>
What are y'all using, any recommendations for something cheap and robust?

[dubkitty]

all i have experience with is older Tascam and Fostex cassette 4-tracks. i preferred the sound of the Fostex units, but they were decidedly less robust than the Tascams and broke with distressing ease. Tascam 424s are hard to kill. whatever you look at, examine the head carefully for excessive wear.

all cassette 4-tracks require extreme caution when using the integrated headphone jack, which is typically mounted directly to the main or an auxiliary control circuit board; lateral or vertical stress on the plug may break the board and require repairs or kill the deck. watch out for this in used decks; check for excess play in the jack and crackles when the plug is moved. run to a mixer via the RCA outs for monitoring if at all possible.

[dubkitty]

if you have a headphone output on your practice amp it makes a nifty direct out for recording purposes.

[coldbrightsunlight]

I've only used a Tascam 424, those things are great. They're pretty cheap nowadays from what I've seen.

[Big Mon]

I use the cheap and fantastic Tascam MF P01. I've been running direct, but I think next go-round, I wanna use mics. Could I run a patch from the speaker-out on my Pipe Amp into the 4 track? Or would that be bad?