4-tracks!

[Phengren Oswald]

After 15 years of use, I'm trying to replace my Tascam 4-track.
I seriously could not live without this thing; I've used it for just noodling
about, demos and have recorded a few records on it.
Hats off to the 4-track!

Now, I realize that this site is called "I Love Fuzz" not "I Love 4-tracks" but I get
the feeling that more than a few folks on here use them and/ or other home
recording devices.

I thought it might be cool if there was a thread or even forum dedicated to home recording
(especially with cassette 4-track or 8-track) in which folks can share recording tips, tricks, techniques,
etc., etc..... There are a lot of crafty people on here and I am assuming there have been a fair
amount of ingenious and unique things done in the name of home recording.

Of course there's a ton of recording forums, but why have 73 different browser windows open at once?

Thoughts, comments, cassette stories?

[coldbrightsunlight]

I love four track recording! I don't have one myself (yet...), but my band has done a few great sessions with the drummer's old tascam. I love the challenge of recording a whole band on just four tracks, and you can get some surprisingly high quality stuff out if you do it well. Or that sound of those preamps being overloaded.

[Phengren Oswald]

One of the best drum sounds I've ever gotten is 2 condensers, placed high and low about 3 feet away from the kit,
run into a mini-mixer and then into a single track on the 4-track. The room helped but they were seriously huge sounding for a
4-track!

[coldbrightsunlight]

Love simple drum micing, it's amazing what you can do with 2 condensers and maybe a kick mic. Another thing I love is live tracking the instruments so every track has a liiiittle bit of bleed of everything else. I just love it.

[darthbatman]

I really like my Zoom h4n. It's super portable and its built in mics are great. Lately I've been playing every couple weeks or so at a local bar on slow nights, just me and my bass rig in the corner doing my thing. I use 4-channel mode to record both the room sound and my direct line-out. Sound quality is pretty snazzy. Plus there's a great multi-track mode for overdubs and demos... You can bounce down to stereo and keep adding layers like on most four-trackers. Only thing I'd want to change on it is maybe expand the onboard editing capabilities, and also the rca-in jack is super-duper sensitive. I've been grabbing clips from dvds and there's just an awful lot of noise and clipping even on the lowest setting of mic sensitivity. Other than that though it's pretty legit.

[Phengren Oswald]

I'm a huge fan of pulling the mics away from amps and drums. Too often I feel like people close mic something and end up loosing all of the
cool things that happen sonically a few feet away from the amplifier. Sometimes it's necessary but I think a little space is always nice, especially
when you hit the tape semi-hard. There's something super pleasing about that warm, fuzzy compression that happens......