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Psyre wrote:I'll be the contrarian here..... I love 4/8 track cassette recorders! The album I just finished was recorded on my Tascam 488 MkI (wish it was a MkII with the XLR inputs, but with these, it's always what you can find for cheap and condition is king). I'm like you, I really need faders and knobs. I also love having a tangible object with my music. My collections consists of the 488, and a Yamaha MT100 and MT3X (which now belongs to my fiance) I adore the little MT100, I found it in Ypsi MINT for $60. Something to consider though is the increasing High Bias tape prices. I was fortunate enough to work at a great Goodwill for a few months, they didn't sell tapes, so I got them for free. A couple great hauls came in, so I'm sitting on about 50 sealed and 200 used various High Bias tapes. Bulk erasers make the cheap used guys as good as new.

Something else to consider, if you can use these guys as instruments. Record chords onto them and swell/fade them in and out- instant ambiance. tune/detune/run out to effects. That's the main purpose of the MT100 since getting the 488.

I find I like the sound of the Yamaha's more than the Tascams I've used. I also think fewer people used the Yamaha's and they have less of a name behind them so they are cheaper to come by. I'd really like an MT8X

All that said, I still use Logic a lot. I always send the tracks into the DAW rather or not I finish them there or not. I mean, they are gonna have to be put up online anyway... Hitting a cassette hard will add a nice compression IMO- the same sounding compression as wider tape? of course not, but I like the saturation I am able to get that I just can't get with digital, for better or worse. I also really like creative use of track bleed. Hitting drums really hard into the cassette and then nulling out the track leaving random transients.