Tascam 424MKii

[celticguitar6666]

Hello all It's almost New Years! I have on of these old beautys. I used it for about 3yrs and accumulated ALOT of music. Interesting Industrial sounding stuff like electronic drums through a Whammy pedal with intense dive bombs as an example of just one. I have about 40 tapes of stuff then I got a digital setup and I did some stuff but the magic is not there (It must be me) but I went from cranking alot of very usable ideas in a short time to poof I was scratching my head. Our method was I would work out a guitar and bass structure my Brother in law would come over maybe clean up the bass or lay down drums we would bounce it down to 2 tracks and my wife would add vocals or violin we didn't bounce it to many times so as to not increase the noise floor then mix it down to cd for archives now I would do it to 2 track tape Anyone use one of these still? or in the past? I produced some good stuff with this unit. My spoken word stuff was a hit at a couple of local places but we never played out due to the nature of our stuff we were strictly a studio group.
Dwight

[Skywavebe]

Hello Dwight,
I did not use one of those until I had to figure out how to make one work to see if there was the problems people were talking about. For that in my early days at Teac, I called upon old timer Denny Camp who explained to me how these units were to be used. He worked at Streeterville studios in Chicago so he was our studio go to guy.
I did a lot of recording on them but mostly only tones to calibrate them. I am not a musician so I guess this is why I only recorded people doing new stuff at the Church for an AM and FM radio program we did for 7 years. I was the voice on the tape and the one who recorded all the canned stuff on my great Tascam 52 to be delivered by mail to the studio. I guess I have worked with all the Portastudios of one kind or the other but the 644 and 424 were some of the last ones so less on those. They did a good job for demos and actually could produce a finished product if you were good at recording with it properly. Not at all the same as a 40-4 or 80-8 but then the cost is a lot less.

[celticguitar6666]

What problems were they having? My unit always worked fine. I cleaned it before each session kept it covered when not in use to prevent dust from getting in the sliders. lubed the sliders etc. I bought the unit used from local musician shop so I didn't pay retail. I Use Condensor mikes although it doesn't have phantom power the mikes I have can run on battery which I find quieter anyway I also have a mixer so I can go up to many inputs and I have a nice bank of effects. I also use a power conditioner which lowers the noise floor. It is great as you say for those portable situations I have recorded some locals who were impressed with the results. All in a unit I had good times with!*reelspin* Segue I just remembered I have a matched set of Russian Mikes anyone here use those?
Dwight

[Skywavebe]

Hi Dwight,
The typical repair was on the Porta 1,2,5 and so on. These had cheap plastic keys that would break as the user got frustrated with his own work I am sure. There were power regulators that went out and then people that plugged in 1/4" cable from guitar amps that had large amounts of DC on the cables. This would blow out the Op Amps on the incoming lines. There were even some guys that plugged power amps into the 1/4" inputs with some bad results. Otherwise in the earlier days of 144 and 244 there were some mechanical issues as they were used a lot. Yes, I used condenser mics that were made by Sony and they did very well. Later on in radio I was to install the Neumann TLR103 mics which were high quality mics. This shows the stupidity of these people in that they would stand there and shout at the mic up close. I ended up putting about 24 dB of attenuation on the output with a 48 V phantom power. I told them that that mic was not for that purpose but they would not listen- apparently the same consultant was doing it the wrong way in a lot of places. They were very good mic- the kind you could hear a pin drop with.

[celticguitar6666]

I pulled the unit out today and poped in a tape of me playing "Vibes with effects' Not sure which effects? I forgot to write it done DUH! sounds like reverb with stereo delay. Very cool about ten minutes worth. I will listen to more later maybe mix it down to RtR and or CD.
As far as mikes go every singer ( quote unquote) I had come through took time to unlearn swallowing the mike, the urge to grab a sensitive mike, and lastly to adapt to singing in my homemade Vocals booth and singing along with headphones to avoid bleed through to the vocal track so to alow me to put the right effects on their voice. Live is another thing all together. As far as mikes go my best are stereo matched Oktava MK 319's and a Rode NT-1 and you are right you can hear a pin drop. I heard a swooshing sound one night only to realise it was the air comming out of the heat duct! across the room! My favorite was the beep of the smoke detector but I actullay left it in at the end of one song because it puntuated the end and we all softly chuckled and it sound live and genuine. I may have much fun tonight I also found my bible for this machine "Using your Portable Studio" It's sepcifically for this deck. Large soft cover with alot of tricks to get top notch stuff with this unit Oh Yeah it has DBX not Dolby which I read is better for this type of set up?
Dwight

[Hypnotik_Infekted_Analog]

I own quite a few portastudios.
I've got (1) 246
(2) 424 mkII's
(1) 464
(2) 488 mkII's
(2) 564's
(1) 644
(2) 688's

I own duplicates of the ones that are my favorites, in case one breaks, and also
to have a machine in the 2 different places (one at home, and one at my studio/practice spot).

Although, the 688 and 488 mkII are my favs of all the portastudios,
my 424 mkII's get the most use. Very good recorders if they are properly maintained. I'm guilty of using metal tapes on one of my 424 mkII's in which you're not supposed to,..
because of possible damage to the heads via metal tape,..but the sound quailty is worth the risk to me. Also, I'm very anal about cleaning and demagnetizing after every use...so, the heads are very much intact.

I make alot of soundscape/industrial type music with synths, found objects, samplers, etc. These machines are great for recording direct. Usually, I will record everything direct without any type of effects on the tracks, and then later add some reverb/delay from a tape echo to the mixdown track, and I get spectacular results. There is NO digital recorder that can even compare to the sound I get on cassette with these machines. Love every last one of 'em!

[celticguitar6666]

I own quite a few portastudios.
I've got (1) 246
(2) 424 mkII's
(1) 464
(2) 488 mkII's
(2) 564's
(1) 644
(2) 688's

I own duplicates of the ones that are my favorites, in case one breaks, and also
to have a machine in the 2 different places (one at home, and one at my studio/practice spot).

Although, the 688 and 488 mkII are my favs of all the portastudios,
my 424 mkII's get the most use. Very good recorders if they are properly maintained. I'm guilty of using metal tapes on one of my 424 mkII's in which you're not supposed to,..
because of possible damage to the heads via metal tape,..but the sound quailty is worth the risk to me. Also, I'm very anal about cleaning and demagnetizing after every use...so, the heads are very much intact.

I make alot of soundscape/industrial type music with synths, found objects, samplers, etc. These machines are great for recording direct. Usually, I will record everything direct without any type of effects on the tracks, and then later add some reverb/delay from a tape echo to the mixdown track, and I get spectacular results. There is NO digital recorder that can even compare to the sound I get on cassette with these machines. Love every last one of 'em!
Good to hear from you.
I sometimes record wet sometimes dry it depends on the mood and the moment. I did some good stuff with the digital unit I have but like said the 424 was just more fun and imediate to use with excellent sonics I am going to give it a good cleaning tonight and play with my old tapes

[celticguitar6666]

My fav little tool! BOSS DR670! I thought it was DOA a few years ago the screen went blank it wasn't much good without a display. I tried batterys but no avail. I let it sit but with 424 back out I tried it again come to find out the wal wart was toast a new one and it was up and running my favorites grooves were back. My digital station has built in drums but just not the same and DR670 is great for live because it's stand alone. So I may be back into tape again. I was just so much more productive with the 424. The Dr670 stopped working right around the time my Digital staion came for Christmas So it limited the use of the 424 without drums but know I can slide back to tape? I have lots of type II for it . Maybe I'll upload some of our stuff for your pleasure? Any body have experience with the DR670/
DNA Basement Tapes et al
Dwight

[Hypnotik_Infekted_Analog]

What digital station are you using? I see you mentioned it has built-in drum kits.
I have a Zoom MRS-1266 & MRS-1608, and the drums sound great in those digital recorders. Although I'm not a huge fan of the sterile clean sound that digital recorders produce, (I love tape hiss)...these recorders do have some pretty good options, and I've had some luck with obtaining a couple great "live" recordings of my bands, and friends bands. They came out soundin' so good, that they sound like they were released on a record label, with big production.

I've never had any experience with the DR670.
What year was it produced? Does it have individual "outs" for each part of a drum kit, like say...an output for a bass drum, an output for a snare, etc.? So you can track each part of the kit on separate tracks?
Is it hard to program?

I'd like to hear an upload.

[GetReel]

Dwight, I personally have come full circle (I think). I started off multitracking with a Porta 02 in 2002 and had a huge work flow, with tapes upon tapes, but then I wanted more tracks so I got an adat, then two, sold those and bought a HD24, then bought a Radar II. Only to find that since my Porta 02, my work flow came to a hault, I realized with all this outboard and effects, I spent more time goofing around. I bought a 238, but dont really care for it, then bought a 234 and am really digging its simplicity. Now with my Otari MX5050 MKIII-8 I am hoping to come full circle and start filling up tapes again. I guess for me I have to follow KISS (keep it simple stupid)

[eric123]

These are my portastudio's

I have the tascam 414, yamaha mt120, korg CR4, tascam 8 track rack cassette and a yamaha MD4, and they all have their moments. I was thinking about mastering to these machines. You see I have 4 outs and ins on the computer to make use of these machines. I do have a few reel-to-reels floating about too and even a VHS recorder as well so... The Korg CR4 has the most pleasant sound, it has its own speakers too and even FX, but it only records and plays at the slower speed and does not have the seperate outputs.

[Class A Clown]

I also found my bible for this machine "Using your Portable Studio" It's sepcifically for this deck.

The picture on the cover is a 488, I think. Close enough though. You wouldn't happen to have that in a PDF, would you? *hope*

I have a 424 MkII and a Yamaha MT4X. I plan to record vocals on the porta and SMPTE sync it to a MIDI sequencer so I can mix keyboards and drum machines with the porta tracks to my R2R.