TASCAM

dope

Hell freakin Yeah!

I like this thread...

Clunky Tascam Tape recorders ... old ass Akai digital records...

man that's that stuff!

I wish everyone who was serious about making music started out with one of those. You don't really appreciate what equipment is or learn what it does till you have an actual need for it.


I started out with a 424MkIII man that think taught me so much about mixing down recordings bouncing tracks and all that. That thing is a learning tool. Just make sure you get some good Cassettes like black Maxell's. Some quality time learning how to make recordings on that thing and your ears will be golden.

The Akai DPS series is also good but the HD's get eatin up quickly if you create a lot of songs. I have a box full of hard drives. There's some later models that you can try that will give you more than 20gigs If I recall like the maxtor brands but it's plug and play. I think there is a yahoo groups site dedicated to the DPS's they have a list of what drives work. There's a lot of features on those just like the MPC's it gets deep and the manual is thick as hell.

Good luck and have fun.

Oh well.. never mind I read the thread you guys just want to get that "this is not a computer sound". DPS doesn't really have it the 424 might since it's digital analog.

What ever happened to just using tube effects?...and I mean real tubes not the vst ones.

I've got a tascam 246 which is the most revered of the vintage tascam tape units, George harrison used to use a 244 in his home studio. its huge, I love the old school VU meters and the EQ is dope.

I haven't really used it since i got an Akai DPS12i, and honestly if you're looking to add that phat, warm tape saturation to your sounds, i'd suggest getting a 1/4 inch reel to reel tape recorder instead, when most producers talk of that 'analog tape sound' they're refering to 1/4 or 2 inch tape.
I'm still looking to get an Akai mg614/1212/1214 if i find one though.

yer i know what your saying about reel to real sound.. but also cassette tape multitrackers do produce a very unique warm sound.. i can spot the sound easy now .. i can sometimes even pick it in a shitty mp3 upload on youtube.

anyway to contradict this whole thread but add to the tape side of things
i did a shitload of listening and research and ended up buying a phaarking mint condition Fostex X-26 instead of a the tascam 424 or 414mk11's i was looking to get..

The Fostex x-26 is so legit... im more happy with it than i would of been with tascams, its warm stonned sound is perfect and very apparent were tascams tape sound in my opinion is more slight. its from 1988 and i dont think it was touched once haha. i wont be touching reel to reels for a while yet.. but if your looking at a Fostex x-26 dont hesitate..

^^^ No sync

you mean "no midi sync" ?
im not running instruments directly into it so i dont need midi sync if thats what your talking about. im running gear to a mixer then back out to mixer into mpc or soundcard to pc...

what exactly did you mean though?

SARGA wrote:what exactly did you mean though?

midi sync. It's nothing to get worked up about.

yer i get ya. i dont need the midi sync i have other gear that caters for that side of things.