Homebuilt four track recorder

Having recently departed ways with my bandmates, but being unable to escape from the viselike grasp of the Muse, I’ve decided to continue to inflict a musical plague upon society by trying my hand at home recording.

Problem is, I can’t float the cheese to walk out and just buy a four-track, even a measly Tascam Porta02, and, to my constant dismay, I’ve proved to be a pretty shitty one man band (I’ve got a friend who can play Link Wray’s “Rumble,” guitar, bass, and drums at the same time. He’s tough.)

On the bright side, I’m up to the shorthairs in flea market cassette decks and a few mic mixers (like the 6 channel Peavey that somebody left at my old practice space.) I’d like to butcher the things and slap a four track together.

My resume for this sorta thing includes:

1)Sticking a peice of electrical tape over the erase head on a cassette deck to “overdub,”

and

2)Being the musician that tells the engineer, “Dude, turn the guitar up,” in a professional studio.

So, would it be reasonably easy to put this thing together, and cheaply? I have no destructions, and no idea how to start out.

Danke.

Well, a four-track recorder takes the tape and records on both sides of it. Two tracks are recorded on the A side, and two more are recorded on the B side, simultaneously. So, I would imagine a more advanced customisation than “putting electrical tape on the erase head” would be needed.

Check eBay, dude. You can get one cheap enough these days. Or, record digitally.

Cool Edit 2000 would be a decent program to record with. It’s about 20 bucks, and is really easy to use.

Hi black455, do I ever sympathise. Jeez, been there… done that… got the T shirt. See if I can help.

I was in the exact same position many years ago. I spent a big chunk o’ time trying to do the same thing. Well, I’m not trying to be negative, and I don’t want to piss on healthy ambition, but in the interests of trying to save your own time, resources and mental stability, it’s basically a waste of time.

Sure, you can tape over the erase head. This rarely works adequately, and you will tend to get significant unhappy leakage. Even if you do it, it’s usually hard to then hear track 1 AND record track 2 in sync, because the record and playback heads are normally at different places on the tape. Even then, the sound quality won’t be up to much. I don’t know about every 4-track in the world, but most run tape at double normal speed, and have some pretty souped-up Dolby B or C, just to try and get some decent sound quality.

As Montfort says, consider searching for a second-hand or auctioned 4-track, on the web or in real life. Stick a few want ads around, see what you get. Or get a job in a music gear shop - you’ll perhaps get to ‘borrow’ kit or get it at a discount, and you may become pals with the sales rep from some company that does multi-track gear, and work something out.

Another idea - ditch the notion of brown tape altogether. Assuming you have a PC, or access to one, the ‘virtual’ recording and mixing desks that run on PCs are amazing. Sure, top of the range software like Cakewalk costs money, but there’s always a shareware alternative that might be enough to get you going. Digital computer-based recording has a lot of things going for it, so you might want to poke around in that area. I know a couple of guys who work in the music industry and can get hold of any kit they want - and they have both entirely ditched their home tape setups in favour of computer-based equivalents.

If you can’t afford either a multi-track or a computer, then you might want to look at hiring, renting or leasing multi-track gear. Spreads the cost, but is obviously more expensive in the long run.

Lastly, try getting work in a recording studio. Don’t say “I’ll do anything, I’ll even make the coffee”. They don’t need people to make the coffee. Offer some useful service or work, and do a deal about x hours recording time. Maybe find a studio or some musicians who want a website setting up, so you swap your website creation skills for money or studio time. I’m assuming you have some website creation skills. If not, fork out for a book by Elizabeth Castro, “HTML for the world wide web”, part of the Visual Quickstart Guide series. Brilliant book, teach you all you need to know in a week!

Good luck!

So let me guess, having read the previous posts you are now thinking of laying down tracks on say two or three tape recorders and mixing them down onto another.

Its what I’ve seen cash starved and technically challenged musos do but they always run into the problem timing.
Getting everthing to come in at the right time is frustratingly difficult and sometimes the recorders run at minisculy differant speeds.I don’t recommend it.

Your idea to get work in a studio is a very good one even if you make nothing, watching the process is very instructive.

Using your PC as a recording system is probably your best option plus the experience you get doing it will stand you in good stead.

black455 wrote

Are you serious? How’s he do it? By the way, I was in a band once where half our songs were Link Wray covers; that guy is so cool.

I second the idea of getting CoolEdit or another digital recorder. If you’ve already got a PC, you’re 95% of the way there. Plus, you can do so much more in the way of processing digitally.

IIRC, he used a floor tom, snare, crash/ride, and one drum stick; put the bass on a guitar stand next to him; and did some wierd tuning and used a capo on the guitar in his lap… beer, pot, and cocaine are the mothers of invention…