By: Rob

Rob — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 17:39:20 +0000

My four-track was a Fostex that advertised 8 tracks. Essentially, it had some sort of internal, automated mechanism for compressing four tracks down to one (“bouncing” and/or “ping-ponging” I think it called it). I did it once or twice and I thought the manual was a little misleading. The option should have been called, “make what you’ve recorded so far sound like a muddy mess.”

I bought my Fostex four-track recorder used for $200 in 1994, kept and used it off-and-on for five years, and sold it on eBay for $200 in 1999. I have considered buying another one just because I like the physical aspect of recording (twisting knobs and punching buttons) but with all the computer-based recording programs out there today, there’s simply no point in owning one. (For me and my applications, that is — I’m not saying there’s no market at all for them any more!)

By: Earl Green

Earl Green — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 02:35:11 +0000

I too used to do the four-track thing – in fact, I still have that four-track boxed up here somewhere. I’m inordinately proud of the old four-track stuff though, even though I too used to “cheat” by bouncing stuff so I could get six tracks out of the deal – it’s kind of a CGI-vs-models thing, I’m really happy with the stuff that was all me, no MIDI, loops or samples. I almost put one of my old 4-track concoctions on PDF 2 to see if anyone would notice the difference, but then I realized that, from tape hiss alone, yeah, everyone would notice the difference. Ah well.

Comments on: Stop – Music time!

By: Rob

By: Earl Green