What do you do with your Portastudio (or other multitracker consol)

Sounds like what I'm playing around with right now... one of the (slightly) higher-end Portatones. Last night I recorded an electro cover of Pavement's "Fight This Generation"!

GET DRUNK AND KILL IT DEAD WITH A SLEDGEFUCKINGHAMMER THE LITTLE FRUSTRATING PIECE OF SHIT!!!!

(Anyway, as for what I do/did with it, it was never really the same thing twice, but if'n yr curious what I mean by that, you can just click HERE and chiggitty check it out for yourself < /shameless self-promotion>)

As for my digital audio, I'm getting some help from a friend setting it up, and he's also giving me his old soundcard (as he got a new bad-ass one), so honestly I can't actually say just yet what I'll be using, and I'm kinda excited by that.

*A ballad about overcoming unrequited love performed on voice and a Magnum chord organ I found in a dumpster behind where my band rehearses with a little bit of pseudo-qawwali style singing in it.

*A heavily reverb-drenched jazzy surf-rock piece, a little Farfisa up in it, a whole lotta my buddy Kevin playing tenor sax, who kinda Zorns it up something fierce in the last minute+ of this track.

*Accordion + Busta Rhymes style odd-rhythm rapping + Alec Empire style distored-as-fuck drum machine track + fuzz bass = whatever the hell this song is.

I have been having compatibility problems between my Tascam 424 Mark III and my tutor's old Tascam (much older vintage). I would like to know if anyone's else has had this problem and what I can do to solve it.

Details of problem:

I record three channels on my Tascam 424 Mark III at high speed. Take tape over to my tutor's place and attempt to playback my stuff on his old Tascam.

The sound we get out is fades in and out. The bass is most prominent, my clarinet is barely audible and drops in and out.

My Tascam is brand new. The tapes are brand new tapes.

I checked on google and I can't find out any info. So if any of you know anything about this (even a statement of solidarity would be helpful at this point, since I seem, at the moment, to be only person afflicted like this!) and, if possible, a remedy.

Have I encountered a fundamental incompatibility between Tascams?

Thanks!
paul

Thanks for the answer. I'd like to clarify something though. Do you think it's my Tascam (the brand new machine which is doing the recording) or my tutor's old machine (on which we play back the tape) which is stretching the tape and may need cleaning?

Thanks!
paul

We tried that. Both machines are set for DBX. This is confounding us. I have searching through the 4-track google groups and can find nothing!

I use type II Maxell and TDK tapes.

I'll check how the clarinet/mike input is set on both machines. I'll be over where the other machine is tomorrow.

thanks!

Q: Are the four tracks on the cassette-type recorders each a stereo track or do they each represent a left/right channel? i.e. Is a four-track essentially just a two-track in stereo? Whatever the answer, is it universal throughout all makes and models?

A: First, a four-track cassette multitrack is special because a regular stereo cassette recorder also has four tracks: left and right in each direction. The 4-track cassette simply takes advantage of this by going only in one direction and letting you record on all four tracks individually (or, usually, all at once).

This is universal, although different models may use different speeds and have different track sizes or layouts, so you're not always guaranteed to be able to take a 4-track master from one machine and use it on another. And that doesn't even allow for head alignment differences.

That's what I'm thinking it is. But I can't find anything on the web that definitively points to an incompatibility.

Of course my machine may be damaged, which would suck since I got it only six weeks ago.

When I play back what I have recorded on the machine it sounds fine (which it would have course, if the problem is tape head misalignment between two machines).

My tutor does have a Mark III and I think if I can persuade him to bring that in to the rehersal space, I'll get some more data about this problem.

If the plays back fine on both Mark IIIs I'll know it's his knackered old one that's f-ing things up and I won't be compelled to traipse to the repair shop. Wherever that may be!

A ha. That's the kind of evidence I'm looking for! Has everyone got the sense that I rilly don't want to box this machine up and be parted from it for weeks?

Thank to you all. Any more thoughts are most welcome.

cheers!