Teac Tascam144 porta studio, 20 minutes of sluggish rambling insights

These are "notes to self" or my insights or nuggets of knowledge that I wish I knew getting into this 1 L+R buss, 4 input, 4 tape track (144) TEAC recorder. I’ve spent a month in my small Swedish living room studio (sorry for the Swenglish) with this as my main machine. This was the first Portastudio, and it was released in 1979. It paved the way for a whole field of Portastudios that became more and more logical. This one has a handful of quirks that you need to know to get up and running.

Namely:

The importance of using a Type II tape (like the Maxell UD XL II)

Understanding that an input is assigned to a tape track with both the panning knob and by pushing the track button in the matrix

Because all inputs and tracks pass through the one L+R buss, having the ins and outs hooked up to a soundcard might lead to feedback if the soundcard monitors its inputs.

It’s easy to sync, say, a guitar on Input C panned left, going through the matrix to Track 3 on the tape, with a piano recorded at the same time on Input D panned right, ending up on Track 4. The hard part is when you want to add a percussive arpeggio on one of the remaining tracks. Therefore, I arrange the music with the transient sounds hard-panned left and right on the first two tracks, and place slightly less time-critical instruments like pads and sub-bass on the final two.

And there are a bunch of things I forgot to mention—and to save you guys from more 2011-style YouTube videos, I’ll write them down here:

The TEAC 144 is stupid loud, and 250-ohm or greater headphones will save your ears.

If you use a sequencer, a hard-panned sub-bass track can also hold a high-pitched ambient sound or pad.

During the mix, their levels can be set with the EQ, giving you the possibility to fit eight controllable sounds on four tracks.

And check out these links for full tracks recorded and mixed on the TEAC Tascam 144.

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