'Up With The Dawn': 4 track tape demo recording

linktr.ee/paulgstewart

Taking a break from recording my new album to mess about with the 4 track. Tried to adhere to a pretty strict old-school approach of bouncing down tracks to another deck then back into the Tascam for overdubs, then back into the second deck again for final mix. I enjoy the challenge and limitations of this method of recording, its a bit humbling and forces you to be organised. The sound degrades in quality very quickly the more reductions you do, it was actually a pretty clean and quiet recording to start with...

Some notes on what's going on:

1) Behringer RD-6 drum machine mixed/played in live, MIDI sequenced main arpeggios (as heard throughout) and slinky 101 bass (end section). The arpeggios are from the KORG minilogue and Yamaha TG500 synths and AKAI S3KXL sampler (samples of metallic household objects.)
All of the above go through a line mixer (with stereo delay on effects return) then into channels 1 and 2 of the Tascam 424. Channel 3 was the output from the MS-101 (also MIDI sequenced from REAPER), and channel 4 was reversed reverb on the 101 recorded after the take. FX send 1 on the 424 to outboard reverb.

The above mix goes through some light glue compression on the dbx 166 and some harmonics/widening added via the SPL Vitalizer, onto a second tape (yamaha cassette deck).

2) First bounce-down plays back on channels 1 and 2 of the 424. Recorded main 101 bass and a sampled tape loop of TG500 choir sound on channel 3.

Minilogue synth pad on channel 4. FX send 1 to stereo delay (recently acquired Vox DelayLab guitar pedal), send 2 to big outboard reverb.

3) Final mix: levels and effects tweaking → compressor and vitalizer → fresh tape on Yamaha deck. Tiny bit of EQ and final limiter in the DAW.