Things you can do with a 6-Track

[@rjbush7955]

I think a well known German music equipment company would make a tidy profit if they released an 8 track cassette recorder. Loved the vapour wave.

[@AlexBallMusic]

It's time to bring it back. 😎

[@TMeier]

I really wish there was a new build four-track cassette recorder with three heads (so you can monitor the recorded tape while tracking). Even better if it was a Eurorack module 👍

[@f.herumusu8341]

Uli Behringer is swiss. The company Behringer has its registered business address in Malaysia.

[@mikegeary8056]

@@TMeierI was legit just thinking about this. You could live track sound on sound looping. Especially if you could engage and disengage the erase head.

[@zentriceggofficial]

This is a fantasy that's not going to happen. It's not a simple case of bringing back tape. As someone who owns and repairs reel to reel and cassette, behringer wouldn't attempt to revive a niche market especially especially one that's very complex mechanically. Digital is mainstream for a reason. Not because it sounds better, it's for convenience. You might as well ask behringer to start making cars.

[@thesynthusiast]

I come for the educational content, I stay for some of the best music on KZbin.

[@toddpushmen9533]

Being clever, creative, organized, and a talented musician to be boot, it’s fun to watch the magic in action.

[@anthonybrett]

True. Alex can pen some catchy tunes.

[@Mr.TeETH78]

Damn straight!

[@jasonbeatty831]

You just made this tape machine jump in price on reverb, thanks a lot!😂

[@AlexBallMusic]

They've been overpriced for a while. Hence I grabbed the first one I saw under £100, even though it's not the cleanest.

[@jasonbeatty831]

@@AlexBallMusic all in good fun, anytime you post something kind of obscure, I just notice prices go up slightly. I didn’t know Sansui made a tape machine. I have good amps from them, but this thing is a little beauty!

[@Curious_Skeptic]

LOLZ

[@synclavier5405]

One unit for spairs and repairs is available on ebay for £480 😅

[@DanHomeAtLast]

Until everyone finds out how crap it was to use them

[@dairehackett6336]

The fader jam was 👌

[@tombrews]

Tape recordings always gives the sound a bit more of a mystical kind of quality, as if the sound is coming from some dreamy place. Such a vibe. Cassette / tape rules.

[@AlexBallMusic]

Yeah, totally do.

[@MrFlottgote]

Hey, Alex Ball, you're a truly top musician masquerading as a gear reviewer, infinitely more so than Jeremy Clarkson regarding car assessments and driving. Always a sheer ethereal joy!

[@AlexBallMusic]

Thank you. Would you say that I have.....top gear? 😉

[@MrFlottgote]

@@AlexBallMusic 😂 Not gonna lie... I tell myself, if I had half of your loadout, I'd make half as good music as you do!

[@HJPhilippi]

Tascam 644 MIDIStudio owner here. :-) What people need to know today is how cassette-based multitrackers democratized recording in those days - when professional studio tape technology was completely unaffordable. A huge leap before digital recording became standard.

[@garysuarez9614]

Fostex 424. It really was the best of times.

[@Johnsormani]

@@garysuarez9614tascam 144 started it all

[@ravencole2740]

@@garysuarez9614 Yamaha MT120. Great times.

[@mikemeengs5720]

I started my multitrack journey back in 1982 using two stereo cassette recorders. I had a little Radio Shack mixer, and I recorded the first track, played that back along with my live bits to the other, back and forth. After about four bounces, there was a lot of noise, but I got my ideas out. If I screwed up, I'd rewind and start over...no punch ins. Fun times! Cool video, Alex!

[@gimmiethejuice]

You're not alone, that's exactly what I did when I was young! In the days of no online tutorials, there were only two kinds of people - the ones who figured this out on their own and the ones who didn't. The next discovery was using pawn shop guitar pedals for EQ, compression and reverb on vocals. And chorus and delay on a cheap keyboard. I recorded a whole album with my band that way, using a guitar into a mic'd bass amp to sound like a Marshall stack.

[@AlexBallMusic]

Excellent! Yeah, the noise floor starts at 50/50 and then goes up from there. 😀 But these things were invaluable.

[@simonhodgetts6530]

Yep, I did very much the same thing, but without a mixer! Bung keys, drum machine and a vocal on one track, then overdub more keys and backing vocals on the other, and bounce. Tremendous fun, and an inexpensive way to make some very basic demos.

[@jairkerker2821]

Coming from 4 track machines I did that kind bouncing with the pretty revolutionary minidisk walkmans a lot.

[@gimmiethejuice]

More lo-fi tricks: -Stereo ins on a VHS VCR at the SP speed, really good sound quality -Designing cassette labels at double the size and then shrinking them down with a photocopier.

[@pablowentscobar]

One of my friends had a crappy 4-track recorder back in the early 90's and we would make just the worst metal/sludge albums. Like every few days we'd make a new band, different name, ad people, mix up who did what, "write" new songs, new album art, etc. We would give out the "Albums. At some point we switched to cds. Good lord that was fun. anywho, great video, brilliant ideas.

[@AlexBallMusic]

I love stories like this! I used to run off my cassette songs, draw artwork on the inserts and hand them out at school, same as you. Haha. I imagine they wound up straight in the bin.

[@pablowentscobar]

@@AlexBallMusic Yup, exactly the same. I'm 100% sure 90% ended up in the rubbish or recorded over. But dang it if it wasn't fun, Always riding the edge of taking it way to serious and it's all a big joke.

[@AlexBallMusic]

Halcyon days.

[@RudyVenegas-b3o]

Still have those tapes ? I’d love to hear

[@AllofJudea]

My high school band recorded a tape on the tascam 4 track, made covers at the open all night print shop (kinkos) and sold them for 4 bucks each. Sold about 40. It wasn't a good album although for 16 doing it ourselves it was decent. 1995 or so. Great times

[@fallingmanuk]

Another interesting video, Alex - your work is always both informative and inspiring. And the sweeping Trident strings on that droney track sounded LUSH!

[@AlexBallMusic]

Thanks! The Trident always delivers.

[@yumienmichelcorria7372]

Cool!! Drone jamm with 6 track is beautiful.

[@AlexBallMusic]

Thanks! A bit different from my usual sproinging.

[@jason3898]

I have a Tascam Model 12 I've been regretting buying because, why deal with that UI for recording when I have a DAW? Obviously, it was just the No Computer (Look Mum!) fantasy I realistically have no time for. But now I have a whole new use for it. It's an instrument too! One thing I don't get though, is the slow ascending/descending melody, which I think is part of the sus chord tracks, just being kept in decent time with the 606 solely by using the speed knob? If so... siiick.

[@robertmyers6518]

I'm still watching, but, that "playing the tape deck as an instrument" section reminds me so much of the Genesis track, "Fading Light" from "We Can't Dance" and it was absolutely lovely. Thanks for that!

[@adamstan84]

If I'm not mistaken, choir parts in 10cc's "I'm not in love" were also performed like that, although AFAIK they used 24-track for that ;)

[@robertmyers6518]

@@adamstan84 Yes, it's how they did it and this section Alex's demo also has that vibe : - D

[@jokerfleckcast3196]

That pitch change on the 80s faded in track is heavenly

[@eekamoose]

I bought a Tascam 464 Portastudio 4-track in 1992 and for many years I used it not only for recording but also sitting on top of a rack as a mixer for solo or duo gigs (one or two acoustic guitars, one or two vocal mikes). 32 years later after countless changes in my life I still have it. You get attached to these things. The drive belt snapped a while ago, but I bought a new one online and there's a video on KZbin showing how to install it. My two sons who are ten years younger than the Tascam are even keener than me to see and hear it running again.

[@FatNorthernBigot]

I have fond memories of my Fostex 8 track. All the bouncing of tracks forced my creative decision making. Boundaries are great things to work against.

[@AlexBallMusic]

Absolutely! I used to have track sheets where I'd plan out how the arrangement and recording would work! It definitely made you work in different ways, as you say.

[@FatNorthernBigot]

@@AlexBallMusic for me, it took a long time to get my "In the box" mixes to have that easy, organic sound of tape. We all went digital too early. Convenience isn't quality. ☹️

[@AlexBallMusic]

​@@FatNorthernBigotYep. A lot of work making it do things that tape naturally did.

[@jairkerker2821]

Agreed! Had a guitarist play a little reverbed pentatonic solo from high to low over a reversed cassette tape. He didn't have much fun playing but I got a great spooky solo out of it. Or what Alex describes, the way of thinking about the bouncing, or even the mistakes I made partially erasing tracks. Or even just the tension of getting it right quickly so the tape wouldn't wear out too much.

[@AgentBlackCrow]

Oh my, I’m in the UK and have one of these units still in the box and in super clean condition up in the loft as well as a remote controller for it. This certainly brought some memories. ❤

[@TisMeJohnDee]

I like the way the tape doesn't sound as crisp as the DAW version. Brilliant and educational as always, thank you.

[@AlexBallMusic]

Really noisy and fuzzed out with a limited frequency range. It's lovely. 😍

[@Gunstone1980]

Mmm the 'use it as an instrument' track was gorgeous.. the subtle speed changes were 👌

[@daviderskine966]

Interesting video Alex. I had one of the first WS-X1 recorders in the UK. I used it for demos and found it great for that, but it was never quite reliable, mostly due to the tape head. Cramming six heads into one standard sized tape head was a really new thing (that was why 1/4" tape was better with larger, wider tape heads). The recorded tracks tended to bleed over into other tracks after a lot of use. I had to have the head realigned a couple of times. To get a tape sound these days I run tracks out of my DAW and through a Revox back into the DAW.

[@danpreston564]

I had an old Fostex which I gave away, I used to do all my recording back in the 90s on it, and then I inherited a knackered Tascam 244, which I got Tetrakan, a great 4 track technician, to completely service and repair. Any recording I do now is done on the Tascam. They bring a level of serenity and thinking time to the recording process, waiting for tapes to rewind and getting set up that slightly changes your mindset. I really enjoy it. This was a great demo of what else you can use them for. Great job, as ever, Mr Ball.

[@WesleyWattley-xy4fg]

Tetrakan fixed your 4 track recorder😮 👍? If so I'm gonna contact !

[@danpreston564]

@@WesleyWattley-xy4fg total service, changed loads of parts and cleaned it all up. Good as new except for a break in the corner of the main body. I’d certainly recommend his work.

[@Johnsormani]

The 244 has a fantastic parametric eq. I still have mine

[@patrickp.1998]

This thing is gorgeous ,thank you for this masterful demonstration ❤

[@realraven2000]

What's so funny is that we really really cared about avoiding distortion with our HiFi equipment in the 80s, but I do agree that cassette tape distortion is one of the coveted sounds nowadays. I always pushed my (usually BASF chrome) tapes to +5 to +7db to get maximum signal over noise floor, on my AKAI GX71. What a lovely machine. Was surprised to listen to an old SUpertramp tape about 22 years later and the compression was great, just blew me away! Wish I could mechanically restore the AKAI.

[@stevenparry83]

Very inspiring video! 👏😀love the add11-chords 7:10 😊

[@PianoVampire]

Ah the WS-X1 - I spent my entire childhood with that thing. Still have it around somewhere...

[@AlexBallMusic]

Excellent! Still got the tapes?

[@PianoVampire]

@@AlexBallMusic yeah, some of them!

[@AlexBallMusic]

@@PianoVampire Nice. I wonder if they'll sound like you remember.

[@AsteroidKiller]

It definitely has a vibe! 🙌

[@thedonal]

MAAAAAAAAN! I used to have one of those. Loved it! Really good rig. The heads started going on mine eventually- gargly sounds on the high pitch. I recorded mates' bands on it as well as my own stuff. My first real intro to recording. Very fond memories.

[@AlexBallMusic]

I imagine the heads on this unit aren't right too. Do you remember if yours sounded this crusty?

[@thedonal]

@@AlexBallMusic I don't think I had the imagination to drive it as hard as you did. It did crunch up a bit with resonant synths though- nice compression and crunch that I liked. I wonder if splitting a cassette into 6 tracks would reduce the dynamic range further and make it a bit crunchier. The second, stereo deck was a godsend for bounces and mixdowns- handles metal tape too.

[@thedonal]

@@AlexBallMusic Here's a demo I recorded for a mates' band back in 92. It's pretty lo-fi and crusty- one bounce for sure (bass and drums), then maybe another with rhythm guitars. This demo became a bit of a legend in the local metal scene. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fZnXo4VjhqmWrNE

[@AlexBallMusic]

​@@thedonalSo good that Ken Danger commented.

[@thedonal]

@@AlexBallMusic He looks dangerous..

[@korolchukpp]

Wow! This awesome!

[@mrt7152]

Wow never knew Sansui made that kind of gear. Was so funny seeing you working on it while sitting on the ground. That was the way we did it when we where young.

[@orlokministries]

Neat! Im a musician devoted to recording using these outdated machines and trust me, I have never heard of an actual 6-track cassette multitracker until now. 4-tracks, yes. 8-tracks, absolutely. but 6? That's pretty cool, basically like having all the utility of the 8-tracks but doesn't take up quite so much board space with more knobs, buttons and inputs. I did like the sound of this machine too. Reminded me of the stability of the 424 mkII I used to own. And the fact that there are two tape slots is an added bonus to make duplicating that much easier. Or if your'e say trying something crazy like bouncing between two tapes, i guess that would be possible. Great video

[@AlexBallMusic]

Yeah, it's quite unusual. I definitely want to try bouncing, as you said.

[@psyl0q]

Drift by soundghost is a beautiful sounding tape emulator vst. Also this is my favourite channel on KZbin. Good day.

[@dominikumberto]

So inspiring. Wish I'd had these ideas back then. I had a Tascam Porta One and often only saw the limitations. Early 90ies I sold all my equipment in frustration.

[@tapeexperiments]

Warmness aside, the kick drum really jumped out to my ears on the cassette playback at 4:06 ..I had not even noticed the kick and then BAM, there it is! (good ol tape bump:^)🙂

[@AlexBallMusic]

Yep! Works great for drums and wonky pads. Less so far bass sounds and guitars I found.

[@vikingsofvintageaudio7470]

I really liked the tune played on the segment "played as an instrument". Really, really nice!

[@ArturdeSousaRocha]

Alex is one of the best 80s composers of our time. 😆

[@althejazzman]

He's literally an 80's kid too, like me.

[@kyleeddy7033]

I loved watching this. What a setup you have!

[@brettlarson3504]

Wow, the track at 9:50 is really gorgeous

[@nicks.8003]

Everyone! 2 hands together for Alex Ball creating amazing content without hipster lighting or plants in the mix! Hip Hip Horray!

[@zach3634]

Dude.... this took me back. Your tip about putting two different notes on two individual channels, and fading them in and out... changed my life. So obvious.. i feel stupid for not seeing that. 😅

[@AlexBallMusic]

I have that all the time! Someone shows me something about something I've owned for years and I can't understand how I didn't think of it. 😂

[@wehappyfewmusic]

Great to see you exploring the WS-X1 on the channel, and looking forward to seeing the next videos in this series! Would be awesome to see you stripe the sync track and hook this up with your SP12!

[@Ancaja123]

The fantastic thing about this Sansui, is you can actually record onto the 6 tracks at once. Most tascam units with more than 4 tracks are only able to record to 4 at once. Really nice to have an extra two for Effects returns, or to bounce 4 tracks to a stereo track. And then the beauty of this is the two decks, it’s soooo good to have a “master deck” to track to for a final mixdown.

[@AlexBallMusic]

Yeah, it seems they were able to learn from others products and make it better.

[@kerzwhile]

They have always sounded like that! I've used that exact unit back in the early/mid 90's! ❤ I Love this so damn much! ❤

[@jbu999]

Watching your videos is like traveling in a Time Machine. Bravo.

[@GloveBunniesVideos]

When I first got my Tascam Portastudio, the VU meters were always maxxed out at +6db. I mean, I thought that was the point. Great video!

[@Vim-Wolf]

That was a heck of a lot of fun. Thanks for reminding me why I loved the 80s. And also what it sounded like when the batteries were running out on my walkman.

[@arturosilvester1930]

Gracias Alex, es bueno escuchar el manejo de la electrónica hecho por un músico. Suerte y buena vida .

[@BroodXindustrial]

Loved recording to tape then bouncing tracks for room or depth. Id love to get back to it. Tascams and technics were the way, the Only wayat one point, unless you were recording a record or wax. :) Damn good stuff. Well played and nice setup. Shred on my friend!

[@anthonybrett]

Great vid Alex. Although I certainly love the nostalgia, this video reminded me why I never want to touch tape again. hehe ;)

[@AlexBallMusic]

I've given it 24 years before going back. 😂

[@ThMntnst]

Because of Cortini, I came to know of the strange qualities of these. What I found especially nice is that you can sync a modular synthesizer with that quite easily. When you realise that you can add a syncpulse to one of the tracks (even some straigth drumhits) and later on still have three tracks left to mix (and pingpong), these things excel even today. To most clock-inputs on modular synths, it does even work while changing speed on the multitracker. I‘d really enjoy seeing you trying that with the System 100 :)

[@mbrombert]

Oh wow this is so much bigger than I realized from your previous instagram posts. I love it. It is *BEAUTIFUL* ugh....

[@WorksopGimp]

The 6 track realy warmed up the sound, it was quite good

[@biomortal]

I had this back in the day, it was constantly in need of repair and I ended up returning it. Shame as it was functionally very good. I also remember it constantly having a much louder hum than the Tascam units I had.

[@lotus30com]

I still have the rack mount of the Sansui 6-track recorder with the standalone 6-track mixer! In the old days, I would record a JL Cooper PPS-1 SMPTE sync on track 6 and then a few live things on tracks 1-4. With the SMPTE, I could sync my Amiga 500 which would then run my synths+samples via MIDI.

The 'use it as an instrument' jam is brilliant

[@curlysam131]

Nice video. You've inspired my to repair my dads old Tascam 246 now. I've been using it as a mixer, nice and crunchy.

[@DJKL]

Inspiring creativity, Alex. Especially the Trident ambient performance mixing, that's a great to way to achieve a unique recording from a bunch of simple ingredients.

[@Bloor005]

I had a Fostex 4 track when I was 17. Recorded some guitars into it, couldnt really do much. Later at 18-19 I bought a Fostex D90 8 track ADAT compatible HDD recorder. It was a revelation, even with a behringer mixer and a sync'd drum machine at the time. We live in a Golden Age and we dont even know it. 😅

[@VirtualModular]

Yep, I used to dream of clean digital reordings. Now people actully pay good money to make it sound like crappy old tape agin. World gone mad 😂

[@Bloor005]

@@VirtualModular Sooo many pluggins to wreck your sound too. 😁 The D90 was something like 3 months wages for me but soooo good at the time. Like a big tape recorder but CD quality on every track

[@qidevrich]

I know it’s across KZbin and you are putting decent quality in to the Sansui, but the sound quality actually seems pretty good considering each track must be considerably less than 1mm on the tape. I remember my 4-track cassette experiments sounding very shonky indeed!

[@electrosonicnebula]

With all the interest in tape machines some companies could easily make a brand new and totally reliable multitrack tape recorder these days, designed to work well with the less expensive new tapes being manufactured these days. Brand new tape recorders are being made so a new tape multitrack would be lots of fun especially if they market it as a killer analog mixer and make sure it's got all the goodies like double speed switch and pitch bend and two decks like this beast - which I assume allows you to mix down to a normal tape you can play on any machine. Interface looks really nice on this one! Korg made one that had speakers and Fostex made one that had an onboard mic if I remember correctly.

[@lincolnkinnicutt4598]

great video! using High Bias cassettes makes a big sound difference, at least on tascams. Also it's fun to use cassette loops and do the Alessandra Cortini drone trick.

[@Hainbach]

Lovely deck and video! Are you going reel-to-reel next?

[@AlexBallMusic]

That's the plan. Looking to grab an 8-track reel-to-reel or something.

[@reel_images]

Awesome stereo splitting and panning on the synth.

[@aSaDitTy]

That unit sounds awesome, man.

[@AlexBallMusic]

The right kind of wrong.

[@powerseostrategy]

I still have my Tascam Portastudio 488 that I bought in 1991. I have hundreds of cassette tapes of my music from back then and the sound is so warm. It's got a magical sound. I see you're using a normal bias tape with Dolby C. You will get an enormous clarity boost if you use my favorite: Maxell XLII 90!

[@recycology5468]

Reversed my itch to sell of my Porta-One 4 track. Thanks for the inspiration....Just replaced the belts too.

[@erichobbs4042]

When he slowed down the track, I was brought right back to that time in my life when you would be on a long car trip with your parents and the batteries in your Walkman were about to crap out 😅

[@AlexBallMusic]

Now you've got 90 minutes staring out of the window.

[@jjlacey1970]

i used to love turning the tape over and doing backwards singing, pads and guitars. I've always had a four track but don't really use it much these days. i know there are midi multi trackers but it would be really nice to have a new take on them and make some sort of grove box/sampler with all of the multi track ways of doing things, only it syncs to your daw flawlessly and with a tape built in that you sequence onto etc with all the modern scatter effects/looper/grain shifter/ id really appreciate experimenting with a machine like that.

[@BleepscapeAlternateChannel]

genuinely you are my absolute favourite content creator on KZbin, your videos are always educational and interesting. You have an awesome visual style, and of course brilliant jams and sound design. I always know when I click on an Alex Ball video, its going to be a fantastic video. Thanks for being so consistent with your videos man.

[@AlexBallMusic]

Ah, cheers. That's nice.

[@marcovoltage]

That was a really nice performance. I love it

[@ChrisP3000x]

I probably wrote 1000 completed songs back in cassette days, ....also band demos, etc.. The days where we all committed, finished, and moved on.

[@AlexBallMusic]

Yeah, something beautifully simple about it.

[@angermanagementstudios]

Ahhh the memberberries are high with this one mate! Great vid.

[@doublebass5y]

That machine has great top response still. My 4 tk Fostex 280 was worn out after two years. Head wear and lack of top response. Its a shame AKAI never built one with their Patented Glass heads. Fostex long gone now but its fun to look back on old recordings. All to easy now with daws if your computer plays ball. No pun intended. Awesome video and top music. Thanks very much.

[@dwaynecarroll6098]

Amazing tracks. Thanks for sharing Alex!!!

[@5argetech56]

My Zoom R-16 is amazing! Brings back cassette like multitrack recording with no degradation when you bounce tracks!

[@darwiniandude]

I grabbed an R24 mint in box awhile back since it was 1/4 of the price of a well worn 4 track. I'd still like a multi track tape machine to play with - but too expensive generally :/

[@MayzMatthiasYzebaert]

Opposite view here : I’m into 80's, Alessandro Cortini and Legowelt too, and I get that people love to glorify this stuff. But honestly, after messing with a Sansui MX12 and a Tascam 434, they straight-up made everything sound worse. You could use it as an effect here and there, use it to warm up drum samples, but with longer takes the tapes get the drift issues and the device is just way too big for just that. In the end I sold both, better get something like cheap distort / compress as insert pedals, and maybe some drift / detune pedals too. This is just my take 🙂 Love your video's!

[@AlexBallMusic]

Yeah, totally understand that. Once I left tape behind, I did touch it for nearly 25 years. It's beautiful, but very impractical in most settings. I guess it's a luxury option for the audio nerds. 😀

[@ChristopherHillman]

I got the RackMount Unit that goes WITH That! You'd add a Sync-tone to a track on the main unit and on the rackmount that they'ed use to keep in sync ...then you'd have 10 tracks to play with (or more with more rackmounts) ... I LOVE The way it works with the tape , lets you loop between two points , rewinds but then gives slack 2 seconds after , coooL lookin Displays etc.etc.etc.

[@paulmehlhaff2588]

Very inspiring! Love the pitch-down lofi idea! Now I want to turn my Synthwave jams into Vapor tracks! 🙂

[@alfish18]

Sansui-tional.

[@donwrangler]

I love everything about this video! Especially the music!🍻

[@AlexBallMusic]

Thanks Don!

[@bry2k]

I have a Sansui 6-Track multitrack cassette recorder that I purchased in I believe it was 1991 or thereabouts...? Mine is a separate rack mounted tape recorder, and I also bought the 12-channel mixer for it (the Sansui design was that you could sync two of the 6-track's together, but I couldn't afford two of them at the time...sadly!). Still works to this day!

[@AveMcree]

that thing bigger than my 8 track tascam.... sheesh!

[@AlexBallMusic]

Yep! Small in the 80s meant large.

[@MarkusGeheim]

Bigger size - Bigger sound (or hiss)!

[@PWMaarten]

For a moment I was so confused when that clap came out of the 606. :) Great watch, as always. I love Sansui. I have the RG-7 that I use to lo-fi the Blofeld. Admittedly it had some modifications to make the BBD chorus/dubbeler stereo but it sounds great!

[@AlexBallMusic]

The hand clapper strikes! RG-7 - had to Google that. My, my, I could go down a rabbit hole with the stuff they've made. Nice work on the mod, that sounds ace.

[@WoodyPianoShack]

brilliant vid alex, thanks a bunch for all your music and inspiration

[@AlexBallMusic]

Hey Woody! Straight back at you. 🫵😎

[@guillaumeleglisemusique]

brilliant thank you

[@NOLNV1]

Radioland feel on that live dialed Trident track! Love it

[@75jblue]

I would flip tapes over for backwards guitar and drums...

[@unclemick-synths]

Great video 👍. I recently got my 244 running again. I had hot-rodded it to add a bypass switch for the dbx to sync my Atari and Cubase. One thing that I think was helpful back then was first recording a demo and then planning the tracks and bounces. It usually meant improvements in the arrangement but more importantly it meant the turds didn't get polished unlike today where its too easy to keep wasting effort on a song that deserves a quiet death!

[@dreamscuba]

Blumin hell.. you write some seriously cool music... I love th funky guitar work.

[@grahamnunn8998]

Another great video, Alex. I started on Fostex X-15 on I still love the vibe on those recordings when I had limited gear but maybe more imagination!

[@AlexBallMusic]

Limited gear and more imagination - that's a good way to put it. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that.

[@bengalinsky4300]

Goes to show the thing that we really miss with digital audio is that perfection doesn’t actually sound all that good

[@AlexBallMusic]

The same reason we have filters on Instagram. We don't like accuracy.

[@DrLoverLover]

Just add tape hiss

[@MarkusGeheim]

Great one! Can't wait for the next episodes with tapes 🙂 4:00 I really miss this. My old Tascam died unfortunately 😐

[@AttilaSVK]

Also it's possible to run a DAW synced up to a multitrack tape machine, in case you either need more channels or want to switch the tape sound in and out. I've got a Portastudio 244 sitting in storage, it just needs new rubber parts. I've already have some projects for the winter, but I'll put resurrecting this machine on the list as well. Who knows, we might have a long winter :D

[@razornaut]

That drone performance - it sounded really nice! It would never have crossed my mind to control a bass drone's notes by fader alone like that (maybe I'm just dim, but I'll own it). It's minimal but works so well, especially where the bass drones blend for a brief moment in a smeary but very pleasant way.

[@AlexBallMusic]

Yeah, that smudgy note cross is lovely.

[@TronDawg]

Who would’ve known it was that big?!?!! Those are beautiful! Seem to need service sometimes. Love it. Good luck and have fun 🌊✨🌊

[@owenmcgheeandbdawg]

I dreamt of having this in my life ever since I used to dub on a regular twin cassette hi-fi by covering the erase head. Thank You for Being

[@UptownBoogieDown]

Wow Alex that jam at 4:22 is so good. I need that to dj out.

[@jamesconnolly741]

Very jamal moss...

[@laurentkaufmann1486]

Another great use for those love noise, if you chain the first input/output 1 to input 2... and so on, you add artifacts in each stage (4 tracks-4 stages...8 tracks 8 stages ). That's produce best warm noise ever ear 😊

[@AlexBallMusic]

Nice idea, thank you!

[@aliensporebomb]

Always wanted one of those six tracks back in the day, never saw one stateside so ended up with a 4-track Yamaha MT-100 II with DBX noise reduction. I used that for 12 years until it basically fell apart. I briefly went to a Roland 8-track digital unit and then graduated to DAWs.

[@bnjmnwst]

I started with a MiniDisc 4-track. Skipped analog altogether. Even the semi-professional studio I recorded a few songs in with friends was using ADAT. I did get a bit of experience with analog tape at university, but only for one semester. We were on to digital tape after that...

[@AlexBallMusic]

I remember ADAT. I also remember people using ADATs to run audio through that then went to a PCI sound card.

[@benanderson89]

Even Stock, Aitken and Waterman despite the plethora of digital recording equipment they had, stated in an interview sometime in the late 80s that they deliberately went and bought a bunch of analogue equipment to route everything through so it came out the other end with a certain *something* about it. I'm no professional by any stretch but a tape sim biased a certain way with a slow tape speed like 7.5ips on something like a Linn or DX/DMX kick drum really does give it this juicy crunch. Overdrive the PRS frequencies with a mid scoop going in and it never fails to THUMP hard! I am so damn tempted to grab this 1986 16-track Fostek open-reel recorder for sale up in Scotland for £300 and this video isn't helping. Even just routed through the circuits that little six track made the Drumtraks sound pretty full, and to tape it was almost like an aggressively coloured compressor.

[@AlexBallMusic]

Very interesting. Yeah, those digital drum machines sound 100% better through analogue outboard, as you say. I also have to run my 808 through a vintage Roland mixer because it's perfect, whereas the direct, audio interface equivalent totally lacks something. I think a little saturation and harmonic distortion is the big thing.

[@AlexBallMusic]

PS - you're definitely buying that Fostex. Just give in to it. 😎

[@benanderson89]

@@AlexBallMusic ya know, I wish I did buy it. It was a Fostex Model 80 (so an 8-track, not 16) for £300 on Gumtree. It's gone now :( There is one on eBay but it's £700. Damn, I should've bought the one on Gumtree when I saw it!

[@AlexBallMusic]

Ah shucks. Yeah, the Model 80 has been on my hit list for a long time too.

[@ChristopherHillman]

The BEST Example of the 'using it as an instrument' trick is probably 10CC - I'M NOT IN LOVE ("big boys don't cry...big boys don't cry...big boys don't cry...")