Cassette Techniques with Tascam Portastudio 414 // How to create Cassette Loops

[@fojmuav]

Watched this, got the portastudio up and running and started experimenting. Thanks for the inspiration! Enjoyed the video and vibe. Liked and Subscribed!

[@OoraMusic]

Glad it was helpful!

[@michaelkonomos]

This is gorgeous. Love the loop, the reverb, and really appreciate the explanation.

[@OoraMusic]

thanks!

[@asiwas]

Really appreciate this. Beautiful creations that along the way were also very informative.

[@subradial]

Sounds awesome, love the lo-fi / vintage loops and textures!

[@OoraMusic]

thanks!!

[@anthonyludington8320]

Dude the second loop you played was soo lush. 🤘🏻

[@Lets-Drone-With-Bone]

Great tutorial, one of the better tape looops tutorials I've seen, love the tip about recording at higher pitch then slow it down after by turning pitch to the left. Will definitely be trying this on my fostex x55 tomorrow

[@OoraMusic]

Glad it was helpful!

[@tucnguyen703]

😂

[@thatplacefromthefuture]

This tutorial is gold! Thanks for the time you took for this. I have a Tascam model like yours since two weeks ago and I am trying to make some LoFi music (non pro) for relax and definitely your tutorial helped very much. Cheers and have a nice day.

[@mosszenbach180]

I love this Tascam Portastudio 414. The only down side IMO is the high speed only option. Would be great to be able to playback standard cassette speed recordings. Thanks for your helpful video.

[@clementm8407]

it looks like a pretty simple mod to do!

[@adriangarcia8226]

Wooow, I love your sonic signature 🤓

[@sebastiennesp1978]

So inspiring, and I have the very same model of Portastudio. Moody, echoey soundscapes here we come!

[@OoraMusic]

great to hear that!

[@effyis5707]

Great video, I always loved this cassette feeling.. And I have this old pioneer cassette player, I don't know why I never recorded my synth with it.. You defenetly made me wanna try !

[@OoraMusic]

I love using cassette for pads! try it!

[@macronencer]

Thank you for this great tutorial! I think I still have my Yamaha MT120S and a cassette splicing kit somewhere, so I might have to try a bit of this! I can't help wondering, though, whether the engineers who put so much effort into making these things sound as good as they possibly could actually watch videos like this and cry a little inside. I remember using a Porta One in the 1990s (I sold it, which is why I got the Yamaha a few years ago, so I could digitise my old tapes). It sounded amazingly clean and the dbx noise reduction meant almost no hiss. Pretty impressive engineering really, for the time and for the price. I seem to remember that the Yamaha also had a greater speed control range, though I could be wrong.

[@OoraMusic]

this is a great point. Actually if used correctly the portastudio can sound pretty clean and nice. In this case im slowing down and using a pretty beaten tape, bringing out noise and artefacts. Maybe I will try to record a full track only using the Portastudio trying to get hifi sound, can be an interesting challenge.

[@LoVeAmBiEnT]

I just found an old Yamaha cxm100 A 4track cassette rec from the late 80s. Has pitch control. Aux send/rtrn. Perfect condition. Will be putting some time w it. Thank you for the inspiration.

[@LoVeAmBiEnT]

Also it has high speed rec and regular speed rec. nice having the options

[@OoraMusic]

Sounds great! have fun!!

[@kosmikmusa]

Nice...Thanks for sharing this. And that reverb sound very good.

[@OoraMusic]

Glad you like it!

[@DanieleGiannattasio]

Congrats on 10k subs Federico, beautiful video as usual! Saluti :D

[@OoraMusic]

grazie !

[@Digiphex]

You can make these loops with the Magneto and get that sound but here it is more of a hands on craft that you are doing and probably rewarding.

[@dreamlogic1563]

Youre really can sound like this with Magneto? I still unsure cause it is so expansive…

[@Digiphex]

@@dreamlogic1563 Well, in truth Magneto is one track. And here he is having 4 tracks that he can bring in and out. So no, you really can't when I think about it. Maybe it would take an Electro Harmonix 95000 multitrack looper plus a ZVEX Instant Lofi Junky to do this exact type of sound.

[@bobschrei2029]

@@Digiphex , easy in AUM on iOS, with some great effects, including tape and Lofi apps.

[@OoraMusic]

there are also great plugins like Denise Bad tape, but the hands on thing is always fun on real cassettes

[@Digiphex]

@@OoraMusic True, getting away from the software is where the fun starts. I was thinking, if Strymon simply added a 4 track recorder with performance volumes to the Magneto and had some kind of graphic like the Lubadh it would be a million times what it is.

[@JohnHickeyBand]

Super cool, never thought of using a cassette recorder to loop like this...I'll have to dig through my stuff to see if I still have one. Also...this video was great to take a nap while listening :)

[@OoraMusic]

:D

[@earlsfield]

Nice work. I did a lot of tape recording back in the days and also, my first "production" platform was Tascam like this, which I mastered when I was like 15 or smt :) I experimented a lot with VHS too. Good work here, I would just suggest to go one level up and try to get rhythmical modulation with the cassette loops.

[@OoraMusic]

would love to! would you share any recommendations or resources?

[@earlsfield]

@@OoraMusic For starters, entire Boards of Canada catalogue lol You recently had a guest and a video about creative degradation - tape, cassette and VHS can be one of the methods, but also digital degradation (something you can find in Data Bender as pre-made) can be cool - CDs with different PCM settings, that deliberately defy Nyquist etc, mini discs that jump and so on. As for the techniques, back to the cassette and tape - copy of a copy of a copy technique can yield Ring-modulation like effect on a tape (best example is that boiling synth pad in Olson). BOC used a lot of ring mods with lfos, but also emulated this effect with a tape by experimenting and getting phases add and subtract. As for the rhythmic stuff, I would go as far as Stockhausen institute stuff and go for two, three or four of the same loops played in parallel at the different points - phase modulation would then create interesting rhythmical effects. Especially if you have the drop out on cassette head (you can hear that in one of your loops even in this video) that you can use to create rhythm. I will also paste a few sources from French and German audio acoustics institutes that dealt with this topic in length.

[@earlsfield]

@@OoraMusic here is our buddy Hainbach talking about some of the basic stuff on Stockhausen methods. Remember we are talking about the guy who literally broke the bulb on a wire and stuck that into recording circuitry to "record electrics" (Stockhausen, not Hainbach) lol so this was fairly vanilla for him kzbin.info/www/bejne/aKTYeGaJa5tgjK8

[@voodstock]

Insane! Thanks for knowledge Cool moment when you put new cassette with dubtechno

[@OoraMusic]

Thanks!

[@t1d3s]

Great insight into a process that is also dear to my heart. Love your video aesthetic, really well done 🖤🙏

[@OoraMusic]

thanks a lot!

[@royalsounds4625]

So good!

[@arbitrarychemistry]

Great review! Cool music too.

[@OoraMusic]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@iosmusicman]

Excellent. Makes me desire a tacam!

[@OoraMusic]

check local flea markets!

[@aaronmoya]

That “6 sec” loop tape looks like something I included with a four track sale a while ago on reverb. Wonder if that was mine. Nice video!

[@BobCharlotte]

Really interesting and inspiring video. Thank you so much. Beautiful sounds, btw. Wish I had a tape machine :)

[@OoraMusic]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@paultyrrell8060]

handy hint: recording with the pitch control all the way to the right reduces the noise

[@OoraMusic]

yep!

[@bucksmoonlightrevival]

Love all these sounds! We just finished a concept album recorded on the Tascam 488 Portastudio. It's alt-folk style music with some experimental sounds like tape loops, musical saw, synths, field recordings, etc. It's uploaded on our channel if anyone wants to check it out!

[@OoraMusic]

Super cool vibes you have!

[@bucksmoonlightrevival]

@@OoraMusic thanks! You as well 😁

[@andrewhipsky8915]

this is sick

[@OoraMusic]

thanks!

[@Pamberjack_]

08:00 AWESOME!

[@OoraMusic]

thanks!

[@cocomorecordings]

love this video! i'm curious - how is the pedal connected to your output / what is your signal path from the op-1? thanks!

[@jhelmuth87]

Are you running the reverb pedal stereo into the 4 track? If you are how do you do this?

[@alebenages745]

Hey tank you so much! really relaxing music and great explanation. You mentioned some frend/references.. do you mind shareing their accounts? wasn´t able to find them... cheers!

[@avantlanuit]

jolie démo et jolie musique

[@OoraMusic]

merci!

[@DJJUANG2000]

Wow, very cool video. What reverb pedal is that?

[@OoraMusic]

Is the Death By Audio Rooms, great one!

[@DJJUANG2000]

Good stuff thanks👍

[@nathanwinkelmes8964]

Are you just using the reverb pedal on the master out or is there a way to print the effects onto the tape? Thanks!

[@pietrobevilacqua]

Very useful video, thanks a lot

[@OoraMusic]

thanks!

[@memoryofsho5549]

Grazie

[@OoraMusic]

:)

[@napolitano2728]

is there anyway to achieve sidechain compression between channels on this thing?

[@alyasmusicswe]

Can you use type 1 cassettes for the 414 or only high bias type 2 cassettes?

[@_jurk]

How does the "que / monitor out" work on this machine? I've found that on the 424 MK1 you can only use the headphone socket to get just the wet signal, the RCA's at the back give you the FX send plus waterever is going on on the tape. In this video is your Tascam going to a mixer or straight to monitors? Thanks!

[@OoraMusic]

Never used it so far, will circle back when I do

[@michaelkonomos]

The scratchy pots! I just got my first Tascam and it was refurbished and all the pots were too scratchy. Sent it back and waiting to see if it fixes it. I like how you embrace it, but does it drive you crazy?

[@OoraMusic]

sometimes ahah

[@Tapepusher]

I thought the 4 channels on the mixer were side 1 L, R, side 2 L, R. Why did you have to turn the tape around, or did I misunderstand?

[@Tapepusher]

As in, you turned the tape around and each of the 4 channels had different sounds 🤔

[@Getthenderson]

Does this 414 portastudio require type II cassette tapes? Or can it use standard type I

[@OoraMusic]

it works with both as far as i know!

[@Getthenderson]

@@OoraMusic thanks, I had a look at it, don't take this as gospel but I think it records at a faster rate so your average tape will be pitched higher.

[@travisraab]

This is so interesting. Sei italiano?

[@OoraMusic]

si!

[@nolanmarshall3212]

Hey there, I'm sure this is an incredibly obvious question, but can someone tell me the signal flow needed to send audio out of DAW, into Tascam, back into DAW?

[@OoraMusic]

you need a soundcard that has in and out, try to look for tutorial about using external gear with ableton

[@georgehernandez7509]

Hey man how are powering the rooms reverb? What’s it connected to

[@OoraMusic]

I use the Strymon zuma

[@mrr2816]

Genius I'm dusting off the tascam already..

[@OoraMusic]

:)

[@Tapepusher]

Any ideas on how to sync a Tascam up with Ableton (or any daw) to incorporate it into a live performance?

[@stevenluna3756]

does the grey tascam sound different then the blue one?

[@OoraMusic]

not sure about that!

[@ZenMountain]

No, mk1 and mk2 are basically the same machine. Mk2 has additional XLR and high impedance inputs on the back.

[@FreestyleGalaxyNMore]

Price Corruption!!!!

[@OoraMusic]

:0