Tascam 688: The Dark Horse of '90s Home Recording

[@Retrothusiast]

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[@buhlir]

Super cool, Some sound demos or comparisons would be really awesome in these vids your making on the Tascam gear!

[@Retrothusiast]

Thanks for watching and thanks for the feedback. 😀

[@cl1xor]

Loved my 644 so much i bought a spare. Aside from the mt track, the unit is very quiet and the eq is very musical. The routing matrix is awesome. You have loads of inputs and even have separate outs, perfect combination with a modern daw!

[@fernandomoreira2103]

Still own one though out of use.

[@Retrothusiast]

The 644 makes for a great mixer when not in use as a MTR. :)

[@950kid]

I really want to get one

[@keyboardkingpin]

I like vintage gear...good work.

[@Retrothusiast]

Me too! :)

[@WealthAndHealthMastery]

loved the look Matt

[@Retrothusiast]

Thank you! 😜

[@travisraab]

688 ownership is directly correlated with Star Wars figurine collections and inversely with copulation frequency.

[@bepitan]

lol

[@Retrothusiast]

Sad but true... LOL

[@__Rob]

How is it 8 track but 10 channels? What do the last two channels do if they aren't tracks?

[@Retrothusiast]

Hi Rob. Thanks for watching. The channels are all assignable to tracks of your choice via the LCD matrix. I usually just pick a one of the built in scenes and don't go too deep, but it's my understanding that you can get pretty creative on how to assign channels to tracks to best fit your needs.

[@WaynePryce]

Ones dedicated for sync

[@fishpotpete]

I've been a Tascam fan since the first units and have owned several ever since (I've got the Model 12 now). Just curious how it lays down the tracks on the tapes? Does it have something like 6, 8 or 10 tracks on the recording head? I had an Alesis ADAT for a while, but the VCR tape drive kept failing. But I never had a problem with cassette drives on the Tascams!

[@muttomatic]

8 track head.

[@Retrothusiast]

It does have an 8 track head, which is very impressive, especially considering how well it still sounds with such tiny stripes on the tape.

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

THE most important feature that made me wanna get one of these was the fact that this was the only Tascam 8 track machine, recording to cassettes, that was able to record all 8 tracks at the same time. All the other 8 track portastudios, even though they offered 8 tracks, only recorded 4 channels at the same time at maximum. And i needed at least 6 channels at the same time. So i found an actually affordable and working 688 and when it arrived i was simply blown away by how massive and heavy it is. And oh god is the routing matrix complicated. It's definitely the LEAST intuitive Cassette Multitack Studio you can get. So the 8 tracks at once recording feature really comes with a huge caveat :P

[@Retrothusiast]

The routing matrix is certainly hard to wrap your head around at first. The 688 incredibly complex, but extremely versatile. And yes, it's an absolute beast! Hopefully yours arrived damage free. Mine did not.