The best plugins...are no plugins.

[@BrianFunkMusic]

That background vocal technique sounds great. It adds a new dimension to the mix. Gotta try that!

[@michatroschka]

beautifull

[@RecordingStudio9]

Great song and production. Inspiring.

[@eduardocamargo3104]

I'm just knowing you channel and work now. You sound amazing, great sounding records and great songs too. Keep doing it. You are an inspiration

[@eyaldror1526]

Great work and song,the piano sound awesome

[@buddhikachathuranga9202]

Really love the sounds fam

[@miauighumor2322]

Sounds good in studio monitors too

[@4Ever4Track]

Really? Wow, that’s surprising. I don’t have monitors so I mix on headphones and check it in my car 😂

[@jonnystanley8720]

So cool man glad I found your channel I have been thinking about recording this way and am happy to find some one who is already doing it excellently

[@MrMissingReel]

I'm your Fan 🙏🏻👍🏻

[@Augenatic]

thats a really pretty song dude, really like your voice, really like the guitar playing, and the tape suits it all well I think

[@SteveJohnsen]

Fantastic! Subscribed!

[@4Ever4Track]

Thanks! Working on some new vids right now!

[@bejoshouse4493]

I listen your song "lantern" almost everyday. You should put more on Spotify or digital platforms. I love your music

[@4Ever4Track]

Thanks so much! It feels really good to hear that people are enjoying the music!

[@seanmichaelpatten3930]

Your songs sound good on my crappy laptop speakers, so you mixed something right

[@henryk2015]

This is hugely inspiring! Great song, performance, and mixing. Thank you for sharing! I started recording on a Tascam 424 in the early 00's and used it until probably around 2014 or so in favor of digital. I recently broke out my old machine and have created more music in two weeks than the last two years. The best plugins are definitely no plugins and it's liberating!

[@4Ever4Track]

Thanks. Same thing happened to me. Ditched the screen and mouse and started making music again but more productively and creatively than I ever did with a computer.

[@late4suppa1]

Just bought a TASCAM 130 THREE HEAD CASSETTE DECK. It's a heavy duty 3 head rack mountable deck. I'll let you know how it works out.

[@Dave_Frain]

This is wonderful, thanks for sharing. I think this approach makes so much sense, I may have to give it a try!

[@flypieTV]

What a lovely song and performances. It’s great to see your setup and to hear what is possible with some well chosen gear. Cassette is a perfectly decent recording medium, it’s what you feed into it that counts. The guitar is beautifully recorded, and I love the character of the piano solo. Thanks for sharing.

[@schance1666]

Really nice track and the vocal part is and sounds awesome. As a fellow brother-in-tape, you're showing how the most basic gear (including effects pedals) can sound just perfect. keep it comin'!

[@Bardsongmusic]

Awesome job man. I have a similar set up I’m putting together. Inspiring. Thank you!

[@robertmac71]

Sounds great man! Really dig the all analog approach. Not too many people are recording that way any more due to cost and lack of knowledge. Plus people don't want to "commit" to a certain sound and want the convenience and choice of being able to edit it later which usually leads to a weaker mix anyway. The songs I've heard of yours are somewhat mellow and deep, but also have a certain dynamic to them that make them very interesting and appealing to listen to. Sort of ambient and meditative but have an underlying energy and musical feel and your vocals while not always being spot on pitch wise are great because you don't "try to hard" like too many people do. Your vox sound natural and have raw emotion that challenge the lister to stop, listen, and contemplate. Great tone to your mixes. For not being a sound engineer (I'm not one either), your songs and mixes sound great man. Songs are very well-written too. Thanks.

[@4Ever4Track]

You're totally spot on dude. Perfectionism kept me from sharing my music for years. And, everything today is perfect - look at any social media, instagram, facebook, etc. - you're not seeing people being real, you're seeing super edits of the highlight of highlights. Look at modern music made with computers - everything is locked to the grid, timing is perfect, pitch is fixed with software to be perfect. I'm trying to be real and authentic and while I was afraid people would trash it, people have been amazing and super supportive. I have a three take rule that I follow from something I heard Kurt Cobain say. If it's not good enough in three takes then I shouldn't being doing it anyway. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[@jean-mariefuentes1787]

Bravo, good job! Mon Tascam 464 est en panne. Je vais le réparer et faire comme toi.Thank you.

[@ianharris8706]

Well flipping done!!

[@BluesBrethrenofPolishPeoplesR]

I love your art, and the way you are making your videos. Thank you very much. :-)

[@bennyl.5]

Hey man nice tune! Are u recording on 246 then mixing on model 12 or vise versa?

[@4Ever4Track]

Thanks! This one I recorded to the 246 and mixed down to the M12.

[@bennyl.5]

@@4Ever4Track thanks for getting back! I have a 246 and a model 16. I tried recording straight to model 16, wasn't that satisfied with the recording quality straight in. The 246 sounds great. Your bounce to model 12 sounds really good though

[@edspageusa1yesloveyes937]

Thank 💜 You LOVE

[@andregois7926]

Very good! Congratulations, very cool song and sound. Would be cool to hear a comparison between tracking to cassete or direct to digital (maybe splitting the microphone signal into spare tracks on the digital mixer)

[@4Ever4Track]

That's a great idea. I'll track a song to tape and split the signal out to the 12 and we can compare. My guess is the mix on the 12 will have some higher highs.

[@andregois7926]

That would also be my guess, more highs, less hiss (although it's pretty low already!), but I'm mainly curious to hear the difference the saturation makes :)

[@edspageusa1yesloveyes937]

Love To Know About Your Whole Rig... Patch, Furman, Pedals, etc... Thank 💜 You... Really Beautiful Stuff!!!🌈

[@late4suppa1]

All right, I have a plan of attack. I'm purchasing two Y or Insert cables because I have a 2 channel Stereo Compressor. I'll insert both of these into my channel 1/2 inserts. These are the channels reserved for playback from USB so my guess is inserts wont cancel them out. Does that sound right? I know there's ways to hook all of this stuff up in a DAW, but I'd rather hook it all up externally if possible.

[@AppAxis]

My aux1 is only sending in mono. Do you know if this is normal? #TascamModel12 #Dawless #HXstomp #RNC1773 For now I am sending signal using my sub L and R. Not ideal (reduces mixing options).

[@4Ever4Track]

That’s normal. Aux is only sending a mono signal. When I come out of Aux 1, I run the mono signal into an FX pedal that splits it into L/R and then bring those back in to a stereo channel on the 12.

[@AppAxis]

@@4Ever4Track I suspected that, ok... your response confirmed what I thought I was seeing in the signal path diagram in the manual, but I am not super technical enough to trust myself Anyways, great to know, now I can establish a plan of attack. Thanks for your prompt response, and I look forward to seeing more great inspiration from you. #4_Ever_4_Track

[@michaelrasmussen5158]

Very good song, nice and simple elements. Also impressive In this day of short loops that you probably recorded the guitar part all the way through :) I also have the M12 and patchbay for effects, but struggle with the aux send. To start I did the reverse DI box thing but got too much noise, then got a mono reamp box and now only get a hi pitched squeal. Can you tell me about other settings between the aux and return; like do you press the sub button on incoming or outgoing track, how about aux levels, and are all your patch cables balanced?

[@4Ever4Track]

Thanks and yes, I only record full takes of the instruments - which is why you can hear some mistakes (my goal is "good enough", not perfection). Anyway, my patchbay is balanced, but I still connect all the unbalanced guitar pedals to it. I haven't had a problem with it. I have a TRS cable coming out of an Aux send on the M12 going into the reamp where it gets converted for impedance and from balanced to unbalanced. Then a TS (standard guitar cable) comes out of the reamp into a jack on the patchbay which I can then access from the front of the bay and connect whatever chain of effects I want. The effects pedals are also connected to the bay, so it's a short jumper from the out (top bay jack) of the reamp to the in of the effect (bottom bay jack). The bay then has a jack heading back to channel 7/8 on the M12 where I sometimes eq to reduce some lows using the low shelf. I have noticed that the more connections the signal goes through the more noise it can create, so I always try to go as direct as possible.

[@lawrencerasmus]

Sounds good on my phone , guitar perfect , voice needs a little less reverb and more highs but just my 2 cents, I ain't nobody🤔

[@4Ever4Track]

Thanks man. I confess to using reverb more as an instrument and audible effect vs. a "sweetner." I mean, for me, I want to hear the reverb. I know a lot of people don't agree with that, but it's all good.

[@artspiritfineartstudiogall9672]

Great Stuff! Love the songs and you're very clear in the way you teach and describe. The Model 12 is my favorite mixer so far and I'm starting to understand (most of it) now thanks to videos like yours and a lot of experimentation...I got so tired of staring at a computer screen and I agree its nice to have limitations (as you mentioned) like this in music. Any tips on using a patch-bay? I feel like it would be super helpful but I cant quite wrap my head around it even after some research. Also do you use the onboard compression ( top knobs) on the model 12, along with the hardware compressors?

[@late4suppa1]

I'm thinking about buying a rack mountable Marantz PMD 300CP dual cassette deck to record to. Does that sound like a workable plan? I'm thinking of recording everything on my Mixer, sending it tape and from tape to final mastering in DAW.

[@late4suppa1]

Hey, is there anyway to get the effects from the actual unit to record? I love the way my mix sounds in the headphone and wish I could just record that. Just bought the Tascam 12, love it! Great job by the way! I record to a DAW but go through this mixer a Pro VLA compressor and a Neve Style Pre Amp. I don't care what anyone say recording straight into a DAW sounds like ass. Any help you could give me learning my board would be much appreciated.

[@4Ever4Track]

I’m pretty sure the Internal FX on the model 12 record to the SD card on the main mix (11/12). You could set your levels, then don’t arm any tracks for recording and set them all the MTR. Press record and that will send your mix to 11/12 on the SD card. Then, either import 11/12 to you daw or export the stereo mix to a single wav file, then import that to your daw.

[@late4suppa1]

@@4Ever4Track Cool Man, I'm waiting for my SD Card now. I have yet to find a reverb in a DAW that doesn't sound like shit! Even if I could just start with light effects to worm up the overall mix that would be great.

[@late4suppa1]

When I play back through the DAW in channels 1 and 2 I can apply effects and it sounds great. My vocal chain goes through 3 and 4. Wondering how I can set up my additional channel strip and compressor to effect the recording on playback? The DAW has complicated way of doing it, but I've been thinking it would be awesome once I get my card to mix with only outboard gear and send it to the DAW when I'm ready for my final mix. So it was great finding your video. I think half of these plug ins are shit and the other half only somewhat effective. So I guess I'm thinking of using my DAW the way your using your cassette. It looks like you're recording to tape then bouncing back to the Tascam 12? Whatever you're doing it fucking sounds AWESOME!

[@4Ever4Track]

Thanks man. Here’s my suggestion - have your daw send the main mix back to channels 9/10 on the model 12. Then run your vocals through 1 or 2 and use the inserts to connect your compressors and whatever other gear you want. Or, connect your outboard gear to the Aux sends and return them to 1 or 2 open channels on the board. I kinda hated that the daw played back on 1 and 2 where the only two inserts are on the mixer.

[@late4suppa1]

@@4Ever4Track So reroute my DAW so it sends the main output to 9/10 then plug my out from my compressor which is at the end of my vocal chain into the inserts on those channels?

[@spurv]

Fantastic. I'm contemplating buying a 4-track. Have an eye on the 246. Difficult to find one in good condition, that doesn't cost you an arm or a leg, though. Do you have any experience with the 244 or 144? Is Fostex any good?

[@4Ever4Track]

Yeah, sellers have realized that people are getting back into four tracks so they are asking crazy money for them. I haven’t used the 244, but I think it’s the same as the 246 minus channels 5 & 6. For me the point of getting one is to record analog to tape and ditch the computer. In that sense, I’d say get the one you can afford and get to recording! Don’t stress for days online looking - those are days you could be making music. Good luck!