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.

[@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

[@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!

[@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.

[@lamusicamees424]

At 8.44mins you literally describe how 10cc created the beautiful sounds to Im Not In Love by recording / looping single note 'Aahhhhhhhs' on about 16 tracks all at different pitches and then 'played the faders' like a keyboard to create chords like a massive Mellotron. Thanks again for posting. Brilliant stuff.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@lamusicamees424]

I used to love flipping the tape over after recording a guitar part and adding reverb to anothr track. Then flipping the tape over again and getting that 'preverb' sound arriving before the notes. Man this video brings back soooo many memories from 35 years ago in my tiny flat in Dartford, learning how to eke the most out of six tracks, dreaming of being the next Mike Oldfield or Jean Michel Jarre. Nowadays i cant even afford to look at adverts for my old Korg MS10 or Monopoly! Let alone buy them back again.😅

[@jokerfleckcast3196]

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

[@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!

[@lamusicamees424]

​@@AlexBallMusicand on THAT bombshell..... goodnight!

[@dairehackett6336]

The fader jam was 👌

[@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

[@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

[@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!

[@lamusicamees424]

OK. Green with envy now. My old 6 tracks sit in my garage waiting for the day I buy another one and play them back in all their shockingly young untalentedness.😅

[@lamusicamees424]

Wow! I had a WSX-1. Bought it in 1990 from Lee Green Music in South London with an Roland R5 and an Yamaha SY55. It was brilliant! Ive still gotnall my orignal 6 tracks in the garage haha. The sole UK importer went bust in about 1993, began with a P as I recall so they became quite rare. (Poly something?) I liked the reverb and the delays, very simple but really clear and good quality. TDK-AD60 was my weapon or choice! Haha. Good times. It was stolen in 1998. Still wish i had it to listen to my old fledgeling noodling and it was my first multitracker too so it was tough losing it. I remember Adamski had the separate mixer on Top of the Pops in 1991 with Killer, and I was chuffed. Thanks sooo much for this upload. Really surprised to see this on youtube.

[@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.

[@kjensen7247]

Funny 😃 I sold this tape recorder in that Music shop i worked in 🎹🎶

[@Gunstone1980]

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

[@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.

[@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. 😍

[@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. ❤

[@lamusicamees424]

If you ever think of selling it or hiring it out I'd be interested.

[@MrmelodyUs]

I have one! Very clean sound!

[@brettlarson3504]

Wow, the track at 9:50 is really gorgeous

[@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.

[@nicks.8003]

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

[@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.

[@patrickp.1998]

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

[@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

[@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.

[@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.

[@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..

[@NewBritainStation]

This was what I bought back in ‘88. Six tracks instead of the four that others offered, and the heads were inline so you could easily do reverse effects. My buddy and I showed it so some friends and they ended up buying the rack version. I still need to pick one up again to digitize our old multitracks.

[@jjlaceyofficial]

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.

[@ArturdeSousaRocha]

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

[@althejazzman]

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

[@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. 😂

[@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.

[@psychotoddler2149]

Holy crap I still have this!

[@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! ❤

[@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.

[@arturosilvester1930]

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

[@psyl0q]

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

[@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 :)

[@stevenparry83]

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

[@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.

[@kyleeddy7033]

I loved watching this. What a setup you have!

[@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.

[@lamusicamees424]

If I recall from 35yrs ago, you can bounce the six tracks to the two tracks master deck on the right with one button. Then you could bounce it back to two of the tracks on the left deck. Definitely 6 to 2 as it was sold as a master deck on the right with Dolby C. Maybe not 2 to 6, I'm too old to remember haha. In the end to preserve quality I bought a portable Aiwa DAT and went 6 to 2 but to the DAT and then DAT to tracks 1 and 2 and built layers up. It was a reasonable way of keeping the hiss down etc. But went through cassettes like they were going out of fashion. Note: they went out of fashion😅. The bouncing within the 6 track was done with dedicated busses as I recall and the quality was really good. It was a really good machine and I was overjoyed to be able to lay multiple tracks down. It was £1200 in summer 1990.

[@AsteroidKiller]

It definitely has a vibe! 🙌

[@IrnBruNYC]

"Performing with the faders" is a technique pioneered by 10cc on their song "I'm Not In Love"

[@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.

[@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!

[@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.

[@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!

[@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!

[@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!

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@mbrombert]

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

[@korolchukpp]

Wow! This awesome!

[@vikingsofvintageaudio7470]

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

[@jbu999]

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

[@reel_images]

Awesome stereo splitting and panning on the synth.

The 'use it as an instrument' jam is brilliant

[@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!

[@WorksopGimp]

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

[@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.

[@recycology5468]

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

[@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

[@MadeOnTape]

Alex! I didn't know your channel until you posted this in the multitrack cassette group.... stoked to check out your other vids, and this is awesome and you cover so many of the fun aspects of cassette recording 🙏 🙌🏻

[@AlexBallMusic]

Cheers! Although I spent a good 4 years recording on tape before I ever experienced a DAW, I've ironically not made a video about it, despite making videos about all sorts of other vintage things. I'm hoping to get a reel to reel too so I can revisit that.

[@MadeOnTape]

@@AlexBallMusic 🙌🏻

[@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. 😂

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@paulmehlhaff2588]

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

[@nicok5630]

Nice to see Cubase as the DAW. About to bid on a WSX1 - wish me luck.

[@AlexBallMusic]

Cubase for life. WS-X1 - good luck!

[@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.

[@TronDawg]

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

[@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.

[@sub-jec-tiv]

Cool J-guitar 🤘 Had the Sansui mixer that went along with the 6 track you have. I made a ton of music on it, with an ADAT. Sounded great! I liked the look, too.

[@donwrangler]

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

[@AlexBallMusic]

Thanks Don!

[@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.

[@aSaDitTy]

That unit sounds awesome, man.

[@AlexBallMusic]

The right kind of wrong.

[@DerDanko]

"6 tracks! We were lucky to have 4! We used to record in one room, all twenty-six of us, no Lexicons, half the floor was missing, and we were all huddled together in one corner next to the single microphone." That Sansui was a bit of a bastard, because prior to it you had to utilise a lot of nifty production tricks working with 4 tracks which was the bedroom home studio standard for a long time. After the Sansui, you had units like the Tascam Portastudio 688 MTR and the likes, with 8 (!) tracks. I truly enjoy all your videos, however I would probably have been more keen to watch you vs Tascam Portastudio 244 since a lot of what you do is demonstrating production techniques.

[@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 :/

[@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.

[@GlasTaibhse]

I used to have one of those units! Amazing little (okay, maybe not so little) machine, and the built-in reverb on it was something special. Mine started having problems where moving the faders at all would cause a horrible distorted sound that wouldn't go away. Deck B never worked for me, but I had loads of fun making demos on it in the years I had it using just DeckA. This vid made me kind of bummed that I sold mine, I should have had it serviced or something!!

[@NOLNV1]

Radioland feel on that live dialed Trident track! Love it

[@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!

[@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.

[@marcovoltage]

That was a really nice performance. I love it

[@angermanagementstudios]

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

[@talshayar4279]

I believe this unit was designed to be used exclusively with type II cassettes and you're using a type I. This explains the loss of high frequency information on playback as the tape is being over-biased and EQ'd for a different tape formulation.

[@mbgames73]

You can also record onto tracks 3 and 4 .at same time ... then flip the tape over and they play backwards on 1 and 2 ..cool Beatles vibes. Loved my old 4 track.

[@75jblue]

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

[@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

[@jairkerker2821]

I liked how you could record drum sounds (or a guitar solo or..), turn the tape around and record the reverb. Loved those reversed reverbs you can get out of it.

[@AlexBallMusic]

Great idea!

[@retro2409]

I’ve always thought about getting this machine, it’s one of the cleaner looking of the tape recorders. I’ve used an mt8x as my current workhorse with a mt400 being my last one.