Recording Songs on Only 4 Tracks

When a musician wants to record a song they wrote, but they can't afford a studio, what do they do? Buy a 4 track! Considering that most popular music was and is recorded on at least 24 tracks, or more, 4 tracks is quite limited. In this video, we'll talk about what tracks are, why more it better, and how one might get by only using 4 tracks.
Some tunes of mine: / user-551461074
CraigTubeMusic: / craigtubemusic

[@mikeshores8318]

I think every musician should hear this. How recording used to be. Thank you for this .

[@dannydaniel1234]

Digital sucks, I'd rather record to the 4 track cassette machine

[@MrMissingReel]

You are a very talented and loveable guy....damn... .you're recordings should have been Hits back in the 80's....great tunes and most of all....great voice 👍🏻

[@27clubband74]

SHOULD HAVE BEEN HIT TODAY OR ANY TIME , MUSIC IS AGELESS

[@edbaiza7757]

This video was very Informative and this guy is very talented, indeed his music would have worked today and been hits!!!

[@Bwyan]

Glad to have you back Craig. I always enjoy your videos.

[@brianstalter6569]

I am not in the music production business but I find this information fun and interesting.

[@MaxxUrban]

As always, very interesting, very detailed and very informative! Thank you for continuing to educate and immerse us in the amazing world of music and technology.

[@franciscoescobedo9699]

Thank you very much for sharing your acknowledge of recording on 4 tracks and vcr, you are a great person and very gifted musician thanks God for give your talent God bless you more

[@andypomeroy7447]

Craig, Thanks for the walk down memory lane! I bought my first Tascam 4 track in '87. I used the Roland TR505 drum machine. I recall the Tascam could record to a channel and bounce at the same time so we could get 4 parts to track 4, 3 parts to track 3, 2 parts to track 2 and 1 part to track 1. Then we coupled to another 4 tracker and bounced from recorder to recorder. It was awesome. We could get so many parts tracked between two machines. A great technique to get lots of vocal tracks. We had to know our parts. We made sure rehearse the music and play precisely because re-recording a part was so time consuming. The 4 trackers really helped refine our musicianship. These machines made great sounding demos to give to bar owners on cassette. They helped book a lot of gigs.

[@geogoga]

Beautiful! Well done, Sir! I couldn't say it better... Back then, we didn't have many options for recordings... And your recordings sounds imazing! And they are very beautiful too! Wow!

[@gm3153]

Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Your music is so good!!:)

[@JasonMcFly]

Awesome little history lesson. And man, your music is impressive!

[@warsocki]

Great job. I particularly liked how you brought the VHS into the mix. The recordings sound great.

[@chrisrocca8247]

This is great. Thank you sir

[@spiderfingers2005]

Great stuff!

[@bravinneff1]

Dayum, that was recorded and mixed on 4 track?!

[@Drumsdude123]

Wow! Amazing sound!

[@spirospandis]

Fantastic !!!

[@nicolecapriani5918]

Loved your song sir!

[@alpha8299]

Very interesting video irs a lot of fun and very informative I really enjoy your videos for this reason

[@paulfitzgerald4933]

This such a great video. The quality you got out of this recorder is insane. so much less faith in it and so much fear I'd lose quality by bouncing track to track. You really had a knack for songwriting, structure and mixing. Especially having it sound that good in headphones. Which all of us fear mixing in headphones.. I had this recorder and never imagined it could have the quality you got out of it. I got it in 1988, and i was about 20. Before having a 4 track I would pingpong between VHS decks. I also used to use VHS hi-fi to master from 4 tracks and then one day a friend gave me a reel to reel. Akai GH-440D. this even had a teac AN-60 "Dolby" noise reduction box that you would record through to encode the music for nose reduction and play it back through post tape. So I'd try mastering up to that. This was also the point in time I was lusting a CD burner. I had a midi studio with sound modules, sequencers and drum machines. So I was often using that SMPTE input to put the time code stripe for my analog tracks to follow. Then I stayed mainly instrumentalist, not singing and moved beyond the 4track. I migrated to having 5 sound modules and using a parallel port 8 in/out midi interface with a rack of modules and some outboard synths. So glad I found your video!

[@crazyfooldetectorist6528]

Interesting video Craig and thank you for sharing. I've always wondered how those machines worked.

[@andrewmobley1818]

Craig, that was an amazing video on your old recordings. Loved the sound. Just like a vinyl record sound. Analog tape saturation and compression was king back then . 🎶🎵🎧🙏❗💯🔥👍

[@ford1546]

very interesting to hear you tell about this!

[@Divadisco]

Very interesting, thank you. I like the first song! Cheers from France

[@olebjrklund8648]

Great video Craig, It shows that with a bit of ingenuity you can utilize a tool for more than it was originally meant for :D Cool to see some of the old equipment and how it was used. Best regards to you and your family.

[@Livewire91]

Thanks Craig! I think your songs sounded great which you had recorded on that machine.

[@thinlizzysupporter]

Great to see you back Craig. I used exactly the same techniques back in the late 80’s, in my case I used a Yamaha MT3X 4 track cassette machine (which I still have) in conjunction with a HiFi VCR and the results were pretty good for the day. I recorded live drums, which was a challenge in a bedroom, using around 4 mics and a PZM mic (remember them ?). Happy days ! Look forward to the next video, keep well 👍🏻🤘🏻

[@thinlizzysupporter]

It's all coming back to me know ...... I remember recording 10 tracks, 1 2 3 and 4 on 4 track, record to VCR with a live 5th track. Then record VCR back to 4 tracks, add tracks 6 and 7 and record to VCR with a live 8th track. Record that back to 4 track and add tracks 9 and 10. You could add an 11th track if you recorded something live when mastering the final mix ! As you said the VCR audio was so good the degradation in sound quality was minimised, especially when running the 4 track at double speed. Plus you had 2 intermediate mixes on VCR tape that you could always go back to if you wanted to change something. I used to really love recording that way.

[@VinylTV33]

This sounds VERY familiar. And we figured this out all on our own!

[@dweingast]

Not too bad >>. ?? Cmon man, give yourself a LOT more credit. Your song at the six minute mark is really really excellent man, LOVE the 80s feel you captured, great singing and cool recording. shoulda been on the radio. !!

[@jehdbrbjeirodofjdjebeebbsnaka]

I was taken aback when you played that song. It’s pretty impressive that you were able to not only write music that sounded good, but were able to get the recorder to reflect that quality.

[@Ti-Guy66]

Excellent video

[@Truth-will-set-you-free]

Very fascinating and informative

[@martinlong5669]

Great tutorial, thank you Sir!! I loved the mad scientist feelings my old Tascam 414 portastudio gave me. These days I record into a digital 8 track recorder before copying the wav files into protools to edit/mix. But I still use a similar approach that I'd use with the 4 track. I still bounce tracks to capture those spontaneous decisions (and keep forgetting to switch out of bounce mode before moving on 😂). When I'm really looking to go down the rabbit hole I'll use a minidisc field recorder (recording a track, swapping discs with a portable player and feeding it back in to a channel so I can overdub on the other. Sometimes incorporating a mixer, fx pedals and lots of different coloured patch leads) I found going directly into protools made me want to skip straight to edit/mix and it killed my enthusiasm

[@THTSound]

Wow, the demo song is amazing!!!!

[@absolving]

Really enjoyed this video

[@gwugluud]

I remember I paid $800 for a Teac 144, USED, back in 1981. That was a LOT of money then. Took months of saving from flipping burgers, lol. But at least multitracking became reachable to the average person, which I think is really radical. It was fun, recording our weird, 3 chord punk rock, and stupid experimental stuff, there was this crazy band called Throbbing Gristle we were into, lol.

[@jaymiepobanz8801]

Wifes name and pic. Mark here. Hey Craig great to see you. Welcome back. This video is so interesting and answered many questions I've always wondered about. You rock.

[@BadPenny]

Amazing skill with the 4 track. It sounds great

[@beerme_2]

Very interesting listening to you describe how this works.. Thanks for the video.. Stay safe..

[@spooktasticaparanormal]

Hi Craig, I so enjoyed this video. Wow you can sing great and your a very talented man. Kind regards. Paul, a new subscriber.

[@teddy3k3]

The abbey road engineers chained tape machines together in the early days too iirc. They had to chain 2 reel to reel recorders just for a 4 track lol. The idea of using VHS hifi to bounce to is pretty ingenious at the time, as everytime you bounce, the quality lessens but the loss is minimal with VHS hifi. I am loving the 4 track i just fixed up and am bouncing it to digital brfore bringing it back to tape.

[@mrmusdtard2]

Wow and a standing Ovation to you my friend ,but i am surprised ,because i hate Digital it lacks every thing i like about music ,even the younger generation are waking up and cant get enough of old vinyl records and tapes ,music that used to rattle the windows and came thundering out and you could feel it in your chest ,oh the joy at having to rewind the tape a few times to stop it sticking after leaving it in a red hot glove compartment in my fathers old car ,and the scratches on the old records that was music to my ears ,this has been a treat my friend ,Brian

[@beatleman69]

That was very informative, thanks for making this video. The Beatles recorded Sgt Pepper on a 4 track machine with a lot of instruments and vocals on each track. Your music sounds really good!!

[@RichGoyetteMusic]

Awesome

[@davidreidy5750]

Still using old Tascam portastudio's to record my music.Its hands on old school that takes me back to the 80s and I just a plain tape head really.Nice work by the way,subbed!!🤖🎛️📼

[@theguvnor2081]

The good old days. You were lucky to be able to afford a Portastudio. We used to have to bounce between two cheap stereo tape decks, which was good in that we recorded every track in stereo, but bad because each bounce introduced hiss and, because there was no pitch control on the decks, we had to re-tune the instruments between each track bounce.

[@stephencostello1296]

Great stuff buddy and I reckon you know your stuff . Cassettes in the day was what was there and a few constructive arguments would be happening in the studio 😂. I've got myself a Zoom R24 but record through the desk ,, old fashion way and can get some raw sounds with out over the top production. Thankyou so much for sharing your experiences with us and what an insight to the VHS recording side of things. By the way,, your music is very cool,, very cool indeedy. Cheers to you and take care out there my good man. 👍

[@igor_timofeev]

Cool, love this old stuff. I've got myself Fostex X-26 and Tascam 414 mk2 for toying with )))

[@35o125]

great story. thanks!

[@markitux]

5:55 OMG well done, sr!

[@ConsoleGlow]

Cool songs

[@GeoNeilUK]

Recording on 4 tracks makes me immeddiately think of the Amstrad Studio 100. A low end consumer Hi-Fi (because it was Amstrad) that came with a *FOUR TRRACK RECODRING STUDIO!!* I showed it to Ben Minotte of Oddity Archive fame and he posted a reply saying that if this was available to him as a kid, he'd have so wanted one! I have a feeling that if he were to ever move to the UK (or Ireland) the first thing he'd do is go on Gumtree looking for Amstrad Studio 100 and the first video he'd make (before a video on Television or Schools and Colleges) would be a Ben's Junk on that Amstrad!

[@VinylTV33]

That Amstrad looks amazing!

[@peter_aka_hamamass]

Goodmorning from Amsterdam ✌️✌️

[@ozzmannsanchez6180]

Perfecto!

[@richardmorgan1588]

I started recording my own songs on very primitive tape recorders at first with no direct connections and the sound quality was awful but I kept most of those recordings anyway to remind myself how far I’ve come. My first stereo recordings were done with a used 4 track cassette Tascam “Porta Studio” I think it was called. My best sounding stuff was with a Tascam 8 track digital unit with onboard CD recorder. I still have that deck and it still has my songs on it though I never use it anymore. I’ve recorded a few things on my Mac with LPX and those tools are nice but I have yet to make anything which sounds as good as what I recorded on that Tascam! I never went commercial with any of my material. Never could focus long enough and jobs got in the way but some folks like it and that’s good enough!

[@mikeroadblock]

Nice!!!

[@callmebigpapa]

Song was great, like it was made to be in a John Hughes film!

[@JacobMcCaslin]

That song sounded excellent!!

[@johnb9507]

I also had one of those Fostex 160s and in addition to bouncing tracks 1, 2 & 3 to 4, you could also plug another live source into track 4 and record that along with the bouncing, giving you a total of 4 sources on track 4. All in all I could record up to 10 sources in a song with that.

[@collinscassel]

Wow I really enjoyed your video. I am very impressed with both your 4track recordings as well the music writing and arranging. Better than most pro recording of the decade. I love your VHS trick. I used to call those the poor mans DAT machine. I am curious of what you used for fx

[@koyaanisqatsi316]

In 1981 Technics had a (pre Dat-) recorder that also used VHS cassettes. It was called the SV-P100 but that one wasn't for the poor man.

[@gforce7four]

Great stuff, and with all due respect you didnt miss out on anything digital wise. Those portable hard disk recorders sucked imo. I also had that handheld zoom recorder, fine for a live band recording or digital captures that's about it. Neither of those had the magic and mojo of a 4 track cassette recorder. Ive owned them all. Daws are great nowadays, I absolutely use mine, but can be boring despite having unlimited tracks. There is still something special about having certain limitations that help one focus more on songwriting as well as force you to be more creative and think outside the box just as you did. Wonderful job.

[@Synthematix]

What a voice crikey i thought i was listening to Hall & Oates!

[@scottspinner1]

Very interesting

[@wilcalint]

A couple NAB Shows ago I cornered a Dolby Engineer and pressed him to share with me how many discreet channels they can squeeze into a Cinema Atmos install. He said there's format and space for 64-channels but the biggest they had implemented at the time was 32.

[@gwugluud]

I still have a Yamaha MT120 4 track cassette which works perfectly. Yamaha made tight stuff.. It bounces tracks the best of any 4 track I've ever had. I use DAWs now, but I still use that, just because it's fun.

[@johnb9507]

The Roland VS series of digital workstations in the 90s were nifty machines. Expensive, but nifty.

[@koyaanisqatsi316]

18:26 You looked like Lord Flashheart in the series Blackadder II 😁👍.

[@dorelgogu8631]

You're such a nice guy! Keep it up!

[@adamproductions4529]

I found one of these in my garage

[@jdsgotninelives]

So fascinating. As far as I'm concerned, your 4 track cassette compositions sound crisp and fresh. So that I've got this right in my mind's eye, you were actually able to listen to the recorded channels of the cassette and record on any vacant channels, simultaneously? My apologies if I seem a bit confused on that point. Thanks for sharing and it's good to see fresh content from you again. 🙂

[@VinylTV33]

Yes you are correct :D

[@jdsgotninelives]

@@VinylTV33 Thanks for clarifying. Good ol' analog 🙂

[@dweingast]

I had the exact same four track fostex tape recorder cassette. Then i got a fostex eight track reel to reel. Then a tascam eight track reel to reel. Then an MCI 2" 24 track. Then protools. The best of them all ? The 2" 24 track. cannot beat that sound

[@youngjedi2932]

Great songs by the way, but bro, how did u align the mix if some of the instruments was done at separate times?*

[@cedrickjmackniddle3861]

Great video....I still love cassettes

[@HANGNAIL]

Wow, didn't expect to hear such an awesome sound from that! I am truly surprised, Craig. You are a really good songwriter! That was all you? Can you tell me what went into that recording? Cheers! ☺ PS - I've been recording since the Tascam days, too. Ive had a few 4-track machines in my day. I wish I still had them.

[@VinylTV33]

Hey! Both songs have different keyboards in them, one is a Korg M1, and the other uses a Roland U220 Module. Bass was done off the keyboards. Drums were from various sources, including Roland TR-707, and int internal samples in the keyboards. I think I sampled a snare drum from a jon secada tune called "Just Another Day". I start with programming the drums. Then I record them on a track 1 with added effects. From there I can't remember, but I may have used the built in sequencer in the M1, but the Roland didn't have one. Also had an Atari 520 MIDI workstation, so i was able to play my parts, make any edits, then lay them down on tape, one track at a time. Keyboards, bass, synths etc. Bounce to VHS Hi FI, and then back to 2 tracks. Then vocals. In one, I layered three vocals by bouncing one recorded vocal to another track while adding another, then a third on the remaining track. Then I added chorus to those tracks during the mix to make it sound like more voices. Then mixed everything, adding any reverb to selected channels, and recorded to VHS Hi Fi. Hope that's what you were looking for. Cheers!

[@HANGNAIL]

@@VinylTV33 Thanks for the breakdown, Craig! I remember the days of 4-track and what a pain in the neck bouncing was, but you TRULY utilized those techniques to the max. You have a VERY good instinct for mixing and production I see. Glad I found your channel, it's been very helpful! Subbed! ☺

[@Danny085]

Can you explain the specifics of how bouncing is done? I’ve heard of it before, but I can’t quite understand how it’s done, meaning the actual steps to do it.

[@VinylTV33]

Basically, you play back the three tracks, and there's a button on each track that tells it what to record... input, or what's being heard. So on track 4, you set that button to "what's being heard", set it to record, and it records the other tracks that are being heard.

[@mileseyre1636]

I’ve just bought one these foster 160 multi trackers but I’m struggling to record anything at the moment, even with the manual. Any help on how to record is much appreciated

[@musicmurf]

I still have my Fostex

[@ronanzann4851]

what in the world!!!!!

[@benjaminedwards9751]

What gear did you use for effects when you were recording on 4-track?

[@gaetanpelletier3390]

That is what I would like to know too. I got a tascam 414 ( paid 100$, Like New) but I have to find an echo chamber, or something for effects. Just for the pleasure of manipulate it, play with it. I got a pedal effects for guitars with room, Hall, and so on... I will probably use it. I bought a studio for a computer. But when I registered a song, I did not like it. It was horrible.

[@user-lu4xw6lp5e]

What's the name of the song in 5:55 ?😀

[@27clubband74]

Hello, Please answer my question : If I'm recording on this Fostex 160 and I make a mistake with the vocals or guitar, do I have to record everything again? Or is it allowed to re-record only the part I made mistakes?

[@3dsmaxrocks699]

You can re-record the separate parts individually. 1 track can be vocals 1 track can be guitar etc. You can also later bounce separate tracks over to 1 track. You can't keep bouncing forever though because quality will decrease.

[@dannydaniel8975]

I'll take the 4 track and a neve 1073 mic pre amp over a cold sounding pro tools rig with fake tape emulations any day of the week

[@erikarabie]

These things are way too expensive now

[@troyarmatti7167]

Very informative video. Good to see you back. Try cool edit pro.

[@futureshock7425]

Didn’t the Beatles only use 4 tracks? When they started out?

[@diane1736]

the first two albums were recorded on two track recorders, then eventually started recording on four tracks, then would start going to different studios to use the new technology that was eight tracks

[@gianlusc]

Maybe digital has less limitations, but there is nothing sexy about a mouse click

[@truthfinder4973]

tascam got new tech out that is like the old days butt its sd card it is tascam model 12,16, or 24 fx just reverb its can record all tracks same time, also can be used as a interface. butt i other work the old ways butt the truth is stand alone recorders are a match to each other. it the computer that change the sound case it slice and chop the sound then give it a number and tell what it hear's. what we hear and a computer does not match.

[@zachary_attackery]

What is the actual process for bouncing multiple tracks onto one track? I never understood how that works

[@burtreynolds2969]

Record your instruments on tracks 1,2,3. Get the levels set just right. Turn the pan knob on each of those tracks to the far right. Arm track 4 to record. Then playback tracks 1,2 and 3 while track 4 is recording.

[@VinylTV33]

What Burt said

[@dannydaniel1234]

Digital sucks.....stick to the 4 track....

[@meanderer06513]

you have the actual device in your hands, but you show a screen cap from eBay when you play your track...what the hell? Skipping the rest of the video. I'm outta here.

[@gwugluud]

I've never seen that model you have before. It looks really sleek.