chipmusic.org is an online community in respect and relation to chip music, art and its parallels.
You are not logged in. Please login or register.
Im looking to buy an old unit to hear my shit thru my mixer and amp, but also one I can record my stuff thru aux connection. All I seem to find online is voice recorders wich even when they got stereo input is microphone, so you mess up your own sound.
Any help would be appreciated fellas
Do you mean a cassette deck, a microcassette deck, an office dictaphone machine, a boom box, or something else?
Guys, I hate you as much as I love you. hahaha.
You're right, I wasnt specific. A cassette player/recorder. I still got a boombox from back in the day but the guy only works on batteries and I can not record stuff with it.
Get one of those desk ones. When I was a kid we had lots of them in schools. They are pretty cheap in the US (i think). Also the ones used with older home computers. Are those the same?
You could get one of the larger handheld ones too. I have seen them here occasionally mixed in with walkmans or walkmen or whatever the plural form is. You could always go for a talkboy. Are these what you meant when you said voice recorders? I thought some had other input. If not, add your own in place of the mic.
Unless you're going for portability, I think you're looking for any cassette deck from a component hi-fi. I had a JVC deck I used for virtually everything since high school, it now has a bent capstan so it won't keep pitch. Avoid auto-reverse because they tend to get head alignment issues more easily and in my experience was the first thing to go wrong on a deck, with problems including playing the same side backwards because the head didn't turn, or the spools not turning correctly ("eating" the tape.)
If it is an issue, I don't know Spanish for it besides grabador but to me that means recorder where if you want what I pictured above you want a deck.
Last edited by chunter (Nov 8, 2013 4:23 am)
If you ARE interested in a portable unit, the Marantz PMD-221 and 222 are good; they have a stereo aux in as well as a decent built-in microphone for field recordings or whatever else. If you don't care about portability or microphones or anything, chunter's suggestion will be the cheapest and best.
TalkBoy
As something of a tape recorder enthusiast I am surprised and delighted to learn that this exists.
For 4-track tape recorders, I'd definitely look out for stuff like Tascam Portastudios, Fostex decks, and Yamaha decks. Tascams have gone up in price over the past few years (used to go for $20 all the time, but anymore $70-$100 is average). Not as many people are looking for Fostex or Yamaha so those tend to be a little cheaper.
As chunter mentioned, if you want nicer recordings go with a hi-fi unit. But if you're into that shitty lo-fi sound a cheapo 4-track will pull that off fine. I'm probably gonna try and find a 4-track one of these days just to overdub tracks with, maybe for droney tape loops, too.
I have Fostex x-28 4-track casette recorder, small and it was cheap. Unfortunately it has no eqalizer on each track (just master equalizer). But great fun to have one of these. You can use it as a mixer too.
that shitty lo-fi sound
them's fighting words.
The mixers in Yamaha 4tracks are good for the price even if you never use the cassette. (No replacement for a Mackie though)
The mixers in Yamaha 4tracks are good for the price even if you never use the cassette. (No replacement for a Mackie though)
+1 ing this, my inherited Yamaha 4track is p rad
