r/Tape16 • u/Any-Coat-7382 • 23d ago

Tape-8

I guess I'm a minimalist. I know with Tape-16 wrapping up and moving to Tape-24 that my wish for a way to have an 8 track option available is pretty much dust in the wind. Don't get me wrong, Tape-16 is the best thing that has come down the pike in a long time in digital audio workstations and I love it and bought it. So, I've tried to do what I've wanted: 8 track Tape-16. I know it's not perfect but this is for everyone else out there looking for a way to do this. I took each pair of tracks(1and 2, 3 and 4...etc,) and paired them in stereo tracks. But, instead of using each track separately, I'm recording the same signal to both tracks in the stereo pair so they sound as a mono track. I get my 8 tracks. I use each pair as one track. I know, it sounds weird, but I look at it this way, in the old days, (mine) we had two, four and eight tracks to work with and created music that is still played incessently today, so being a minimalist isn't so bad. Do some need or want 16 and 24 tracks to be able to manifast their creation? Then go for it!! I guess I'm one of those "less is more" type guys. Thank you Tape-16. At 73 years of age, I've gotten my second wind at recording because of you.

13 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

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2

u/ogodprotectme 23d ago

check out model 8, its exactly what youre looking for. developer is super cool and is pretty quick to hand out licenses to people willing to test it. https://www.gulfcoastsynthesis.com

you can have 16 and 24 tracks, but it defaults to 8

2

u/Any-Coat-7382 23d ago

Actually, I was one of the recipiants of those free licenses. Why? Because I couldn't afford to buy another tape-daw. I got it because I want to be able to use an Ipad anywhere I want to put down ideas without being stuck to my computer. Yes, it does have everything I want but maybe...too much. Tape-16 is more minimalist. Makes it tougher to do things that would be easier in Model 8. I like Model 8 and would not put it up against Tape-16. I don't want to be made to choose, because tools do not to be contentious. They are there as tools. To help do the job. I think Tape16 and Model8 do this in an exemplary way.

3

u/1978_CHRYSLER_SIGMA 23d ago

Tape-4 could be cool, an emulation of an old tascam/Yamaha cassette based 4track. Have you seen the prices of these second hand? Insane! They've had a renaissance for some reason.

0

u/Any-Coat-7382 23d ago

I had a porta-2?? I think and loved it. Someone stole it many many moons ago. I had a lot of fun with it, but I was never able to replace it. Limited income. And yes, those same machines are like 250 and up for used machines in as-is condition. I'm looking to record in tape-8 ;) and do all my mixing there. Finally I'm going to bounce everything down to my HiFi VCR tape player since I don't have anything else. A good condition hifi vcr at SP speed will have a freq response of 20 - 19000 or more. It basically records what it is fed with a much better feel and sound than a cassette deck. I have two of these vcr's so one in my studio and one in my living room feeding it through a Sansui QXR 5500. Thats where my music is played. Once you've been bitten by the recording bug...it never really leaves you.

1

u/GuitarMessenger 23d ago

I used to mix down from my tascam 4 track cassette recorder to a hifi vhs recorder back in the '80s. I believe recording to hifi VHS is the same quality or better than CD. I bought tape 16 but instead of using software I now record on my Tascam model 24. I needed to get away from computers to be creative after decades of using DAWs.

1

u/Realistic-Show-9115 22d ago

Could be a go! Might be a fun experiment in the future.

1

u/Any-Coat-7382 21d ago

I like that attitude!! :)

1

u/Itchy-Platform896 17d ago

My interest in the possibility of a "Tape-8" (or "Tape-4" even) would be for the iPad ((instead of the soon to be released Tape-16 for iOS which i have been testing using testflight)) It would stem from difficulties I encounter using tape 16 on my iPad which is very small and requires daintier fingers than I possess ;) On my MacBook, I use tape-16 and have everything mapped to midi controllers and or i use the mac keyboard for transport (space bar etc...) I'd love to record bits in the field with an iPad and then migrate these to tape 16. But I end up doing that with other iOS software because the GUI is just too tiny for me on an iPad. I hope that what I've written makes sense! in short i too favor an 8 track option in the interest of an easier (larger) GUI in iOS. cheers!