Back in '93 I recorded some songs at a studio on what I'm almost sure was a Tascam 688 MidiStudio 8-track Cassette Recorder. I still have the masters but cannot find an analog 8 track mixer to rent (only a 4 track). I do not want to buy one for just a couple of songs.
My questions are:
Can I get a player that will play the master and send it to a digital mixer that I can rent?
Also, how would I get the mixed product onto CD?
Please Help.
Comments
I'd try Ebay for locating a 688, and Craigslist (in the "Looking
I'd try Ebay for locating a 688, and Craigslist (in the "Looking to Buy" section, or whatever it's called there).
Also try Steve at Sonicraft.com to see if they can give you any ideas on where to find one. They just might have one around, and they'd be a good place to consider for transfers; much better than doing it yourself. (Note: Even if you do find one, it sounds like you may need as many as 8 independent inputs on your computer to transfer the tracks; certainly at least two, if these are already mixed down to stereo.)
Once you have the raw tracks transferred onto digital (WAV) files, you'll then need a good MAC or PC based mixing software program. Again, you can do it yourself, or hire someone to do this for you. You'll no doubt want to work on removing hiss, low end (80Hz) rumble, wow and flutter, cross talk, etc. The pristine nature of digital recording is probably going to shock the heck out of you once you hear those tracks again, after all these years.
Putting them onto CD is the last step, and once you get that far, it's a breeze by comparison.
The 688 was around for about three weeks - I feel for you. You'
The 688 was around for about three weeks - I feel for you. You'd really need to find one of those.
The CD part is fairly easy - Assuming it's just for personal listening use, there are probably apps built-in to Windows, or certainly software bundled with almost any CD burner that will allow you to burn WAV files to a disc as CD-Audio.