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Well, I have a Korg Analog 4-track and I can fill up all four tracks and playback what I just recorded and all four will play, but if I take the tape out of the machine and put it into my home stereo for example only the first 2 tracks will play. and if you flip the tape over to the other side you can hear the last 2 tracks being played but in reverse. so the question I have is how to get all for tracks to play on any stereo or tape player?

I was thinking I could record all four tracks to the computer and then play that 1 track back into the 4-track and record it on either track 1 or 2 seeing as how they played back just fine on the home stereo.

but I don't have any recording software on the computer so I run a cable into the computer and click on the "sound recorder" and it will actually record what I want but it does it in mono : - (. so does anyone know of some free recording software that will record in stereo? or any advice on this situation?

Thanks to anyone that takes the time to reply to me. oh and this is my first post on the site haha.

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Codemonkey Sun, 12/20/2009 - 11:58

Your 4-track is called a 4-track because the tape has 4 tracks on it.

A normal 2-track tape machine won't play back all 4, as you noticed.

Each track has to be dealt with separately, if you use the computer you will get one at most two, regardless of how you hook it up or what software you run.

You could get a mixer with 4 line level (1/4" jack) inputs, and you can mix those down to a single track and run that into the computer: but you can't edit them later on.
Or you could ignore the mixer, and get something like this which has 4 separate inputs. Then you can record all 4 tracks to separate files and edit each/mix them down separately.

Or you could be really low-tech and play your tape 4 times:
The first time, record the left output from the tape machine into the PC (in mono).
The second time, record the right output from the tape machine.
Then swap the tape over, repeat the process for the 3rd and 4th tracks, but after recording them, you can use the free [url=http://audacity.sourceforge.net/]Audacity
to reverse the tracks so they play forwards properly. You could then import all 4 tracks to Audacity, and mix them down.

NB: Audacity will record in stereo but so will Sound Recorder. Your input (probably a pink mic jack?) will probably only record in mono which is why Sound Recorder does too.

anonymous Sun, 12/20/2009 - 14:48

Codemonkey wrote: Your 4-track is called a 4-track because the tape has 4 tracks on it.

A normal 2-track tape machine won't play back all 4, as you noticed.

Each track has to be dealt with separately, if you use the computer you will get one at most two, regardless of how you hook it up or what software you run.

You could get a mixer with 4 line level (1/4" jack) inputs, and you can mix those down to a single track and run that into the computer: but you can't edit them later on.
Or you could ignore the mixer, and get something like this which has 4 separate inputs. Then you can record all 4 tracks to separate files and edit each/mix them down separately.

Or you could be really low-tech and play your tape 4 times:
The first time, record the left output from the tape machine into the PC (in mono).
The second time, record the right output from the tape machine.
Then swap the tape over, repeat the process for the 3rd and 4th tracks, but after recording them, you can use the free [url=http://audacity.sourceforge.net/]Audacity
to reverse the tracks so they play forwards properly. You could then import all 4 tracks to Audacity, and mix them down.

NB: Audacity will record in stereo but so will Sound Recorder. Your input (probably a pink mic jack?) will probably only record in mono which is why Sound Recorder does too.

thanks for responding. well since my last post i've been continuing to think of things and I've already downloaded the audacity program and recorded to it but still the mono problem which thanks to you I now know is my mic jack. mines not pink in reference to the colour haha but it's just the little thing next to the headphone jack right?. so what should i do know like if I can get stereo through the mic jack by changing a setting or how do I go about it? by the way everything is super low tech.

Codemonkey Mon, 12/21/2009 - 03:29

You might be able to get stereo out of it. Somewhere in your audio driver control panel (usually has an icon next to the clock). I can't say for sure if it's doable, usually Audacity will record in stereo where possible.

Not pink... it's probably blue? That would be a line in instead of a mic in jack, which is slightly better news.

If it can work in stereo, you still need to put stereo into it, which depends on what outputs are on the tape machine and what cable you're using.