new tascam 424 mkIII -
after a few weeks of looking around on ebay, i finally got a retro analog dream machine. it is arguably the best cassette-based four track ever made. it is a tascam 424 mk3 and it has 4 xlr inputs, great channel strip/eq features and a well designed interface.
the idea behind getting this machine, is to sift through about 20 or so cassettes containing about 5 years worth of demos from the 90's, and eventually emerge from the other side with a finished, coherent set of songs. i listened through several tapes last night, and a lot of them contain multiple versions of recordings, with different lead parts, or set at different tempos. some are nearly complete, some are just rough scattered musical piles of debris.
archived cassettes & gear list -
about 10 years ago, i went through the best material from these cassette and bounced it all down to mp3 files for archiving. i messed around with a few of these in 2001-2002 and used some drum loop ideas here and there, but i've never gone back and re-recorded ideas, and truly fleshed out the tracks.
i'm also really impressed with the fidelity of these cassettes, some of which go back to 1993. the word "warmth" is thrown around a lot in recording/audio communities, but i do notice that the drums/bass/synth parts all sit in the mix so well. maybe it's a psychological effect of the tape hiss, or some relearned aural reaction to having dolby nr engaged. i dunno. but whatever it is, i like it.
from 1994 through the end of the 90's, this is the equipment i used for almost all of these demos. the items in bold, i still have:
acquired between 1988-1995:
1988 pearl drum kit, westone electric bass, cheap electric strat, boss digital delay pedal, acoustic guitar, cheap radioshack mic, audio-technica condenser, roland jx-8p synth, cheap cassette deck, yamaha mt-120 4-track, boss dr. 550 drum machine, art fxr elite processor
acquired 1996-1999:
pg-800 jx-8p programmer, morley amp modeler / di box, sequencing & editing software, kawai k11 synth / controller, alesis sr 16 drum machine, crappy fender strat, moog opus 3, boss gt-5 multi effects, yamaha an1x synthesizer, carvin 500w head, genz benz 4x4 bass cab, samson 16channel mixer
roland jx-8p synthesizer
of all the gear i've used over the past 20 years, the most versatile, and influential is the roland jx-8p synth (pictured above). in the beginning, it allowed me to explore digital / analog synthesis concepts, emulate real instruments, and provided me with huge basses, synth string pads, leads, etc. i'll never part with it. for about 10 years, i used it with the pg-800 programmer, which opened up the programming options exponentially.
phoenix projects
i didn't really do much recording at the end of the 90's as my output diminished around 1998-1999. i did do some recording in 2000, but it wasn't my material - i did some live improv recordings in the summer of 2000 with a crazy trio (in which i played fast improv free jazz, which prepared me for the spots gigs years later).
i also did some demo tracking (mostly playing drum and bass parts) for a pop band i was in. both of these projects were in phoenix, and lasted for most of 2000. in 2001, i got into pro tools more seriously, and worked on several more "edit oriented" demos, until i relocated to birmingham.
early birmingham demos -
upon moving to birmingham, for about the first 6-8 months, i worked on a few electronic demos, that i actually completed, posted, and even managed to get some reviews from some web-based recording publications. these were all done in pro tools or digital performer. that's pretty much where my ideas dried up. next came the ashes, and other projects, and none of that is relevant...
angst / the digital revolution / return to analog -
ever since the soul crushing gauntlet that was the completion / final mixing & mastering of the wiseblood v1 project, i haven't really worked with audio that much at all. the last time i did any audio editing was for a spots recording last spring. before that it was the final remix of hwy for the wiseblood v1 ep. that was probably march 2008.
the further i get from these early demos, the harder it is for me to lock in emotionally to the idea of immersing myself in yet another, ultimately pointless self-indulgent audio project. but i've wanted to finish these demos/songs for years. and hopefully, going into it knowing that it really will be just for me and my own archival obsessiveness, will help me commit in some concrete way. anxiety has a way of killing my motivation, especially when mixed with my existential issues involving creativity in a digital-youtube-web 2.0 existence. its gotten worse over the years.
i think one factor that helped my add riddled brain stay interested in recording all of these (60+) demos, was the then emerging digital revolution of recording. in the 90's, straddling the bridge between the analog and digital recording eras was very creatively satisfying, but today's exhaustive list of available virtual plug-ins for processing, instruments, hardware emulations, time-stretching, elastic audio - kills the creative spark for me sometimes.
hopefully going back to the four-track medium will spark something creatively prolific in my brain. if so, this will be a very satisfying project. if not, i'll probably hang up music production forever, and focus on design, and musical performance. we'll see.