Tascam 488 Mixer MEGA Tutorial
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- čas přidán 6. 07. 2024
- A viewer contacted me becasue he was struggling to use his Tascam 488, so I thought I'd do a tutorial.
It is testament to the complexity of this mixer that the tutorial runs for nearly an hour!
Because it is so long, I've added chapters so you can easily jump to certain sections - these appear in the timeline at the bottom of the video, or scroll down to see a list of timestamps.
Here is the link to the video I made about compatibility of 4 track and 8 track cassettes;-
• Are 8-track & 4-track ...
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TETRAKAN - Fix & Use Tape Recorders
Overviews; tear-downs; repair vlogs; techniques; tutorials; demo recordings...
...covering every cassette multitrack recorder ever made!*
*(eventually)
/ tetrakan
TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT I USE;-
kit.co/Tetrakan
I post exclusive content on PATREON;-
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DONATIONS are gratefully accepted via my BLOG, which also features written articles and FREE DOWNLOADS OF SERVICE MANUALS;-
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I prefer to answer questions in the youtube comments where my answers can help more than one person, but if you need to share photos etc, you can message me via facebook.
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CHAPTERS
0:00 Introduction
2:15 Simplest use case - 1 track per pass, matching channel & track numbers
3:30 Saturation of line level signals
4:12 Input assign switch - group mode vs Mix mode
7:00 Assign buttons
8:48 Sending one input to two Master Fader outputs
9:46 About the Record Function & Group buttons
10:20 Monitor buttons & Monitor Meter
12:16 Tape tracks access via mutually exclusive pairs
13:32 Tape knob - cue vs mix mode
14:45 About bouncing (ping-pong recording)
17:03 About the effects sends knob
18:15 Stereo inputs
18:30 Limitations of the effect send system
18:54 Placement of effects in the stereo field
20:30 Building up layers of effects during the recording process
21:12 Demo - Recording test tones (record amplifier calibration)
23:32 Recording tracks 1- 4 bypassing the mixer
27:21 Recording tracks 5-8 through the mixer
27:35 monitoring external cue signals via mixer channels 5-8
29:28 Marking faulty socket with red tape (my process)
30:49 Aside regarding record amplifier calibration
33:18 Track 8 will not record? check your sync switch!
32:24 Recording mismatched track & channel numbers (Ch2 to Tr3, etc)
36:40 summary of features demonstrated so far
37:35 Playing back a recording
38:01 limited compatibility of 4 track and 8 track cassettes
42:08 Intro to the section recording crappy noise boxes
44:35 Recording multiple signals to multiple tape tracks tape
46:01 Bouncing 3 or more tracks to 2 tracks to make a stereo pair
48:59 Bouncing 2 or more tracks to one track to make a mono blend
51:56 Recording multiple input signals to a single track
54:04 Applying reverb and delay to dry recordings using effect sends
57:43 Baking send effects to tape
58:41 Conclusion - Věda a technologie
This was a life saver. I recently bought the MK2 and have been trying to use it with only 414 and MFP01 experience- There is a lot more homework than I anticipated moving up to this.
one of the most useful youtube postings ever. Thank you so much for taking the time. Well done
Thank you, the encouragement is appreciated!
This vid is amazing for someone learning to record in general, on a 488 mkii. Got damn i appreciate it. Also sprung for the machine in the first place cause i felt reasonably confident i could fix/service it with the aid of your channel. Got an amazing looking unit that had been in its box since the 90s and then gear c crumbled on me right when i put a tape in-but i had it fixed in a few days cuz i had already been thru your channel. Thats why i am on your patreon, albeit at the lowball level. Good stuff!
Thanks for the words of encouragement, glad to help, and thanks for your support on Patreon
Buying one of these today , this will help a lot over next few weeks! Thanks
Awesome, have fun!
Thanks a lot, repaired a somewhat shot up mkII and now I know how to use it too.
A huge thank you- your knowledge is evident in how clear you are with your demonstration. It’s firmly convinced me it’s not the machine for what I want (I was offered one at a very good price )
Thanks for the encouragement 🙏
You should've bought it.
@@svenjansen2134 could have bought / resell etc but why ? I’d rather someone who would love it buy it at the reduced price - then spend saving on cassettes,record and enjoy it
I watched and enjoyed every minute of this truly epic video despite the fact that I don't even own this machine. 😂 I loved hearing those mini grooveboxes. Looking forward to your full recording demo for this one. ✌️😎
Thanks David. I was experiencing 3 weeks of hypomania following Covid (Its a known link) when I filmed it, so the result is a little long winded, thanks gor bearing with me...future tutorials will be more concise!
@@Tetrakan Wow, I had no idea. I hope you're recovering well. No need to apologize for the video run time. Honestly, I think tape nerds like myself can't get enough content like this.
@@DaveZula *Raises hand*. Exactly my case also. Don’t own the unit, totally enthralled. (Tho it oddly helps me understand the groups of the 688)
this is amazing, thank you
Thank you for all your work , if you can do a tutorial for a 488 MKII , that would be very helpful.Glad that i found your channel!🙏
Thanks, yeah I've got a working mark II here so I'll look at doing a full review and tutorial for that model relatively soon
Great video. I have a 464 (your vids helped me fix btw) and I've noticed when I record stuff onto tape and play it back through a cassette player the volume gets randomly quiet and randomly loud in parts. do I need to do something like demagnetize the playhead? or do you think I'm just messing up in the recording/bouncing process?
Loving these videos man! I blew an opamp on my mkii a while back, finally got around to diagnosing it (was literally smoking so easy to find) swapped it and it lives! that's until I put everything back together only to find out the gear c crapped out hence I found your channel :D
I'm thinking about busting out the mod for wiring up each channel to a 1/4 output. I see a bunch of people have done it but I'm not finding the info online. Do you have any intel on how it's done?
Thanks for the encoruagement. I ahven'y ctually tried those sorts of mods. I suppose I'd approach it by wiring the coupling capacitor at the end of the gain stage to the positive pin of the socket, and the negative pin to a nearby point on the same PCB connected to circuit ground. I think that would basically work, but I'm not clear on whether it woudl eb advantageous to add resistors in series or to ground for impedance reasons, i'd have to experiment.
The opening line is perfection…
Why thank you!
Great machine, but I’d be tempted to trade mine for an mk2, just to have the mids eq. Always thought it was kinda neat having the ability to record 8 tracks on a good ol phillips cassette.
The 488 is definitely a bit more complicated to work with, isn’t it. I can’t even imagine what a 688 would be like....
Great tutorial here, I think a lot of ppl initially struggle with signal flow, and you did a great job of demonstrating!
Yeah if price and availability were no object, the Mk2 has better socket access, phantom power, a back-lit screen, and like you say easier interface and parametric mids. Some people swear bt their 644/688 but I couldn't get on with that digital routing system.
would you think it more logical to invest time in learning and mastering and repairing and owning a 488 or a mt8x-ii ? thank you for your channel!
I know you said elsewhere you got a yamaha now, but FYI, assuming it wasn't too much more expensive, I'd pick the mark 2 over the mark one.
thanks heaps
Thanks for watching!
What an epic video! I’ve owned my 488 for two years now and still learnt a lot from your video (I didn’t have the patience to read the manual so just bumbled through at first😂). The effect returns still confuses me a bit, I can get one stereo return from an effects unit with two mono Jack leads into each stereo return to work fine. When I try sending two stereo effects back to the 488 weird things happen and the effects are panned hard left or right (I’m using a lead with two mono jacks from the left and right output of the effects unit to a stereo jack on 9&10 & 11&12?).
Thanks. It sounds like your effects units have stereo inputs, so they are only receiving input signals on one half of the stereo image? If your effects nits don't have a mono input or setting to pan a monaural input within the stereo field the solution would be to run a submixer between the 488 effect sends and the effect unit inputs (connecting the stereo output of the submixer to the stereo inputs of the effects unit - another 4 or 8 tracks' mixer could be used for this) then use the pan control on the submixer to place the wet signal in the stereo field.
@@Tetrakan That’s a great idea, thanks very much! I can use one of my other multitrack machines as a mixer to test it out. 👍
Thanks Tetrakan for all your videos! Anyone, I'm considering purchasing one of these and I'm wondering: Is it possible to bounce a single track just to add an effect to it, tweaking the effect in real time and also listening to the rest of the mix which is not being bounced? This would be needed for my use case. Thanks in advance!
Thanks. You could do that without bouncing using just effects sends or some other mixer routing facility, but if you wanted to record the performance back to tape, yes, provided there is an open track to bounce to (only seven out of eight tracks have information recorded already)
You can place effect sends in the stereo field, but only with one mono or one stereo send (stereo effect should be split into two jacks: one to 9-10, one to 11-12). You use the level knob of input 9-10 and 11-12 to pan and the level should come from the effect unit itself I think. I might be missing something but there definitely some in depth description of the process in the manual of the 488.
Thanks, good point (which proves I don’t read manuals!) I may try to redo this video in a more concise way in which case I’ll be sure to cover that. You could only use one effect that way, correct? Whereas if you have two effects units with mono inputs + stereo outputs and an internal pan control you could place both effects in the stereo field?
@@Tetrakan yes I think you are correct, but I don't own those fancy effect units with built-in stereo imaging, so I don't know for sure. Funny thing however is that I find mono effects often have way more of an effect on the music than washed out stereo, so I thought I should mention it here. Since I discovered this possibilty, it really made me love using the 488 even more. Anyway, thanks for the videos and hard work tetrakan!
Tascam Midistudio 644/688 "Hold my beer"
Yeah, the ratio of mixer to tape player on the 644 is sooo lopsided.
Tetrakan! I have owned a 488 for about 6 months and love it, however recently when I play a tape or try to record onto the tape, the tape speed makes a slow and depressing way down to a stand still, I'm presuming this is due to a knackered belt of some sort, was wondering if you would have more of an idea of what belt i would need to replace?
Could also be the idler tire for the reel motor needs replaced, I’ve used an o ring from an assortment box for that with success. The capstan belt I use for the 488 is the 3.4 flat belt from gbaudio.co.uk it’s about 200 mm folded length.
I get the belts from Teac directly. Also picked up a service manual. Both for about 30 usd.
I’m pretty sure teac/tascam ceased supplying spare parts for their cassette stuff about 5 years ago - at least they have completely ignored all my enquiries in that time. The service manual is available for free download from my blog.
Thank you for the tutorial, I just have one question. How do you erase what you’ve recorded to tape if you don’t like what’s on there?
You record silence. So, arm the track you want to erase, set the input switch to off and/or turn down the associated faders and record. Or just record over the old material with a better take.
@@Tetrakan Oh wow cool
Absolutely brilliant vid mate. BTW, I 3d print transport buttons for 488s if youre interested. I noticed yours were broken...
Do you 3d print the gears? My gear c is broken and I heard these can be 3d printed successfully
@@johnuhmmmiles yes I do. These will be going on ebay this weekend. Send me a private message.
Kev can you message me on Facebook? I'm not necessarily going to buy a set of buttons now but it'd definitely be good to have a line of communication open for future refurbishments
@@Tetrakan Sent you a message with my email address.
I noticed gain trim was only on tracks 1 and 2... am I able to assign that to the other tracks without using those inputs or is that the only way?
You can route the output of the two internal preamps to any of the 8 tape tracks. If you need to record more than two mic level signals simultaneously, you will need external preamps.
Could you do one of these on the 488 Mkii? The controls are different
I plan to, stay tuned
hello sir how are you? recently i bought a 488 portastudio and have an issue, every time i put a tape it plays backwards and i don't know what is going on, could it be a capstan problem? im confused also love this tutorial subbed to your channel, please your help will be greatly appreciated thank you
Thanks for watching and subscribing. I think I have a video which explains why you are hearing information from prerecorded tapes playing backwards. Please give it a watch, and if it doesn't answer your question, feel free to comment again for more information 😀 czcams.com/video/DXxjp3h84To/video.html
@@Tetrakan thank you man
Hi Tetrakan,
I've had this device for a few weeks but I can't get it to play normally. Speed reading (with or without pitch). I changed the belt and the motor which was tired. But the problem of listening too fast persists I am in France, is there an idea of the problem please?
The unit plays tape at 3&3/4 inches per second, if you insert a cassette with recordings made at standard speed, they will play back twice as fast as expected, this is normal.
@@Tetrakan Thank you so much! I understand better why my audio tapes was too quick to listen. I needed to collect a few songs first. I'll just record on it and find a walkman to get my old songs back
Ideally you want a low or dual speed portastudio to recover your old songs. A Walkman or other ordinary cassette player will only playback 2 out of 4 tracks from your old songs at a time, and o e pair will sound backwards. This is because portastudio heads reads all 4 regions of a tape in one direction simultaneously, whereas a Walkman plays one pair at a time, then you turn the tape over to access the other pair.
@@Tetrakan Hi Tetrakan, hope you are doing well! Thank you for all your valuable information.
The old songs were recorded on a standard player after Pro tools sessions. this is the first time I've used a Portastudio with separate tracks. I did not know the principle of speed X2 and indeed, the phenomenon of reverse listening. Everything is absolutely clear to me thanks to you. do you have a particular brand of walkman (or other) reliable in terms of reading reliability? I want to send my old songs to my computer in the best possible quality. Nostalgia rhymes with the pleasure of doing well.
Thank Friend
I actually don’t know a lot about standard cassette decks. I do know very sought after decks like a nakamichi dragon can cost thousands of euros professionally restored, but I guess any recognisable brand of Walkman (Sony, aiwa , JVC etc) would be good enough and much more affordable. Try it and listen, only upgrade if the wow and flutter is too much.
93/93 !
Thanks
Thanks for sharing you knowledge, great video!
One constructive criticism: The sound of the pitch generator get's very annoying.
Maybe use a lower octave, or something like a drumloop for demonstration purposes.
Thanks. Good advice. Im planning to use less intrusive, lower pitched synth drones in a situation like this and mute them while I'm talking.
@@Tetrakan Nice! By the way, your videos got me thinking to buy a old Tascam…I am looking at either the 488 or the 464. Leaning more toward the 464 for its individual tape output (which the 488 is lacking, right?) also it seems to have the better EQ section.
I want to use it as a mixer, as well as running tracks through it for some tape goodness, but also being able to easily export to a DAW.
What would I be missing (apart from 8 tape tracks) if I go for the 464?
Sorry for the long text…and don't worry about answering, if you are busy! Keep up the good work, thanks for all the info!
@SONWU youd be missing midrange eq on the 488. 488 is single speed. You can export 8 mono wavs from the 488 simultaneously using 4 x tape out, hard left right group out, effect send and sync out
Cheers…bought a 464 ;) with BBE, fully serviced for 140 GBP (in Japan that is)@@Tetrakan
hi man, i want to do a tape delay with my 488 mkii and a revox a77 but i cant find any effect out on the mkii. do you know if there are some on the mkii version ?
Yeah, it’s the two jack sockets to the left of the XLR mic inputs on the top left of the unit, it says “effects sends” below them!
@@Tetrakan thank you so much ! also the cables welded to the motor of the cassette part have recently detached, I would like to solder them again but their length is very short, I do not know how to do...
Search for soldering tutorials, there are hundreds on youtube
@@Tetrakan sorry i wanted to know if you had any trouble soldering these cables, i wasnt clear enough 😁
No problem - I found it easy to do, but I have good equipment, and I have spent a lot of time soldering. Your mileage may vary!
How can I connect the portastudio488 to the PC. Which input and which cable do I need?
Recording from digital to tape or the other way round? 8 tracks or stereo mix? What kind of sockets are on your audio interface?
I have the M Audio 192/8 Interface
I want to record from digital to tape
I think stereomix i want my beat on the Tape.
how would one go about digitizing this mix to a DAW, is that possible with this mixer?
If it's a stereo recording, you can use the group outs. If you want 8 mono stems, use group outs for tracks 1 to 4, effects sends for tracks 5 and 6, headphone for tracks 7, and sync out for track 8.
@@Tetrakan thanks!
Maybe this is a dumb question but how do I rip all the tracks at the same time? Like, how do I get all 8 tracks to go through one output?.... thanks
Pan all to left or right and use just the left or right output. Pretty rough deal lol
@@svenjansen2134 nah what i did was i just got an external mixer , and put all the outputs into that
but how does bouncing work on a mark II?
Have a look at this video where I build up a song on a mark II. Worth watching it!all, but settings are discussed for tracks 1-3 bouncing to mono on track 4 at about the 11 minute mark
Hello, my tascam 488 keeps on ff, rew, playing and rec-pause all on it's own! Any information on why this is happening, would be a big help to me. Thank you
Please can you explain the problem in more detail, I'm finding it hard to visualise what you're describing?
@@Tetrakan Ok, if i switch it on, and after a while, the transport buttons begin to operate without me touching them, like going crazy! Never seen anything like it
@johnkershaw3125 havent seen that before...try removing the board with the shuttle buttons on it and replace all the tactile switches?
@@Tetrakan I did spray the switches with contact cleaner, but that did not work. I will try replacing them.....thanks Tetrakan