Conference napalm::commusic_v1

    
    8 tracks on cassette format is gonna be noisey. period.
    
    you sure it doesnt use some other size?
    
    rr
    

    I head the rumor too. Read it in a NAMM review somewhere. Crosstalk
    has GOT to be a problem with this box. TASCAM claims advanced head
    design, etc....
    
    dp

    I think this uses a much faster speed so it's conceivable that the
    noise might not be too bad.  Cross-talk and alignment tolerance
    seems to be the most likely weakness.
    
    I don't think I'd touch it unless it had that self-aligning feature
    that some cassette decks have offered.
    
    I'm saving up for a bona fide 8-track.
    
    	db

Hi Steph -

I haven't heard about the 8 track cassette unit. I do have a 234 and it is
the best deck I ever had. There were several topics back a few months
comparing tape decks. The 234 has built-in DBX and 3 � ips recording speed,
individual panning and volume controls, headphone jack with vol. control, etc.
I have the Fostex M80 8 track RtoR, but am going to buy an outboard DBX
noise reduction unit. Cross-talk is not a problem on either of these � inch
units, but Dolby-C doesn't compare with DBX.

dave

    
    And this is from the company that pooh-poohed the Fostex A-8 because
    they felt eight tracks on 1/4" tape didn't cut it...
    
    Uh, waitaminnit, what about that Studio 8 over there........
    
    

    I heard about it, I'm enthusiastic about it. My 234 is a one great
    deck, if tascam found a way to do 8 tracks on a cassette I wouldn't
    be surprised, they have been a leader in multi track recording for
    a long time now...just think how much money you'll save in tape,
    and for me personally I don't expect my home results to be similar
    to Boston's first album...if I ever get that sort of chance I look
    forward to re-recording in a real studio...
    
    there are any good number of reasons to pooh pooh the A-8, 8 tracks
    on 1/4" isn't one of them.....
    
    dave

    Do we know that the information on the tape is stored in standard
    AC-bias format?  More specifically:
    	
    	Did they possibly piggyback the extra 4 tracks on top of the
    	"baseband" 4 tracks, say, by modulation of the bias frequency,
    	or some other such FM magic?
    

    eek! good point. Im only casually familiar with the
    technique, but can be done....
    
    Any heavyweights out there know the limitations of this?
    

It is not like Tascam to introduce a noisy piece of crap with lots of
crosstalk.  It must work reasonably well.  They probably do what .7
suggests - use the bias tracks (unless of course they use both sides
of the media, and you have to drill a large hole in the center of the
cassette to accomodate the second head, ar ar.)  Running the tape
at a very fast speed makes sense - a rotating head wouldn't work given
the mechanical design of a cassette tape.  Cassettes weren't designed to
allow for tape extraction.

Todd (who doesn't poo-poo anything he can't afford).

    I just realized something; if they piggyback tracks (lay down more
    than one audio channel into the same oxide real estate) then you
    can't erase&re-record the baseband channel without destroying the
    piggybacked channel.
    	
    At least, I don't *think* you can.
    	
    	-Bill
    

    
    Re: FM
    
    If the system used FM multiplexing ala radio or CD-4 records, the
    bandwidth of the tape would have to stretch into the 50KHz range.
    
    When the CD-4 system came out in the early seventies, they needed
    45KHz bandwidth (thus a special phono cartridge) to get a multiplexed
    system acapable of 15KHz audio bandwidth.....many audiophiles were
    unimpressed.
    
    Tape machines available at the time could not handle recorded the
    multiplexed signals for later decoding.....heck, tape machines
    available *today* couldn't do it.
    
    I think it *has* to be super-small tracks.
    
    Hopefully they have included alignment adjustments like the old
    Nak 1000 had.
    
    Another thing..if they kick up the speed anymore, you're in big
    trouble time-wise....a C-60 at 3-3/4 ips is already only 15 minutes
    long, at 7-1/2 it would be only 7-1/2 minutes....no good for that
    version of "Green Grass and High Tides"  8^)  8^)  8^)
    
    

    > no good for "Green Grass and High Tides"
    
    Another feature!
    
    Edd

    Which was the reason I didn't buy the Akai 12 track unit
    (came THISCLOSE to buying one). It has a superior sound
    (better than our tascam 38), plus the extra track for
    sync...but 10 minutes to a $25.00 cassette!
    I understand this unit is a fixture in recording studios
    that do a lot of jingle/commercial work.
    Still worth checking out if you don't bring in outside
    clients (the recorder w/o the mixer is only $4000 with
    a microprossessor-controlled autolocator).
    

    In the latest EM there is a short blurb
    
    the 238 8 track cassette
    
    8 tracks on a standard cassette, runs at twice normal speed ie:
    3 3/4 ips (just like the 234). Freq resp to 15Khz. No noise specs
    in the article, and the mention of some controls that are 'nice
    to have'.....oh yeah standard tascam dbx noise reduction...
    
    list price $2295 (ouch!!!)
    
    
    dave

    re .13 - I find it hard to believe that the Akai 12 track cartridge
    unit sounds better than a Tascam 38.  Maybe a Tascam 38 without
    dbx, but my Tascam 38 (with dbx) has a better than 90db s/n, which
    is pretty hard to beat in any analog form.
    
    len.
     

    
    For $2295 retail one can buy a setup like mine.  Fostex 450 mixer
    8 x 8 x 4 x 2 w/parametric; Fostex 80 8 channel recorder, 1/4 inch
    at 15 ips w/dolby C.   
    
    Is it me, or is something inherently wrong in believing that the
    Fostex will sound clearer with less crosstalk, than a cassette???
    
    I *do* however, prefer dbx to Dolby b, c, and probably a.
    
    obladi, oblada....

Some additional info from the April issue of FRETS on the Tascam 238:

Rack mount.  8 LED meters.  No mixer.  Has a variable speed "shuttle" knob.
Tascam claims that "laser-cut head gaps along with precision alignment of
the heads" are the key ingredients.  SMPTE sync capability.  Should hit
the USA in May.

I dunno - "precision alignment" to me says that if it gets even a *little*
out of alignment, things stop working.  I wonder what it takes to realign
the thing.

    Did the AD Give any hint of specs or price tag???
    

    I think "precision alignment" of the heads means that they are aligned
    height-wise precisely (consider; you've got 3.5 mm. of tape width,
    with eight tracks, that's .44 mm of tape per track- and using 1/2
    tracksize gaurd bands, you have to be accurate in head placement
    height to .11 mm (about the thickness of a sheet of tissue paper).
    
    ---------------------------------------
    
    There's plenty of bandwidth on a VCR to record eight tracks of 
    delta-modulated digital 16-bit sound...anybody wanna try it?
    You just need two VCRs and a magic box (not yet constructed)...
    	
    	-Bill 
        
    (before you comm. theory. jocks jump all over me, note that I said
    "sound", not "data".  Same difference as why no analog cartridge
    could track a digital 1812 played at 78 RPM, but any decent analog
    cart. can track it at 33 1/3.  Has to do with the amplitude of equal
    power low and high freq. signals being different...) 

    
    Specs are supposed to be the same as the 234 ie: 20-20K + - 1 db....
                                                                  
    list price is $2295
    
    dave

    Gees, for that price, you might as well by a TASCAM-38 which uses
    1/4" tape.

>< Note 1236.21 by FSBIC1::DDREHER >
-< Over 2 grand!?! >-

>    Gees, for that price, you might as well by a TASCAM-38 which uses
>    1/4" tape.

    Well, Dave, I thought the Tascam 38 uses 1/2" tape @$40/reel.. perhaps
    you're thinking of the compact Tascam '19'... 
    
    karl
    
    p.s. SEE YOU NEXT WEEK BIMMERS

    Ooooops, your right!  Hey, I own one of these, don't I?
    
    I've managed to get by on four reels for the past 2 years.  I re-cycle.
    My engineering keeps getting better as well as the equipment and I
    cringe at material over 3 months.  I can fit roughly 6 songs per tape. 

    The 238 allows for smpte center tracking?? or is it dbx defeat for
    the same effect?? It also according to MIX has an add on (available
    'soon') called the MIDIizer that will allow 'integration' with midi
    instruments and smpte timing. It also syncs to other decks, and
    video (smpte again?) it has a serial comm port to allow hookup to
    computers (rs 232? perhaps) .
    
    Sounds much more sophistocated than the 38, control wise
    
    dave

    Tascam claims their 8 track cassette deck delivers the same performance
    as the 4 track cassette.  This is believeable given the kind of
    progress that's possible with heads (e.g., the 234 4 track cassette
    is easily as good as some 2 track cassettes were 5 years ago).
    
    Uhm, .1 mm is quite a bit thicker than a sheet of tissue paper.
    It's more like the thickness of an ordinary sheet of bond paper.
    
    It's not surprising that the 238 should have more sophisticated
    control logic than the 38, which is getting quite old, technology
    wise.  When the 38 was designed, the notion of locking two of them
    together or chasing some externally provided sync signal probably
    seem absurd.  Still, I can write a master sync track to it, slave
    a sequencer off it and exploit MIDI song position pointer to avoid
    having to start from the beginning, so it does most everything I want
    it to.  And it's hard to beat its S/N with dbx (about 95 db!);
    the 238 won't be able to touch that.
    
    Tape for the 238 will be a lot cheaper, but a C90 will get you 22.5
    minutes, and a C60 (a better bet, as the tape is thicker and more
    likely to survive the constant shuttling back and forth typical
    of multitrack recording, especially with 8 tracks) will give you
    15 minutes.  A 2400 foot reel of 1/2" tape will last about 32 minutes
    at 15 ips (the only speed you can run a 38 at), so it's a matter
    of paying $2 for 15 minutes of 8 track cassette or $35 for 30 minutes
    of 8 track 1/2".  The cassette is certainly cheaper, but once you've
    shelled out around $5K for an 8 track studio a coupla hundred bucks
    worth of tape is not that big a deal.  Like Dave, I get by with
    4 reels.  When I had my 244, I used to keep a lot of stuff a lot
    longer, instead of recycling tapes.  The big problem I have now
    is the lack of an adequate (i.e., comparable to the 38 in quality)
    2 track mixdown medium, and DAT appears to be the answer to that.
                                                                    
    len.