You can love the convenience of automation and visual EQs all you want, but the digital recording and mixing process has lead some engineers astray with the idea of “fixing in the mix”. Unsurprisingly, this dissatisfaction that can come along with that philosophy can lead to mixers looking back at the analog mixing paradigm where they can attain the classic “vibe” of tape and the “pureness” that comes with it.

However, nowadays on home recording forums and threads, people that want to turn away from their computers and move towards analog are criticized and mocked. Just the other week, I came across a Reddit post asking how the analog process worked so that they could capture a similar feel to Mac DeMarco songs. The poster was scrutinized in the thread, with one commenter even going as far as to call the person “a f–king idiot”. As an advocate of retro recording methods and equipment, I shared with the poster a step-by-step guide to recording with a cassette tape multitrack.

A little on how I became obsessed with analog tape and how it has benefitted me: I too once saw the quick and accessible nature of digital to be superior. I could use a free digital workstation and have all the tools I needed; EQ, compression, reverb, etc. It came to a point after recording an unsuccessful record that I realized I was relying too heavily on plug-ins that I didn’t really know how to use besides setting presets. I was jumping headfirst into things that I simply knew little about. Most importantly, I was compromising on the day of recording because I felt like I could use my new plug-ins to fix a mediocre sound.

I simply wasn’t focusing on the actual music, and not even on the actual recording, but the plug-ins. I needed to find a way to force myself to simplify and re-learn the basics, and it came in the shape of the Tascam Portastudio.

The Portastudio concept has been around for decades. It was the first budget recording setup for home engineers and musicians. Instead of using reel to reel tape, the machines relied on cassette tapes as a medium to record onto. The classic Porta machine setup featured four tracks, using the left and right channels of Sides A and B. Side B would be recorded and played back in reverse, meaning that only one side of the tape could be used, reducing the length of the tape to half of its advertised time. The Porta had four separate channel strips for each track featuring an XLR / 1/4 inch input, adjustable trim, a three band EQ, a send knob, and a channel fader. This setup allowed four mono tracks to be recorded, EQed, and mixed to a master stereo fader. The effects send allowed one outboard effect to return into the console, where it would be mixed depending on each channel that sent a signal to it. Next to the master was a specially made tape deck with transport controls.

The cassette Portastudio is essentially an all-in-one machine for recording and mixing, and that’s what brought me to it. It forced me to put time and care first into my songwriting due to the limited space on the tape. It then forced me to consider my arrangement choices for my songs, and finally, to put time and care into miking and leveling my source due to the limited EQ and no compression.

I then forced myself to use it exclusively for five months. It helped improve my songwriting, risk taking, EQ skills, routing abilities, and even mastering skills.

I considered all of this when responding to this poster on Reddit. He wanted to set a certain mood, like I had wanted when I too was inspired by Mac DeMarco’s recording ethics and methods. It was all about capturing the music and listening with your ears, not with your eyes. Digital mixing, I feel, has removed us from listening because we have to stare at dbFS meters and compressor numbers. I told the poster that while the process of analog is frustrating, the amount of work it requires can help you lose yourself in the music, and the final result will be enhanced by the blood, sweat, tears, and happy accidents that occurred during the making of it.

I gave them a full detailed guide on how I recorded “Medicine Man”, probably the most complicated and involved song I worked on during those five months. It was made to submit to POST/POP’s Adventures in Home Taping compilation. I wrote it on the way back from a trip to Santa Monica in a hurry, so I’ll be rewriting it. To check out the original post, I’ll link it here. It goes into more intro detail on the machine itself.

HOW I RECORDED “MEDICINE MAN” WITH THE TASCAM PORTASTUDIO 424MKIII. (Look at a picture to get a good idea of where everything is).

As I explained earlier in this post, the Porta 424 has four channels that can be recorded onto. “Medicine Man” was conceptualized after listening to a ton of Mac DeMarco and Tame Impala. I wanted a song that sounded like an old bootleg from the 1960s. With that in mind, I did two things. Unlike home reel to reel recorders that record at either 7 1/2 or 15 inches per second, cassette tape is a lot lower at 1 7/8 ips. This introduces a lot more tape hiss. Also because reel to reel tape is larger, it has more space for better frequency response. A cassette tape will usually cap around 10kHz, at least in my experience. The Porta also uses dbx noise reduction technology. When switched on, the high frequencies where the tape hiss lives is reduced. When switched on during tracking, the machine takes note of this and raises the volume level of those frequencies that are compromised and lowered by dbx. When played back, the heightened frequencies are lowered, balancing the original recording while lowering the hiss. To achieve that real dirty, bootleg sound, I kept it off.

I had to really consider arrangement recording to the Porta. I knew that I wanted to record drums, bass, acoustic, electric, two vocal tracks, and an organ. I only had four tracks, but more on that later. Let’s just say that I had to plan out the order of recording my instruments.

I plugged a line cable into Track 1 and armed the channel for recording. The line cable went into an iPad with a drum machine. I played the drum sequence and set my channel level, using the LED meter to make sure I had a good, clean signal. I then rewound my tape to the starting position, hit record, and recorded my drum track. After the track was recorded, I rewound the tape, unarmed the track for recording, and switched it to playback. Switching the track from record to playback is essential, because when going onto the next track, the machine won’t record the new track and the old one at the same time, overwriting the drums. The drums sounded good and had that lo-fi sound I was looking for. I could have EQed it before recording, but the EQ will NEVER effect the source recording, even when it is set during tracking. This is a godsend for someone like me who would probably tinker with EQ and regret having not waited until after the source was recorded.

With drums set to Track 1, next up was bass on Track 2. Bass was recorded as a line input into the machine. I’m not sure what it is about the Porta, but the low frequencies are rounded so well, producing a very warm bass. Track 2 was armed for recording, and because Track 1 was on playback, I could play bass along to my drum track without losing Track 1 or having the drums imposed onto my bass track. Track 3 was then set for the acoustic guitar, set up as an MXL 550 condenser XLR input into the channel.

Now that I had my three tracks recorded, I could move onto Track 4. However, I still wanted to record three more tracks: the organ and the two vocals. This is where “bouncing” came into play. The easiest way to explain bouncing is to think of a singer taking an already recorded instrumental, playing it out of a speaker, and recording themselves singing along to the song. Bouncing is simply mixing down our three tracks so that they are the “instrumental” that the singer sings over. I could then record over tracks 1, 2, and 3 because the drums, bass, and guitar are now all collectively put onto one track. In order to do this, the tracks must be routed onto the machine to a special switch labeled “Buss L” or “Buss R”. I could then pan each track to either the left or the right and impose each onto the mono Track 4 by hitting record on the track and letting 1, 2, and 3 play back normally. By doing this, I am giving up the ability to EQ the tracks individually, so I had to EQ and mix the three tracks until I felt happy with them to bounce over. I now had drums, bass, and guitar on Track 4.

I could now record over Track 1 for my electric guitar, playing along to the acoustic to give it a fuller sound. Track 2 was recorded over for my organ that plays over the chorus and break. I now only had one channel left for vocals. However, I could use my bouncing buss once again to impose Tracks 1 and 2 onto Track 3. I had to make sure, however, that Track 4 was not added. This is because bouncing does lead to some form of sound degradation, as I am making a generational copy, which in the analog world is not exact like digital. There is a “Buss L” and “R” for this very situation. If I pan Track 4 all the way to the right and Tracks 1 and 2 to the left and select the “Buss L” option for Track 3, then only the tracks playing out of the left will be recorded onto Track 3.

At this point, Track 3 included the electric and organ, and Track 4 included the drums, bass, and acoustic.

This allowed the final two tracks for the lead vocal and the backup vocal. I the used my friend Max’s reverb guitar pedal and plugged it into the send effect input. I could then use the effect knobs to send a bit of the vocal track to the reverb pedal, and have it output into the master fader. I recorded the vocals on a different day, using an isolation booth with an SM58. Carrying the Portastudio from Fenway to Downtown Boston was a nightmare.

I then used the pan knobs to have Track 3 slightly panned left and Track 4 right to widen the stereo image a bit, and enhance that ’60s bootleg feel. The song was then EQed (I learned so much more about how EQ changes a sound with this machine) and balanced. The master cassette tape that I had been recorded to needed to be mixed down into a stereo 2 channel recording, because with the Porta, I was working with 4 tracks as previously explained. I had to line out the master track into another tape deck (or computer) with a new tape and play back the final mix while recording on the second tape deck. Presto! A finished Portastudio cassette recording.

As you can see, the process of recording to cassette tape is very involved and forces you to consider every move in mixing and recording. This guide can also apply to standard reel to reel recording as the mixer is basically working with the outputs of each recorded tape channel.

Having gone back to digital, I took away a lot of things. I’ve simplified my recording process, focusing heavily on “getting it right at the source” than “fixing it in the mix”. You can see my mistakes in the latter by listening to A Machine For Wolves’s last record, particularly in the sound of the drums (possibility a topic for another post?). I’ve been trying to stick with one EQ and one compressor to learn inside and out, namely the Focusrite Red Series. Though, I always think back to the Portastudio and consider making a full length LP with it, or even upgrading to a TEAC reel to reel recorder for better fidelity. But until then, I’ll take into account what I learned from analog and apply it to making better mixes in the digital realm.