Home recording? I remember when...

[PLX]

Cakewalk, it worked enough to get by.
I got my first interface, a Roland quad-capture at Best-buy and Cakewalk was attached to it.
I can not remember what year that thing came out.

I think I first tried to work with Cakewalk around 2002.

 

[Beagle]

I was using Cakewalk Pro 9 on Windoze 98. I think I used it on Windoze 2000 as well, but it's a long time ago. My Roland UA-4FX came bundled with Sonar LE, but I couldn't get on with that at all.



Mine wasn't badged as Cakewalk, last seen disappearing into #2 sons gear bag ...

 

[ibmorjamn]

I was using Cakewalk Pro 9 on Windoze 98. I think I used it on Windoze 2000 as well, but it's a long time ago. My Roland UA-4FX came bundled with Sonar LE, but I couldn't get on with that at all.

View attachment 107713

Mine wasn't badged as Cakewalk, last seen disappearing into #2 sons gear bag ...

The Pro version would be much better I’m sure, even though I never used it.
I was actually talking about the Roland Quadcapture . I think I must have got it between 2010 and 2012.

 

[simoncroft]

I guess mine was branded TEAC, too. An A-3440.

I used to sell those in London, from 1979 into the early 80s. They were £1,000 back then, which was serious money. If you had that, some mics and a little mixer, you could set up a commercial demo studio, and charge by the hour. Although I never had one back in the day, I bought two of them about 10 years ago, because my friend had about 20 NAB reels containing his demos, recorded when he was a pro musician.

What a horrible job digitising that lot was! I had to bake the tapes, because the binding had stuck the tape together. When I got them to play, the oxide shed was so bad, the cleaning cloths looked as if I'd used them in the bathroom. I must have got through aboout a pint of Isopropol alchohol cleaning the heads and transport.

What struck me most was how noisy and clunky everthing was. Not just the tape hiss, but the transport. Hitting play and stop sounded like I was banging nails in. I seemed strange to think I'd once dreamed of owning one of these machines.

On the other hand, I had a TASCAM 244 and a 3300 open reel that I used to write songs on, and it was great for what I needed to do. When the Portastudios first came out, they were half the price of a 3440, and we could sell 10 before they'd even landed in the UK. Seriously, I was telling pop stars they'd have to wait a month before the next batch came in. Happy days.

 

[Beagle]

I used to sell those in London, from 1979 into the early 80s. They were £1,000 back then, which was serious money. If you had that, some mics and a little mixer, you could set up a commercial demo studio, and charge by the hour. Although I never had one back in the day, I bought two of them about 10 years ago, because my friend had about 20 NAB reels containing his demos, recorded when he was a pro musician.

What a horrible job digitising that lot was! I had to bake the tapes, because the binding had stuck the tape together. When I got them to play, the oxide shed was so bad, the cleaning cloths looked as if I'd used them in the bathroom. I must have got through aboout a pint of Isopropol alchohol cleaning the heads and transport.

What struck me most was how noisy and clunky everthing was. Not just the tape hiss, but the transport. Hitting play and stop sounded like I was banging nails in. I seemed strange to think I'd once dreamed of owning one of these machines.

On the other hand, I had a TASCAM 244 and a 3300 open reel that I used to write songs on, and it was great for what I needed to do. When the Portastudios first came out, they were half the price of a 3440, and we could sell 10 before they'd even landed in the UK. Seriously, I was telling pop stars they'd have to wait a month before the next batch came in. Happy days.

Hey there Si, good to see you.

 

[simoncroft]

Hey there Si, good to see you.

Oddly enough, I was only thinking about you yesterday. Wondered how you were getting on, Dave. If you don't see me much on-line, it's just because I've been seriously busy. My missus needs a fair bit of looking after these days, so I'm head cook and housekeeper now. When I have time, I edit videos for people and put together bass guitars. Recording music has taken a bit of a back seat for a while. Here's a Precision build in progress. Its fretted sister will have the neck from a 1999 Fender Precision Ultra Deluxe.

 

[Seamus OReally]

I used to sell those in London, from 1979 into the early 80s. They were £1,000 back then, which was serious money. If you had that, some mics and a little mixer, you could set up a commercial demo studio, and charge by the hour. Although I never had one back in the day, I bought two of them about 10 years ago, because my friend had about 20 NAB reels containing his demos, recorded when he was a pro musician.

What a horrible job digitising that lot was! I had to bake the tapes, because the binding had stuck the tape together. When I got them to play, the oxide shed was so bad, the cleaning cloths looked as if I'd used them in the bathroom. I must have got through aboout a pint of Isopropol alchohol cleaning the heads and transport.

What struck me most was how noisy and clunky everthing was. Not just the tape hiss, but the transport. Hitting play and stop sounded like I was banging nails in. I seemed strange to think I'd once dreamed of owning one of these machines.

On the other hand, I had a TASCAM 244 and a 3300 open reel that I used to write songs on, and it was great for what I needed to do. When the Portastudios first came out, they were half the price of a 3440, and we could sell 10 before they'd even landed in the UK. Seriously, I was telling pop stars they'd have to wait a month before the next batch came in. Happy days.

Yeah, I paid over $1,200 for mine in 1979, plus mixer, mics and tape. I wasn’t kidding when I said I sold my car to do it. It was serious coin.

 

[simoncroft]

Yeah, I paid over $1,200 for mine in 1979, plus mixer, mics and tape. I wasn’t kidding when I said I sold my car to do it. It was serious coin.

The model before the 3440 was the 3340 and the interesting thing about it is it wasn't designed as a multitrack recorder. The four channels were marked 1-2 and F/B, neaning it was designed for Quad playback. Quad turned out to be a fad, but musicians were quick to realise what you could use the machine for. Teac got lucky!

 

[Headache]

I started with a friends tascam 4 track and then bought a fostex 4 track and then got a digital fostex....