Reviving Old 4 Track Masters

You could try some noise reduction plugs. Good ones are expensive... and I think you'll get marginal results at best. Might try making use use of a transient module and expander to and get a little bit of the dynamics faked back in. Not much you can do to give those tapes something that may not have been there in the first place. Give it a go and enjoy you're archives..... I've made similar attempts as you're trying and it's cool to have them preserved.

By far the biggest issue you are going to have is good old tape hiss. Ahh the wonders of the cassette! I would clean up all the hiss first because then if you start EQ ing etc then you wont be bringing up the hiss which is what will happen if you start boosting highs which is one thing you will really want to do.

You do need noise reduction software for this type of work or similar plugins. I use Cool Edit Pro that has a very good noise reduction system built in. With care and you do have to be careful as if you go a bit too heavy handed on the noise reduction you can effect the music that is on there and you dont want that. But with some effort you should be able to virtually remove all the tape hiss and keep the music in tact. Then you can go for broke and start using EQ and other processes to enhance.

Dont forget things like top end enhancers that can breath life into the top end of your tracks too.

NW Smith


I recently uncovered some old 4-track masters from recordings I did back in the late 1980's using an old Tascam Porta Studio 4-track cassette.

There are some songs I want to preserve in digital format.  However, because of the age of the magnetic tape - some of the quality has degraded.

I recently got the songs into cakewalk and I am now preparing the restoration and tweaking.  Besides doing some EQ and perhaps some compression, does anyone have any suggestions, tips or techniques about making old cassettes sound halfway decent in the digital world?

I would record then with and without dolby or what ever noise reduction was used. That stuff can cause tone shift. I would think the non dolby version would be better to start with and then use EQ and noise reduction to get it sounding right. This is also a good use of a harmonic exciter plugin like Aphex or BBE. The BBE plugin does both high and low enhancement. 

I like to use a wav editor to work on the tracks before trying to mix them.  Just be sure to make a backup copy before starting any destructive editing so you can go back and get them if you overdo it.  I've had good luck doing the noise reduction first to get rid of the hiss and then using the exciter to put the highs back.   The reason you want to noise reduction first is because you don't want the exciter to operate on that stuff and create more of it.  As with noise reduction a little dab will do ya, in some cases it's better to hit it twice with lower settings then to try to take it all at once.  This is one reason I pre process with a wav editor doing destructive editing, you can do more then one pass and get it just right.

An exciter is real magic it makes a copy of just the highs (what there is of them), flips them out of phase and distorts them to create overtones that are higher up, then it flips the copy back in phase and blends it with the track. It sounds odd but it works. I built a hardware unit once and was just amazed that it could create high frequency content that seemed to be lost forever.  Cymbals and Hi-Hat come alive again.

As always clean the heads before you start. If the tape is shedding you might have to clean between each song.  Can the Tascam output all 4 tracks at once ?

http://www.amazon.com/BIAS-SoundSoap-2-Windows-Macintosh/dp/B0007D8R2I

sony makes an old noise reduction plug that works pretty darn good. Beats the waves plug IMO. It might be included in Sound Forge. I did a bunch of cassette stuff with it.  
That said, you're not going to get much by todays standards.

My goodness ...an old porta studio.....i had one and did a lot with it....However I think that my ex destroyed all my tapes in the divorce......but I did get the unit.....but there was a cassette stuck in it that I could not remove.....and when I did both the prota studio and cassette were damaged  so I just ended up trashing it...

but I wish you the best of luck cause it sounds like a lot of fun.

Cliff

I still have a 4 track cassette Tascam Portastudio. Did you transfer the individual tracks or just a stereo track? I transfered the indidvidual tracks via the direct outs on the portastudio to different tracks in Sonar. I did what I could to revitalize them with the existing plugins in Sonar but I could never get rid of some of the feedback and reflections.
I finally resigned myself to rerecording them.

Crg


I still have a 4 track cassette Tascam Portastudio. Did you transfer the individual tracks or just a stereo track? I transfered the indidvidual tracks via the direct outs on the portastudio to different tracks in Sonar. I did what I could to revitalize them with the existing plugins in Sonar but I could never get rid of some of the feedback and reflections.
I finally resigned myself to rerecording them.

Unfortunately,  all I had were 2 track masters.   The recordings in question were from 20 years ago - and my old Portastudio is long gone - as are the original tapes I used.  

I posted a clip on my website of one of my old recordings.    The quality of the old track  - in sound and performance - leave a lot to be desired.   I posted it to contrast the original version with later version of did of the song in question.

The late 1980's 4 track recording is the streaming clip at the bottom of the post.

http://marwoodwilliams.co...-marwoods-music-vault/

It's problematic at best if you can't transfer all tracks at one time.  Even if you line them up at the beginning after recording, the tracks will likely drift apart as the track goes on.   That's the problem I had the first time I tried doing it, after I got my Delta44 which has 4 inputs it was no problem.

You can cut them up and keep putting them back in sync where neccessary, or you could try Audiosnap but I didn't have much luck with that.

Dan 

MrMook


I have some old 4 track (and 8 track) TASCAM recorded cassettes.

How does one synch up the individual tracks once they're in SONAR?

That's the old thing that's stopped me from trying to revive some of these recordings. I certainly don't feel like trying to re-record them.

If the machine can record all tracks at once and you have enough blank space before the first track starts you can record a click sound there to use as a reference. Just watch the counter and make sure you stop quickly after you record the click so you don't erase the beginning of any of the tracks ! Then when you record the tracks include the part with the click sound. Then zoom in on each track in track view and use that waveform peak as a reference to line up all the tracks. 

Note: If you only have space at the start of the tape then record all the songs in one shot.  Once you get them lined up you can then cut the songs up into project files.

This thread has been so helpful.  Transferring my old 4-track masters was my very first Sonar project.  And I'm still not done.  My recordings weren't full band, just me throwing down songwriting ideas.  Usually a track each for vox/guitar/bass/click.

The plan was only to preserve the recordings, not improve them.  But now ... hmmm.  Maybe I will take a shot at improvement.  Now all I need is more hours in the day.