About 1964. An AIWA 2" mono r2r tape recorder. Not 2" tape; 2" reels. The motor speed varied according to the strength of the batteries. Got a new belt for my old TEAC r2r a few months ago and found some old 2" reels in the attic. Listening to them, it's easy to see that no modern daw or plug-ins can duplicate the old analog sounds of that AIWA. Here's an example of the quality: http://donstrenz.com/mp3/dontwanttospoilparty.mp3

Here's an example of the quality:

Ummmmmmmmm...........so, are you liking the sound??? or saying that we are getting better $hit togeher today???

ORIGINAL: SteveJL
Ummmmmmmmm...........so, are you liking the sound??? or saying that we are getting better $hit togeher today???

Gee, I thought the answer to that was obvious. Perhaps the quality loss in the conversion to mp3 is the culprit.

A Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K (that's a whole 48K of ram!!) MIDI'd up to a Casio CZ3000, Roland MT-32 and Roland TR505. All recorded onto two Technics cassette decks (dbx noise reduction) and vocals recorded with a Shure Unidyne B via a Realistic (Tandy) disco mixer.

Isn't nostalgia a wonderful thing?

Wow. . .great to see all the mentions of the good ole Amiga. I am a video guy more than an audio guy and had 13 Amigas at one point! 6 Video Toasters along with a bunch of other Amiga goodness.

As for audio. . . Started out with that old Fostex battery powered portable 4 track cassette, with a crappy mic and a Korg Poly 800. . . .lol. . . .

Next was an amiga 1200 with bars and pipes and a Kawai K1. . . . . problem with both of these was I never recorded even one decent demo as I don't play keybards and there was no way to get good guitar recorded without pissing off the neighbors. I did sequence on tune in bars and pipes that had a distinctive latin groove to it with my 2 finger typing keyboard prowess laying down some horn riffs. . . .little did I know I would later live in a latin country and get a ton of exposure to Merengue, Salsa and other latin music. That little tune has been lost forever and I wish I had a copy. I also had a studio 16 16 bit 8 track sound card but never got around to using it for music, mostly for audio sweetening for video.

I then got aone of those roland VS 880 guys and still had the kawai keyboard and an alesis drum machine etc. The only thing I really recorded was laying some guitar on top of this electronic groove that the guy who owned it before I did still had on the machine. Definitely a weird sound.

Every few years I get the bug to play and record music again. I spend a bunch of money on gear and start twiddling but nothing ever comes of it as I soon grow frustrated by the lack of capabilities. I wound up buying sonar 2.0 and upgrading to 3.0 Producer edition and also buying a MOTU 828 MK11, a used ADAT, a Korg Microcontrol, Amplitube and some other stuff. This time I recorded nothing usable as I had no real way of doing decent drum tracks. I am basically a songwriter that used to have an originals band and would just like decnt recordings of some tunes I wrote way back when. I did do some cool loop based stuff that I used in some video projects but no "real" recording.

I most recently got a line6 toneport, and started messing around a bit again. I have had a pod forever and now added an XT Live and all the add ons as well as Key Rack for keys and a ton of drum loops from beta monkey and others. I have a co worker that also used to play and we recently played a short set at a company party, just folling around.

This time I can see me sticking with it as the technology is finally easy enough for me to not get frustrated and lose interest. I have re recorded an old song I had done in a crappy 8 track demo studio in the mid 80s and obviosuly I am getting much better quality on my own with all this new stuff. I gave a shot and called my old drummer who I have not seen in over 10 years and sent him the new version. Not done yet as it is missing vocals and I am not about to call my ex wife and ask her to sing it. . . .or even for the lyrics etc. He was happy to hear from me and dug through his old cassettes and found a bunch of crappy rehearsal tapes that atleast will remind us of arrangements etc. We had a blast listening to some of this stuff. Some of it is very dated sounding and others still work. . . .

The tune I have recorded still has scratch guitars which I will replace after the vocals are done and I added a lot of percussion which the drummer is not thriled with. I am nots ure I am either but anyone that has never heard the old version digs the percussion. I got a bass player from the local merengue groupnto play bass on it and sent a 2 track mix to my co worker where he added some santana type leads. . . .which I am betting he never would have done without the percussion being there. It is cool watching the song morph into something different than it was. It could very well be that when we add vocals I can the percussion and santana type stuff, but I'll wait and see. I also know a few Dominican singers that want to give a try to writing new lyrics in spanish and we'll see how thatb works out.

I am in NY for the holidays and will be upgrading Sonar to the latest and buying a drum trigger pad so I can make my own drum tracks with EZ Drummer. I think having good drum loops to scratch out a scratch drum track and then being able to make my own in easy drummer will make the difference in my sticking with it this time!

It is frustrating having a bunch of songs I wrote with no decent recordings of them so I will record at least decent demos of as much as I can and who knows may even get inspired to write some new ones. . . . thanks to technology finally catching up to my short attentions span. . . . .thanks cakewalk!

I started with a Fostex standard cassette 4-Track, Roland JW-50 GM synth, Alesis SR-16 drum machine, a cheap pair of panasonic headphones, and a stack of cassette tapes. That was around 1996.

I find the timing of this thread interesting, in that it's Christmastime. This is the height of the year as far as "gear lust" goes, but this thread proves you don't necessarily need the "latest" gear to make music! Happy Holidays!

Just a side note to ToneCarver: If you're considering a pre-built PC, definitely look at ADK Pro Audio. I'm not associated with them; but Scott has been one of the greatest hardware config resources on the forum. His systems have a terrific reputation among Sonar users.

The dialogue between you two reads like an info-mercial.

1990 Yamaha MT2X with a used EV microphone of unknown model. Rented a DAT once for mixdown, wow what a luxury that was. Bought a Tascam 488 8 track cassette to replace the yamaha for a ridiculous price at the time but it was a very nice machine. Those old Tascam mixers and multritracks had a cool, kind of odd charm to them.

The 4-track is long since dead ( transport broke ) but there are probably 30-40 tapes in a box still of raw tracks & unfinished songs. One of these days...

One of these babies.

My first recording setup was a Tandy Tape Recorder, Tandy Mic and my bothers and sisters singing songs form the 70's.

I remember the song,

I'm going back to Indiana, .... Indiana here I come,.... I'm going back to Indiana, Cos' that's where my baby's from......

Peace

My first recording setting consisted of two stereo cassette decks a Radio Shack highball mic and a Casio keyboard with the little yellow drum pads. Shortly thereafter, I upgraded to a Teac 3324 four track reel, Teac 6 ch mixer, Yamaha DX27 keyboard and Akai S612 sampler. I thought I was high tech

a walkman and a tape recorder. i would record onto tape. then play along with the walkman and record over that. over and over to acheive multi tracks.

Electric guitar + various stompboxes , a cheap Roland drum machine and a Tascam Porta 05

I still remember the satisfaction I got when I got my first harmony leads down on tape