4-Track Reel to Reel Home Recording : Recording on Track on a 4-Track Tape Recorder: Part 1

Hi. Kurt Glaser here for Expert Village. We’re
at KGB Studios Seattle. Ongoing with laying our first track on the 4-track reel to reel
machine. And yes, of course, I’m a musician so let’s lay down, let’s do that right now,
we’ll lay the first track on track number one, is typically what we do. So let me show
you how that works. Okay, we’ve got the reel to reel set up now. We’re plugged in. We’ve
got our pause control on, that is very important to have the pause control on. After that,
following me along, of course, we made sure that we’ve got the volume set properly to
where the VU meter is deflecting up around zero or plus three, which is in the red just
a little bit. It’s the weird thing about analog tape is you can take it at about plus three.
Digital world you can’t even go into pluses at all. It distorts it. The next piece over
here is we made sure that we’ve plugged in into channel one on our microphone jack. This
is our headphone cord. Over here, we’ve got the record jack plugged in. We’ve got it enabled
for just track number one, because that’s all we’re doing. And then following over here,
is we’ve got these particular monitor track, I’m just going to monitor what we’re actually
recording. And then, of course, next is we actually put the machine into record and pause,
which is what I’m going to do right now. Okay, we’re kicking off the machine now. We’re ready
actually to roll tape. Here we go. Alright, now watch the meters here. Can you zero in
on this part right here? And watch me play. Here we go. Three, two, one. We’re just playing right along here. Just
laying the simple track like we normally would. Now, obviously, we wouldn’t talk but. This
is the last time we’re rolling through this little bridge here. Okay, and what I’m doing is I tend to and
the last notes, I just sort of let it kind of fade out. It does take a little more tape
but you get a nice clear fade at that juncture. Okay, and then kick it into pause. We have
now just laid our first track.