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So I just got this thing for free last night off my friend's brother, and it (aside from a Webcor 1/4" 2 track my friend found in a parking lot) is my first real reel-to-reel machine.

Any experiences with these? Pro's? Con's? Little things I should know? The guy didn't have the manual for it, but it doensn't look that different from my old portastudio, so I figured it wouldnt be that hard.

My biggest fear is cross-talk (that's what its called, right?) from smashing 8 tracks onto 1/4" tape, and the built-in mixer sounding like shit. I'd like to find a way to bypass the whole mixer part of it and use the mixer I have.

Thanks in advance.

Pros : 8 buss mixer built in, relativly good sound quality, cheap tape

Cons : no phantom power, only 7.5 ips

An old band of mine did a 7" on a 388. I remember it being a lot of fun, but I also remember it being noisy. It seemed like a great all in one unit for mid level recording.

the main thing i'd be afraid of is intercompatibility between that machine and other machines. Basically, the tapes won't be playable on any machines other than a 388, which are getting pretty rare.

If you're cool with that, then you can have a lot of fun with that machine.

Yeah, this wasn't really helpful, was it?

Cheers

Ben Adrian

honestly, i've always had a strange attraction to these machines. there have been some fine sounds created with the 388....East River Pipe is the first that comes to mind for me. There was another band...Rocketship, I think, that used it as well.

if you decide you don't want to keep it, let me know. i'll gladly relieve you of it

wiggins wrote:So I just got this thing for free last night off my friend's brother, and it (aside from a Webcor 1/4" 2 track my friend found in a parking lot) is my first real reel-to-reel machine.

Any experiences with these? Pro's? Con's? Little things I should know? The guy didn't have the manual for it, but it doensn't look that different from my old portastudio, so I figured it wouldnt be that hard.

My biggest fear is cross-talk (that's what its called, right?) from smashing 8 tracks onto 1/4" tape, and the built-in mixer sounding like shit. I'd like to find a way to bypass the whole mixer part of it and use the mixer I have.

Thanks in advance.

Nice score!

I have had much luck with these machines. They are very easy to use.

The mixer is fine. Considering the tape width, the 388 sounds good.

Hey wiggins, how's that 388 working for you?

Do you have samples done with it yet to post?

It's working just fine! It is a bit noisy, though. 7" reels of 1/4" 456 are only like, 15 bucks out here. I've been charging my friends $100/weekend including tape for demos, and they all seem pretty happy with the results.

I'll try to have some better mp3's up soon but there are a couple on my "studio's" myspace page - http://www.myspace.com/safeinsoundstudio. There's an equipment list in the blog section.

I'll try to put up a track that I'm actually proud of soon - I wanted to get it critiqued anyway.

Those mp3 mixes on myspace are sounding pretty good! It's hard to tell noise and all though, because of the streaming file compression.

Yeah, there's a couple of these on ebay right now. I am about this close* to bidding.

Let me know when you upload more!



*this close = wife permission

funny you should post this. i just bought a 388 for 40 bucks today.

really? where? please share.

Seriously, there is jack here in Orlando as concerns analog recording. Unless everyone's hiding. Once I saw a Fostex 8 track in a small shop. I think they're gone now.

But I could build my house out of digimax 96k's.