Hi Andrew:

Any of the several "porta-studio" type machines from Tascam, Fostex, Yamaha and maybe others could 
do 4 tracks at once. I think Richard Hess has said the track configuration is slightly different 
from Norelco Standard, but it would probably be fine for low-fidelity content like spoken-word. 
Tascam also made a 4-track front-loading deck. I think most of these decks had dbxII NR instead of 
Dolby B or C.

For low-fi material, another advantage is that these decks almost all ran at both 1 7/8 and 3.75 
IPS, so you could do whole-tape double-speed ingestion. That would definitely screw up the audio 
with anything high quality, but it would be fine for stuff like oral histories.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andrew Dapuzzo" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2014 4:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Need use of 4-track stereo tape deck/monaural output for digitization 
project


> Does anyone know if the same possibility exists for cassettes?
>
> machines that "could reproduce 4 tracks at once, which would speed up the
> digitization project. You'll need to reverse the two backwards channels" in
> the DAW?
>
> When we duplicated prerecorded music cassettes we recorded them this way
> but I am unaware of a playback machine that could playback all four at
> once.  I assume they don't exist but .....
>
> Thanks
> Andrew Dapuzzo
> Sony DADC
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 3:55 PM, Richard L. Hess
> <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
>
>> Hi, Lise,
>>
>> Some of the Teac and Sony machines could reproduce 4 tracks at once, which
>> would speed up the digitization project. You'll need to reverse the two
>> backwards channels in your DAW software.
>>
>> If you are willing to play back single channels and move connectors,
>> almost any 1/4-track recorder from "back in the day" could do this for you
>> as long as it has a 3.75 in/s speed.
>>
>> For the Tandberg, you might contact Terrysrubberrollers.com -- he rebuilds
>> the part, but I don't think he fixes machines.
>>
>> Of course, there are several of us who could do this for you--on much
>> better machines than the Tandberg, but I fear that the price is high.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Richard
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2014-03-13 2:30 PM, Lise Menn wrote:
>>
>>> Hello, I am a new member of this list and totally naive about how to use
>>> your collective knowledge so I hope you'll be patient with me and ask for
>>> additional information if you think you can help me.
>>> I have about 60 remaining hours of audiotapes made in the 1970's on a
>>> Tandberg Model 12 which can no longer be repaired (at least not here in
>>> Boulder CO), apparently because its rubber parts have degenerated.
>>> To save money when I was a student, I recorded the four tracks monaurally
>>> at 3 3/4 ips, so that I could get 4 hours of speech recording per reel.  I
>>> started digitizing the tapes gradually a few years ago but when I was about
>>> 1/3 thru the job, the Tandberg stopped being repairable.  The contents of
>>> the tapes are worth preserving for research in language development; I will
>>> donate the digitized versions to the CHILDES archive at Carnegie Mellon.
>>> Is there a similar working Tandberg someplace that I could visit for a
>>> week or so and use to complete this job?  Is there some other 4-track
>>> machine that will permit monaural playback? Is there someone who knows how
>>> to machine new parts for my old tape deck?  Any other ideas?  Please help,
>>> and thank you.
>>> Lise
>>>
>>>
>>> Lise Menn                      Home Office: 303-444-4274
>>> 1625 Mariposa Ave
>>> Boulder CO 80302
>>> home page:   http://spot.colorado.edu/~menn/
>>>
>>> Professor Emerita of Linguistics
>>> Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Science
>>> University of  Colorado
>>>
>>> Fellow, Linguistic Society of America
>>>
>>>  -- Richard L. Hess                   email: [log in to unmask], Ontario, Canada 
>>> 647
>> 479 2800 http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm Quality tape
>> transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.
>>
>
>