Yamaha MT8X II - Recording Blues Rock to Tape

Here’s a video of our new single 'Bad News Rising' recorded on a Yamaha MT8X 8 track cassette recorder. You can listen to the full version on Spotify, and all the other usual streaming sites.
Spotify open.spotify.com/album/2KLDJA...
Apple / bad-news-rising-single .
Deezer deezer.page.link/Gmdj3xhjT2sb...

[@tomblaze2]

Fab!

[@wehappyfewmusic]

Thanks for the positive vibes!

[@andrewzook1034]

Loving hearing those blues from across the pond. Nice!

[@wehappyfewmusic]

Many thanks for checking out our new single, Andrew. We love the blues!

[@scottgregory6129]

Yup. I had one back in the day. Sweepable mids, baby. Nice tribute, fellas. Don't go changing.

[@wehappyfewmusic]

Yeah, I love those sweepable mids! Thanks for checking out the video. 🙌

[@bluesmaster222]

Smokey!

[@wehappyfewmusic]

Cheers, that’s the way we like it! 😎👌

[@ChristianBannister]

That cigar box guitar sounds great! Would love to see a video specifically on that.

[@wehappyfewmusic]

Cheers dude, and good idea for a future video!

[@malloryonbass]

This sounds FANTASTIC!

[@wehappyfewmusic]

Thanks so much, really appreciate you letting us know!

[@MONKEYWASH]

Kick ass!

[@wehappyfewmusic]

Thanks, great to hear you liked it!

[@jaymasterscrapper301]

Guitar is cool , and I got that shirt !

[@wehappyfewmusic]

Cheers dude, we must both have good taste in shirts! 👌😅

[@mermaidfeetxoxo_music]

Hello,
can you tell me what you used to record into this machine. I noticed in the video that you used inputs 5-8 and not 1-4.
I'm curranty trying to help out some friends try to record a synth ,drums set, guitar and bass with this machine.
what advice and tips do you have for us?

[@wehappyfewmusic]

Hey, I sometimes use a small external mixer or preamp with this machine as it gives you a few more options. I started of recording the drums and bass in the first pass and the overdubbed the vocals and guitar. You probably do this anyway, but it’s important to get a good signal to noise ratio when you are setting recording levels.

[@Ilikemusic101]

Can you explain if you can record to both sides of a cassette on an 8-track?

[@wehappyfewmusic]

Hi yes that’s sort of the case, the 8 track machines record to the full width of the tape. Unlike a standard cassette deck though, it only records in one direction, so you don’t get 2 sides, where you have to turn the tape over.

[@Ilikemusic101]

@@wehappyfewmusic so I could record on one side and then flip it over and record on the other side as it’d be going the opposite direction? Like I know that for tapes they will say an hour of recording time means a half hour of recording per side and then some 8-tracks like the Yamaha MT8X runs at double the normal speed. Do you know if this means if I had a 60 minute tape, would that mean I would get 15 minutes of recording time per side of the tape? I ordered an MT8X but it hasn’t arrived yet and I appreciate any info, I can’t find any of this online anywhere.

[@wehappyfewmusic]

You’d get 15mins of recording time on a C60, but for slightly different reasons. The MT8X runs at twice the speed of a regular cassette deck which cuts the time down to 30 mins. The record head is also different to standard decks so it only goes in one direction which cuts the time in half again. If you use Facebook I run a group called Multitrack Cassette Recording, with lots of extra info about using these machines. Ps you’ve chosen a nice 8 track 👌

[@Ilikemusic101]

@@wehappyfewmusic okay, I think I see now. Thank you for the help!