Recording a Song on a Reel to reel Using the Teac 40-4 Tape Recorder

Here's how to record a song to tape using a 4 track reel to reel recorder- the Teac (Tascam) model 40-4.  I'm recording basic tracks to tape:  Guitar, bass and a guitar solo.
Here's a demo of how to use a 1/4" rtr Tape Recorder!

This is a quarter inch tape machine, which records four tracks to tape.  The tape used is Ampex 456, as is recommended for this machine.  (The machine is biased for this tape)

The levels have been set for each track, to speed up the demonstration.  The song is an original of mine.

Watch carefully and pay close attention to the meters for each track.  I was careful not to push the meters too far into the "red" since I didn't want to over-saturate the tape.

There are two clusters of switches that you'll see me pushing.  The ones on the left are the channel RECORD/ARM switches and the three on the right are the output select switches, which allow you to hear what is going to, or has gone to tape.

I'm using open reels 7 1/2" tape and takeup spools, since this is a demo.  The tape is Ampex 456 mastering tape.  Note:  The DBX unit is not used in this recording!  Also the tape speed is high, 15ips.

The guitars are an Ibanez AF75 hollow body guitar, and a Fender precision Bass guitar.

To hear the final mix in stereo, start at 4m40s.  That's the file as it gets mixed by the 8 track mixer and gets recorded by my DAW at 96khz 24 bit.  Notice how full and smooth the bass is.


Using a tape recorder doesn't have to be complicated. This demo was recorded in real time.  The only prep work I did off camera was set the levels to tape and clean the heads of the machine.  Setting the levels is necessary for any recording analog or otherwise.  The only edits are incidental moments due to sync issues with my camera recorder and movie editing software.  For the sake of watch-ability, I pre-recorded the drums to track one, since recording drums (analog or otherwise) is tricky business.  That's an entire series of articles in its own right...

I hope you enjoyed the demo and I truly hope it was helpful if you have one of these machines!