TASCAM Portastudio

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Technology

TASCAM Portastudio · A multitrack studio was expensive and large in the 1970s. In September 1979, TEAC showed the 144 Portastudio under the brand name TASCAM: a mixing desk and a recorder for ordinary cassettes in a single box. You could record four tracks separately and layer them, for 899 dollars. From then on, musicians made their demos at home. On 3 January 1982, Bruce Springsteen recorded songs on a Portastudio in his bedroom in Colts Neck. Those recordings appeared almost unprocessed as the record Nebraska. In the 1990s, Guided by Voices and Elliott Smith made whole records on four-track recorders. That raw home sound is called lo-fi.

Listening

• 
  Atlantic City · Bruce Springsteen, 1982
• 
  Echos Myron · Guided by Voices, 1994
• 
  Roman Candle · Elliott Smith, 1994

In School of Rock

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• Genre Map · Technology^NL Map

See also

• Compact cassette
• Multitrack recording
• Indie pop and shoegaze
• Singer-songwriters
• Heartland rock