You may have read about my 4-track adventures, beginning with the original Portastudio cassette multi-track, the Teac 144.
After I wore that one down I had a Porta One. It didn't measure up to the original. For one thing I don't think it ran at high speed. Also the transport buttons were mechanical push down types, not the touch sensitive electronic ones the original had. Punch-ins were seemless and smooth as silk on the 144. Nonetheless, I think I may have even had two Porta Ones over a few years.
Then came the tiny Fostex X-15. It could run on batteries and had pegs like a guitar to strap it over your shoulder. Truely portable, it lacked the inputs and sends I was used to. I did strap it on and bring it to my friend Wally's place for a session. It never got back home.That brings us to the subject of the vintage ad above, the Vestax MR-44, shown at the top of this page. Who had ever heard of this company? I hadn't. I was taking a chance, but I went for it because of the rack mounted convenience and the good ins and outs on the front. It was simple but well thought out.
This thing was great. It was smooth mechanically, the buttons were the soft touch electronic type, and even though it lacked individual EQ, it had multi-band equalization over the whole mix that worked well to patch things up and cut the mud out.
It sounded really good and was very, very quiet as far as tape hiss went. I made some good sounding recordings on it.
To my chagrin, one day it just stopped in its tracks.
It was out of warranty but I called the California number in the manual and a guy with a heavy Asian accent picked up the phone. His seeming confusion and the clamor in the background made me think I'd reached a Chinese restaurant. After determining that I'd called the right place, I described the problem to the guy. There was a silence, then. . .
"Ahh. Yeess! Not your fault. Our fault. We fix. Send," he said.
I did, and they repaired it for free.
Later, when I went to a Roland VS-880 digital 8-track, I sold the Vestax on Ebay for $175. The father of the kid who bought it wrote me a long email thanking me for making his son's first ebay purchase such a great experience. The MR-44 seemed to have endless good karma.
Vestax is still around, but they've switched to DJ gear. I bet it's pretty good stuff.
..nice story man. i had a Vestax MR-44 - still got it somewhere. i bought it for myself for my 19th birthday and i felt like i was Mike Oldfield in a huge studio.. i figured out you could end up with about 10 tracks after bouncing but by then the sound quality wasn't so hot..
ReplyDeleteIt was a great piece of kit and as far as i know mine is still working as it was. I made a ton of recordings with that machine and knew it inside out by the end of things..
Happy days..
simonofthebollocks,
ReplyDeleteRight. All you needed was a second one to bounce back and forth to and you could go way past 10 clean tracks. Computers have spoiled us...
Right on,I still have 2 mr44's and they still work good!
ReplyDeleteI just got an MR44 but its missing the power supply. anyone can share some info on it? maybe a picture? I know its 12v 850mA but i cant seem to find any adapters that fit :(. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI loved my MR-44, which stopped working in a similar fashion. Sadly, I sent mine in to Vestax for repair...and never got the thing back. I think this might have been during the transition period when they were getting out of the recording equipment biz. I was really disappointed, because it was the best cassette 4-track I'd ever owned!
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