After the clunking great Vestax MR44, I progressed to the Yamaha MT4X four-track. The MT4X is a great recorder and to me felt like the Starship Enterprise back in the mid-1990s when I purchased the unit. However, I grew disatisfied with four-track recording and started to record and bounce down in stereo pairs, in order to achieve a more professional sound.
The MT4X was retired and sold when I move over to digital recording via the home PC around 1998. Though with our recent move, I discovered a case full of my old 4-track master recordings made during this period and thought it was a shame that I could no longer access these tapes.
A quick scout on eBay brought up the MT4X and I purchased a unit for just over £60, including its original box and manual. The unit itself appeared as new and worked great on the old tapes. It was strange to hear old stuff and to find tunes that you had completely forgotten about. I am presenting two such tunes today.
The first I have called “Future Echoes” and I have no idea when or how it was recorded. It sounds to me as if it was recorded completely using a MIDI unit and I suspect it might have been during my dalliance with the Yamaha QY10, which would place this around 96/97 though I can’t be completely sure. It might be from earlier using a Roland MC-500 hardware sequencer I purchased in 1994. Who knows? It sounds a bit Krautrock and I like it.
Direct download: CLICK HERE
The second piece called “Afex” is a bit more abstract and completely unlike anything I’ve ever done before or since. Again, not sure of how I did it or why I did it or when I did it, but it is a slab of amateur dance electronica. Like the previous piece, no guitars were used in the recording.
Direct download: CLICK HERE
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i came upon the same situation as you,i now have a digital 16 track and its awsome.however,i also came upon a bunch of mastertapes from the late 80s to early 90s.i would love to re-record those songs but i no longer have my 4track.its a yamaha multi-track cassette recorder like yours.would you be interested in selling yours?
Awesome! I’m picking up an MTX4 on the weekend – can’t wait. The tracks you’ve uploaded sound great.
i would like to see specs maybe buy one
I have one of these little machines, and it was great, but now I’m all digital, I’m gonna list it on ebay in a minute.
Your tracks do sound good btw 😀
Hi there, I have a yamaha 4-track recorder. What out lets do I use to record the final track from the 4-track to the additonal cassette player to master the track. Thank you
I prefer the second track played in reverse.
Hello, I am looking at picking up a cassette mulitrack, and have been looking at the Yamaha MT4X and the Yamaha MT120. I found your website, and if you could, I had a couple quick questions for you.
I assume you can record multiple tracks at once with the MT4X, doing direct channel to track, and sending multiple channels to one track, and recording multiple tracks that way as well?
Also, both seem like fine recorders, and each would probably be fine, and I can not see anything about either one that says, “this one is better,” but do you know, which is the higher end model, and for what reason? Thank you so much
Paul
spudzmeckenzie at aol.com
Well I have no experience of the MT120, so my opinions are one-sided. The MT4X was the rolls royce of four-tracks at the time – you can record to all four tracks at once and run four tracks out by separate lines to another mixer if you wish. You can also bounce down three tracks to one, etc. It’s good quality, great sound, and well worth picking one up on eBay. They go for about £50 now.
Thank you very much man
Paul