4 TRACK

FOUR-TRACKIN' ACROSS THE UNIVERSE!

The Fostex X-15 Four Track Cassette Recorder

Like every budding musician, in my mid teens I started to write songs and record the demos into any tape recorder I could find. This was great until I got wind a friend had a Fostex 4 Track cassette recorder. I begged him for a loan of it in late 1989. He gave it to me and I cut my first multi tack demos. I was hooked and as luck would have it, he was moving away to college and offered me the Fostex for a nominal fee. I grabbed it and used it for more than a decade until I started using CuBase on my Mac in 2000. It still works fine!

Four Tracks but only two inputs! Every now and then the drive belt would break

and the only thing that works time and time again is the rubber ring part of a condom

cut away from the sheath! This machine is protected you might say!

The Fostex loaded with a Sony UX-ES of course!

You can see 4 Tack Master 1 on the label and this is in fact my first master tape!

The tape is recorded on one side in a linear fashion and not turned over obviously.

If you play side B in a normal stereo it will be two tracks backwards.

 This is the 4 Track tape vault! All tapes recorded

between October 1989 and early 2000. I have all the original master tapes

dated and I never recorded over them. I have digitized lots of them

over the years and they are in great condition.

This my first demo tape! Running at normal speed

two 90 minute 4 Track Masters would fit on one 90! Perfecto!

I only ever used high end Type IIs for recording and

transcribing to stereo two track.