Portastudio

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The TASCAM Portastudio was the first four-track recorder based on a standard compact audio cassette tape. The term portastudio is exclusive to TASCAM, though it is generally used to describe all self-contained cassette-based multitrack recorders dedicated to music production. The Portastudio, and particularly its first iteration, the Teac 144, is credited with launching the home-recording wave, which allowed musicians to cheaply record and produce music at home,^[1] and is cited as one of the most significant innovations in music production technology.^[2]

The Teac 144 Portastudio made its debut in 1979, at the annual meeting of the Audio Engineering Society. It was followed by several other models by TASCAM,^[3] and eventually by several other manufacturers.^[4]

For the first time it enabled musicians to affordably record several instrumental and vocal parts on different tracks of the built-in four-track cassette recorder individually and later blend all the parts together, while transferring them to another standard, two-channel stereo tape deck (remix and mixdown) to form a stereo recording.^[5]

The Tascam Portastudio 244, introduced in 1982, improved upon the previous design with overall better sound quality and more features, including: dbx noise reduction, dual/concentric sweepable EQ's, and the ability to record on up to 4 tracks simultaneously.^[6]

In general, these machines were typically used by amateur and professional musicians to record demos, although they are still used today in lo-fi recording. The analog portastudios by TASCAM (a division of TEAC) and similar units by Fostex, Akai, Yamaha, Sansui, Marantz, Vestax, Vesta Fire, TOA, Audio-Technica, Peavey, and others generally recorded on high-bias cassette tapes. Most of the machines were four-track, but there were also six-track and eight-track units. Some newer digital models record to a hard disk, allowing for digital effects and up to 32 tracks of audio.