Recording a Podcast to Tape

Back in 2018 I was in a voice chat in the Podcastage Discord with a few folks, and we got talking about older recording technology and how 4-track cassette recorders were all the rage back in the day. When I was younger and playing in bands, I had always wanted one of these devices to record “high quality” demos, but we could never afford one. In this voice chat we came up with the silly idea that I should buy one of those 4-track recorders and record an episode of the podcast to it.

Fast forward a few weeks and a used Tascam Ministudio Porta02 was in my hands. It went unused for a few months until episode 150 of the Bandrew Says Podcast, where I recorded the entire thing directly to my computer as well as through the Porta02. I edited two versions of the podcast, an official episode that sounds pretty normal, and a lost cassette edition with a VHS filter over the video and a never before seen introduction that was exclusive to that version of the show.

While I was preparing for the podcast, I was filming the setup and a walkthrough of the process with the intention of making a video for Podcastage titled “Recording a Podcast to Tape”. At the end of the week I had almost the entire thing completed except for an outro.

You may be confused now because it is now 2020, and this was recorded in 2018. That’s correct. I completely forgot that I did this and just stumbled across the video project which was still incomplete. I thought that it was a pretty fun video so I went ahead and filmed the outro and published as the first video in 2020 on the podcastage channel. I hope you enjoy this experiment as much as I do. Is it good sounding. No. But it’s recorded with an important piece of technology especially for anyone who was in a band in the late 90’s early 00’s, and it was a dream come true to finally be able to record on one of these devices.

Official Podcast Episode Recorded to Computer

The Lost Cassette Edition of the Podcast