stereo/mono question

Cubase
1

i recently purchased a tascam 424 portable cassette tape recorder. i’m wanting to record some sounds i’ve made on the tape to cubase.

the line out on the tascam 424 has 1xleft 3.5mm 1xright 3.5mm outputs.

i am using a focusrite saffire pro 24 as my soundcard into cubase 6. it has 4 x 1/4 inch inputs.

should i plug each of the 3.5mm outs from the tascam into separate 1/4 inch input channels on my soundcard & record into cubase as stereo?

or would it be ok to get an rca > 3.5mm > 1/4 inch jack, run this into one channel of the soundcard & record in mono?

i hope that makes sense!

2

Well…

If you have a bunch of mono tracks on the tascam then you could just use one output panned over and record onto one track in cubase.

If it has stereo tracks the obviously record the stereo information to a stereo track.

3

i just wondered if a cable like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/6-35mm-MONO-1-4-Jack-2x-RCA-PHONO-Plugs-OFC-Cable-3m-/330494612732?pt=UK_Computing_CablesConnectors_RL&hash=item4cf30394fc could be used to record into one channel of the mixer & cubase.

4

If you want the audio onto separate tracks from the Tascam I recommend buying two of these (or maybe even more useful, buy 4 x rca > 1/4’’ adapters and 4 standard 1/4’’ cables) and run the audio from the 4 “tape outputs” to all 4 1/4’’ jacks on the saffire. The reason for this is that two runs through the same recording on tape will never be completely in sync.
If you just want your stereo mix then one of the cables will do. The cable you linked will either give you a stereo to mono mixdown or require you to record the tape serveral times to get the tracks separate, not recommended.

/A

5

it is just the final mix on tape that i will want to record into cubase.

so i will need 3.5mm > 1/4 jack for both the left out & the right out (on the line-out of the tascam)