18 months ago, Yamaha unleashed on the world their first four-track home recording system. Rather than 'conform-to-the norm' by building another Portastudio as so many companies have done, Yamaha made a bold and largely successful attempt at broadening the boundaries of such systems with a modular design, whilst maintaining a three figure price tag. This system consisted of a four-track cassette deck running at normal speed with Dolby B and C noise reduction, a 4-2 mixer with built-in graphic Eq and bucket-brigade delay simulating reverb, a relatively thorough patchbay, and a smart looking racking system in which these items were housed.

The only major criticism of this system was aimed at the mixer as this caused the main source of unwanted noise. The MT-44 cassette deck itself was very good, giving relatively high sound quality (67dB S/N, 14kHz bandwidth) for a cassette deck running at normal speed. However, when the tone controls and graphic equaliser were implemented on the mixer section, the limitations of this system were highlighted — hiss became a problem, and this restricted the number of generations of bouncing to one or two.

Now Yamaha have refined their original modular concept with this new system, having increased the number of features available whilst still maintaining a similar price to its predecessor.

MT-44D Cassette Deck

RRP: £399

The most obvious improvement in this new system is its appearance. Now with a black and red colour scheme, which is characteristic of Yamaha's latest range of recording and outboard gear, it really does look a bit posh.

The tape transport functions found on the MT-44D cassette deck are your straightforward Play/Stop/Rewind/Fast Forward/Record, as well as Cue/Review, Record Pause and Record Mute. The counter now has both a numerical and a real time counter which also has ZeroPlay and ZeroStop features. All the displays are in red; red LED tape counter, four red 14-stage peak LED metering (with a slight orange tint above the 0dB mark), and red backlit words indicating ZeroStop, Dolby In/Out, B or C, Record Status etc.

Beneath the LED meters are the row of track record buttons and Dolby switching, and beneath these is a cover which, when swung open, reveals the individual track recording level knobs, a pitch control and a headphone socket.

One interesting feature of both the MT-44D and its predecessor is that it will behave as a normal stereo cassette deck until a small metallic tag is stuck onto the cassette itself. This will then be sensed by the MT-44D's tape detectors, which will then enable four-track play and record.

In fact, there are many other similarities that the MT-44D bears to the MT-44, not least of which is its price. Its specifications too are identical, giving a S/N ratio of 67dB when Dolby C is implemented, a frequency response of 14kHz, and its wow and flutter figure stands at 0.06%.

Yamaha also have an optional remote control for the MT-44D which will control all the basic tape transport functions for an extra £29.

RM602 Mixer

RRP: £249

Unlike the MT-44D, the RM602 mixer has very few similarities to its predecessor. The 602 is, as its name would imply, of a six into two configuration, with four track routing being achieved by channel switching in the master section.

Each of the six input channels has three input pad settings in addition to either an input from Tape (on first four channels) or a phono in (on channel inputs five and six). Beneath the input selector are two tone controls giving 15dB of boost or cut for the treble or bass frequencies. Each channel then has an Effects Send, individual in-line stereo monitoring, a Pan control and then the channel slider.

On the master section we have the aforementioned channel routing, which will select either left bus to tracks one or three, right bus to tracks two or four, or in the central position will directly route the first four track inputs to their respective channels. Then there is the Effects Return level and Auxiliary input level pots, beneath which are two master sliders. The only other mixer controls are the master effects send and monitor level pots to the right of the master channel, and the power on/off switch. There is a single headphone jack at the front of the mixer, and the level metering is at the top of the master section with two very clear multicoloured 13-stage ladder LEDs, which are green up to 0dB, then becoming yellow, and then 'you're too-bloody-loud' red at +5 and +8dB.

All the rear panel connections then interface directly with the patchbay.

PB-35B Patchbay and Racking System

RRP: £149

Out of the Patchbay's rear end come all the relevant connections for connecting the system together, which can also be accessed on its front panel. There are the patch connections one would need to access regularly — the six channel inputs, Monitor and Stereo Outs, Stereo Send and Returns, Effects Send and Return, Auxiliary In, as well as a unique routing function labelled Tape Sync. This consists of two phono connectors (for Sync code In and Out) as well as an On/Off push button for switching this feature in and out of the system. Although since this is primarily a routing rather than an electronic feature, and thus will work with any Tape Sync signal, the Tape Sync is designed with Yamaha's own MIDI clock to Tape Sync unit, the YMC10, in mind (see separate item).

The Racking System assembles to provide a smart and functional housing for this four-track system, and also has a cassette holder which sits to the right of the cassette deck.

The System

As the Patchbay has all the patch leads built in, the assembly of the whole system takes only a matter of minutes. Once connected up, all the interfacing is hidden, and all that needs to be done to start recording is to plug the sound source into one of the six channel inputs on the Patchbay.

The MT-44D's tape counter was found to be very fast and accurate, and although in the real time mode it only displayed timings to the second (which is sufficient for track timing purposes), in the numerical counting mode it counts to a subdivision of 0.7 secs, which is slightly faster than most cassette decks' counters.

One point that was noted was the way in which adjacent displays partially illuminated each other; ie when in the Play mode, the illuminated play indicator also tended to light up the record indicator which is immediately above it. This was slightly confusing to start with, though something the user/owner should get used to given time.

The layout and features of the mixer make the multitracking process a very smooth and speedy operation. Layout is logical, and having all the connection points accessible from the front make for a very 'tidy' system. I found 19" rackmounting units (say a DDL or reverb unit) could sit quite conveniently on top of the system, giving convenient and easy access to all controls.

Sound quality of this system is quite good, and better than most of the systems that are around at the moment. Once the record level pots on the MT-44D were lined up to match the mixer levels, all metering remained fast and accurate throughout the frequencies. Personally I'm a great fan of Dolby C noise reduction, and when comparing the loss of sound quality over several bounces when using first Dolby C and then Dolby B, the difference is quite staggering.

Conclusion

Above all other features found on this system, the most attractive is how fast, easy and well the MT-44D system works as a whole. It is quite possible to be able to record a complex piece of music with several bounce-downs within an hour, whilst still maintaining a sound quality superior to the majority of demos. Furthermore, there were very few things that I could find to criticise. I would have preferred to have seen a few more centre notches on the mixer pots — pan controls etc — and it also would have been useful to have a second headphone output from the mixer; but otherwise, I found the system to be as near-perfect as one could hope to get for this kind of money.

If you are thinking of buying this system, and think that you might be able to save quite a useful sum by doing without the Patchbay and rack, let me just emphasise that the beauty of systems such as this one is their ability to put complete control at your finger tips with the minimum of fuss. There is nothing (or hardly anything) less inspiring than having to deal with a mess of mains, speaker and connector cables before being able to lay your ideas onto tape.

YAMAHA MT-44D/RM602/RB35B SYSTEM - RRP: £797