So I found yet another box full of old cassette tapes in storage – this time mostly 4-Track masters recorded on my old Ross 4×4 Portastudio. I sure got a lot of use out of that machine between around 1986 through the early 90’s, if the contents of this box are any indication. As with any box full of media from the past, this one is full of ghosts – and one tape that I do not remember recording was this one, a Maxell UR60 simply marked “Master – Rod’s“. 
Now I do know who “Rod” was – He’s Rod Glaze, the bass player for my old band No Laughing Matter from sometime before “Brains for the Stupid” and well after the “Monstor” era. Or he *was*. He’s a ghost now, having died too young some years ago. 
This tape, though – I have no memory of it. The “Master” part is in Rod’s handwriting, and “Rod’s” is in mine, so I can only assume that Rod had borrowed the Ross 4×4 from me (around 1987?) and recorded this tape at his house. He then probably mixed it down to stereo on another tape and left the 4-track master in the recorder. I had to have found it later, marked Rod’s name on it because I knew it was his, and filed it in the tape box. 
So, virgin remix on this one. I of course, no longer have the Ross 4×4 or any other 4-Track recorder, but you don’t really need one anymore to grab the audio off of 4-track tapes. I have the Marantz PMD 430, which is Stereo, so I sample the first two tracks normally, then flip the tape over and sample the second two tracks *backwards*. Then I import the audio files to Audacity, *reverse* the backwards tracks and sync them up. Then I split the stereo pairs into single mono tracks, which leaves you the 4 tracks in Audacity, ready to be mixed down afresh. 
Not me or Rod, but some long-forgotten fellow recording a vocal track on my little 4-track recording setup in the late 80’s. 
A Ross 4×4 from a recent auction.
So here’s a pretty straight mixdown of the 4 tracks, no added effects. Is it a Dadaist masterpiece? I am unqualified to judge, but it sure ain’t what I was expecting, given what else I had recorded of Rod. Fascinating, though – the resurrected voice of a ghost, unlocked from a treasure chest only I possess…
Rod was a pretty jolly fellow, and there was a lot of silliness going on at our practices..
What’s a Mattadaddy? Nothin’, Son. :D
I did something similar to this not too long ago, as a gift for my papa. I found a demo tape he made back in the late 90’s; The copy I had must have been a 4th generation copy, what with all the hiss! I cleaned up the hiss as best I could in Audacity, tried my best to remaster it to a listenable state, & gave it to him a thumb drive with my work on it one morning. I don’t think I had ever seen that man cry until that moment!
Sorry about your friend, but at least his memory lives on in that digital recording. I live by a saying: “Everybody dies twice; Once when they’re body gives out, & again the last time their name is spoken.” How I like to view it, your keeping him alive in a sense with that digital tape copy & this blog post!
I had never seen something like the Ross 4 x 4 before! I want to get one of those!! :D