Portastudio

The TASCAM Portastudio was the world's first four-track recorder based on a standard compact audio cassette tape.

The Portastudio 144 made its debut in 1979 (priced at about $1200.00 Canadian) to be followed by the Porta One in 1984. For the first time it enabled musicians to record affordably several instrumental and vocal parts on different tracks of the built-in four-track recorder 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.

These machines were typically used by artists to record demos, although they are still often used in Lo-fi recording. The analog portastudios by TASCAM (a division of TEAC) and similar units by Fostex, Akai, Yamaha, Sansui, Marantz, 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.