TEAC 144 Portastudio

The TEAC 144 Tascam Series Portastudio was a 4-track cassette multitrack recorder introduced in 1979 by TEAC. Each member of The Police had owned a Portastudio each, primarily for demoing purposes.

Sting's TEAC 144 Portastudio
Sting used the Portastudio to write/demo songs for Police albums from Zenyatta Mondatta onwards, alongside solo work in the mid 80s. He also had a TEAC A-3340S 4-track. The Portastudio was gifted to him by TEAC after he did some promotional work for them in the early 1980s: in other words appearing in a TEAC advert for the A-3440S.

Sting later gave the Portastudio to ex-Last Exit bandmate Gerry Richardson. Richardson has put the Portastudio up for auction on February 2022, which was sold to collector Craig Betts and came with a letter of provenance from Sting dated 7 January 2022.

Andy Summers' TEAC 144 Portastudio
Andy Summers had demoed potential material for Zenyatta Mondatta and Ghost In The Machine using the TEAC 144 Portastudio, part of his Ireland setup alongside a TEAC 8-track. He later upgraded to the newer TEAC 244 Portastudio for Synchronicity.

Stewart Copeland's TEAC 144 Portastudio
Stewart Copeland used the Portastudio on several tours from 1980 to 1982, to satisfy his need to function creatively while on the road: “I don’t know the names of any chords or anything so I can’t write them down, I’ve got to record things. That’s the only real way to get the feel down, anyway.”

On the road, it was replaced by the Fostex X-15 on the Synchronicity tour.