bouncing mix's to tape cassette

[SRDmusic54]

Has anyone ever bounced a mix to tape cassette, then back into the DAW? Would it give it that analog sound or just add more noise and take away quality? Is there a machine for home studios besides your average tape player/recorder that can do such a thing? Just a thought....might be a stupid post, but i love analog, albums like thriller..

[matt thomas]

its not likely to work in way you like, however by all means give it a go.

you may want to try mixing to a decent quality VHS machine too

narco

[GGreen]

I actually keep a 3 head cassette deck permentantly attached to some groups for 'lofi' joy.

With a Studer 1/4inch for 'hifilofi' joy on another pair.

You wont get good 'mixes' onto the cassette deck but its ace for dirtying stuff up and band limiting it nicely to slot into the mix, drums , keys , vocals all benefit from it. I just keep it ready to rock , send whatever to it , record it back and trim of the latency caused by the head gapping. record with NR , play it back without it , all sorts of cheap and cheerful fun , overdrive to hell and back , more fun than any plugin

Still worth keeping one around imho.

Cheers

gfx

[Cojo]

Hi.

I also have a 3 head tape deck that I plan to put in the path. And my friends and started a cassette tape club just for fun, listening to old tapes... wanna join?? I'll make you an extra special membership!



/Cojo

[DCtoDaylight]

I have to laugh....us old pre-digital low-end Slutz were forced to work with cassettes for many years and we did the best we could with 'em (and some people did some damn nice work), but wow...to think of actually using them to *improve* the sound of something!

But hey, if it works it works! If you're going to try it, smack the levels hard - experiment until you get just to the edge of distortion (or even a bit past)...the meters will probably be well up into the red area.

Also, try it with and without noise reduction and see which sound you like better. You can also futz with the tape-selection switch (metal, chrome, etc.), which will change the overall EQ.

And here's one other thought - you could probably scare up an old 4-track cassette ministudio for short money. If you got one that ran the tape at double speed (like the Yamaha MT series), that would give you a lot better sound quality....but maybe that's not what you're after!

Anyway, good luck!

[FULL-DUPLEX]

If you find a Nakamichi in a good condition with High Com2 you will get a nice sound...

The Studer 710 sounds really good...

But against the big brother tape machines...

Regards,

F.D.

[Bob Ross]

Originally Posted by SRDmusic54

Would it give it that analog sound or just add more noise and take away quality?

There's a difference?






I've got a Tascam 3-head cassette deck that probably spends more time patched from an Aux Send (for dirty slapback fx) than it does as a record/playback deck. Sure, try it, it's fun.

[joeq]

the quality of an analog tape deck is mostly a function of track width and tape speed.


people who gush about the sound of Analog Tape are usually referring to 2" tape running at 30ips or 15ips

half of that would be 7 1/2 ips

half of that would be 3 3/4 ips

half of that would be 1 7/8 ips which is the speed cassette decks run at.


As someone who HATED the years when cassette was my delivery medium, I personally find it a little shocking that anyone would be seeking it out as a mixdown medium


as others have said- for low-fi fun, go for it. The JVC decks with DDRP are my faves.

as a serious process to "warm up" your mixes you are not going to like it.

[RusRant]

One of the songs on the Joan Osborne Relish ("Ladder" I believe) record was taken from a cassette mix. And it sounds like it. It will give you a sound, wether good or not is a matter of taste.

[PhatStax Drums]

Originally Posted by SRDmusic54

Has anyone ever bounced a mix to tape cassette, then back into the DAW? Would it give it that analog sound or just add more noise and take away quality? Is there a machine for home studios besides your average tape player/recorder that can do such a thing? Just a thought....might be a stupid post, but i love analog, albums like thriller..

Well, of course it will give it analog quality AND take away quality, in the sense of fidelity to the original signal, but yes, you knew that.

Hey, if you like how it sounds for the music you're putting together, go for it.

However (perhaps this is too obvious) companies such as www.voxengo.com make various tube warmifiers and more specifically, analog tape emulators, that would be entirely and easily controllable right in your computer, wouldn't take as much time to deal with, the results would be instantaneously audible, and it would probably preserve more of the sound quality than going to cassette and back would (depending on how you set the parameters of the plug-in).

from http://www.voxengo.com/product/analogflux/ :

"The TapeBus plug-in recreates characteristic elements of the reel-to-reel tape sound. This includes saturation, modulation noise and smearing effects which are known for the 'analog' feel they bring to any audio recording. This plug-in also applies a selected impulse response taken by us from the existing tape machine."

This line is an edit to the original post....it occurs to me that perhaps a DAW won't take plug-ins...but they probably do. I use Cubase in a PC and it takes VST and other plug-ins.

I could see using a geniune cassette deck sparingly to make a certain part of a song sound somewhat awful, purposefully, but using it alot, I'm frankly not sure why you would want to. But, art is art and I don't know what you're producing.

Sure, the plug-in wouldn't be the same as the cassette deck (or a reel-to-reel deck for that matter) but perhaps it would have something you like.

Apologies if this is too obvious and you're really after the feel and sound of using real gear in and out, not plug-ins.

If you really like what the cassette is doing to your material, even the day after and the week after you mix it, well, then, go for it!

[Cojo]

Guess what?

I was inspired by the original poster so I've spent the afternoon running a mix through my tape deck just to do som tests. The cassette deck is a Yamaha KX1200. It has dolby B, C and dbx. It also has adjustable bias and the possibillity to monitor pre or post tape.

So what's the conclution then?

Well it depends...

When I adjusted the bias so that the taped song sounded the same as the original it really wasn't any big difference at all. If I hit the tape really hard it actually sounded worse.

When I under adjusted the bias to get more top end it actually started to sound interesting. It started to sound more hifi and I can definitely see a use for this.

I have yet to try some really over biased drums. I'll report back when...

/Cojo

[Bassace]

i will quite happily restore your "cassette mixes" denoising...hissing .....etc . and burn them to digital for you with 0.01dB dynamic range.......

[MonoBrow]

We use a Studer/Revox A77.Works very well. They go on e-bay for about 250/400 € for a good clean machine.

[s.d.finley]

You guys must have alot of extra time on your hands....

Me too....posting this..