Cassette Tape as a medium????

[ianbryn11]

For the last few days ive been experimenting with a tascam 424 cassette 4 track recorder.... I think it sounds pretty cool! Why is it that Cassette Tape never became a popular recording medium?

[OldTimey1]

Originally Posted by ianbryn11

For the last few days ive been experimenting with a tascam 424 cassette 4 track recorder.... I think it sounds pretty cool! Why is it that Cassette Tape never became a popular recording medium?

dude it was a super popular recording medium...that's why there are tons of 4 track recorders on eBay...

[MarkRB]

Originally Posted by OldTimey1

dude it was a super popular recording medium...that's why there are tons of 4 track recorders on eBay...

Echo that!

Everyone and their mum had a Tascam portastudio. There was even an 8 track version that ran really fast, in the early 90's.

Oh, that tape magic....

[Unclenny]

I spent a lot of time as a four tracker with that very same unit. Still have it. I really learned a lot in those days about how to commit to a sound.

I still use it on occasion to track in odd places for a bit of lo-fi goodness to mix into a session.

[robertshaw]

Originally Posted by ianbryn11

For the last few days ive been experimenting with a tascam 424 cassette 4 track recorder.... I think it sounds pretty cool! Why is it that Cassette Tape never became a popular recording medium?

it's not a very wide headstack. The hiss will kill you
There is 1 great cd cut on Cassette Tape by a guy named
Blues Serencino. I think it was 8track tascam cassette?
prolly ran at double speed to make it a little less noisy
but still.

the cd is great. But not quite 2in 16 track as far as depth and bottom end go

[sleeper1400]

Originally Posted by ianbryn11

For the last few days ive been experimenting with a tascam 424 cassette 4 track recorder.... I think it sounds pretty cool! Why is it that Cassette Tape never became a popular recording medium?

o to be so young you dont remember cassettes!!!

wow!! im 35 but now i feel like im 90!!!!

lololol!

ok, as many echoed.
cassette tape was the industry standard in home recording untill around 96 or so, thats when digital really started to move in.

in as little as 8 yrs cassettes became more or less obsolete in recording.

[Victory Pete]

Last Sunday I pulled put my Tascam 424 MKIII and set it up in my living room and connected it to my stereo, 1980 Pioneer SX-780 and 4 Klipsch speakers. I had a blast, It was refreshing to get away from my studio and just concentrate on making some music. There is very little hiss because of the DBX and 3 3/4 ips tape speed. You can hear the DBX breathing a bit. If I could add some drums later that could mask the breathing.
VP

[OldTimey1]

Im sure most of you know this, but Springsteen's Nebraska was tracked on a Tascam 144 4-track. Beautiful record.

Yea the problem w/ cassette, once you start adding up tracks, the hiss and noise builds up fast. But for one, two, three, sometimes four track stuff, it can sound pretty lovely with the right front end. Gain staging is really really important.

There is a guy in the netherlands (or belgium??), runs a studio called "Casa Cassette" that tracks to and mixes on a pair of Tascam 688's (8-track cassette) and he gets amazing results.

[Aahzekiel]

Tascam 238 8 track "Syncaset" right here in the rack next to me, box of tapes in the closet. Borrowed from a friend who did his record on it in at home in '95, no computer, the poor SOB. I've not yet fired it up. My band managed to score a groovy old house in the formerly-very-nice part of town instead of renting studio time, so we'll have what gear we can scrounge to supplement my iMac/MOTU/Logic rig and crummy collection of mics - and we'll have time to play around. Relax. Experiment. Have fun.

In addition to the rest of the record, nice and conventionally modern-day digital, the plan is to record a track (a cover of a T.Rex song, whee!) on cassette, record and mix with only the tiny amount of behringer-esque outboard and mackie mixer I've got, mix to the computer and add it as a "hidden" track at the end of the record.

All this talk about tape vs digital and I've never recorded a damn thing to tape except what I used to do with a boombox as a kid. This will change. Mwa ha.

[jono_3]

Nebraska?

[Derp]

I kinda missed out on the tape thing because when I was a kid, I couldn't afford a tape recorder and by the time I started getting into home recording, digital had been around long enough that I was able to get a Roland VS-890 for a hundred-fifty bucks. I've always wanted to pick up a cheap Portastudio just so I can see for myself what I've been missing.

Originally Posted by jono_3

Nebraska?

Nebraska (album) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
There's the story of how it happened right there.

[mattsearles]

you guys are making me want to get a 4 track.. I remember liking the sound if you kinda did it right.. but.. I don't trust those memories so much.. The teachers told us not to let the needle go into the red.. lol, but it just seemed so darn right to me

[Mr. Kelly]

I was certainly a product of the cassette era. The first tape machines I ever saw and heard were little desktop portables. We recorded everything with those things! In fact, my first quasi multitracks were the result of using two of those machines. I'm sure many people my age have stories of recording something on one of those things, then playing it back next to you as you recording something else on the other recorder - and voila, bogus multitracking!

Well, the death of cassettes was inevitable. First, they only ran at 1 7/8 inches per second (if I recall correctly), and that wreaks havoc with sound fidelity. Albeit, '80s multitrack machines ran double that speed, and often had a Dbx and/or Dolby C noise reduction. A tape running that slowly is often prone to noise, wow and flutter, and for me... the biggest killer... drop outs!

As machines progressed, the transport systems became better, and some of these problems became less apparent. But, the dropout problems remained. I suspect that dropouts on cassettes were the result of the tape or recording becoming slightly demagnetized or neutralized, and/or slight ripples in the tape, or simply dirt accumulating on the tape or head. To me, drop outs on a recording were evil, and always present on cassettes. You couldn't escape it. Of course, on pro reel to reel machines, with the tape traveling so fast across the heads, such as 7.5 inches per second, or in studios, 15 inches per second, a little problem with the actual tape goes virtually unnoticed.

It's great to think of how the pioneers actually physically cut reel tape, and the incision, given the tape speeds, went virtually unnoticed! Not quite so easy on a cassette. I tried.

So, although very convenient, and economical, I can't say I really shed any tears when cassettes died a very slow death. If you pull out and pop on an old cassette these days, you'll find that although they may have aged somewhat gracefully, they'll still magnify the reasons that they are now extinct.

[bentends]

Even in the modern age, I still find ways to utilize 4 track cassette recorders. Recently I've been recording various drums, beats, and samples to a Tascam 424mkII. Then I use the pitch/tape speed controls to manipulate and mangle the tempos....Oh, and don't forget, you can easily flip the cassette over and overdub parts in reverse!

[matskull]

I remember my first recorder was a 4 track cassette recorder by tascam, portastudio I believe, it has been so freaking useful and inspiring but in all honesty it sounded bad pretty easily.

[Eganmedia]

I wouldn't consider cassette a medium. It's a low.

[FireMoon]

There was a brief period when there was actually a damn decent form of cassette tape recording medium. Only it wasn't your standard compact cassette tape but video cassette tape. For a very brief period several companies made HIFI video cassette machines that had a function where, instead of the audio being recored to a tiny part of the tape you could use the whole width of the tape. I archived a load of recordings to it , at the time. Not only that, you could actually adjust the levels and there were VU meters for the audio.

Sadly they lasted one generation of machines that were in production, i guess, for no more than 2 years.

The only company i am aware of who utilised this for multi track were AKAI , who, produced a 12 track *portastudio* using the medium.. I say portastudio, but it was actually, a sizable beast.

[sonicdefault]

When you want both loFi and the sound of tape, cassettes are the perfect solution. Blank cassettes are getting harder to find though.

For those who've never used cassettes much, look for a high bias cassettes such as Chromium Oxide coated and remember to hit the level hard.


-SD

[DCtoDaylight]

Originally Posted by Eganmedia

I wouldn't consider cassette a medium. It's a low.

I LOL'd at this.

[DCtoDaylight]

Originally Posted by mattsearles

you guys are making me want to get a 4 track.. I remember liking the sound if you kinda did it right.. but.. I don't trust those memories so much.. The teachers told us not to let the needle go into the red.. lol, but it just seemed so darn right to me

Well, you're correct - the only way to "do it right" (at least on my old Yamaha 4-track with dbx) was to slam the ever-lovin' out of the record levels. If you did that, you could get a little mojo working. Of course, it also caused bleed and crosstalk between tracks, and it was really easy to go too far into the red, and you had maybe a quarter of the dynamic range of a 24 bit recording, but it was what we had!

And yeah, grab one and mess around with it - it's a little taste of the old school!

[FireMoon]

Another thing to bare in mind about various makes of cassette recorder. They were set up and biased at the factory to work specifically with certain brands of tape. Usually TDK or Maxell. Sony's were biased for Sony as were Denon, althoguh their tape formulation was the same as TDK..

That's why many of the more, fully featured machines had a *bias* control on them. This allowed you to adjust the playback characteristics, to supposedly bring the treble back in line with tapes from differing manufacturers.

From memory only the Nakamichi machines were built with adjustable recording bias. Cassettes, officially, died the day Nakamichi stopped making new decks. If you can find one in good nick, they are the cream of Cassette recorders.

[sonicdefault]

Originally Posted by DCtoDaylight

Well, you're correct - the only way to "do it right" (at least on my old Yamaha 4-track with dbx) was to slam the ever-lovin' out of the record levels. If you did that, you could get a little mojo working. ..

The better quality tapes of course allow hotter levels as well as improved S/N.

-SD

[sonicdefault]

Originally Posted by FireMoon

...

From memory only the Nakamichi machines were built with adjustable recording bias. Cassettes, officially, died the day Nakamichi stopped making new decks. If you can find one in good nick, they are the cream of Cassette recorders.

There were other brands with adjustable recording bias, but Nakamichi's were awesome machines.


-SD

[dysenterygary]

I did all of my first recordings on a 4 track portastudio which I have now sold. But now you guys are making me want to pick one up! I still have all of my cassettes from that time period, and it would be cool to hear all those songs I wrote from waayyy back in the day. I could see getting some really cool effects from using tape into the daw too.

[jono_3]

Originally Posted by Derp

Nebraska (album) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
There's the story of how it happened right there.

Oh lol sorry that didnt come across how I wanted it too. It should have read

ummm how about Nebraska?

Im very familiar with the album

[Happy Musicfan]

Originally Posted by MarkRB

Oh, that tape magic....

Oh, that tape hiss, wobble, hum ..... oh that murky magnetization ..... oh that tape is playing at a different speed on that deck ..... oh, waiting and waiting for it to rewind/ff ..... and oh no the tape is being eaten alive !

[greatgreatriver]

Originally Posted by OldTimey1

There is a guy in the netherlands (or belgium??), runs a studio called "Casa Cassette" that tracks to and mixes on a pair of Tascam 688's (8-track cassette) and he gets amazing results.

Hey, that was really cool! Enjoyed the sound and music. Awesome vibe to on those videos...

[vernier]

Originally Posted by ianbryn11

For the last few days ive been experimenting with a tascam 424 cassette 4 track recorder.... I think it sounds pretty cool! Why is it that Cassette Tape never became a popular recording medium?

Too small and slow for most but I sometimes use it in the recording process.

[Toro]

Latin Playboys first album recorded to cassette.. i think?

[JRock]

Love the 4Track!!! Physical medium... garbage bags full of tapes with sketches and partials... Love the sound. They should make everyone learn on a 4Track. If you can make it sound good, digital is a breeze. too clean in fact...