Analog idea.. record to a VCR ?

[lukejs]

I hear of people wanting to improve their DAW mixes... Since VCR´s are becoming obsolete.... and you can get a really nice one for under $ 150 bucks, couldn´t one be modded to be able to record your 2 track to get some analoge "mojo" ? When I say modded, I mean dropping all video to the tape head, and using all the tape just for audio. I thought of this the other day after a guy said he could record to his vcr and have better results than another guys Digi 001. If , say, Panasonic and JVC made one of these , I bet they´d sell like hotcakes !!!

[joeq]

Originally Posted by lukejs

I hear of people wanting to improve their DAW mixes... Since VCR´s are becoming obsolete.... and you can get a really nice one for under $ 150 bucks, couldn´t one be modded to be able to record your 2 track to get some analoge "mojo" ? When I say modded, I mean dropping all video to the tape head, and using all the tape just for audio. I thought of this the other day after a guy said he could record to his vcr and have better results than another guys Digi 001. If , say, Panasonic and JVC made one of these , I bet they´d sell like hotcakes !!!

If you go into the hotcake business selling a kind of hotcake that only audio engineers are going to buy, you will be broke pretty fast! The reason a VCR is $150 bucks is because they make 100 Million of them.

I knew a guy who used to mix onto the audio portion of his beta hi-fi VCR. No mods, just used the audio track. It sounded pretty good, IMA.

[theblue1]

When I was doing a live loop ambient act I used to record my practice/work sessions (it was all improv, so I never knew when I was gonna do something killer) onto a Hi-Fi Stereo VHS deck. At the time I bought the deck, Hi Fi VHS was the cheapest affordable high quality recording, so I made sure I got a deck where you could defeat the automatic level control on record... (it was pretty amusing looking for that feature... the people who sold VCRs/video were by and large the absolute bottom tier of the techno-sales foodchain... dumb as bricks, by and large).

Another issue is video sync... VCR's take their time information from video sync... if you don't have a video source going in, chances are the speed will vary.

I got some decent recordings... better than my TASCAM multitracks, for sure...

But I don't think there's a future in it...

[Toppermost]

Compared to studio mastering tapedecks, you'll find that the audio quality on most domestic VCRs is somewhat lacking. Better to pay a few more $$ for a 1/4 inch R/R deck.

[octatonic]

Originally Posted by lukejs

I hear of people wanting to improve their DAW mixes... Since VCR´s are becoming obsolete.... and you can get a really nice one for under $ 150 bucks, couldn´t one be modded to be able to record your 2 track to get some analoge "mojo" ? When I say modded, I mean dropping all video to the tape head, and using all the tape just for audio. I thought of this the other day after a guy said he could record to his vcr and have better results than another guys Digi 001. If , say, Panasonic and JVC made one of these , I bet they´d sell like hotcakes !!!

They did then Alesis made them and called them ADAT.
Well, ok- they weren't analog- but anyway.

I know a few people who used VCR's as mixdown decks (the main recorder was a Tascam 4track.
It is possible to do what you say, but you'd be better off going for a 1/4"

JR

[matt thomas]

ha I went through a stage of mixing to VCR about 20 years ago!

It sounded alot better than cassette tape, but not as good as reel to reel (on average)

this was using a good quality, non modded vcr, utilising the audio inputs only. I'm pretty sure you would have to get special heads if you wanted to use the whole tape just for audio, which would defeat the $$$ benefit.

narco

[vernier]

Yep, for analog-mojo get old analog ...reel to reel, cassette, whatever.