What do you use for mixdown/mastering?

Vercengetorex · Post by **Vercengetorex** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 7:10 am

suburbanbather wrote: Do you use a real to real or something like a cheap 4 track tape recorder.

He he...
No, you wont find any Fostex or Tascam "professional" 4 track "studio" cassette recorders in my home.
I am actually recording audio to my Panasonic AG-6500 video editing decks. They have an "audio under video" high resolution capability, allowing them to use the full 1/2" of tape, rather than the 1/8" normally allowed to audio in the VHS spec. This capability provides for literally CD quality audio to VHS tape. 20Hz - 20kHz @ >90dB dynamic range.

I have done a bit of tweaking to one of my decks, setting its tape bias about 1dB hotter than VHS spec, allowing me to acheive a bit of tape saturation and compression without pushing the decks analog circutry "too hard" (although, I have yet to clip that analog circutry yet. even while recording a rather LOUD clitch performance, hitting the deck with a VERY hot signal [front of house guy sucked]). The other deck is stock, allowing for more "clean" analog recording.

Let me know if you have any questions about the freq-response plot or such....

4am · Post by **4am** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 7:55 am

the system via vhs tape looks interesting.
in the past i have already used a tape for the compression of single samples (mainly beats).
i will check if one of the vhs recorders i have at home offers this possibility... i'm just curious to hear the result on my tracks.
the tools i use have already been written in this thread (psp vintage warmer, waves, tc, izotope, etc)
the one i didn't see is t-racks. i didn't use it in the last times but it is very easy to use and the results are intersting.

distraub · Post by **distraub** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 1:21 pm

LIve > T-Racks > Wavlab... here

braj · Post by **braj** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 5:01 pm

I use Tracktion with it's FinalMix plugin after exporting the audio from Live. It it pretty spiffy really, and as I understand it today is the last day for the free version offer. Not sure where to get it though, but for free it is a great solution.

suburbanbather · Post by **suburbanbather** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 1:37 am

How much did those panasonic decks cost you and are they still in production? My problem is that its just too easy to render to disk as opposed to recording to tape and then recording back into the computer to burn the cd. I guess I'll worry about when I get good enough to actually sell my tracks.