Looking for advice on recording to cassette tape...!

[Khazul]

Hi - I'm looking for advice on recording to cassette tape,

Thought at first you had decided to give up with buggy DAWs and computers

[3phase]

this is how a good tapedeck looks...but they still get quite pricy
http://cgi.ebay.de/Revox-B710-Cassette- ... 1e5b71b6de

[3phase]

and..even when its probably a waste to share the cheap tricks .. because with the internet they are quickl< no cheap tricks anymore...

http://cgi.ebay.de/SABA-CD-262-hochwert ... 389wt_1162


things like that are the real mc coy regarding tapedecks... 100% discrete circuit in the sound related electronics..

that is doing half the job.. the rest is done by tape magic.. and they are usually cheap.. however allways a risk that rubberparts need to be replaced..which can be difficult with such old machines.. however..usually possible..

there are similar units from sony or marantz.. late 70´s stuff.. after that time only pro models are usable for musical needs

[leedsquietman]

Trust me, as someone who grew up with cassette portastudios before moving up to reel to reel, if you can use a reel to reel you will get a better effect, you have better noise reduction and mixer capabilities (so long as you hook up a reasonable mixer). You also typically get more speed and tape bias control.

Of course, a reel to reel is much more maintenance work and costs much more than used 424 mkIIs or Portastudio Ones etc which are all over ebay for cheap, but especially if recording to good quality 1/2" tape, gives a better stereo image, less crosstalk and can be pushed more than Chrome cassette tape. You can typically hook up an external noise reduction unit, instead of being stuck with dbx or dolby B , Dolby SR totally kicks tape portastudio noise reduction to the kerb in terms of performance and much less trading off of high end.

My first 18 months working in a studios was mostly tape op/reel tape editing, so I still have some affection for the medium.

[oblique strategies]

Nice thing about multi-track portastudio tapes is that you can play them back on a regular cassette deck & some tracks will be slowed down & backwards.

[shuutobi]

Trust me, as someone who grew up with cassette portastudios before moving up to reel to reel, if you can use a reel to reel you will get a better effect, you have better noise reduction and mixer capabilities (so long as you hook up a reasonable mixer). You also typically get more speed and tape bias control.

Of course, a reel to reel is much more maintenance work and costs much more than used 424 mkIIs or Portastudio Ones etc which are all over ebay for cheap, but especially if recording to good quality 1/2" tape, gives a better stereo image, less crosstalk and can be pushed more than Chrome cassette tape. You can typically hook up an external noise reduction unit, instead of being stuck with dbx or dolby B , Dolby SR totally kicks tape portastudio noise reduction to the kerb in terms of performance and much less trading off of high end.

My first 18 months working in a studios was mostly tape op/reel tape editing, so I still have some affection for the medium.

Some people like the noise and other nasty artifacts, from cheap cassettes and portastudios. Hence the request for lofi.

[leedsquietman]

you can get this from reel tape too, just with more control !

Mostly what people like about 'analog' sound are the 'summing' and the tape compression/saturation - these are what people are mostly trying to emulate in plugins etc. Tape compression on reel tape is typically smoother and gives you more headroom before clipping than cassette tape.

Although I get you ...

[pamplemousse_mk2]

Hi everybody,

yes, this post is old, but I would to talk a little about myself. I've just got an old cassette tape from a friend. A Pioneer cassette recorder, for home, not for a studio. And despite the fact that it is not a pro device, but for common customers, I find that the sound it produces is interesting. Perhaps not as good as with a professional recorder, but it is still fun. And moreover, it is free: it is easy to know someone who owns a cassette recorder and does use it anymore. You can start with this first.

Here is the first test I've done. Please don't focus on the "artistic" part of this test . The cassette was a really cheap and bad quality one, perhaps 10 years old.

http://www.sunwukong.free.fr/TestK7.mp3
http://www.sunwukong.free.fr/TestK7.alp

[jbarkilo]

some stuff i been doing lately involved just using a minijack to minijack cable from my laptop's headphone socket straight into the mic socket of a sony tcm 20dv tape dictation thing :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-TCM-20-DV- ... B00005K4HI

listening to what was recording via the tape's headphones. it took a bit of fiddling about to get a reasonable level but it worked out pretty well - then i just switched the inputs round and recorded it back into ableton. i really like it as it has variable speed and pitch so you can really mess around with it, you can almost play it like an instrument

ive recorded whole jam sessions onto little tascam 4 tracks too - then recorded each separate track into the laptop and lined them up

here's me messing around with some loops with the cassette player in sri lanka : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AfQL2rAy_4

there's also the great wow and flutter vst thing which i use a lot : http://www.interruptor.ch/vst_overview.shtml

i think its only pc though so i dont know if that's any use to you

Hi! I know it's like......10 years on haha, but how do you set up what you described? I've got a little old Sony TCM aswell but can't work out how to record Ableton's audio onto a tape. Any tips for settings/routing? Cheers

[TLW]

The connections are simple enough.

Set your Live master track to output to a couple of hardware outputs on your audio interface.
Connect those outputs to the tape deck’s inputs.
Connect the tape deck outputs to a stereo pair of inputs on the audio interface.
Set a Live audio track to receive audio from the interface inputs the tape deck is connected to.
Set the tape deck to record and start it running then start Live’s playback.

Keep an eye on the input levels indicated by the tape deck - you’ll probably need to experiment a bit to find the best settings for the effect you want.

Once recording has finished record arm the Live track set to receive from the tape back, start Live recording then hit “play” on the tape. Again, watch the levels - keep both the audio interface and Live meters in the green to avoid digital clipping (which is pure, loud wide-spectrum noise and nothing like analogue or analogue emulating distortion/clipping).

Alternatively use one of the many plugins which emulate tape decks - they may not be a 100% accurate emulation but save the hassle of dealing with the many tape speed related issues that can afflict both cheap tape decks and old decks that aren’t reliable any more. Plugins also don’t need their heads cleaning or demagnetising, setting the bias to match the tape, “striping” a track on the tape to provide a SMPTE “clock” source and the rest of the fun that goes with using tape. Probably including a lot of time spent warping the taped audio once it’s back in Live to get it properly synchronised with the rest of the project.

[slatepipe]

some stuff i been doing lately involved just using a minijack to minijack cable from my laptop's headphone socket straight into the mic socket of a sony tcm 20dv tape dictation thing :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-TCM-20-DV- ... B00005K4HI

listening to what was recording via the tape's headphones. it took a bit of fiddling about to get a reasonable level but it worked out pretty well - then i just switched the inputs round and recorded it back into ableton. i really like it as it has variable speed and pitch so you can really mess around with it, you can almost play it like an instrument

ive recorded whole jam sessions onto little tascam 4 tracks too - then recorded each separate track into the laptop and lined them up

here's me messing around with some loops with the cassette player in sri lanka : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AfQL2rAy_4

there's also the great wow and flutter vst thing which i use a lot : http://www.interruptor.ch/vst_overview.shtml

i think its only pc though so i dont know if that's any use to you

Hi! I know it's like......10 years on haha, but how do you set up what you described? I've got a little old Sony TCM aswell but can't work out how to record Ableton's audio onto a tape. Any tips for settings/routing? Cheers

wow - i haven't been on the forum much at all this year but i just checked it today and found this about one of my posts from ten years back.
you have maybe figured it all out anyway in the interim - but i'm still using tapes a lot in what i do. currently i've got myself a little lockdown obsession with putting music onto found and discarded C90's and C60's. i just put a locator at the 45 minute mark in Ableton's timeline so i don't go over the length of one side of a tape, then i arrange music in the space from 0-45mins so it fits nice. Then i just play it and come out of the audio out LR on my soundcard straight into the audio in on my TEAC double tape deck - it's got a level meter on it so i can check it doesn't go too hot. then i just play it and record straight onto old tapes to give them a new life.

i've also been making loops and field recordings straight onto mini and microcassette - which i've done by the total ramshackle method of gaffer taping a microcassette recorder to my speaker while i play stuff through Ableton. Then i been mixing together 4 x Pearlcorder T2020's through a Yamaha 4 track and i've done a few live streams with this :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWLkbtfWWVQ

I collect Walkmans and mini and micro players from car boots. sometimes they're quite easy to fix. I've got a load of them now. i love them