Maaan, that slightly detuned mix sounds GREAT. Speed it back up digitally and you have yourself a winner! This is a very well made and well considered video. My favourite of your videos so far. :) As a studio engineer of 30+ years, with a studio packed full of vintage equipment from consumer cassette, to mid-fi Tascam 388, to 2" tape, it can be hard for me to find videos about vintage recording techniques that I find truly entertaining and helpful, but you covered all the aspects that needed to be covered. I agree about the slow play Hifi VHS option sounding the most pleasing. Unfortunately it's been a long time since I've owned a VHS machine, but maybe it's time to pick up a few and see if they suit me. A lot of the bands that I regularly record would LOVE what this does to the sound. Add that to the tube preamps, vintage mics, and crunchy analogue tape sounds that I already go for, and this may be a winning formula. BTW - my studio is called 'The Crunch', for very good reason. Whatever I do, it's always gonna be crunchy; and that's that. :) Again, WELL DONE, and please continue. I could've watched hours of this.
@@Mario_DiSanto I'm turning the 2" 24 track into a 2" 8 track. :) Something tells me that I'll still continue to use the Tascam 388 a lot though, as they're just magical, if you happen to like analogue crunch, which I do. Oh, and 2" machines are nice and all, but new "2 tapes cost a FORTUNE ($500-750 each). So it won't ever be my main studio machine, no matter how good it is.
Would you like to see more technical details in these videos or less? 0:00 - Intro 2:21 - Technical Explanation of VHS audio 9:26 - Test Parameters 11:07 - Test Results 13:37 - Test Reflections 16:27 - Tape Degradation 17:24 - Tape Saturation and Headroom 20:34 - Fun Sounds with VCRs 23:07 - Conclusion
Damn! At 01:20 you scared the living daylights out of me. I had just switched my Nokia 3030 (yup, still using it after 22 years of service!), and then I heard that ringtone.. WTF! LOL.
I use to use my SVHS to record audio back in the early 2000s and it was amazing sounding, I have Alesia Adat machines now but seldomly use them, good information here dude…
I want to commend you on the correct method of audio comparison. Using the A/B switching. So many times other YTubers will play the entire track, then replay another version. By which time, you've forgotten what the previous version sounded like..
The glitches at 20:48 are amazing tbh and the slowed hi-fi kills. It might be nice to figure out a potentiometer setup to control the motor speed for both hi-fi and lo-fi. I actually pulled a hi-fi out of the dump last week, going to test it out this weekend, if it works I'm now going to hit the local thrifts looking for blanks.
I was thinking the same after I was editing this video. It was frustrating at the time when I was filming and mixing but in retrospect I feel like that really warped sound could sound really cool for an effect. I am actually imagining it being used more for a filmmaker looking for something wonky to portray a bad drug trip or something to that effect. A good ol' garbage dump find is one of my favorite things in the world. They always say to reduce, REUSE, and recycle! Have fun with it and update me with what you come up with. Cheers, Mario
Just came across your channel. Very in depth. I've been looking for a video like this. I myself am experimenting with all analog in my recording studio. I've been using hi-fi vcrs for stereo bouncing and to texture certain parts with generation loss. Great video
For generation loss, what I've found was that around generation 7 on standard speed is a sweet spot, for me. I've been meaning to make a video for demonstration purposes, but long story short; I go back and forth a few times. I'm no audiophile, but once doesn't seem to degrade the signal enough for me to notice.
Since video recorders never had level (or gain) controls, they relied on automatic level control (ALC / AGC), especially in the "Lo-Fi" mode where the audio dynamic range is severely limited by the narrow tracks. This explains your observations at 18:20 - it's not tape saturation nor limiting, but a form of compression.
Excellent video! I bet that the non-constant speed of the older VCR is due to a lack of a video sync signal. Older VCRs typically need an external composite sync signal to keep the speed consistent and correct. Your newer one likely has a built-in way to do this as mine did in the late 90s.
Donovan, Do I have to apply a specialized signal to the video input. The lack of a video signal was my first thought when I was having speed consistency issues, so I had applied a video signal to the VCR. This however did not fix the issue. The input I used was with the RCA jacks and not the COAX cable input, but I don't think that should matter as the machine is designed to be used with the RCA inputs. Not sure where I went wrong as I don't think there is anything wrong with the machine. Mario
1:58 _"I'm gonna have to get a little down and dirty and dare I say a little nerdy"_ Somewhere in that sentence is a lyric and maybe even a band name - *The Dirty Nerds* 😂
Many local radio stations used hi fi vhs for long play applications. The machines that I have found to work best allow for manual control of the audio levels as most consumer machines have very aggressive limiters with extremely low thresholds and tend to clip their input circuitry at very low levels
Thanks for sharing Mr. Monkey! The VCR I have does not have a manual control for the audio levels and this was a concern for me about the limiting function I read a lot about (this process is called Automatic Gain Control or AGC). As far as I am aware this only affects the Hi-Fi signal. If you skip to the 18:00 minute mark I kinda touch upon this topic. If you look at the waveform of the control track and Hi-Fi track you can see the waveform is nearly identical, which tells me no limiting is happening when utilizing the Hi-Fi audio on this machine. Which I find very surprising. The Lo-fi track on the other hand clearly as something going on with the levels. At first I attributed this to tape saturation but I think the audio circuit is limiting the audio to some extent. I'd be curious to do another test with a song that has more dynamics as the song I used in the video is very overdriven to begin with. Cheers, Mario
I bought a hifi VCR and good tapes a year ago for this. I have not used it/tried to master to it yet but what I'm wondering is does it overload/pump like studio tape? There is zero digital anything in the VHS I picked up so it can't digitally clip right? My hope is for true tape distortion esp to drum and bass tracks. Great vid btw. Subbed.
VCRs aren't good for true tape distortion unfortunately. Depending on the machine you bought you may be able to overload the tape if you are able to manually control the input gain. It won't be digital clipping but it won't sound like traditional tape distortion. In my opinion VCRs are better for a transparent medium. If you want some good overload sloppines for cheap I bet you can find multiple cassettes decks for free on Craigslist right now. Then you can push the limits to your liking. Still not quite the same as a reel to reel but closer than a VCR. Mario
Enjoyed the video (and your one about 50’s style recording). I’m also using HiFi VCR’s at the mo as part of a fully analog album release. Ps your Tascam 16 tracks looks great 👍
0:08 is like my daily recording life in a nutshell! And I also have an old VCR that I can use, except I can't. Because it's mono. But as always I'll try and incorporate this into my recording techniques, plus it looks like I have to buy a new stereo VCR now. (Edit) Love the detuned section! The larger sound and pitch tone fequencys sound great. I was wondering, How do you rewire the VCR for the audio to record on the video head? or even record on the VCR at all? Mine won't even record without an analogue TV signal...
I simply connect to the RCA audio inputs and outputs on the back of my VCR. No video signal needed. Every VCR is different though and I believe some DO NEED a video signal in order for the tracking signal to work correctly. I also did not have to rewire anything to record audio using the video head, this is built in to a Hi-Fi VCR's functionality. And there's nothing wrong with mono mixing! I do all my mixes in Mono nowadays. Partly because I have limited equipment. For example, for a while I only had a mono EQ, so when I was mixing down onto my master tape and needed some corrective EQ, I had no choice but to use a mono mix. Mario
I WISH! That would be awesome but since the recording head also functions as a playback head this is not possible as there is no physical distance to result in an echo.
My holy grail weird format is a 35mm Film mag sync recorder. It's 35mm mag stock film made for syncing to camera film in post, I've seen stereo and mono machines. at 24fps that is over 30ips, and the film width is around an inch. Mono 1" would be a pretty fun thing to play with. They also make these machines 16mm but they are really hard to find. Film stock is probably absurd too.
In the same vain I've always wanted to try recording with "optical sound" utilised in early film strips (sound on film). I bet that would be a blast to get that old "talkie" sound. Mario
@@Mario_DiSanto One of our 16mm projectors had optical track. It has a better freq response than I expected... but zero dynamic range. and yeah, if you like crunchy... it crunchy. Really hard to keep it aligned too.
@@Mario_DiSanto When you make the film loop on the Projector it allows for a little play between where the film is in the gate of the projector and the offset where the mag head reads the optical/mag track. you gotta have the tension right and the sprocket holes aligned just right to get the sync right and with optical, the warble minimized. For audio only projects that warble might be what yer going for for sure, but on film playback it can be a finicky maneuver. It's been ages since I had to do it and only have experience with 1 PJ.
Does anyone know what kind of cables I'll need to run audio back into the interface? I've got a hifi stereo VCR and used a generic RCA to 1/8" cable (with a 1/4" TRS adapter) to run audio from my headphone out to the VCR and back to the interface again at line level. There's a lot of unpleasant high pitched noise and I think it's the cable, is there a replacement I could buy to make it suck less?
Hoya cables are cheap and get the job done. I would find adapters that go straight from RCA to 1/4. Sometimes you get funky stuff going on when you start connecting VCRs and other junk to interfaces though.
Saludos from chile. Ilike yu sistema analoge técnica. I have one fostes m 80 y ADAT 8 trak and other hardware análoges ..esqiusmi m y. Inglés....eres muy talentoso.....RAM record..
@@Mario_DiSantothat’s crazy. ive been using vcr’s for like 30 years and never saw that. when i did this a few years ago i didn’t have it hooked up to a tv so i guess i’ll have to do that to change settings when i try it again.
I think the guitar being louder than the rest isn't due to tape saturation, but due to an "automatic level control". The HiFi machines I had included recording level controls but they only worked for HiFi signals but not for the linear track lo-fi, which were automatic. I don't recommend using any HiFi VHS machine without level controls for the HiFi audio. I got great HiFi audio recordings using the level controls on my old Mitsubishi decks from the mid to late 80s. I set them to peak around +3 at the loudest parts typically.
Yes thank you for sharing your insight. A little more digging after I made this video confirmed this as well. When I originally made this video I had wrongly assumed that the automatic level control (which I think I call AGC [automatic gain control] in the video) only worked for the Hi-Fi signal. I also alluded to the audio possibly being limited by the pre-amp circuit but that is different than an AGC circuit. Do you remember the models of your Mitsubishi Decks? Mario
@@Mario_DiSanto My first HiFi machine was a Mitsubishi HS-421UR, which was the best one I ever had for HiFi audio. It even had music search. The recording level sliders worked for HiFi and were critical for making "mix tapes" since all input sources weren't the same level. They had no effect on the LoFi track, which was called the linear audio track then. My second machine was a Mitsubishi HS-413UR, which had a real-time counter and neat search features (but not music search based on silence between songs like the 421). Also the 413 often left an ugly audio blip at audio points which the 421 did a superior job. Make a mix tape on both machines and you will definitely prefer the 421 for clean silence between songs at the edit points. The 413 had recording level controls. With the HiFi audio, I'm not sure tape saturation was the problem with overloading the tape, but instead, FM overmodulation. When you went above 0dB on the meter, the higher you went, the more sideband information got lost due to frequency response limitation of the tape and electronics, and maybe due to some tape saturation a bit also for all I know. The more sideband info lost, the more distortion gets introduced. The linear track worked like pretty much any other tape recording device. My parents bought a Sears VHS machine in 1986 that had linear audio only but had Dolby B on the linear tracks and was stereo, which the linear tracks on my Mitsubishis were not. Dolby B made a little improvement but nowhere near being as good as even a decent audio compact cassette. Dolby B on the linear tracks was like polishing a turd.
I have to disagree with tape degradation. I have tapes that are way over 30 year old and they play fine. I transferred tapes for people that were almost 40 year old and still played like they were recorded last year.
Hellow brother, much love m from India, love the way u still have been able to preserve the aesthetics, rawness and magic of analogue recording ❤️ btw, are u on Instagram or Facebook?
![Mixing 4 Track Cassette Down To HIFI VHS! [Keeping It Analog]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/JE4wUwdysfA/mqdefault.jpg)
It's literally never crossed my mind to use a VHS player to record audio. Brilliant idea.
I'm glad I found your channel. That track sounds like it should be on a Nuggets compilation. Love it. That detuned bit 😱
Being told I should be on a Nuggets comp is a dream come true! Thanks a lot!
Mario
Maaan, that slightly detuned mix sounds GREAT. Speed it back up digitally and you have yourself a winner! This is a very well made and well considered video. My favourite of your videos so far. :) As a studio engineer of 30+ years, with a studio packed full of vintage equipment from consumer cassette, to mid-fi Tascam 388, to 2" tape, it can be hard for me to find videos about vintage recording techniques that I find truly entertaining and helpful, but you covered all the aspects that needed to be covered. I agree about the slow play Hifi VHS option sounding the most pleasing. Unfortunately it's been a long time since I've owned a VHS machine, but maybe it's time to pick up a few and see if they suit me. A lot of the bands that I regularly record would LOVE what this does to the sound. Add that to the tube preamps, vintage mics, and crunchy analogue tape sounds that I already go for, and this may be a winning formula. BTW - my studio is called 'The Crunch', for very good reason. Whatever I do, it's always gonna be crunchy; and that's that. :) Again, WELL DONE, and please continue. I could've watched hours of this.
Wow thanks! I wish I had a 2" machine at my disposal. That may be too much machine for me to handle lol. Thanks for sharing.
Mario
@@Mario_DiSanto I'm turning the 2" 24 track into a 2" 8 track. :) Something tells me that I'll still continue to use the Tascam 388 a lot though, as they're just magical, if you happen to like analogue crunch, which I do. Oh, and 2" machines are nice and all, but new "2 tapes cost a FORTUNE ($500-750 each). So it won't ever be my main studio machine, no matter how good it is.
The way you think about music and production as a whole, is very inspiring to me. Thank you Mario!
Pleased you could grab some inspiration from me Claude. Thanks for watching.
love your channel bro
No no...I love YOU Mr. Napkin Shoplifta.
Thank your manager for reminding me to like and subscribe
Would you like to see more technical details in these videos or less?
0:00 - Intro
2:21 - Technical Explanation of VHS audio
9:26 - Test Parameters
11:07 - Test Results
13:37 - Test Reflections
16:27 - Tape Degradation
17:24 - Tape Saturation and Headroom
20:34 - Fun Sounds with VCRs
23:07 - Conclusion
More :)
More my nerd brain functions on those
MOAR
this is super cool, would love to see you messing around with cassette decks or just any tape based formats
Emmanuel, I will certainly be putting out more videos soon on these very topics. Thanks for commenting.
Mario
You’re awesome dude
Damn! At 01:20 you scared the living daylights out of me. I had just switched my Nokia 3030 (yup, still using it after 22 years of service!), and then I heard that ringtone.. WTF! LOL.
very cool and far out i have diff VCRs for diff functions bcus VCRs and TVs have different personalities nice psychedelic
After 2 or 3 of your vids, now im a subscriber 💯 keep the good stuffs coming!
Original Content!Thank You 🙂
You're welcome glad you enjoyed it!
I use to use my SVHS to record audio back in the early 2000s and it was amazing sounding, I have Alesia Adat machines now but seldomly use them, good information here dude…
Nice job. Very informative. Thank you for the video.
Susan, thank you for watching.
Mario
I used to use a hi-fi VCR to mix my 4-track cassette stuff down to.
I want to commend you on the correct method of audio comparison. Using the A/B switching. So many times other YTubers will play the entire track, then replay another version. By which time, you've forgotten what the previous version sounded like..
Amen to that Tony. Thanks for watching.
Great video, great channel.
Thanks Jim.
Great video!
Thank you very much for watching!
The glitches at 20:48 are amazing tbh and the slowed hi-fi kills. It might be nice to figure out a potentiometer setup to control the motor speed for both hi-fi and lo-fi. I actually pulled a hi-fi out of the dump last week, going to test it out this weekend, if it works I'm now going to hit the local thrifts looking for blanks.
I was thinking the same after I was editing this video. It was frustrating at the time when I was filming and mixing but in retrospect I feel like that really warped sound could sound really cool for an effect. I am actually imagining it being used more for a filmmaker looking for something wonky to portray a bad drug trip or something to that effect.
A good ol' garbage dump find is one of my favorite things in the world. They always say to reduce, REUSE, and recycle! Have fun with it and update me with what you come up with.
Cheers,
Mario
Just came across your channel. Very in depth. I've been looking for a video like this. I myself am experimenting with all analog in my recording studio. I've been using hi-fi vcrs for stereo bouncing and to texture certain parts with generation loss. Great video
Manuel,
Does bouncing to VHS once give enough generation loss or do you do it multiple times?
Mario
For generation loss, what I've found was that around generation 7 on standard speed is a sweet spot, for me. I've been meaning to make a video for demonstration purposes, but long story short; I go back and forth a few times. I'm no audiophile, but once doesn't seem to degrade the signal enough for me to notice.
Wow I didn't know VHS had a double entendre! WOW
Awesome content, subscribed!
Thank you, there will be more to come!
Since video recorders never had level (or gain) controls, they relied on automatic level control (ALC / AGC), especially in the "Lo-Fi" mode where the audio dynamic range is severely limited by the narrow tracks. This explains your observations at 18:20 - it's not tape saturation nor limiting, but a form of compression.
Yes 100%. I did some more testing right after uploading this video and this is the conclusion I came too. Still sounded pretty good to my ears!
Excellent video! I bet that the non-constant speed of the older VCR is due to a lack of a video sync signal. Older VCRs typically need an external composite sync signal to keep the speed consistent and correct. Your newer one likely has a built-in way to do this as mine did in the late 90s.
Donovan, Do I have to apply a specialized signal to the video input. The lack of a video signal was my first thought when I was having speed consistency issues, so I had applied a video signal to the VCR. This however did not fix the issue. The input I used was with the RCA jacks and not the COAX cable input, but I don't think that should matter as the machine is designed to be used with the RCA inputs. Not sure where I went wrong as I don't think there is anything wrong with the machine.
Mario
@@Mario_DiSanto Ahh, yeah, sounds like you covered the bases and it's an issue with the machine then.
Your point of view is always very interesting
I personally use a umatic vcr using agc
1:58 _"I'm gonna have to get a little down and dirty and dare I say a little nerdy"_
Somewhere in that sentence is a lyric and maybe even a band name - *The Dirty Nerds* 😂
Lol I love it!
@@Mario_DiSanto I'm STILL laughing at *The Dirty Nerds*
Has anyone ever told you that you sound a lot like pandp? Absolutely love what you're doing with your channel btw.
pandp? I haven't heard of 'em and I can't find anywhere music.
Many local radio stations used hi fi vhs for long play applications. The machines that I have found to work best allow for manual control of the audio levels as most consumer machines have very aggressive limiters with extremely low thresholds and tend to clip their input circuitry at very low levels
Thanks for sharing Mr. Monkey! The VCR I have does not have a manual control for the audio levels and this was a concern for me about the limiting function I read a lot about (this process is called Automatic Gain Control or AGC). As far as I am aware this only affects the Hi-Fi signal. If you skip to the 18:00 minute mark I kinda touch upon this topic. If you look at the waveform of the control track and Hi-Fi track you can see the waveform is nearly identical, which tells me no limiting is happening when utilizing the Hi-Fi audio on this machine. Which I find very surprising. The Lo-fi track on the other hand clearly as something going on with the levels. At first I attributed this to tape saturation but I think the audio circuit is limiting the audio to some extent. I'd be curious to do another test with a song that has more dynamics as the song I used in the video is very overdriven to begin with.
Cheers,
Mario
Monster guy on phone got me to subscribe 😂
Betamax works great too. Brands of tape all sound different too.
I bought a hifi VCR and good tapes a year ago for this. I have not used it/tried to master to it yet but what I'm wondering is does it overload/pump like studio tape? There is zero digital anything in the VHS I picked up so it can't digitally clip right?
My hope is for true tape distortion esp to drum and bass tracks. Great vid btw. Subbed.
VCRs aren't good for true tape distortion unfortunately. Depending on the machine you bought you may be able to overload the tape if you are able to manually control the input gain. It won't be digital clipping but it won't sound like traditional tape distortion. In my opinion VCRs are better for a transparent medium.
If you want some good overload sloppines for cheap I bet you can find multiple cassettes decks for free on Craigslist right now. Then you can push the limits to your liking. Still not quite the same as a reel to reel but closer than a VCR.
Mario
Enjoyed the video (and your one about 50’s style recording). I’m also using HiFi VCR’s at the mo as part of a fully analog album release. Ps your Tascam 16 tracks looks great 👍
What are you using the VCR for? Mixdowns?
@@Mario_DiSanto Yes, I’m using one VCR for mix downs and a 2nd one to create the duplication master.
0:08 is like my daily recording life in a nutshell!
And I also have an old VCR that I can use, except I can't. Because it's mono.
But as always I'll try and incorporate this into my recording techniques, plus it looks like I have to buy a new stereo VCR now.
(Edit) Love the detuned section! The larger sound and pitch tone fequencys sound great.
I was wondering, How do you rewire the VCR for the audio to record on the video head? or even record on the VCR at all? Mine won't even record without an analogue TV signal...
I simply connect to the RCA audio inputs and outputs on the back of my VCR. No video signal needed. Every VCR is different though and I believe some DO NEED a video signal in order for the tracking signal to work correctly. I also did not have to rewire anything to record audio using the video head, this is built in to a Hi-Fi VCR's functionality.
And there's nothing wrong with mono mixing! I do all my mixes in Mono nowadays. Partly because I have limited equipment. For example, for a while I only had a mono EQ, so when I was mixing down onto my master tape and needed some corrective EQ, I had no choice but to use a mono mix.
Mario
Would love to hear vst tape emu. comparisons. Great video, thanks.
Ive always wondered to myself.. Self ..can i turn a old VCR into a tape echo machine for guitar and bass. ???
I WISH! That would be awesome but since the recording head also functions as a playback head this is not possible as there is no physical distance to result in an echo.
My worn out vhs scene of choice is King Louie in jungelbook... Pfffft, Pamela...
Making my next record with nothing but VCRs, cassette tapes and Playstations
Nice Evil Ash figure!
Glad someone noticed 😉
18:25 ..really interesting there
I played in a band in the 90s, our demo was recorded to VHS. VHS is basically a poor man's dat tape
Very true. I've been thinking about getting a DAT machine but I think the VCR will do for now.
Mario
@@Mario_DiSanto dat tapes used to be expensive back then. I'd hate to know what a dat would cost nowadays
My holy grail weird format is a 35mm Film mag sync recorder. It's 35mm mag stock film made for syncing to camera film in post, I've seen stereo and mono machines. at 24fps that is over 30ips, and the film width is around an inch. Mono 1" would be a pretty fun thing to play with. They also make these machines 16mm but they are really hard to find. Film stock is probably absurd too.
In the same vain I've always wanted to try recording with "optical sound" utilised in early film strips (sound on film). I bet that would be a blast to get that old "talkie" sound.
Mario
@@Mario_DiSanto One of our 16mm projectors had optical track. It has a better freq response than I expected... but zero dynamic range. and yeah, if you like crunchy... it crunchy. Really hard to keep it aligned too.
@@kniferideaudio Wow very cool. When you say aligned you mean in frequency respone?
@@Mario_DiSanto When you make the film loop on the Projector it allows for a little play between where the film is in the gate of the projector and the offset where the mag head reads the optical/mag track. you gotta have the tension right and the sprocket holes aligned just right to get the sync right and with optical, the warble minimized. For audio only projects that warble might be what yer going for for sure, but on film playback it can be a finicky maneuver. It's been ages since I had to do it and only have experience with 1 PJ.
i wonder how a hifi recorded vcr tape flipped upside down to play back would sound, or if it would work at all
I don't think it would work correctly. The VCR would have no tracking signal to read and it will fluctuate rapidly trying to find it.
Does anyone know what kind of cables I'll need to run audio back into the interface? I've got a hifi stereo VCR and used a generic RCA to 1/8" cable (with a 1/4" TRS adapter) to run audio from my headphone out to the VCR and back to the interface again at line level. There's a lot of unpleasant high pitched noise and I think it's the cable, is there a replacement I could buy to make it suck less?
Hoya cables are cheap and get the job done. I would find adapters that go straight from RCA to 1/4. Sometimes you get funky stuff going on when you start connecting VCRs and other junk to interfaces though.
Would love to see a video on you how get your vocals to sound like this in the test track. 13:37
I have a video in the works for garage vocals 👍
@@Mario_DiSanto hell yeah looking forward to it man, thanks for the great content btw
Damn I was hoping you would pull a Nokia out when I heard that ring tone.
That is a Nokia lol, it's the 3310 model.
@@Mario_DiSanto it was! okay that's awesome!
So did yu joiin Iluminatie?
loked and subscrived - you have beautiful skin - you are a teacher
I wonder if you could record a guitar and play it put it on the vhs and just make it as an effect at one part of a song. I love that kind of stuff
Certainly could! I suspect it would sound 'thin' but that's not necessarily a bad thing depending on the song.
Mario
Saludos from chile. Ilike yu sistema analoge técnica. I have one fostes m 80 y ADAT 8 trak and other hardware análoges ..esqiusmi m y. Inglés....eres muy talentoso.....RAM record..
Gracias, mi espanol es mal. Me have feliz.
Salud,
Mario
maybe i missed it but how did you get the lo-fi setup? did you just hook up one audio input instead of both? or was it a setting on the vcr?
It's a setting on the VCR. It uses the regular analog tape signal and not the HIFI frequency modulation.
@@Mario_DiSantothat’s crazy. ive been using vcr’s for like 30 years and never saw that. when i did this a few years ago i didn’t have it hooked up to a tv so i guess i’ll have to do that to change settings when i try it again.
I think the guitar being louder than the rest isn't due to tape saturation, but due to an "automatic level control". The HiFi machines I had included recording level controls but they only worked for HiFi signals but not for the linear track lo-fi, which were automatic. I don't recommend using any HiFi VHS machine without level controls for the HiFi audio. I got great HiFi audio recordings using the level controls on my old Mitsubishi decks from the mid to late 80s. I set them to peak around +3 at the loudest parts typically.
Yes thank you for sharing your insight. A little more digging after I made this video confirmed this as well. When I originally made this video I had wrongly assumed that the automatic level control (which I think I call AGC [automatic gain control] in the video) only worked for the Hi-Fi signal. I also alluded to the audio possibly being limited by the pre-amp circuit but that is different than an AGC circuit.
Do you remember the models of your Mitsubishi Decks?
Mario
@@Mario_DiSanto My first HiFi machine was a Mitsubishi HS-421UR, which was the best one I ever had for HiFi audio. It even had music search. The recording level sliders worked for HiFi and were critical for making "mix tapes" since all input sources weren't the same level. They had no effect on the LoFi track, which was called the linear audio track then. My second machine was a Mitsubishi HS-413UR, which had a real-time counter and neat search features (but not music search based on silence between songs like the 421). Also the 413 often left an ugly audio blip at audio points which the 421 did a superior job. Make a mix tape on both machines and you will definitely prefer the 421 for clean silence between songs at the edit points. The 413 had recording level controls. With the HiFi audio, I'm not sure tape saturation was the problem with overloading the tape, but instead, FM overmodulation. When you went above 0dB on the meter, the higher you went, the more sideband information got lost due to frequency response limitation of the tape and electronics, and maybe due to some tape saturation a bit also for all I know. The more sideband info lost, the more distortion gets introduced. The linear track worked like pretty much any other tape recording device. My parents bought a Sears VHS machine in 1986 that had linear audio only but had Dolby B on the linear tracks and was stereo, which the linear tracks on my Mitsubishis were not. Dolby B made a little improvement but nowhere near being as good as even a decent audio compact cassette. Dolby B on the linear tracks was like polishing a turd.
I have to disagree with tape degradation. I have tapes that are way over 30 year old and they play fine. I transferred tapes for people that were almost 40 year old and still played like they were recorded last year.
Messing with the tape transport reminded me of that Russian reel to reel DJ
ruclips.net/video/cZbfLPrnesE/видео.html
Now that is seriously cool!
yes experiementing good
suck is good
go suck at what u love to do everybody
Hellow brother, much love m from India, love the way u still have been able to preserve the aesthetics, rawness and magic of analogue recording ❤️ btw, are u on Instagram or Facebook?
Thanks friend! You can follow me on Instagram. The link is on my channel page. Thanks for watching and giving me feedback!
Mario
@@Mario_DiSanto surely mate!
I have a vhs effects plug in for my DAW and I got it for that same reason.But now I might have to hit up a thrift store for the "reel" thing.🤖🎛️📼
I am curious what the plug-in does to emulate the sound of a VHS. Does it add hiss? Reduce hi-end?
@@Mario_DiSanto yeah it's called a super vhs from waves.The other one I have is called super lofi I dig that one🤖🎛️📼