Well said tony!. I too am fed up with manufacturers deciding "you've had that long enough, we want more money now". They do it with software, phones, pc's, even smart TVs that all have built in obsolescence. I dont blame you going back to hardware (nice setup by the way). I believe if you pay good money for something you have the right to use it for as long as you want.
We need to get a good intuitive common vocabulary for this subject and start demanding that businesses offer products that we can truly own and use for as long as we wish. We may also want/need to demand that laws be made to prevent people from creating self-destructing products.
OMD, Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, Ultravox, The Luman League... all those legends made their hits on the good old synthesizer, sth that good never can be outdated!
It really is good to see you Tony. I always thought the background was a couch as well. I like all the guesses we had what it could have been. I appreciate the intro. Its so interesting that old tech was made to last. Not all, but most. Loving the music I am hearing on the Retro Nouveau. Now I'm making myself a Retro Nouveau Mixtape :D Thank you for doing what you do.
Couldn't agree more with what you say in the first part. I do pay for Spotify, but if there's an album I really, really like I'll still buy the physical media either CD or Vinyl. Other music I like but maybe not enough to buy the media I might record from Spotify onto cassette or DAT so that at least I still have a physical copy if I decide to cancel Spotify or they go out of business.
@@UtkarshAmitabhSrivastava I get albums from Amazon and other sites that still offer downloads. These files are tagged with unique metadata as far as I know, so I wouldn't recommend distributing them on the internet. However, you can freely copy them around to other disk drives for backup and audio devices for listening.
GOD!!, I hope Spotify NEVER goes out of business!!! EVER!! I'm age 55 and a very strong, avid Vinyl Record collector. Since 1978 at the age of 14 I started to "seriously" collect Records, as in, taking great care of them and at this point in my life I can easily say I have well over 9,000 Records, conservatively speaking of course. I have them spread out over two different rooms on two different floors of my home. I waited until the last week of 1993 to buy my first CD player. I was so-so-so-so-so against them! I had to put up with crappy sounding pre-recorded cassette tapes and then I finally gave up the ghost on the pre-recorded cassettes and went to CD. It took a long while for me to get used to that digital sound. Vinyl did and always will sound better. As you said in you're comment that if you really, really like an album you will go buy the physical version on CD or VINYL . I'm a DJ and I use Spotify on the job. It sounds so great. I also play Spotify on my Audio Component System and I don't know how Spotify does it but the sound isn't brash like most CD's and other digital sources. It actually has a nice "push" towards the "warm" sound of Vinyl. I used to have CD's all over my car and could NEVER find what CD I was looking for and then I got Spotify. NO MORE CD's all over the place in my car! Plus to be fair I don't really buy "new" music. I get enough of that from DJ'ing. 99% of what I play on Spotify is things that I consider classic stuff. Actually, the the most recent music on my Spotify is Lily Allen and Lenka and that is stuff from 2006-2009! I stand by Spotify 100%+. I still buy used Vinyl and on occasion some new 180grm re-issue of something.
Tony! I am so glad that you finally got around to doing a video on the 3M Black Watch! I brought them up in comments on one or two of your past videos. I'm from the USA and I only have two of these incredible 3M Black Watch cassettes. I got them in the late 1980s to early 1990s at a high-end audio shop in good old York Pennsylvania and at the time a 40/40 cost $8.99 USD each! Ouch!! They were downright expensive but they were downright absolutely fantastic as well! I'm sure Denon probably made them. Those two 3 M's that I have are the best cassette tapes I've ever recorded on! The most neutral sounding tape ever. I could never distinguish The Source from the tape while recording. I never ran either cassette to +8. I never felt the reason to go that high up the scale. + 6 was fine! Yes these are going on eBay for about $30 USD now and probably more. The important thing is that you finally got around to demonstrating the 3M Black Watch and I'm glad you like them! Keep the good videos coming, Tony!..... Yes, seeing Tony, The Man Behind The Voice of these videos was a real treat. You always sound like a young Paul McCartney to me but you don't look a bit like him!..... Nice studio and nice equipment by the way!
My parents were running a stationery shop in the 1980's and I remember that they could order all sorts of Scotch cassettes so I ended up with a few XSII boxes and I think I got them in 1986, there was another type I but I can't remember the name right now... oh yes I just looked it up, they were the CX! I also have a couple of the blue dynarange of the 70's that I cherish with some old family recordings of the era... that's what we used to do back then, put the cassette recorder on one side of the dining room and record a family gathering (argument in most cases!)
The Scotch HS II was by far my favorite tape for making playlists for the car. I probably recorded on several hundred of them back in the day. Best of all, now 35 or so years later, the Scotch HS II tapes have held up the best over time, better than the Maxell and certainly better than TDK. My only surviving TDK tapes are a few 2001 SA-60 tapes I bought on closeout when a local department store closed up around that time. Back in the mid to late 80's I happened on a full pallet and then some of those Scotch XSII tapes in two packs, it pretty much set me for a long time with good quality tapes. I likely still have a few stashed here somewhere.
Earlier today, I went to an estate sale in Red Hook, NY and I found a bunch of these cassettes, including three Scotch CX from the 1980’s and a Scotch C90 cassette from the 1970’s, and these plays well. It had Posi-Trak backing on there, and the cover looks nice.
Tony, first editions of XSII were made by Denon, later by SKC. XS II-S Euro version made by swiss ICM, with pure chrome Basf tape, american XS II-S were made by SKC, XS II-SP made by ICM, probably with BASF Cr Maxima tape, XS II-SX made by Denon, Japan, probably HD7.
Exactly. Check the 1988 version here, it's pure Denon: www.ez647.sk/cc/scotch_xs2.html I guess that they forgot changing the text about the double layer formulation on the inlay when they switched to SKC as their OEM. On a later version, this was corrected: pureanalogue.su/media/com_mtree/images/listings/o/1144.jpg However, if you want to check whether you have a single layer or double layer tape, the easiest way would be to record it in you Aiwa, or any other deck with less sophisticated calibration facilities. On such kind of machines, the double layer formulations will almost certainly reveal themselves by a distinct mid-range dip.
Gotta say for late 60s 3M tapes, I've got two 60 minute black shell orange label's I'm pretty sure are from around 69/70. It, it doesn't sound like a 53 year old tape? But it doesn't sound like a 90s TDK D60 either. It's got some mud in the sound, but it's clear and the hiss? It's not nearly as bad as some prerecorded tapes of the era I've got. Some Dolby and it left a really good impression for me regarding the early scotch tapes. Wouldn't put any high res tracks on it expecting proper reproduction, but I've recorded some old live Airplane and CSN & Sometimes Y live recordings onto it and it ya know.. sounds fine
It is great to see you in person, Tony! You are absolutely right about modern stuff being “killed” remotely, and the fact that music you save on a cloud or on your phone isn’t “yours”. One thing I noticed is that when you recorded on the metal tape, the Revox was set to type II, this might caused the distortion on 8dB. By the way, I loved the tune! Best regards, Moshe.
Cassette Comeback Yes, I saw it next 😃. It did peaked at 7dB though. Again, I loved the tune (what about “calibrating” as a title?), I was very happy to see you in person and I love your videos! All the best!
And speaking of Scotch, I ordered the 1988 version of the Scotch BX, but I still have a few 1986 BX cassette. Both of these versions used the “Type 0” shells before it used the SKC transparent clear shells.
I've had a deluge of emails from synth manufacturers warning of compatibility issues with the new apple OS. I still have old PCs running XP, Win7, OSX Tiger that happily runs old VSTs that won't work on newer OS. One of the reasons for my recent return to hardware is precisely because I know they should last decades without someone demanding money to allow them to continue to work every so many years. Also with hardware, you feel like a musician and not an accountant, and you are intimately involved in the music making process. That's the fun of getting hands on with old technology whether it's setting recording levels, choosing which tape type / brand, making mix tapes for someone. There's something about the sound of tape hiss, be it on your own recordings or the original master tape, it makes all the retro stuff that I like or compose sound 'authentic.' Going retro started me on the journey back to tape and trying out different tapes from you. Nice video and great to put a face to a name. In the spirit of Scotch, 're-record not fade away'.
Thing is too, when I'm in front of a hardware synth, (except digital beasts like the D50 and M1) I actually use the physical controls to tailor the sounds to my liking and create new patches. On soft synths, I just usually use presets...
...I do the same. It's kind of too easy with VSTs (as it was back in the 80s to pick a preset on digital synths) which can lead you to sound very similar to other people using the same tech. If you're forced to write your own patches and get hands on you will produce a sound of your own. Truth is, I became very lazy with VSTs, but I'm not a virtuoso on the keys, so I still like using Cubase to sequence tracks. Downside is cabling everything up as you wisely pointed out. Unfortunately, my Fostex X-15 4 track tape recorder isn't working, as I'd hoped to use the limitations of the tape medium to add gentle distortion to tracks. Because the consumer hi-fi industry has 'moved on' and left behind, cassette, MD, DVD-R and reel to reel doesn't mean I'm going to junk my gear any time soon, in the same that i have not thrown out my SH101, MC202, TR606 or Pro One just because they are old analogue tech. Keep up the good work. You are giving many people hours of pleasure.
I agree with you 100%, and I find that a lot of musicians and producers do too. It's the same for plugins from companies like Waves, Slate, UAD, etc etc. I bought a bundle of plugins in 2012 for somewhere around $500, which was a huge investment for me, especially at the time. All those plugins no longer work because I didn't pay for the updates along the years. Then you have companies like the aforementioned Slate, where you pay for access to all their plugins for $15 a month, or $150 a year. For me, it's been a delicate balance between investing in hardware like a Moog Grandmother, Minilogue, and Yamaha DX, and then buying the more high end vintage emulations like Arturia's collection, and the TAL-U-No LX which is the best Juno software synth I've ever heard. Pairing every fader on my midi keyboard to its counterpart on the TAL-U-No LX really feels like I'm playing an old Juno. Now they've got virtual mics that emulate classic mics like the Neumann U87 and supposedly sound great so...There's a downside to these really cutting edge inventions and that's unfortunate. Some, I can justify, others (most) it seems to come out of a place of greed, like we're paying for something 4-5 times opposed to once.
Yeah. Thing is that some soft synths sound fantastic and the workflow is so fast. I recently tried Roland Cloud out. They're fantastic emulations. So much so I bought a System 8 too. Sometimes you have to swallow it up but it doesn't feel as sweet as it did. Doesn't help that Logic, which I use as my Daw, has minimal external midi capabilities since Apple killed off sound diver... because there's no money for them in supporting external synths...
my first deck was a good quality two head Technics deck M205 , of course there was no way of adjusting bias ,so you had to find the right tape that was best optimized for your deck . I found with my deck, that the Scotch XS 2 worked great i really loved those tapes!
Great to see you in person... I prefer the videos like this. It was kind of disjointed before just with two hands. Keep fighting the good fight! D50 will never get old - those patches!
One of the reasons many early Scotch cassettes don't hold up well is due to their using the dreaded foam rubber pressure pads on so many of them, right through the 1970s and possibly into the early 1980s. The 'Posi-Trak' back coating is like unto the back coating on all those reel-to-reel tapes you have heard about for years suffering 'sticky shed syndrome' that need a low-temp 'baking' to make them playable. (Speaking of which, just yesterday a FB friend of mine in Canada had to similarly 'bake' a 1980-vintage Scotch AVX cassette (which would have used the same tape stock as the consumer Scotch Dynarange back coated tape stock of the same era) to get it to play back without issue. Took only four hours to make it work.) I've only ever heard about Black Watch tapes, never seen one. From what I understand they also offered a range of reel-to-reel Black Watch tapes, but again, I've never seen one, so have no idea who made those.
I liked the tune Tony!, maybe you should do more and release it. No surprise to the quality of those tapes, I love em too, i also have that same XS II but with a clearly DENON made version and also sounds excellent.
What a bonus! Love the synth talk brought in. I 100% agree on hardware synths and cassettes. I never really bought in to working in the box for these reasons. Right now trying to make an album using primarily my 8 track Syncaset and 4 track cassette recorders.. also using Deepmind and Korg synths :)
The only thing that makes me shudder is the thought of playing live lugging lots of synths...I wish someone made a modern sampler keyboard which you could use in conjunction with a PC to easily create multi samples. I hate gigging a laptop.
welcome back to hardware synth land! Plenty of tape heads out here doing masters, multitracking, and releases on tape with hardware synths. You’re in good company!
I'm thinking I want a R2R to record on...but then my FX are digital and some of the synths are, so it kinda defeats the object of an analogue recording as it isn't a pure analogue signal path.
Cassette Comeback leave that to the reel nerds! Your knowledge of the correct way to record on cassette will generate results that sound better than anyone else recording hardware synths to tape. Digital synths and fx still sound great on analog tape too-i use tape to record almost everything and my modular synthesizer is a mix of analog and digital.
Way of the world I'm afraid and it's far from restricted to the equipment discussed here, it's everything from specialist equipment to laptops, phones, even basic home entertainment. It's crazy! This is why I love tape (RTR and cassette), vinyl (I genuinely prefer the sound of it), 35mm, 120 and cine film cameras (I am not a hipster BTW), valve guitar amplifiers (even though they are heavy) and a real hifi with real speakers! These are things I have always known and always loved. Basically if it plugs into the internet I'm just waiting for it to expire! It was good to see the face behind the videos as well, I thank you for them, I find them very helpful and entertaining :)
@@CassetteComeback I'm afraid I have to agree with you, I wish I had a reason to say otherwise. I hereby brand myself inconvenient. It sounds better than grumpy, I like it :D
I'd heard the same thing about Saehan making the Korean-made XSII. Not sure who made the Japanese-made ones, though. I came across the chrome Black Watch once, and I liked it. I'm going to give all the old tapes I used to use back in the day another shot now that I have a decent deck (provided I can get it running again; it's a 3-head Denon with manual bias adjust that has the typical belt slippage issue, at least that's how it's presenting). I've got an XSII that I'll be throwing some 10cc vinyl onto once the deck's up and going.
Glad you came around to hardware again. The real deal is always better. More people need to be saying Bugger It and walk away with their money. When Apple bought Logic and shut down the pc side of things, I said bugger it, and did not migrate to an Apple. $700 vaporized.
Hi Tony, Maybe an idea to use the line out insted the headphone output. I'm sure the distortion is less or none. Offcourse I know it's a bit more work but, worth trying. The line output is fixed at around 500Mv while the phones is running up to 2,5 Volts that makes a big differance. Keep on making those great video's. Kind regards from the Netherlands
Really enjoyed this one Tony! We see the man AND the synth set up! I'm definitely digging the new song too, it just has that sound. And no bullshit, I just got a sealed 2 pack of those same SXII's yesterday and lost it when you put that on the screen. At least now I know they sound good. Thanks!!
What’s that little thing you’re using to rewind the tape? I have a ten pack and four loose SX 60s all NOS for multitrack recording purposes. Thanks for the demo!! These sound great!
I was finally able to get the Denon going, and I have some of the XSII's a whirl. One of the things I noticed was that the levels seemed to be somewhat lower than I expected from a Type II tape. In fact, they were behaving like a pure chrome might. Did you notice anything in that respect? I haven't got a chance to test them in my new Sony which has way more bias adjustment options than the Denon, but it'll be interesting to see how much better it reacts with a boost in rec sensitivity.
I can remember in the late 80s Maplin used to sell the Scotch cassettes. I used quite a few of them. I think the basic ferric was the BX, which worked OK, and a bit more upmarket was the XSI with pretty copper-coloured labels. Those recordings still sound good today.
That Revox is a beautiful deck, but I could reliably tell the difference between source and tape with all three tapes by closing my eyes and then quickly opening them to see the display. All tapes exhibited slight, but noticeable distortion to me. On your videos using the Nakamichi decks, I have a much harder time discerning whether it’s the tape or source with good tapes. I’m not saying Nakamichi decks are better than Revox, but of the decks you own, I think the Naks are doing a better job putting the signal down. This could be due to maintenance, head magnetization, etc, but to my ears something is slightly off with the Revox. Also, maybe a better idea to use the line output jacks instead of the headphone out. No sense adding another variable by inserting the headphone amp and your levels would be more standardized.
I used a lot of the XS II tapes back in the late 80's, and have never had a problem with them. I had mid-grade gear and they recorded well and played back great. Even now, those old tapes play amazingly great. I Do have a question, and perhaps I missed it on the video, Did you use any NR when you were recording on those tapes??
I think Scotch cassettes got thier uncool and stodgy reputation because their 3M-Wollensak recorders along with their Dynarange and Highlander tapes were used by so many schools, goverment agencies and businesses in the 70's. The XSII was a great tape and affordable too, had I known who made them I would have bought more.
So those tapes came through smelling like a rose Tony. That studio tape was real good especially the high frequencies, not quite as strong on the bass side. That metal tape was real fine, lots of detail I could hear in the song front to back! Go Tony! Did real good mate! Keep it up👍🏻
Scotch/3M cassettes sound great, Thanks for letting us know about these cassettes, good stuff, love the track that you used to record on the cassettes, great work, I plan to purchase it. Take care, cheers
Interesting to see your synths. I have a theory that the reason hardware sounds more interesting is that each is using its own clock and there will always be slight differences. Take two TX7s (I think I saw one there) and they won't be exactly in tune and they will drift. In contrast every soft synth you tun will be perfectly in tune with the computers clock.
19:04 you need to make this an official track and make an album too. this song makes me think of a night runner or running in the night vibe. i'm ready to get in the car at 55 mph and drive to this song on a mid summer / early fall night and just jam out. by the way i feel like its 1984 all over again.
If you ever release this track as is i'll buy it in a heartbeat :) even tempted to try and extract the audio from the video to record to a personal Vilarosso cassette compilation also some others that you never released as you showed in past videos without vocals i love these sounds, hope you start releasing again.
I agree about what you said about software synths vs Hardware synths. I've lost plug-ins over the years because of switching OS versions and hardware. I use mostly hardware synths though. It keeps running a lot longer. About the tapes; It's interesting. The first one was slightly distorting on the bass with the +6 peaks, but sounded pretty good overall. The second one (3M SX90) was really great sounding. It had no issues with the +6 peaks and sounded very close to the source to me. The last one (black watch) was slightly disappointing to be honest. It distorted clearly at +8 and still a little after you turned it down. It also seemed like it wasn't 100% stable. One thing I noticed was that the ReVox displayed the tape as a Type II instead of a Type IV. Does the ReVox not support IV tapes natively? PS, I liked your track, nice stuff! EDIT: Just after posting I saw you uploaded a video about it. That explained it all. :)
At 8:50, this reminded of another tape case, but I couldn't think which one!? But after a little digging around, I found my Quantegy AVX 90 tapes. The J-Card is very similar too. PS - the shell is similar too. Uncanny likeness.
Your look different than I pictured you, Tony! I pictured you bald and older looking! I guess that's a compliment, lol! I don't think streaming or other digital should be our only option! It's fine and convenient, but you should be able to always own and collect your music! And I know for a fact physical will NEVER go away! Whether it's wonderful analog formats like vinyl and cassettes, or nice physical digital like CD'S and better yet sacds , you have a right to own! People will always want to own, trust me!
Oh, and another thing to note (didn't catch that in the vid even if it was mentioned): parallel to the XSII shown~ , they were putting out the same model but made in *Japan* by Denon www.ez647.sk/cc/scotchii/b/scotch_xsii9088z.jpg www.ez647.sk/cc/scotchii/b/scotch_xsii9088c.jpg ~which most chaps believe to be actually SKC, and SKC didn't exclusively use 3-dotted hubs, in fact there are SKC branded cassettes - can't get closer to the truth :P - with a different design, see here www.ez647.sk/cc/audio_cievky.html#skc but welp... you still got me/any other self-proclaimed "expert" thinkin' xD
I got through quite a lot of Scotch cassettes when they were SKC and quite cheap, CX and BX. Memorex quality without the dayglo colours. Never did try the ones higher up the range though.
Audio Hardware with the wires everywhere feels better than running bits through silicon. Surely software has it's uses but would you rather have bits, or a physical product that you can repair?
17:48 you can start to see the PositionII High Bias etc. on the tape, it is misaligned. The text tilts down to the right. That's some sloppy shtuff right there.
For good Scotch tapes manufactured by 3M: Try 1978 Scotch Master I, II and III. 3M could do excellent magnetic coatings, also for reel to reel, video and data storage. But in cassette, they also did many cheap jobs. It was fine, to do a cheap tape for speech or portable mono recorders. But the binder should not disintegrate and the mechanics should last for decades. TDK and BASF did that, 3M mostly not. I even have Scotch reel to reel tapes from the 70s, that became so sticky, that you can't wind them and playing them causes a "shriiiieeek" sound.
I’m still on snow leopard since some of the soundcards we use in our studio aren’t supported any longer and they are too old for the company who made them to update the software.
Amen. I stuck with Mavericks on all my machines, in commercial studio use... Stuck to Logic 9, 32 bit, still runs all the sessions I've been doing for years. Stuck with hardware outboard and hardware keyboards for the brunt of my work, aiming to make the computer as redundant as I can. You wouldn't wake up one day to find your car has stopped you from turning left, so I don't know why everyone just rolls over when IT companies do the same.
Well said. If I did upgrade my Mac, I'd have to get a new interface as the one I've got is firewire and goodness knows how that will run through a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter...
must also give props to Propellerhead software. As far as I know they've never taken any of their own features out of Reason. If you made something in Reason 1, it will still work in the latest version. I love their attitude. I love Reason too.
The more slick the studio setup, the more likely the person has no clue what they are talking about. I don't know why anyone cares. We are not watching a movie. No need for special effects or any of that crap. FWIW, I think your videos are pretty well done.
Yeah, I'd like to make them of the quality of Techmoan and Technology Connections, but it's their full time job, so they have the time. Ashens still has no production values though, even though he does it full time 😄
Just keep in mind that most of these companies have almost nothing in common with themselves 20 years ago. This is especially true of Apple, Alphabet and Microsoft, not to mention even hardware manufacturers like Intel. They used to hire only the brightest minds in the US. Now they hire for diversity. They used to brag about their meritocracy, now they claim meritocracy is sexist and racist.
There's a theme here. As publishers and software companies insist on shortening business cycles with their offerings to boost their profits, more and more people are using hardware again. Their SAAS model is economically unsustainable for many and will collapse at some point! Love live the synth! Long live cassette!
The thing is - where they referring to +8dB (higher than 0VU?), or +8dB above Dolby Level? Your DL (or "0" on the B215) reference is 2.7 dB above the original 0VU Tony. So this +8dB above, could be pushing it a wee bit too far? That said - tremendous tape.
Never bought a Scotch audio tape, but almost exclusively bought Scotch videotapes back in the day, sold on the Lifetime guarantee. Made quite a bit of use of that guarantee too, which should have been an indication. Scotch EG videotape was really bad for dropouts and degradation of videotape heads. Not surprised that the audiotapes you showed were all outsourced.
Tony. My 9yr old Son and I love to watch your videos together and just recently he keeps saying that guy needs a face reveal video. Well hes got his wish. On the subject of the video, I agree with your taste in the XSIIs. I used them a fair bit in the mid 90s and they always performed well. On a different matter, do you have any plans to do any videos on the BBC range on cassettes ? Again I experimented with some of their type 2's in the day and found them to be a bit of an oddity. Keep the fantastic videos coming pls.
Tony - just rewatched this video, and wanted to say - superb track! Did you make it available in the end? Also, all the tapes sounded great. Will keep my eyes peeled for some in future...
I loved the first bit of your video because it took me back to 1966. I know what you mean about Apple and its software updates. I am sick to the back teeth with how many of your applications stop working and it's not a new thing. Apple have a history of doing this. My G4 iTunes library was wiped out with a software update. I still have a Roland SH09 synth and it works fine thank you and no software update.
I was just laughing to myself, what if you got a copyright claim for your own music so I Shazamed it and came up as 'Glory Box - Nice T' which is a real tune but no the same as yours!😂😂😂 Any yes, I do like the tune, very nice indeed. 👍👍
Hi there Tony, They all sounded great to me. A question though: The Black Watch was recorded as Type II rather than Type IV? Just wondering why :) Best regards, Anton
Yeah, can't use any of the Logic stuff on PC anymore and my Spectrasonics plug ins can't be upgraded. Steve Albini only uses tape in his studio, not for fetish reasons but practicality. He can pull out masters done in the 80's and play them. Unlike Computer hardware, software compatibility, file format obsolescence etc etc.. Synthwave roll on! Forward into the past!
i have a few hardware midi synth when i want to listen to some midi files on my synths, yeah .. aren't i an odd one. but if i'm going to threat myself with some midi gear goodness i listen to tracks that actually sounds interesting on my synths. so lets see i have, a Casio gz-50m, a Kawai GMega, a Korg NS5R, a Yamaha MU1000, a Roland SC88pro and a Roland MT-32
This is why you shouldn't "update" software. Because they are going to enhance the shit out of your user experience! My walkman from the 90s works flawlessly, but 3 different ipods from this decade don't work at all or are severely limited.
Yes, it was a bigger change than I anticipated, even though I had worked with Cubase before in other studios. I actually missed some stuff from Logic for a couple of years, then one day it didn't matter anymore.
am I just tired or did he really record the type IV with the deck set to type II ? scrolled back to 27:10 to double check - yep - it clearly says type II on the display. could this be the cause of the distortion, maybe ? I'm not complaining, just wondering
Apple is a professional extortionist company, I knew that from their phones and repair services and this confirms my opinion. See here: ruclips.net/user/rossmanngroup
Well said tony!. I too am fed up with manufacturers deciding "you've had that long enough, we want more money now". They do it with software, phones, pc's, even smart TVs that all have built in obsolescence. I dont blame you going back to hardware (nice setup by the way). I believe if you pay good money for something you have the right to use it for as long as you want.
Exactly! My pre internet electronics still work like the day they left the factory. So do my Casio Digital watches...unlike the smart watches.
We need to get a good intuitive common vocabulary for this subject and start demanding that businesses offer products that we can truly own and use for as long as we wish. We may also want/need to demand that laws be made to prevent people from creating self-destructing products.
It's in the works...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46797396
OMD, Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, Ultravox, The Luman League... all those legends made their hits on the good old synthesizer, sth that good never can be outdated!
The great 3M manufactured tapes were Metafine and Master I, II & III.
I had always thought that it was a sofa or something, not a chair 😂
I wish 😀 "So, Ms. Metal Vertex, how badly do you want to appear in one of my videos?"
@@CassetteComeback 🤣🤣🤣
thought it was a mat
It really is good to see you Tony.
I always thought the background was a couch as well. I like all the guesses we had what it could have been. I appreciate the intro. Its so interesting that old tech was made to last. Not all, but most. Loving the music I am hearing on the Retro Nouveau. Now I'm making myself a Retro Nouveau Mixtape :D
Thank you for doing what you do.
Couldn't agree more with what you say in the first part. I do pay for Spotify, but if there's an album I really, really like I'll still buy the physical media either CD or Vinyl. Other music I like but maybe not enough to buy the media I might record from Spotify onto cassette or DAT so that at least I still have a physical copy if I decide to cancel Spotify or they go out of business.
BUT, HOME TAPING IS KILLING MUSIC.
I just download and backup all my important music for safekeeping.
@@scanman975 how do you download and backup online music? Isn't there DRM?
@@UtkarshAmitabhSrivastava I get albums from Amazon and other sites that still offer downloads. These files are tagged with unique metadata as far as I know, so I wouldn't recommend distributing them on the internet. However, you can freely copy them around to other disk drives for backup and audio devices for listening.
GOD!!, I hope Spotify NEVER goes out of business!!! EVER!! I'm age 55 and a very strong, avid Vinyl Record collector. Since 1978 at the age of 14 I started to "seriously" collect Records, as in, taking great care of them and at this point in my life I can easily say I have well over 9,000 Records, conservatively speaking of course. I have them spread out over two different rooms on two different floors of my home. I waited until the last week of 1993 to buy my first CD player. I was so-so-so-so-so against them! I had to put up with crappy sounding pre-recorded cassette tapes and then I finally gave up the ghost on the pre-recorded cassettes and went to CD. It took a long while for me to get used to that digital sound. Vinyl did and always will sound better. As you said in you're comment that if you really, really like an album you will go buy the physical version on CD or VINYL . I'm a DJ and I use Spotify on the job. It sounds so great. I also play Spotify on my Audio Component System and I don't know how Spotify does it but the sound isn't brash like most CD's and other digital sources. It actually has a nice "push" towards the "warm" sound of Vinyl. I used to have CD's all over my car and could NEVER find what CD I was looking for and then I got Spotify. NO MORE CD's all over the place in my car! Plus to be fair I don't really buy "new" music. I get enough of that from DJ'ing. 99% of what I play on Spotify is things that I consider classic stuff. Actually, the the most recent music on my Spotify is Lily Allen and Lenka and that is stuff from 2006-2009! I stand by Spotify 100%+. I still buy used Vinyl and on occasion some new 180grm re-issue of something.
Holy! All three cassettes sound great to my ears. I couldn't hear a difference between them and the source.
Tony! I am so glad that you finally got around to doing a video on the 3M Black Watch! I brought them up in comments on one or two of your past videos. I'm from the USA and I only have two of these incredible 3M Black Watch cassettes. I got them in the late 1980s to early 1990s at a high-end audio shop in good old York Pennsylvania and at the time a 40/40 cost $8.99 USD each! Ouch!! They were downright expensive but they were downright absolutely fantastic as well! I'm sure Denon probably made them. Those two 3 M's that I have are the best cassette tapes I've ever recorded on! The most neutral sounding tape ever. I could never distinguish The Source from the tape while recording. I never ran either cassette to +8. I never felt the reason to go that high up the scale. + 6 was fine! Yes these are going on eBay for about $30 USD now and probably more. The important thing is that you finally got around to demonstrating the 3M Black Watch and I'm glad you like them! Keep the good videos coming, Tony!..... Yes, seeing Tony, The Man Behind The Voice of these videos was a real treat. You always sound like a young Paul McCartney to me but you don't look a bit like him!..... Nice studio and nice equipment by the way!
My parents were running a stationery shop in the 1980's and I remember that they could order all sorts of Scotch cassettes so I ended up with a few XSII boxes and I think I got them in 1986, there was another type I but I can't remember the name right now... oh yes I just looked it up, they were the CX! I also have a couple of the blue dynarange of the 70's that I cherish with some old family recordings of the era... that's what we used to do back then, put the cassette recorder on one side of the dining room and record a family gathering (argument in most cases!)
The Scotch HS II was by far my favorite tape for making playlists for the car. I probably recorded on several hundred of them back in the day.
Best of all, now 35 or so years later, the Scotch HS II tapes have held up the best over time, better than the Maxell and certainly better than TDK. My only surviving TDK tapes are a few 2001 SA-60 tapes I bought on closeout when a local department store closed up around that time.
Back in the mid to late 80's I happened on a full pallet and then some of those Scotch XSII tapes in two packs, it pretty much set me for a long time with good quality tapes. I likely still have a few stashed here somewhere.
Earlier today, I went to an estate sale in Red Hook, NY and I found a bunch of these cassettes, including three Scotch CX from the 1980’s and a Scotch C90 cassette from the 1970’s, and these plays well. It had Posi-Trak backing on there, and the cover looks nice.
The Metal tape gets my vote😎😎Nice song Tony,love the strings🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶
Tony, first editions of XSII were made by Denon, later by SKC. XS II-S Euro version made by swiss ICM, with pure chrome Basf tape, american XS II-S were made by SKC, XS II-SP made by ICM, probably with BASF Cr Maxima tape, XS II-SX made by Denon, Japan, probably HD7.
Exactly. Check the 1988 version here, it's pure Denon:
www.ez647.sk/cc/scotch_xs2.html
I guess that they forgot changing the text about the double layer formulation on the inlay when they switched to SKC as their OEM. On a later version, this was corrected: pureanalogue.su/media/com_mtree/images/listings/o/1144.jpg
However, if you want to check whether you have a single layer or double layer tape, the easiest way would be to record it in you Aiwa, or any other deck with less sophisticated calibration facilities. On such kind of machines, the double layer formulations will almost certainly reveal themselves by a distinct mid-range dip.
Gotta say for late 60s 3M tapes, I've got two 60 minute black shell orange label's I'm pretty sure are from around 69/70. It, it doesn't sound like a 53 year old tape? But it doesn't sound like a 90s TDK D60 either. It's got some mud in the sound, but it's clear and the hiss? It's not nearly as bad as some prerecorded tapes of the era I've got. Some Dolby and it left a really good impression for me regarding the early scotch tapes.
Wouldn't put any high res tracks on it expecting proper reproduction, but I've recorded some old live Airplane and CSN & Sometimes Y live recordings onto it and it ya know.. sounds fine
It is great to see you in person, Tony! You are absolutely right about modern stuff being “killed” remotely, and the fact that music you save on a cloud or on your phone isn’t “yours”.
One thing I noticed is that when you recorded on the metal tape, the Revox was set to type II, this might caused the distortion on 8dB.
By the way, I loved the tune!
Best regards, Moshe.
Yeah, that's why I did an addendum video. It still distorted at +8 on type 4 setting...
Cassette Comeback Yes, I saw it next 😃.
It did peaked at 7dB though. Again, I loved the tune (what about “calibrating” as a title?), I was very happy to see you in person and I love your videos!
All the best!
And speaking of Scotch, I ordered the 1988 version of the Scotch BX, but I still have a few 1986 BX cassette. Both of these versions used the “Type 0” shells before it used the SKC transparent clear shells.
good to see what Tony looks like.
I loved the old Oberheim analog synths. They had these beautiful fat mids 😍
I've been looking at the DSI OB6...
I've had a deluge of emails from synth manufacturers warning of compatibility issues with the new apple OS. I still have old PCs running XP, Win7, OSX Tiger that happily runs old VSTs that won't work on newer OS. One of the reasons for my recent return to hardware is precisely because I know they should last decades without someone demanding money to allow them to continue to work every so many years. Also with hardware, you feel like a musician and not an accountant, and you are intimately involved in the music making process. That's the fun of getting hands on with old technology whether it's setting recording levels, choosing which tape type / brand, making mix tapes for someone. There's something about the sound of tape hiss, be it on your own recordings or the original master tape, it makes all the retro stuff that I like or compose sound 'authentic.' Going retro started me on the journey back to tape and trying out different tapes from you. Nice video and great to put a face to a name. In the spirit of Scotch, 're-record not fade away'.
Thing is too, when I'm in front of a hardware synth, (except digital beasts like the D50 and M1) I actually use the physical controls to tailor the sounds to my liking and create new patches. On soft synths, I just usually use presets...
...I do the same. It's kind of too easy with VSTs (as it was back in the 80s to pick a preset on digital synths) which can lead you to sound very similar to other people using the same tech. If you're forced to write your own patches and get hands on you will produce a sound of your own. Truth is, I became very lazy with VSTs, but I'm not a virtuoso on the keys, so I still like using Cubase to sequence tracks. Downside is cabling everything up as you wisely pointed out. Unfortunately, my Fostex X-15 4 track tape recorder isn't working, as I'd hoped to use the limitations of the tape medium to add gentle distortion to tracks. Because the consumer hi-fi industry has 'moved on' and left behind, cassette, MD, DVD-R and reel to reel doesn't mean I'm going to junk my gear any time soon, in the same that i have not thrown out my SH101, MC202, TR606 or Pro One just because they are old analogue tech. Keep up the good work. You are giving many people hours of pleasure.
I have a Mac Mini with a Mac OS X Mojave, but I have not upgrade to High Sierra. I’ll wait and see.
I agree with you 100%, and I find that a lot of musicians and producers do too. It's the same for plugins from companies like Waves, Slate, UAD, etc etc. I bought a bundle of plugins in 2012 for somewhere around $500, which was a huge investment for me, especially at the time. All those plugins no longer work because I didn't pay for the updates along the years. Then you have companies like the aforementioned Slate, where you pay for access to all their plugins for $15 a month, or $150 a year. For me, it's been a delicate balance between investing in hardware like a Moog Grandmother, Minilogue, and Yamaha DX, and then buying the more high end vintage emulations like Arturia's collection, and the TAL-U-No LX which is the best Juno software synth I've ever heard. Pairing every fader on my midi keyboard to its counterpart on the TAL-U-No LX really feels like I'm playing an old Juno. Now they've got virtual mics that emulate classic mics like the Neumann U87 and supposedly sound great so...There's a downside to these really cutting edge inventions and that's unfortunate. Some, I can justify, others (most) it seems to come out of a place of greed, like we're paying for something 4-5 times opposed to once.
Yeah. Thing is that some soft synths sound fantastic and the workflow is so fast. I recently tried Roland Cloud out. They're fantastic emulations. So much so I bought a System 8 too. Sometimes you have to swallow it up but it doesn't feel as sweet as it did. Doesn't help that Logic, which I use as my Daw, has minimal external midi capabilities since Apple killed off sound diver... because there's no money for them in supporting external synths...
my first deck was a good quality two head Technics deck M205 , of course there was no way of adjusting bias ,so you had to find the right tape that was best optimized for your deck . I found with my deck, that the Scotch XS 2 worked great i really loved those tapes!
Great to see you in person... I prefer the videos like this. It was kind of disjointed before just with two hands. Keep fighting the good fight! D50 will never get old - those patches!
One of the reasons many early Scotch cassettes don't hold up well is due to their using the dreaded foam rubber pressure pads on so many of them, right through the 1970s and possibly into the early 1980s. The 'Posi-Trak' back coating is like unto the back coating on all those reel-to-reel tapes you have heard about for years suffering 'sticky shed syndrome' that need a low-temp 'baking' to make them playable. (Speaking of which, just yesterday a FB friend of mine in Canada had to similarly 'bake' a 1980-vintage Scotch AVX cassette (which would have used the same tape stock as the consumer Scotch Dynarange back coated tape stock of the same era) to get it to play back without issue. Took only four hours to make it work.)
I've only ever heard about Black Watch tapes, never seen one. From what I understand they also offered a range of reel-to-reel Black Watch tapes, but again, I've never seen one, so have no idea who made those.
I liked the tune Tony!, maybe you should do more and release it. No surprise to the quality of those tapes, I love em too, i also have that same XS II but with a clearly DENON made version and also sounds excellent.
What a bonus! Love the synth talk brought in. I 100% agree on hardware synths and cassettes. I never really bought in to working in the box for these reasons. Right now trying to make an album using primarily my 8 track Syncaset and 4 track cassette recorders.. also using Deepmind and Korg synths :)
The only thing that makes me shudder is the thought of playing live lugging lots of synths...I wish someone made a modern sampler keyboard which you could use in conjunction with a PC to easily create multi samples. I hate gigging a laptop.
@@CassetteComeback Amen. Nothing quite fits the bill yet. Would love to see a live set of yours if you could ever post it!
welcome back to hardware synth land! Plenty of tape heads out here doing masters, multitracking, and releases on tape with hardware synths. You’re in good company!
I'm thinking I want a R2R to record on...but then my FX are digital and some of the synths are, so it kinda defeats the object of an analogue recording as it isn't a pure analogue signal path.
Cassette Comeback leave that to the reel nerds! Your knowledge of the correct way to record on cassette will generate results that sound better than anyone else recording hardware synths to tape. Digital synths and fx still sound great on analog tape too-i use tape to record almost everything and my modular synthesizer is a mix of analog and digital.
Way of the world I'm afraid and it's far from restricted to the equipment discussed here, it's everything from specialist equipment to laptops, phones, even basic home entertainment. It's crazy! This is why I love tape (RTR and cassette), vinyl (I genuinely prefer the sound of it), 35mm, 120 and cine film cameras (I am not a hipster BTW), valve guitar amplifiers (even though they are heavy) and a real hifi with real speakers! These are things I have always known and always loved. Basically if it plugs into the internet I'm just waiting for it to expire! It was good to see the face behind the videos as well, I thank you for them, I find them very helpful and entertaining :)
Evolution in electronics now is all a about convenience coupled with profit.
@@CassetteComeback I'm afraid I have to agree with you, I wish I had a reason to say otherwise. I hereby brand myself inconvenient. It sounds better than grumpy, I like it :D
I'd heard the same thing about Saehan making the Korean-made XSII. Not sure who made the Japanese-made ones, though.
I came across the chrome Black Watch once, and I liked it. I'm going to give all the old tapes I used to use back in the day another shot now that I have a decent deck (provided I can get it running again; it's a 3-head Denon with manual bias adjust that has the typical belt slippage issue, at least that's how it's presenting). I've got an XSII that I'll be throwing some 10cc vinyl onto once the deck's up and going.
Glad you came around to hardware again. The real deal is always better. More people need to be saying Bugger It and walk away with their money. When Apple bought Logic and shut down the pc side of things, I said bugger it, and did not migrate to an Apple. $700 vaporized.
Hi Tony, Maybe an idea to use the line out insted the headphone output. I'm sure the distortion is less or none. Offcourse I know it's a bit more work but, worth trying.
The line output is fixed at around 500Mv while the phones is running up to 2,5 Volts that makes a big differance.
Keep on making those great video's. Kind regards from the Netherlands
I shall give it a try.
Your song reminds me of one of my favorite songs: Here Comes the Rain Again by The Eurythmics. Very well done!
Really enjoyed this one Tony! We see the man AND the synth set up! I'm definitely digging the new song too, it just has that sound. And no bullshit, I just got a sealed 2 pack of those same SXII's yesterday and lost it when you put that on the screen. At least now I know they sound good. Thanks!!
What’s that little thing you’re using to rewind the tape? I have a ten pack and four loose SX 60s all NOS for multitrack recording purposes. Thanks for the demo!! These sound great!
I was finally able to get the Denon going, and I have some of the XSII's a whirl. One of the things I noticed was that the levels seemed to be somewhat lower than I expected from a Type II tape. In fact, they were behaving like a pure chrome might. Did you notice anything in that respect?
I haven't got a chance to test them in my new Sony which has way more bias adjustment options than the Denon, but it'll be interesting to see how much better it reacts with a boost in rec sensitivity.
I have a few Blackwatch cassettes which I love. They are truly top notch. Glad you landed one!
I can remember in the late 80s Maplin used to sell the Scotch cassettes. I used quite a few of them. I think the basic ferric was the BX, which worked OK, and a bit more upmarket was the XSI with pretty copper-coloured labels. Those recordings still sound good today.
The xsi is a rare bird, probably filled with SKC AX tape. Never had one.
That Revox is a beautiful deck, but I could reliably tell the difference between source and tape with all three tapes by closing my eyes and then quickly opening them to see the display. All tapes exhibited slight, but noticeable distortion to me. On your videos using the Nakamichi decks, I have a much harder time discerning whether it’s the tape or source with good tapes. I’m not saying Nakamichi decks are better than Revox, but of the decks you own, I think the Naks are doing a better job putting the signal down. This could be due to maintenance, head magnetization, etc, but to my ears something is slightly off with the Revox. Also, maybe a better idea to use the line output jacks instead of the headphone out. No sense adding another variable by inserting the headphone amp and your levels would be more standardized.
I used a lot of the XS II tapes back in the late 80's, and have never had a problem with them. I had mid-grade gear and they recorded well and played back great. Even now, those old tapes play amazingly great. I Do have a question, and perhaps I missed it on the video, Did you use any NR when you were recording on those tapes??
I think Scotch cassettes got thier uncool and stodgy reputation because their 3M-Wollensak recorders along with their Dynarange and Highlander tapes were used by so many schools, goverment agencies and businesses in the 70's. The XSII was a great tape and affordable too, had I known who made them I would have bought more.
So those tapes came through smelling like a rose Tony. That studio tape was real good especially the high frequencies, not quite as strong on the bass side. That metal tape was real fine, lots of detail I could hear in the song front to back! Go Tony! Did real good mate! Keep it up👍🏻
I've had computers for 40 years, they're a money sinkhole... 🤠
Very good! Thanks! The 3M corp made some great tapes for decades.
Scotch/3M cassettes sound great, Thanks for letting us know about these cassettes, good stuff, love the track that you used to record on the cassettes, great work, I plan to purchase it. Take care, cheers
Interesting to see your synths. I have a theory that the reason hardware sounds more interesting is that each is using its own clock and there will always be slight differences. Take two TX7s (I think I saw one there) and they won't be exactly in tune and they will drift. In contrast every soft synth you tun will be perfectly in tune with the computers clock.
Yeah, it's a TX7. That's the beauty of analogue, their imperfections are what gives then character.
19:04 you need to make this an official track and make an album too. this song makes me think of a night runner or running in the night vibe. i'm ready to get in the car at 55 mph and drive to this song on a mid summer / early fall night and just jam out. by the way i feel like its 1984 all over again.
You should check out my track Marathon by Villarosso. That was inspired directly by that vibe.
@@CassetteComeback i have your tracks that are avail. on Tidal that one as well as the ones with Meghan McDuffee.
preach brother. that OSX/software synth upgrade rant is on point.
If you ever release this track as is i'll buy it in a heartbeat :) even tempted to try and extract the audio from the video to record to a personal Vilarosso cassette compilation also some others that you never released as you showed in past videos without vocals i love these sounds, hope you start releasing again.
This track badly needs to be released.
I agree about what you said about software synths vs Hardware synths. I've lost plug-ins over the years because of switching OS versions and hardware. I use mostly hardware synths though. It keeps running a lot longer.
About the tapes; It's interesting. The first one was slightly distorting on the bass with the +6 peaks, but sounded pretty good overall. The second one (3M SX90) was really great sounding. It had no issues with the +6 peaks and sounded very close to the source to me. The last one (black watch) was slightly disappointing to be honest. It distorted clearly at +8 and still a little after you turned it down. It also seemed like it wasn't 100% stable. One thing I noticed was that the ReVox displayed the tape as a Type II instead of a Type IV. Does the ReVox not support IV tapes natively?
PS, I liked your track, nice stuff!
EDIT: Just after posting I saw you uploaded a video about it. That explained it all. :)
At 8:50, this reminded of another tape case, but I couldn't think which one!? But after a little digging around, I found my Quantegy AVX 90 tapes. The J-Card is very similar too.
PS - the shell is similar too. Uncanny likeness.
Yeah, well Quantegy were 3M & Ampex.
@@CassetteComeback Apologies, I didn't know. I wasn't tuned into who owns what etc.
Your look different than I pictured you, Tony! I pictured you bald and older looking! I guess that's a compliment, lol! I don't think streaming or other digital should be our only option! It's fine and convenient, but you should be able to always own and collect your music! And I know for a fact physical will NEVER go away! Whether it's wonderful analog formats like vinyl and cassettes, or nice physical digital like CD'S and better yet sacds , you have a right to own! People will always want to own, trust me!
It's in our DNA as Hunter / gatherers.
@@CassetteComeback absolutely, you know it!
Hey! I like your wallpaper! it looks nice!
Oh, and another thing to note (didn't catch that in the vid even if it was mentioned): parallel to the XSII shown~ , they were putting out the same model but made in *Japan* by Denon www.ez647.sk/cc/scotchii/b/scotch_xsii9088z.jpg www.ez647.sk/cc/scotchii/b/scotch_xsii9088c.jpg
~which most chaps believe to be actually SKC, and SKC didn't exclusively use 3-dotted hubs, in fact there are SKC branded cassettes - can't get closer to the truth :P - with a different design, see here www.ez647.sk/cc/audio_cievky.html#skc but welp... you still got me/any other self-proclaimed "expert" thinkin' xD
Nice to see you infront of the camera, Tony!
I got through quite a lot of Scotch cassettes when they were SKC and quite cheap, CX and BX. Memorex quality without the dayglo colours. Never did try the ones higher up the range though.
Audio Hardware with the wires everywhere feels better than running bits through silicon. Surely software has it's uses but would you rather have bits, or a physical product that you can repair?
I'd rather have a physical device they can't kill via the internet.
17:48 you can start to see the PositionII High Bias etc. on the tape, it is misaligned. The text tilts down to the right. That's some sloppy shtuff right there.
For good Scotch tapes manufactured by 3M: Try 1978 Scotch Master I, II and III. 3M could do excellent magnetic coatings, also for reel to reel, video and data storage. But in cassette, they also did many cheap jobs. It was fine, to do a cheap tape for speech or portable mono recorders. But the binder should not disintegrate and the mechanics should last for decades. TDK and BASF did that, 3M mostly not. I even have Scotch reel to reel tapes from the 70s, that became so sticky, that you can't wind them and playing them causes a "shriiiieeek" sound.
Completely agree on the owning the things part. Liked the song, the tapes sound great.
Because audio compact cassette tapes are awesome and I managed to make them sound better than CD'S
Did you touch the Scotch type 0 cassettes and record on them?
I’m still on snow leopard since some of the soundcards we use in our studio aren’t supported any longer and they are too old for the company who made them to update the software.
Yeah. It sucks being tied to Apples desire to make you buy the same stuff again every few years.
Amen. I stuck with Mavericks on all my machines, in commercial studio use... Stuck to Logic 9, 32 bit, still runs all the sessions I've been doing for years. Stuck with hardware outboard and hardware keyboards for the brunt of my work, aiming to make the computer as redundant as I can. You wouldn't wake up one day to find your car has stopped you from turning left, so I don't know why everyone just rolls over when IT companies do the same.
Well said. If I did upgrade my Mac, I'd have to get a new interface as the one I've got is firewire and goodness knows how that will run through a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter...
@@CassetteComeback same. Still running m-audio interfaces. Nothing else under £800 runs two adat interfaces plus its own input and output!
must also give props to Propellerhead software. As far as I know they've never taken any of their own features out of Reason. If you made something in Reason 1, it will still work in the latest version. I love their attitude. I love Reason too.
The more slick the studio setup, the more likely the person has no clue what they are talking about.
I don't know why anyone cares. We are not watching a movie. No need for special effects or any of that crap. FWIW, I think your videos are pretty well done.
Yeah, I'd like to make them of the quality of Techmoan and Technology Connections, but it's their full time job, so they have the time. Ashens still has no production values though, even though he does it full time 😄
Just keep in mind that most of these companies have almost nothing in common with themselves 20 years ago. This is especially true of Apple, Alphabet and Microsoft, not to mention even hardware manufacturers like Intel. They used to hire only the brightest minds in the US.
Now they hire for diversity. They used to brag about their meritocracy, now they claim meritocracy is sexist and racist.
There's a theme here. As publishers and software companies insist on shortening business cycles with their offerings to boost their profits, more and more people are using hardware again. Their SAAS model is economically unsustainable for many and will collapse at some point! Love live the synth! Long live cassette!
I mean, who needs this? Poor guys (and gals): www.theverge.com/2019/10/7/20904030/adobe-venezuela-photoshop-behance-us-sanctions
Whats the bias setting used with scotch XS II ?
You look beter than I expected! 😎
I shall let my wife read this 😀
The thing is - where they referring to +8dB (higher than 0VU?), or +8dB above Dolby Level? Your DL (or "0" on the B215) reference is 2.7 dB above the original 0VU Tony. So this +8dB above, could be pushing it a wee bit too far? That said - tremendous tape.
I did it for the purpose of the video, I never run anything above +4 normally.
Nice tune! Have you been thinking about releasing a video including more of your synth-stuff and music production? I'd watch it.
Nah. You've got to keep focussed. There's lots of better producers than me out there with videos.
when recording on the metal tape the deck said type 2.
aly nicholls both are 70 us equalisation
loved synth back in the 80's, used to like seeing korg, yamaha and roland on top of the pops....
good vid and tune tony.....ant..
Yeah, they now have to cover the synth names up with tape (if they're not gigging a laptop that is) for the sake of copyright / advertising.
You made a really good song I think that it's a really nice tune Tony and keep the great videos coming!!!
Nice little ditty. I imagine it being used in some sort of 80s film underdog training montage.
Awesome. If there's any film directors out there...
Versions of Mac OS up to Mojave (10.14) should be able to still support 32-bit applications: support.apple.com/en-us/HT208436
But Logic Pro X doesn't now support 32 bit audio units.
"Same star shape" But rotated 30 degrees.
Never bought a Scotch audio tape, but almost exclusively bought Scotch videotapes back in the day, sold on the Lifetime guarantee. Made quite a bit of use of that guarantee too, which should have been an indication. Scotch EG videotape was really bad for dropouts and degradation of videotape heads. Not surprised that the audiotapes you showed were all outsourced.
Tony. My 9yr old Son and I love to watch your videos together and just recently he keeps saying that guy needs a face reveal video. Well hes got his wish. On the subject of the video, I agree with your taste in the XSIIs. I used them a fair bit in the mid 90s and they always performed well.
On a different matter, do you have any plans to do any videos on the BBC range on cassettes ? Again I experimented with some of their type 2's in the day and found them to be a bit of an oddity.
Keep the fantastic videos coming pls.
Hi. Yes I do. I like the BBC cassettes. Glad you and your son are enjoying the videos.
Tony - just rewatched this video, and wanted to say - superb track! Did you make it available in the end?
Also, all the tapes sounded great. Will keep my eyes peeled for some in future...
No, never released that track.
@@CassetteComeback damn - maybe you should!
@@CassetteComeback I'm really into it!
Those tapes sound Amazing 👍
Re-Record , Not Fade Away ! ( Re-Record , Not Fade Away ! )
I loved the first bit of your video because it took me back to 1966.
I know what you mean about Apple and its software updates. I am sick to the back teeth with how many of your applications stop working and it's not a new thing. Apple have a history of doing this. My G4 iTunes library was wiped out with a software update.
I still have a Roland SH09 synth and it works fine thank you and no software update.
Классные кассеты
I'm here for the truth, I can handle it!🙂
Neat track 😉
I was just laughing to myself, what if you got a copyright claim for your own music so I Shazamed it and came up as 'Glory Box - Nice T' which is a real tune but no the same as yours!😂😂😂
Any yes, I do like the tune, very nice indeed. 👍👍
It wouldn't surprise me...
Cracking tune Tony - Hope you decide to release in the future 👍
Might make it as an "album track" in the future.
cant wait
@@CassetteComeback I'm digging it... call it "Time for a Scotch"😋
Nice tune. Why don't you name the made-up tune 'Hard-Wave', from your keyboard?
Hi there Tony,
They all sounded great to me. A question though: The Black Watch was recorded as Type II rather than Type IV? Just wondering why :)
Best regards,
Anton
Indeed. Hence why there's an addendum video.
Didnt see that one yet
Tnx!
Yeah, can't use any of the Logic stuff on PC anymore and my Spectrasonics plug ins can't be upgraded. Steve Albini only uses tape in his studio, not for fetish reasons but practicality. He can pull out masters done in the 80's and play them. Unlike Computer hardware, software compatibility, file format obsolescence etc etc.. Synthwave roll on! Forward into the past!
Might dust my Atari ST off with Cubase...
Oh yeah. And Apple killed Sound Diver off too...as there's no money for them in people using hardware synths.
i have a few hardware midi synth when i want to listen to some midi files on my synths, yeah .. aren't i an odd one.
but if i'm going to threat myself with some midi gear goodness i listen to tracks that actually sounds interesting on my synths.
so lets see i have, a Casio gz-50m, a Kawai GMega, a Korg NS5R, a Yamaha MU1000, a Roland SC88pro and a Roland MT-32
Good stuff!
Do you release on tape?
This is why you shouldn't "update" software. Because they are going to enhance the shit out of your user experience!
My walkman from the 90s works flawlessly, but 3 different ipods from this decade don't work at all or are severely limited.
I had to, as I wanted the latest functionality...I didn't think they'd do this...
When Apple bought Emagic I just went Steinberg and Cubase.
I was used to the workflow and loved Sound Diver. I got a good 15 years out of them...
Yes, it was a bigger change than I anticipated, even though I had worked with Cubase before in other studios. I actually missed some stuff from Logic for a couple of years, then one day it didn't matter anymore.
am I just tired or did he really record the type IV with the deck set to type II ?
scrolled back to 27:10 to double check - yep - it clearly says type II on the display.
could this be the cause of the distortion, maybe ? I'm not complaining, just wondering
Hence why I did an addendum video.
@@CassetteComeback yeah, i noticed that afterwards ... the second video didn't show up until i was done writing ^_^
Does anyone know what Tony's day job is? Is it public info? If not, I'm going to guess: circuit court judge.
😁 I wish. It's in I.T.
hi! who is playing? the music very cool!
It's a work in progress done by myself. I release music under the name "Villarosso"
tape porn... there's one for the scrap book :)
Its a awesome tune
Music name pls
终于见到真人了！
Apple is a professional extortionist company, I knew that from their phones and repair services and this confirms my opinion.
See here: ruclips.net/user/rossmanngroup