I don't think there is anyone who can explain better than you what bias, hysteresis and saturation are. Very informative video. Thank you for sharing these info with us. A big like and greetings from Romania.
I'll be mastering for my client and he'll have it printed on tapes so this video was phenomenal for me. Thank you very much for high quality material. Simple yet informative!
Man so glad I found that video :O I was on the edge to jump head first in cassette recording with my synth and I'm quite happy to saw that peace first. Thank you so much ❤
Hey Paul! Thanks for your comment. Mastering should be done before putting the signal onto tape - similar to how mastering is done before releasing a song digitally, or on other mediums like vinyl, etc. SageAudio.com
Hey Anamnesis AudioStudio! Thanks for watching and leaving a comment. -0.1dBTP is a good output for your master if you plan to put it on tape. Since the file won't be converted to a lossy file (like with online encoding) you don't need to worry about significant changes to the amplitude of your master. Also, -14 LUFS will work well, but I might go a little louder like -12 or -10 to help cover up some tape noise. SageAudio.com
Don't care about some LUFS and other nonsenses, you are not a radio channel or jukebox. My method of recording cassettes is to find the highest volume that doesn't cut peaks, I find the most loud or compressed part of song or whole album, then I will try to record part of it and set volume to 0 dB peaks on meter on tape deck and then I slightly lower recording volume and record whole song or album. This is the best method to have the best signal/noise ratio without using some extra compression and stuff like that. Ofcourse I am talking about just recording songs to cassettes, not about mastering your own music. I mostly increase volume of each song to -0.2 dB peaks, if it has very high dynamic range (some old CDs o LPs can have even 15+ dB) then it's better to slightly compress it to like 10-13 dB of dynamic range. I don't care that each song can feel slightly differently loud.
From my experiments, it's the best to keep dynamic range between 8-10 dB (measured with TT dynamic range meter 1.4). When you compress it more, analog tape will "create" (I don't know how to explain it) extra dynamics, but it's probably just fake number, not real dynamics, but it shows that tape can't accept that heavily compressed records as CD, thankfully, so when you buy cassette, you know it doesn't have crazy DR4 loudness war like CD.
Nice video, I noticed that you don't have "tape" as one of the selections under mastering on your website. If someone wanted to have their music mastered for cassette what should they choose and where could they find the price info?
Hey Keith! Glad your enjoyed the video and thanks for leaving a comment. If you reach out to Steve (our head engineer) and let him know that you intend to have the master distributed on cassette, he can tailor the master towards that. Just let him know which tape type you'll distribute on so that the EQ can be adjusted accordingly. Here's a link to contact him: www.sageaudio.com/contact.php
Say you were to create a duplicate of a master tape (assuming correct types), if you were to create another duplicate based off of the last duplicate rather than the master tape and then do that a number of times, would all of those tapes presumably have the same quality, or would it degrade over time, but less so than duplicating the master repeatedly?
Thanks for watching! In this case there would be less degradation, but you'd still have some over time. I'd recommend using the digital master as the source for each new copy, instead of copying from tape to tape. This way you avoid degradation entirely and get identical copies on each tape. SageAudio.com
I'm thinking about buying a rack mountable Marantz PMD 300CP dual cassette deck to record to. Does that sound like a workable plan? I'm thinking of recording everything on my Mixer, sending it tape and from tape to final mastering in DAW.
Thanks for watching Dean! If you can get your hands on one, recording to a tape machine would sound better than recording to a cassette deck. Typically cassette decks are better for creating a consumer version of the recording. Thanks for watching! SageAudio.com
@@sageaudio Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. It looks like you can get a decent Reel to Reel for under $400 if you look around. I'll experiment with cassettes first. I think that may work well for me because I'm already getting a really warm sound working with a decent ribbon mic, external pre amp/eq and compressor before hitting the DAW. Either way for the sound I like recording strictly in the box totally doesn't work. Thanks again!
Hi thanks a ton for the video I found this very helpful , personally I am considering mastering my mixes to cassette to get a bit of analog warmth saturation and then bounce ing it back to the digital realm a reel to reel is too expensive for me at the moment and I already have a pretty good cassette deck (Nakamichi 500) do you think this could be a less expensive option ? Maybe using quality cassettes I’m pretty shure it could work out would you have any reccomendations or tips or have you ever done anything like this ? Thanks in advance regards from Palermo 😎
That's a cool idea! With something like that, you'll have to experiment to get the sound you want. My only recommendation is to adhere to the EQ response of the tape you're using and record to tape with a level that's right before you hear distortion (during the tape's playback). Cassettes will have a lower sound quality than reel-to-reel due to the width of the tape, but, it's still worth trying if you're alright with losing a little fidelity (but like I said, some experimentation could result in a cool sound).
Hola, excelente video te felicito. Quiero preguntarte qué tipo de archivo y cuáles características serían las adecuadas para hacer copias directamente de la fuente digital. Hablo de cuántos Bits es mejor para grabar. Saludos desde Uruguay, espero haber sido claro. Feliz año nuevo.
Hey Fabián Da Silva! Thanks for watching and leaving a comment! A 24-bit, 96kHz digital file would be ideal for making copies. Happy new year! ¡Hola Fabián Da Silva! ¡Gracias por mirar y dejar un comentario! Un archivo digital de 24 bits y 96 kHz sería ideal para realizar copias. ¡Feliz año nuevo! SageAudio.com
Hi, do you think it’s possible to use type IV cassette with a high quality cassette recorder and then back the signal from the cassette recorder into the computer going through a high quality soundcard (with a good ad-da converter in) to add and interesting feel and texture to the sound ? In that case should i do the mastering before ? If yes will the signal go over 0 db after going back to the computer, should i put a limiter ? Thanks in advance hope you will see my comment, the process is maybe not 100% clear in my head because i don’t have all the gear yet... musically greeting
Hey guys great video as usual... I'm thinking about purchasing a reel to reel to warm up my final mix in my daw. But I have actually still have a working and functioning cassette deck, Dat machine and ADAT machine. Do you think it's worth it? Or would I get the same results from one of my other formats? Thanks,
Some wrong information here: Bias is absolutely not relevant for playback. It doesn't matter at all if the fans have a bad tape deck or not. Type 4 that got recorded with the correct bias and used a 120us eq can absolutely be played back on any tapedeck. And not only that, since it used a type1 eq on recording it will be handled as a type 1 on playback. The same goes for type 2 cassettes. Bias is important to get an even frequency response. To much bias and you have too much low frequency and too little bias and you got too much treble. Hysteresis is not an issue for blank cassettes. On top of that the deck will automatically detect the tape type and dial in a standard bias for that type wich will absolutely delete anything that is on the tape. A bias knob though will give you then the control to get the highs and lows even. You forgot to mention the problems with type 2 and 4 shells. You need to close the holes on top of the cassette shell, because those are used for the player to deteect the tape type. We want them to be played back as type 1 to have best compability. Type 1 with correct bias, good tape and a good deck won't need any boosted highs on recording. The dialed in bias will take care of that.
hi cassette are a right pain at 1 7/8 ips the EQ is a pain i use 3 3/4 ips that tascam dig cassette deck heads are very poor putting in the logic to do the mastering some don't like this AAA is very hard on cassette i have a otari mtr 12 with 1/8 cassette heads save all this computer work some one i know had some from a slave reel to reel deck that was used to record the pancakes for cassettes out tec i am in to
Hey Bob! Thanks for watching and leaving a comment. Using lower tape speeds, especially with cassette doesn't sound easy. Thanks for sharing your setup! SageAudio.com
I don't think there is anyone who can explain better than you what bias, hysteresis and saturation are. Very informative video. Thank you for sharing these info with us. A big like and greetings from Romania.
Awesome! Thank you so much for watching and sharing your thoughts!
SageAudio.com
I'll be mastering for my client and he'll have it printed on tapes so this video was phenomenal for me. Thank you very much for high quality material. Simple yet informative!
Man so glad I found that video :O I was on the edge to jump head first in cassette recording with my synth and I'm quite happy to saw that peace first. Thank you so much ❤
Thank you! Very straightforward
Hey Anthony! Thanks for watching, glad you found it helpful. It looks like my previous response got deleted.
SageAudio.com
Well explained 👌🏻😊
so do u do the mastering before or after putting the song on the tape
Hey Paul! Thanks for your comment. Mastering should be done before putting the signal onto tape - similar to how mastering is done before releasing a song digitally, or on other mediums like vinyl, etc.
SageAudio.com
Excellent video, it helped me a lot!
Hey Marcus! Glad you enjoyed it, looks like my previous comment got deleted.
SageAudio.com
Threw me a curveball with that intro - thought you were Graham there for a sec lol !!
haha nope not Graham! Thanks for watching!
SageAudio.com
ok Where is the Audio samples??? we want to hear
A very Informative video, thanks! Are you able to get hold of new type 11 cassettes still, I thought they’d stopped making them?
Thanks for watching! I know you can still get a hold of tape type 2.
SageAudio.com
you can get some on amazon, but they're a bit pricey
... you can still get METAL type IV tapes sometimes too! ( also on amazon )
@@QUIZFILTER amazing, I can only find unopened old stock.
@@wehappyfewmusic oh my apologies, that's what I meant... new old stock.
Do you set for -1 on the true picks ? Or -0.5? And LUFS ? how high do you go? -14 like streaming or is it higher ?
Hey Anamnesis AudioStudio! Thanks for watching and leaving a comment.
-0.1dBTP is a good output for your master if you plan to put it on tape. Since the file won't be converted to a lossy file (like with online encoding) you don't need to worry about significant changes to the amplitude of your master. Also, -14 LUFS will work well, but I might go a little louder like -12 or -10 to help cover up some tape noise.
SageAudio.com
@@sageaudio thank you very much for this reply, really loved the channel. And the website
Don't care about some LUFS and other nonsenses, you are not a radio channel or jukebox.
My method of recording cassettes is to find the highest volume that doesn't cut peaks, I find the most loud or compressed part of song or whole album, then I will try to record part of it and set volume to 0 dB peaks on meter on tape deck and then I slightly lower recording volume and record whole song or album. This is the best method to have the best signal/noise ratio without using some extra compression and stuff like that. Ofcourse I am talking about just recording songs to cassettes, not about mastering your own music.
I mostly increase volume of each song to -0.2 dB peaks, if it has very high dynamic range (some old CDs o LPs can have even 15+ dB) then it's better to slightly compress it to like 10-13 dB of dynamic range.
I don't care that each song can feel slightly differently loud.
Which one is best to run through for a master to convert back to digital?
If you're looking for a lofi sound, then type 1 or 2.
Thanks for the info! How should we think about limiting when mastering for cassette tape? With more dynamics or with more limiting?
From my experiments, it's the best to keep dynamic range between 8-10 dB (measured with TT dynamic range meter 1.4). When you compress it more, analog tape will "create" (I don't know how to explain it) extra dynamics, but it's probably just fake number, not real dynamics, but it shows that tape can't accept that heavily compressed records as CD, thankfully, so when you buy cassette, you know it doesn't have crazy DR4 loudness war like CD.
Nice video, I noticed that you don't have "tape" as one of the selections under mastering on your website. If someone wanted to have their music mastered for cassette what should they choose and where could they find the price info?
Hey Keith! Glad your enjoyed the video and thanks for leaving a comment. If you reach out to Steve (our head engineer) and let him know that you intend to have the master distributed on cassette, he can tailor the master towards that. Just let him know which tape type you'll distribute on so that the EQ can be adjusted accordingly. Here's a link to contact him: www.sageaudio.com/contact.php
@@sageaudio -Thanks for the reply and the info!
Say you were to create a duplicate of a master tape (assuming correct types), if you were to create another duplicate based off of the last duplicate rather than the master tape and then do that a number of times, would all of those tapes presumably have the same quality, or would it degrade over time, but less so than duplicating the master repeatedly?
Thanks for watching! In this case there would be less degradation, but you'd still have some over time. I'd recommend using the digital master as the source for each new copy, instead of copying from tape to tape. This way you avoid degradation entirely and get identical copies on each tape.
SageAudio.com
75th subscriber here
Hey thanks for your comment - it looks like my previous response got deleted. Thanks for subscribing!
SageAudio.com
I'm thinking about buying a rack mountable Marantz PMD 300CP dual cassette deck to record to. Does that sound like a workable plan? I'm thinking of recording everything on my Mixer, sending it tape and from tape to final mastering in DAW.
Thanks for watching Dean! If you can get your hands on one, recording to a tape machine would sound better than recording to a cassette deck. Typically cassette decks are better for creating a consumer version of the recording. Thanks for watching!
SageAudio.com
@@sageaudio Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. It looks like you can get a decent Reel to Reel for under $400 if you look around. I'll experiment with cassettes first. I think that may work well for me because I'm already getting a really warm sound working with a decent ribbon mic, external pre amp/eq and compressor before hitting the DAW. Either way for the sound I like recording strictly in the box totally doesn't work. Thanks again!
Hi thanks a ton for the video I found this very helpful , personally I am considering mastering my mixes to cassette to get a bit of analog warmth saturation and then bounce ing it back to the digital realm a reel to reel is too expensive for me at the moment and I already have a pretty good cassette deck (Nakamichi 500) do you think this could be a less expensive option ? Maybe using quality cassettes I’m pretty shure it could work out would you have any reccomendations or tips or have you ever done anything like this ? Thanks in advance regards from Palermo 😎
That's a cool idea! With something like that, you'll have to experiment to get the sound you want. My only recommendation is to adhere to the EQ response of the tape you're using and record to tape with a level that's right before you hear distortion (during the tape's playback).
Cassettes will have a lower sound quality than reel-to-reel due to the width of the tape, but, it's still worth trying if you're alright with losing a little fidelity (but like I said, some experimentation could result in a cool sound).
Hola, excelente video te felicito. Quiero preguntarte qué tipo de archivo y cuáles características serían las adecuadas para hacer copias directamente de la fuente digital. Hablo de cuántos Bits es mejor para grabar. Saludos desde Uruguay, espero haber sido claro. Feliz año nuevo.
Hey Fabián Da Silva! Thanks for watching and leaving a comment! A 24-bit, 96kHz digital file would be ideal for making copies. Happy new year!
¡Hola Fabián Da Silva! ¡Gracias por mirar y dejar un comentario! Un archivo digital de 24 bits y 96 kHz sería ideal para realizar copias. ¡Feliz año nuevo!
SageAudio.com
is bias a thing on blank tapes?
There's no bias signal recorded on a blank tape, but you'll need a bias signal to record to the tape.
Hi, do you think it’s possible to use type IV cassette with a high quality cassette recorder and then back the signal from the cassette recorder into the computer going through a high quality soundcard (with a good ad-da converter in) to add and interesting feel and texture to the sound ? In that case should i do the mastering before ? If yes will the signal go over 0 db after going back to the computer, should i put a limiter ? Thanks in advance hope you will see my comment, the process is maybe not 100% clear in my head because i don’t have all the gear yet... musically greeting
Hey guys great video as usual... I'm thinking about purchasing a reel to reel to warm up my final mix in my daw. But I have actually still have a working and functioning cassette deck, Dat machine and ADAT machine. Do you think it's worth it? Or would I get the same results from one of my other formats?
Thanks,
thank you saved my ass
Haha anytime! Thanks for watching!
SageAudio.com
Ok can we hear it…
Some wrong information here:
Bias is absolutely not relevant for playback. It doesn't matter at all if the fans have a bad tape deck or not. Type 4 that got recorded with the correct bias and used a 120us eq can absolutely be played back on any tapedeck. And not only that, since it used a type1 eq on recording it will be handled as a type 1 on playback. The same goes for type 2 cassettes.
Bias is important to get an even frequency response. To much bias and you have too much low frequency and too little bias and you got too much treble. Hysteresis is not an issue for blank cassettes. On top of that the deck will automatically detect the tape type and dial in a standard bias for that type wich will absolutely delete anything that is on the tape. A bias knob though will give you then the control to get the highs and lows even.
You forgot to mention the problems with type 2 and 4 shells. You need to close the holes on top of the cassette shell, because those are used for the player to deteect the tape type. We want them to be played back as type 1 to have best compability.
Type 1 with correct bias, good tape and a good deck won't need any boosted highs on recording. The dialed in bias will take care of that.
hi cassette are a right pain at 1 7/8 ips the EQ is a pain i use 3 3/4 ips that tascam dig
cassette deck heads are very poor putting in the logic to do the mastering some don't
like this AAA is very hard on cassette i have a otari mtr 12 with 1/8 cassette heads
save all this computer work some one i know had some from a slave reel to reel deck
that was used to record the pancakes for cassettes out tec i am in to
Hey Bob! Thanks for watching and leaving a comment. Using lower tape speeds, especially with cassette doesn't sound easy. Thanks for sharing your setup!
SageAudio.com
Plugins😝
Hey Danny - thanks for watching!
SageAudio.com