Personally it's the sound the amplifier make's when it's goes "plung" that does the trick. As far as I know it's a overheating relay that switches when things are 'cool'. The buzzing sounds of the media player is a bad fan, I should replace it but am a bit to lazy... Futhermore, you should check out his music, it's in the descr... ow never mind 😉
Yowza, too much effort. Cassettes were made for the audio enthusiast (audiophile?) who (whom?) liked to get shit-faced while diggin' tunes. Simple to operate while stoned, drunk or trippin'. Sounding great in a home system or played in a Superscope boom box in the park with friends. Cassettes were almost fool-proof. A boss way to dig yer music.
Haha, love you comment, yeah it may never compete in quality over other mediums (except something like 8-track) but they make up for it with simplicity. I may be going the extra mile (or even to far) but I don''t only like using them, I want them to look the best they can!
You put a lot of care into this and I love your setup. I can't even remember when I last recorded a tape, but it wasn't in this century. 😅😊 That went out the window as soon as CDs became an option for a reasonable price (that was in the 90s) and once i bought a PC in 2000 I never looked back. I recorded all my vinyl onto CD and once phones could play music (my first was a HTC Sensation) in the 2010s I never burnt another disc for myself. Mobile phones, mp3 and streaming turned the music business upside down and inside out and I'm there for it. And i admire the little works of art you create on tape.
Thanks! Must admit sometimes it's a bit of a burden to start a new recording but that's mostly because I need to stay close to the deck while it's busy, can't risk something going wrong... But in the end it's worth the time holding a tape that you made yourself 😊 I remember the craze when CD's where getting popular, my parents bought loads of them, music, games and of course blanks. My dad used to run the computer 24/7 to 'ahum' borrow files from the internet and burn them to disks. We had stacks and stacks of discs both legal and... not. He used to sell the latter around town. Now the funny thing is, I still own the CD's my parents had back then, I copied them all to the computer and now use them to record them on tape. I actually started with tapes in 2007 because I did not had an mp3 player, but really wanted my own music collection, I could still buy them new from the electronics store. Dirt cheap of course! Even though I got my first mp3 not a year later, I still have those tapes and sometimes I got back to them and played them again. It's these tapes together with the vinyl resurgence that got me into this hobby in 2013.
I came BACK to cassettes cuz I like the way they roll off the high end, Like to record weird shit at weird speeds (a lot of "dictation-y" recorders have pitch control), and overdriven tape is much better sounding than clipped digital.
The Best way to prepare a " old stock" casette before recording is to wind or rewind the tape completey, this way a more smooth tape flow is possible, as a mather of fact that is the method old ( archivel) reel to reel mastertapes are held, played to the end so you have to rewind them fully before playing...
I've seen a video about some Beatles (master dupe?) reel lately, they had to re-spool them onto another hub anyways, but can understand why you would do something like that, even though cassette tape usually does not really have this problem the tape can get a little sticky after many years of not using it. I usually erase old stock before using so they have already been through a full playthrough when I start recording on them. Hence the small paper with the word "LEEG" (Dutch for empty) inside the cassette case at 10:00
Ottimo lavoro amico,quelle maxell sono ottime,e complimenti per il teac V-6030S registratore eccellente,ho in collezione il V-8030S quindi so come suona,sono identici a parte il direct drive sull'8030,quindi hai un'ottimo registratore!
Grazie! Mi piace molto il Teac V6030S. Cercavo anche l'8030, ma il 6030 è abbastanza buono per me. Mi piace molto la funzione bias di questo deck e la funzione per saltare le canzoni (se funziona come dovrebbe). Insieme a un buon nastro Maxell o TDK suona davvero bene. Grazie per il tuo commento!
It's all about how much time you want to put into making a 'good' recording, if I wanted I could simply grab a average volume, press record and let the thing do it's job. Not to mention I already put in like 2 to 3 hours beforehand making the playlist before I can even start the physical part. BTW I also still burn CDR's but only to use them inside my car which still uses a CD-player.
it depends on the level of quality you want , it´s easier but not that perfect, i also only restarted to record tapes or DAT, REELs and cassettes in 2017 when i repaired and did some maintence on my decks before i was using minidisc compilations to the car and cd-r to hear at home also some CD-rw on the computer ,around 3.000 and a bit more since 2002 ,records do stay with better sound when recorded directelly from the turntable
i stoped for more than a decade and recorded since 2017, 134 cassettes with compilations, still have boxes of TDK SA-X and SA, C90 and C60 also some UX-PRO C60 only from Sony, hundreds of them ,it were going to be incinerated in 2001 and i went there and saved the most i could , i couldn´t find a friend who had a ford transit had to take a mercedes 350SE from 71
I use to love recording to cassettes but after 30 years of playing them they ended up loosing there quality sound to a muffled mess so they all went in the rubbish was hard to do that but they where ruined after so many plays . Enjoy while you can .
I;m afraid mine will end up the same way, only hope I have is recordings that where made in the early 80's which still sound rather clear. Think it has to do with how many they where played. I do hope I can keep enjoying this as long as possible. Thanks for sharing your story, said to hear though.
Thanks! I thought the same of it. Blends in well with the wood and metal (black) finish on the devices. Nice to hear you have a similar setup, what does it consist of may I ask?
Never heard of it to be honest, had to Google it. Looks like quite a high end device! Must say, I never was a big fan of Dolby anyways. Dolby S sounds good (and no need to use it again after recording) but the more common Dolby B is not my kind of taste, though I always use Chrome tape, Dolby B may be best reserved for Ferro tape.
What the hell are you doing bro? lol Recording onto a cassette tape shouldn't be and really isn't this complicated. Take the cassette out of the shrink wrap, stick it in the deck, check your levels, run a silent lead-in for about 12-15 seconds and start your program source. Monitor. If you know what you're doing, you can get pretty near perfect results without a lot of effort. You don't need to be manually winding/cueing the tape and writing levels down. I mean, I guess you can if you want. 🫤
Well it comes down to the sound levels of the music I record onto the tapes. Sometimes the music comes from different sources, hence why I always write down the sound levels beforehand. Especially with mixtapes the sound levels can differ a lot. For this recording the difference was not that big though so it may have been unnecessary but since I'm used to it I did it anyway. The manual winding of the beginning (I must admit) is totally irrelevant, the deck winds it back on it's own and you can clearly hear the difference in noise for the lead in and the actual tape itself.
@@tapehead-jeff Ok, so if you're recording tracks from various sources, you'd set the levels for each individual track in the software of your choice as you're building the playlist. You'd make two playlists. One for side A and another for side B. The idea being that when the playlist is played back, the levels that you had set before hand should have them all at pretty much more or less similar levels. No need for pen and paper, let the software do the work! :) If you have a 3-head deck, you can make (very minor) adjustments and tweaks on the fly if need be. Cheers friend and happy taping.
@@summersky77 It sounds like to more logic thing to do yes, but there is a bit more nuance to it. I do make copies of my digital music and form a playlist beforehand, so leveling them should be possible, though I do not really have a simple program to quickly level all songs for both playlists. It would mean I'd had to adjust them on a program like audacity one by one, in which it's easier to do it on the fly when I'm actually recording them onto tape. Also (a more minor thing) it gives me more appreciation when I put in that bit of extra effort to sit out and adjust the levels while recording. On the other hand, when I would record 1, 2 or even 4 hour playlists (on reel to reel for example) it tends to be a bit much of a chore to sit it out. So in that case it would be easier to prelevel them. In the end I still have to stay close when recording and keep an eye out for if anything would go wrong in the proces... BTW, the Teac is a 3-head deck so what you hear on this video is live from the tape, though somehow the sound is very low (I can't put it to high for my housemates). Cheers to you and thanks for thinking with me!
@@tapehead-jeff Hey no prob, man. I have to respect your process because you've thought things out well. And the pride of effort put forth, well hey...that's a feeling we all enjoy, I'm sure. I hope you took my original jest as friendly ribbing. And you're welcome. All the best!
@@summersky77 No, absolutely no hard feelings ment :) I actually find it nice to hear how other people's opinion about it. When I tell people about my hobby I'd like to compare it with other hobby's for instance "Some people like to tinker with cars, others tinker with dusty old cassette tapes" The effort and dedication is what make's it worth doing it for me, together with fixing the device's themself.
Nope, I have my collection offline on the computer, lots of CD rips and maybe a few songs which I gotten through other means not described ;) Thing is I prepare and store playlist beforehand on the computer (Think same is possible with Spotify) Did not know Discogs had a music library to play from? To mention, I don't even have Spotify, do have Discogs though to keep track of what I have. I also have an off brand MP3-player with an SD-card which I frequently update with the entire library, not only for backups but also for those days I don't take along a Walkman.
The recording knob itself is the big rotary button (which looks like a safe combination knob). As for the level and bias knobs goes, except for the 'Right level pot' they are quite aligned yes. Though it's has to do with the brand and type of tape used. Other brands and tape don't align that well.
Aww cassettes. Buy a new album and record it on a cassette to play in the car, work or at a friend's house. Dug out some cassettes the I recorded in about 1980 on that very same type of Maxell XL II 90 tape. Still clear. Like your set up.
I was born just to late to go down that road, though sitting in front of the radio recording my favorite songs was my way of getting my favorite tunes for on the go. Still have my first tapes (TDK) they still sound good... Well apart from the radio static, signals weren't very strong where I used to live.
I more like mechanic cassete players, for example Vega BRG 326, but it not plays very good. Also i more like large reel to reel players, because they are easiers to fix
True, I like them for their ease of fixing, the mechanical parts show themself how they should work, figuring out how electrical parts works is a whole other thing. Also I noticed that way older machines sometimes still work without service while newer machines have to be completely overhauled to get even a bit of life out of them. Besides it's also much nicer to see, feel and hear the machine at work rather than with cold electronics being silent.
You might not be to far off, it does take a lot of preparation to be honest, a day of work went before I actually gotten to recording the tape (making the playlist to fit the length of tape, designing the J-card. And in this case wipe the tape before re-recording).
i bought this summer that teac deck all restored paid 650€ but was looking new either than working like new, i only stoped recording with efects as i play them using equalizer and a device i had in my father´s home studio, that puts less dynamic original sound at the same level as others this to not have songs that wrongly i set up the levels as some do go to the limit of the scale only by having bass kicks not the voice level as an example , but i do compilations on spotify and send the signal to my stereo amp passing through a dac of an old ES sony minidisc deck that improves the computer sound that i put flat without any efect and it has a DAC from altec lansing but nothing like this brand use to have in early 70´s to record them as they are on spotify with a crossfader of 7 seconds, i have a lot of maxell XLII-S of those years ,mid 80´s maybe and after when they become black ,only in the 90´s when they started to have a grey casing they become hard on rotation putting any deck out of tune due to the extra strenght the engine as to do to roll them tapes inside the casing , started only to use TDK AR, AD-X , AD and type II SA and SA-X and sony UX-pro cassettes that i got for free, when going to buy drugs 400kms from where i live a guy that had the best types of cocaine i ever experienced also Heroin ,so pure that doesn´t slide on silver paper and some boxes of cassettes of those i described and not knowing what to do with them as they had no sound ,he told me in Spanish ,i said to him ,if not needing them can i take some , he said to me "take them all"in Spanish (Queda-te con todas ,eres el mejor cliente que tengo) and i still have a lot of blank tapes, as i only record cassettes now , i only have some metal cassettes as they are not the best for the decks heads but i have some of each better metal cassette ,Sony Metal ES (mid 80´s)BASF Metal IV (till 1984) Maxell MX with the same black casing as the XLII-S and TDK MA, MA-X and the best MA-XG and Sony Metal Master with ceramic casing this last two the best ever metal tapes, the sony XS and XR were bad metal cassettes they were cheaper than a chrome UX-S ,they might sound good just after recording but in a small time they become unheardable
Haha, writing down recording levels in advance, I sometimes do that too if I notice there's a particular track sounding much louder than the rest. One thing I noticed: you didn't recalibrate the deck before recording on Side B. I've noticed with my recordings there can be quite a substantial difference in levels between Side A and B, so I always calibrate again before recording on the other side.
Yeah, I write them down every time, noticed that when you make a true mixtape (with different artists and songs) they vary greatly in level where with the same artist (as in this case) the levels don't really differ much. That last part is something I never thought about. I simply thought the formulation of the tape is the same both ways but nice tip! I'll keep that in mind the next time I record a tape!
Don't be put off by the complexity of my video. Most of the settings and stuff I do is unnecessary to make a recording. You can start out simple as I did when I started out. 1. put in a blank or used tape in a deck (does not matter which of the two). 2. connect a source to the deck (Spotify, RUclips or anything in between will suffice). 3. press 'play' and 'record' together at once. 4. wait a second or 2 a 3. 5. start the music source. And you are already recording your own mixtape! Only things you want to keep an eye out are the sound level, you can test this out first by recording a part and rewind and listen to the tape. And lastly you may want to look at how far the tape is done recording. You don't want your last song to cut out because your tape is full ;). After side A is full, flip the tape and repeat steps 1 to 5. Once you get the hang of it you can try more stuff to get better recordings/quality. I and most others started out this way, just experiment until you get to proper result :) If you need any help, let me know I gladly help you out!
@@tapehead-jeff thanks! the easy stuff im sure ill learn in no time (once i get a recorder) but im so curious about all the other stuff u did in the video, like the sound level checking, the frequency and all that other stuff. any videos u would recommend that explains all of that? id love to learn all the pro stuff so my mixtapes come out sounding great
I've heard about it, thing is I have so many songs on my computer it would take months to level everything out, something I would want to avoid doing as you may understand.
@@tapehead-jeff yes it´s true i never leveled mine also, only did it to level songs in some cd compilations i made for the sound to be all at the same level when hearing it
A lot of method in the making. The advice I want to offer you is to not remove the tabs from cassette: they are not easily replaceable and at some point you might want to change your music. If you are manually getting past the leader to avoid it scraping on the heads chances are you also don't want your leaf spring contacts to go beyond their usual bending point because some bulging cap has been fitted in the tabs or even stay closer to their opening point for the slack in the covering tape. I usually start my recordings far later than just past the leader as the first few turns inevitably develop audible kinks in the tape where the hub tape retention tab has been pushing. In my renewed years of dealing with decks and cassettes it never happened to me that I accidentally erased a tape with regular use. It happened that I erased some of my test tapes because I manually activated the record switch while working on decks with a mechanical multiswitch, something that would have happen even if the recording tabs were still intact. The levels are indeed of a concern. Personally I use foobar2000 which is very sweet with EQ, peak and level meters, but you can't auto-level your tracks without modifying them, for that I might use my TEAC W-6000R with ARLS. Otherwise I resort to my other decks, usually of the 3 heads variety, in any case the tracks are laid out on a playlist file and spaced apart with 4 to 8 seconds of silence (except for limited titles) to let the automatic track detection systems of various decks do their job.
Well about the tabs, I have so many good tapes laying around that I never re-record onto them once finished (unless the recording failed, but I keep the tabs in until I took a complete test with my headphones on). Otherwise I simply stick some tape over them and re-record anyways. The manual winding is sort of unnecessary, the deck in the video backwinds about a sec of playtime, it's more to gives me a precise indication on when I need to press record on the deck. For the warped beginning I use a intro music of around 11 seconds which mostly picks up on this problem and sometimes it even sounds pretty nice hearing the intro being warped and stretched only to come back to proper levels just before the music starts. What I do not like however if fast winding of my tapes, the physical winding on the spools always looks very bad and uneven afterwards, also sometimes the tape tends to slide a bit left and/or right pressing onto the film of the casing making it run very stiff or even getting stuck on the next playthrough. This Teac deck is a 3-head machine (not all of mine are though). Together with the bias setting make this my go-to deck for recording, I have a Pioneer CT-F1000 which still needs repairs, I like to also use this for recording in the future but that's something for later. I had one accidental re-recording when I hastily pressed both play an record at once on a cheap deck, probably pressed it so hard it went past the safety mechanics of the deck, I only realized it after a minute or so when I saw the record light burning faintly. So I'd rather remove the tabs anyways that let them be. To finish, manually adjusting the levels while recording gives me a more appreciated feeling, knowing I put so much effort in making them, opening my drawer of tapes and looking at them all knowing how many hours went into them warms me. It also make's me feel a bit scared knowing what all could go wrong when using them but that's the risk that goes into this hobby anyways.
@@tapehead-jeff You read my feelings. I too like the physical media, the fact that you have to take care of it and it will eventually wear out. Concerning the uneven spooling of cassettes I've never had seizures or hard turning problems because of it but I've found worn out seized slip sheets in pre-recorded cassettes. Even BASF cassettes with the Security Mechanism still spool quite unevenly. Probably the best evenly winding cassettes are the TDK SA from the 80s, the ones strewn with button bumps in their slip sheets, they spool very evenly despite not being obvious as they do not have a big window on the hubs.
Okay, interesting. But why didn’t you adjust the track volumes in the original WAV files in the first place? This would have saved you alot of manual rec level adjustment in between tracks. Personally i like to prepare 1 WAV file per each tape side, where you are in full control over the play length, volume, track flow, etc. After that all you have to do is press record on your tape deck and let the tape run untill the end. Groeten :)
hmm making on big Wav file is not that of a bad idea to do! Take's some time to set up but make's it easier to use when actually recording, also making it easy to set up spaces between the songs breforehand. I do however like to do it manually, it gives a tape that bit more feel to it when I finally get it out of my deck still warm from recording. Also when I open up my drawer of tapes and look at them warms my heart knowing how much time went into each of them :D Sorry for the late reply though, somehow I overlooked your comment! 'Groetjes terug' ;)
They sure are nice to use and sturdy, the blade is of good quality too! They aren't that expensive either, bought it at a hobby shop somewhere in 2018/19 for under €20.
Awesome how much work and dedication you put into your recordings. I'm recording tapes myself since 30years+ (in fact, I have never stopped using cassettes). I still use my Aiwa "walkman" as a portable sound source since I bought it in high school (I'm almost 45 now). For recordings I mostly use my Sansui deck (with original belts!) from the mid 80s which sounds great and a beautiful Fisher 'Studio Standard' deck (also from the 80s) which I bought for 5€ and fully restored. I also record radio shows on tape and digitize them later to mp3s so I can listen to them in the company car (via usb). sounds weird but that's how I roll
I must admit I've been playing with tapes since 2007, though I remember them from when I was younger (turning 31 by end of this year). I also restore a lot of Hifi, almost everything you see in the beginning has been restored in the past. Buy it broken, pull everything apart, re-lubricate and replace what's necessary. For me it's the combination of music, tinkering and plain old devices that makes it worth my while. I actually don't even have a tuner in this setup, and never listen to radio anymore. Where I live, they mostly play contemporary commercial music, with lots of commercial breaks and hosts talking uninteresting stuff. Though I can still understand the idea of recording of the radio if it is worth the while. Especially with radio shows, they get lost to time easily! My 2007 tapes (which I did record of the radio) have a lot of nostalgic radio tunes and fact breaks from those days, even one silly advert which still makes me laugh. The tapes take me back to the days when I recorded them, which are a fond memory for me! Keep doing what your doing, it's nice to hear someone else's take on recording tapes in these days!
My room looks similar to yours. 2 separate stereo systems, 30 speakers, 2 reel to reels, cd recorder, 3 pro grade cassette recorders, cd player, and electric guitar, and tv all wired to one of the cassette recorders. 1,000 cassettes, 700 albums and I've never counted the cds. For those who wonder, the cassettes from 1974 still play.
impressive job with awsome result. I also record to tapes - to casstettes I record from FM radio. I record interesting me AM radio to tapes on tube mono R2R just to have that nostalgia at hand in day time when is no enough reception. For LPs and some brand recorded (also by me in past) on past casette recorder and thus 90% having faulty azimuth I copy them after correcting azimuth to to my bigger stereo R2R to listen to it's one setting Unfortunately I find that only may be 40% of brand recorded casette tapes have any common azimuth so for recordings done not on my recorder I correct head to every casette. Also to secure full band I have two the same separate recorders - one of them only for recording, other for hard use. Anyway I am far from dedication to technical perfection here shown. I wouldn't do it because no matter how good technicaly is source of recording it is still not all to asure final impression in listening. The list of conditions is long and bumpy. For example I just corrected my cassette recorder recording and reproduction levels without test tape and it took me some 5 hours . Before it was very erratic and because I purchased damaged casette recorder 44 years old it obviously was played by unkonown servicemans. I use own concept of speakers and own concept tube amplifier and two other solid amplifiers with two way tone corrections and loudness corrections and expanded space option.
Nice to hear someone else about using analog media in these days. What you say is true, no matter how good the source and tape is, there is always something that affects the quality of a recording. But in a sense that is what makes tape media so interesting to me. It can take a long time to fix and fine tune a player/recorder especially when they are very old! I also have multiple decks with different uses. My TEAC deck is used for recording (and playback sometimes). I have a Philips double deck for playback and a Pioneer deck which I intend to use for both recording and playback (still have to fix it). Besides that I have multiple other media types which I use a lot, both for recording and playback. Thanks for sharing your take on the story!
you have to start a great deck , this teac was to die for allthough i already had the Z-7000 i had to buy something newer as the old one had thousands of hours of recording and playing, but always with maintenance done today it still works perfect either than the B215 from revox maybe the two best cassette recorders ever made also the CT-F1250 from Pioneer and the GX-630D MKII from Akai, nice set up by the way, you shouldn´t put the tape on the start ,just see the numbers on the meter counter or time counter as they need to be stretched perfect to record all equal, were my favorite cassettes at the time, those maxell and still perfect today
Thanks! It was a lot of work getting everything together, most of the devices where bought broken, repaired them myself or even made new stuff to replace missing parts. I'm very happy with the Teac, though it has some weird stubborn problem were it stops without reason, it looks like a small switch inside is not working properly, still have to look into that though. Next to that, I don't really trust the time display, It's to inaccurate in my opinion. Forwarding it by hand does create some slack but the intro music I use catches the wow and flutter from the slack so the music sounds crisp and clear.
It's a small world sometimes, though I must say I found Posy through recommendations from RUclips on one of his HiFi video's, later on I took the time to look at his website only to find out he make's his own music, the rest is history :p
Good job Jeff and and symptomatically i'm listening from AIWA AD-F850 Jeff -Tyzik if you are familliar . And b.t.w great deck you got there Jeff this TEAC is the 2nd flagship the 1st is the 8030 .
I have to look into Jeff - Tyzik, quickly searched for him on Google, I do have a soft spot for Jazz so I'll give it a try soon! I saw the 8030 too for sale when I searched for the 6030. But the 6030 I bought was very well priced and put up for sale in a neighboring country so shipping costs where low too. Could not find a 8030 close by nor for a good price either so had to go for the latter, but yet it sounds very great! I did however found some posts online about people discussing these decks stating they where terrible, though I do not agree with that!
Must admit mine is a bit newer (2020 maybe), but works like a charm, wasn't cheap though. Comes in very handy to make precision cuts otherwise impossible with a scissor or knife!
Bit weirded out by the rolling the tape forward. The beginning of a tape is never the best sounding, andt your teac rewinds the tape a little to tighten it so it's not at that point anymore anyway when you put the tape in. Why not just wait 10 seconds and then press play on the source? Nice deck btw!
You have a sharp eye! Yes the tape is wound 'tight' by the machine even though I progress it manually (in this case it's a fruitless attempt by me). I still do it though, mostly to get a good approximation of the beginning of the tape. Which puts us to the second part about the beginning (and end) of the tape being bad. yes again, though I'm aware of that. That's why I use a intro that lasts around 11 seconds. This part not only catches the bad section but also give a example of the volume to adjust to when playing back. In the end it sounds nice to have an intro, it sort of gives the recording a little extra touch. The most funniest part however is knowing my friends now recognize the intro tunes after they heard them so many times over the years 🥲
Hahaha, I also find myself being less picky about 'the first bit of tape' when there's a clear intro to the music. Generally though, I like skipping that bit as it tends to get slightly worse over time as well. As for the rewinding; Pretty much any modern deck does that, so when I saw you do the manual winding, I thought to myself 'wait a second, that teac is going to...'. And then it did. Mostly using Aiwa AD-F800/810 here (absolute gems for the money and about as good as an entry level Nakamichi) and yup, they do it too. That said all NAK CR/DR/CassetteDeck series do it too. Makes sense, you don't want to know how many people put the tape in with tapeslack hanging out. And then they blame the medium :D. @@tapehead-jeff
@@rollingtroll I worked a lot with older 70's decks before going for this more modern take. On the older models you have to wind the slack out yourself so I'm a bit used to it. I went for the Teac not only because of it's design but also the Bias function which really gives a big difference in recording levels! The Aiwa AD-F810 does looks very nice too! Seems to have all the good functions that a deck should have!
I'm no recording expert, just an old guy who remembers that being a common practice 50 years ago when making a mix tape and wanting as little dead space as possible.
@@peterjohnson1734 But the deck rolls the tape forward as well, so he only added dead space. Better option would be to listen out for tape hiss and start recording from there ;).
Not really both, it's 3th party software in combination with some fiddling of my own to make it look and use like Win XP, though it still has the useful parts from win 11. I used Retrobar for the taskbar and OpenShell to overhaul the rest (loading bars, folder view etc.) I manually changed the sounds, pictograms and background as cherry on top. I also used Winaero Tweaker but not sure if any of those changes are still in effect. It does give a few bugs here and there in the explorer part of Windows but for the most of the time it works just fine.
I'm happy with a 9 too :p but have no clue on what I did wrong, is it the winding part that is worthless (since the deck forwards itself)? You made me curious!
@@tapehead-jeff lol….its just something & nothing? Whenever I record on compact cassette tape…when changing the tape from side A to B I always give the heads a quick clean, new & especially older used tape get the treatment. Now I do not know scientifically if this makes a difference but in my head it does lol. Happy recordings👍. PS for recording get yourself a six head hi-fi vcr, I have 5 machines each purchased under £20, most of my tapes are new 3 or 4 hour each costing around 50p. 4 hours playback at near CD quality & most recordings come from any source….cheap as chips👍
I was hoping the overlay text was enough, the video does lack some detailed information maybe, I did not want to talk in the video (my English sounds very 'dutchy' so went for the overlay text instead.
Haha, thanks for the comment. Same here (ofcourse) It feels really nice holding a freshly recorded tape in your hand, knowing it's filled with your favorite music. Not to mention the end product with the custom J-card.
@@tapehead-jeff I have never heard of that J card thing - as I'm from the states, USA. I was just called it the insert Guess now I have an official name for it, thanks. One learns something new everyday, and forgets something else in the process ! Lol
To be honest with you, I'm not a real fan of Dolby B. Used it before because it should make the hiss less noticeable (and it does) but it made the music sound dull. However with these recordings I took the gamble and tried Dolby S and must say this one does the job way better than B, and no remembering or switching Dolby afterwards too!
We'll you can count me in, I got 3 'digital' flip-clocks and two* antique clocks of which you hear one ticking in the background. It used to be the driving mechanism of a church clock tower once. It's hard to show any picture via Google since it's unique. In large description: It's almost full brass with small steel parts to prevent heavy wear (like the anchor piece). It got no housing so only thing you see is the gears and braces, one massive leaded weight and the tailpiece. Furthermore there is a small enamel display to tell minutes and hours (which was actually used to know what the real clock on the tower was displaying). It still has a fork on top that used to drive the display on the clock tower, it has no use anymore but it's still there. I have to wind it up with a big 'key' which looks more like a crank in size. I can only wind it during daytime otherwise my housemates wake up by the clicking of the gears when I do so. Changing the speed is done by raising or lowering the weight of the tailpiece and changing the time is done by lifting a metal part on a spring that unlatches one specific gear and rotate it manually until time is correct again. Bought it from an antique store for a bargain since it was not working anymore, got it restored by a clock maker a year ago (which was no bargain). I have no clue one where it came from, it could have been local but it could also have been from somewhere far abroad. Only thing sure is that it's at least a 100 years old looking at the parts and how they are made. It has no chime btw, (I don't like that anyway). It's very nice to hear it tick when you go to sleep, some people hate it but it sounds like music to my ears. In short description however: If you know what steampunk is, this clock screams it! *I got another antique clock in storage which is interesting too but harder to describe, uses a steel ball on a seesaw, on every end of the swing it pushes onto a rod which makes the seesaw flip so the ball will slide to the other side (in a W shaped path) to push the other rod (and this continues until the spring is unwound). EDIT, I got two video's of the clock I made last year, I'll upload them and send the link in another comment under this one, give me a sec.
That could ba an option, but the quality for duplication anywhere else is mostly mediocre at best. Where I live there is one dupe facility to do such thing but they can only duplicate to ferro (type I) tape which I do not really prefer.
Thanks! It took me a lot of time getting, repairing and setting up everything. I got more unusual stuff in storage and have another shelf waiting there too. When I finally gotten to buy my own home I want to fully display (and use) the entire setup! 😁
They come from Ikea, I think they still sell them (at least in my country), there are many different versions of the design as far as I know. I looked it up for you, the design name is "FJÄLLBO" search for this on their website, they indeed still sell them.
If you try to imply that I did not use narration, no I'm not really the person to talk a lot, I'd rather let the video and sound do the work 😉 EDIT: to be honest, I find my English still contains a lot of Dutch accent in it, which I don't like.
@@CdEmm50 Yeah if you hear them talk in what we call "stone-coal English" it sounds quite hilarious. My pronunciation is not bad, but when I make a video with narration I have to do it over multiple times just to get it right. I did made a video with narration nog long ago ruclips.net/video/-MnJi59fcgs/видео.html It's nog bad but I can do better though.
World wide web of course 😉 Ebay to be precise. Bought it in a neighboring country so the shipping expenses and risks are as low as possible. I had to completely overhaul it though since it was barely working on arrival
![Tee Grizzley - Blow for Blow (feat. J. Cole) [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wNLN5xsx5dc/mqdefault.jpg)
Those were some very satisfying device sounds (and one very unsatisfying HDD sound) Love the dedication. Nice music by the way 😇
Personally it's the sound the amplifier make's when it's goes "plung" that does the trick. As far as I know it's a overheating relay that switches when things are 'cool'.
The buzzing sounds of the media player is a bad fan, I should replace it but am a bit to lazy...
Futhermore, you should check out his music, it's in the descr... ow never mind 😉
Yowza, too much effort. Cassettes were made for the audio enthusiast (audiophile?) who (whom?) liked to get shit-faced while diggin' tunes. Simple to operate while stoned, drunk or trippin'. Sounding great in a home system or played in a Superscope boom box in the park with friends. Cassettes were almost fool-proof. A boss way to dig yer music.
Haha, love you comment, yeah it may never compete in quality over other mediums (except something like 8-track) but they make up for it with simplicity. I may be going the extra mile (or even to far) but I don''t only like using them, I want them to look the best they can!
You put a lot of care into this and I love your setup.
I can't even remember when I last recorded a tape, but it wasn't in this century. 😅😊
That went out the window as soon as CDs became an option for a reasonable price (that was in the 90s) and once i bought a PC in 2000 I never looked back.
I recorded all my vinyl onto CD and once phones could play music (my first was a HTC Sensation) in the 2010s I never burnt another disc for myself.
Mobile phones, mp3 and streaming turned the music business upside down and inside out and I'm there for it. And i admire the little works of art you create on tape.
Thanks! Must admit sometimes it's a bit of a burden to start a new recording but that's mostly because I need to stay close to the deck while it's busy, can't risk something going wrong... But in the end it's worth the time holding a tape that you made yourself 😊
I remember the craze when CD's where getting popular, my parents bought loads of them, music, games and of course blanks. My dad used to run the computer 24/7 to 'ahum' borrow files from the internet and burn them to disks. We had stacks and stacks of discs both legal and... not. He used to sell the latter around town. Now the funny thing is, I still own the CD's my parents had back then, I copied them all to the computer and now use them to record them on tape.
I actually started with tapes in 2007 because I did not had an mp3 player, but really wanted my own music collection, I could still buy them new from the electronics store. Dirt cheap of course! Even though I got my first mp3 not a year later, I still have those tapes and sometimes I got back to them and played them again. It's these tapes together with the vinyl resurgence that got me into this hobby in 2013.
I came BACK to cassettes cuz I like the way they roll off the high end, Like to record weird shit at weird speeds (a lot of "dictation-y" recorders have pitch control), and overdriven tape is much better sounding than clipped digital.
El clasico: Para que hacer las cosas facil si las podemos complicar. JAJAJAJAJAJAJAJ
Porque, ¿por qué no? :p
The Best way to prepare a " old stock" casette before recording is to wind or rewind the tape completey, this way a more smooth tape flow is possible, as a mather of fact that is the method old ( archivel) reel to reel mastertapes are held, played to the end so you have to rewind them fully before playing...
I've seen a video about some Beatles (master dupe?) reel lately, they had to re-spool them onto another hub anyways, but can understand why you would do something like that, even though cassette tape usually does not really have this problem the tape can get a little sticky after many years of not using it.
I usually erase old stock before using so they have already been through a full playthrough when I start recording on them. Hence the small paper with the word "LEEG" (Dutch for empty) inside the cassette case at 10:00
Ja Helder, ehh clear, leuke video trouwens
@@giottodiotto1 Hahaha, Ja beda... Uuhm Thanks 😂
Ottimo lavoro amico,quelle maxell sono ottime,e complimenti per il teac V-6030S registratore eccellente,ho in collezione il V-8030S quindi so come suona,sono identici a parte il direct drive sull'8030,quindi hai un'ottimo registratore!
Grazie! Mi piace molto il Teac V6030S. Cercavo anche l'8030, ma il 6030 è abbastanza buono per me. Mi piace molto la funzione bias di questo deck e la funzione per saltare le canzoni (se funziona come dovrebbe).
Insieme a un buon nastro Maxell o TDK suona davvero bene.
Grazie per il tuo commento!
Now that's dedication. I haven't made a tape in 30 years. I just burn the music onto a CDR and call it a day
It's all about how much time you want to put into making a 'good' recording, if I wanted I could simply grab a average volume, press record and let the thing do it's job.
Not to mention I already put in like 2 to 3 hours beforehand making the playlist before I can even start the physical part.
BTW I also still burn CDR's but only to use them inside my car which still uses a CD-player.
it depends on the level of quality you want , it´s easier but not that perfect, i also only restarted to record tapes or DAT, REELs and cassettes in 2017 when i repaired and did some maintence on my decks before i was using minidisc compilations to the car and cd-r to hear at home also some CD-rw on the computer ,around 3.000 and a bit more since 2002 ,records do stay with better sound when recorded directelly from the turntable
i stoped for more than a decade and recorded since 2017, 134 cassettes with compilations, still have boxes of TDK SA-X and SA, C90 and C60 also some UX-PRO C60 only from Sony, hundreds of them ,it were going to be incinerated in 2001 and i went there and saved the most i could , i couldn´t find a friend who had a ford transit had to take a mercedes 350SE from 71
I use to love recording to cassettes but after 30 years of playing them they ended up loosing there quality sound to a muffled mess so they all went in the rubbish was hard to do that but they where ruined after so many plays . Enjoy while you can .
I;m afraid mine will end up the same way, only hope I have is recordings that where made in the early 80's which still sound rather clear. Think it has to do with how many they where played. I do hope I can keep enjoying this as long as possible. Thanks for sharing your story, said to hear though.
Noticed IKEA Fjällbo shelve… 👍 Working great. I do have almost similar set.. but stereo set is different 👌
Thanks! I thought the same of it. Blends in well with the wood and metal (black) finish on the devices. Nice to hear you have a similar setup, what does it consist of may I ask?
Do you recall a " Burwen dynamic noise filter? Had one. Boosted the tape hiss 10db above the music.
Never heard of it to be honest, had to Google it. Looks like quite a high end device! Must say, I never was a big fan of Dolby anyways. Dolby S sounds good (and no need to use it again after recording) but the more common Dolby B is not my kind of taste, though I always use Chrome tape, Dolby B may be best reserved for Ferro tape.
What the hell are you doing bro? lol Recording onto a cassette tape shouldn't be and really isn't this complicated. Take the cassette out of the shrink wrap, stick it in the deck, check your levels, run a silent lead-in for about 12-15 seconds and start your program source. Monitor. If you know what you're doing, you can get pretty near perfect results without a lot of effort. You don't need to be manually winding/cueing the tape and writing levels down. I mean, I guess you can if you want. 🫤
Well it comes down to the sound levels of the music I record onto the tapes. Sometimes the music comes from different sources, hence why I always write down the sound levels beforehand.
Especially with mixtapes the sound levels can differ a lot. For this recording the difference was not that big though so it may have been unnecessary but since I'm used to it I did it anyway.
The manual winding of the beginning (I must admit) is totally irrelevant, the deck winds it back on it's own and you can clearly hear the difference in noise for the lead in and the actual tape itself.
@@tapehead-jeff Ok, so if you're recording tracks from various sources, you'd set the levels for each individual track in the software of your choice as you're building the playlist. You'd make two playlists. One for side A and another for side B. The idea being that when the playlist is played back, the levels that you had set before hand should have them all at pretty much more or less similar levels. No need for pen and paper, let the software do the work! :) If you have a 3-head deck, you can make (very minor) adjustments and tweaks on the fly if need be. Cheers friend and happy taping.
@@summersky77 It sounds like to more logic thing to do yes, but there is a bit more nuance to it.
I do make copies of my digital music and form a playlist beforehand, so leveling them should be possible, though I do not really have a simple program to quickly level all songs for both playlists. It would mean I'd had to adjust them on a program like audacity one by one, in which it's easier to do it on the fly when I'm actually recording them onto tape.
Also (a more minor thing) it gives me more appreciation when I put in that bit of extra effort to sit out and adjust the levels while recording.
On the other hand, when I would record 1, 2 or even 4 hour playlists (on reel to reel for example) it tends to be a bit much of a chore to sit it out. So in that case it would be easier to prelevel them. In the end I still have to stay close when recording and keep an eye out for if anything would go wrong in the proces...
BTW, the Teac is a 3-head deck so what you hear on this video is live from the tape, though somehow the sound is very low (I can't put it to high for my housemates).
Cheers to you and thanks for thinking with me!
@@tapehead-jeff Hey no prob, man. I have to respect your process because you've thought things out well. And the pride of effort put forth, well hey...that's a feeling we all enjoy, I'm sure. I hope you took my original jest as friendly ribbing. And you're welcome. All the best!
@@summersky77 No, absolutely no hard feelings ment :) I actually find it nice to hear how other people's opinion about it. When I tell people about my hobby I'd like to compare it with other hobby's for instance "Some people like to tinker with cars, others tinker with dusty old cassette tapes" The effort and dedication is what make's it worth doing it for me, together with fixing the device's themself.
Frequency adjustment?It's not exactly!
What do you mean by that? Can't really make out what you try to say with this :0
Do you ever record anything from Spotify, Discogs, etc.?😀
Nope, I have my collection offline on the computer, lots of CD rips and maybe a few songs which I gotten through other means not described ;)
Thing is I prepare and store playlist beforehand on the computer (Think same is possible with Spotify) Did not know Discogs had a music library to play from?
To mention, I don't even have Spotify, do have Discogs though to keep track of what I have. I also have an off brand MP3-player with an SD-card which I frequently update with the entire library, not only for backups but also for those days I don't take along a Walkman.
I am the only one wandering why the heck those L/R recording knobs are so symmetrical ?!?
The recording knob itself is the big rotary button (which looks like a safe combination knob).
As for the level and bias knobs goes, except for the 'Right level pot' they are quite aligned yes. Though it's has to do with the brand and type of tape used. Other brands and tape don't align that well.
You're crazy, lol 😅😂
I like tapes too, but not like this.
Enjoy your recording. 😊
Aww cassettes. Buy a new album and record it on a cassette to play in the car, work or at a friend's house. Dug out some cassettes the I recorded in about 1980 on that very same type of Maxell XL II 90 tape. Still clear. Like your set up.
I was born just to late to go down that road, though sitting in front of the radio recording my favorite songs was my way of getting my favorite tunes for on the go. Still have my first tapes (TDK) they still sound good... Well apart from the radio static, signals weren't very strong where I used to live.
I more like mechanic cassete players, for example Vega BRG 326, but it not plays very good. Also i more like large reel to reel players, because they are easiers to fix
True, I like them for their ease of fixing, the mechanical parts show themself how they should work, figuring out how electrical parts works is a whole other thing. Also I noticed that way older machines sometimes still work without service while newer machines have to be completely overhauled to get even a bit of life out of them.
Besides it's also much nicer to see, feel and hear the machine at work rather than with cold electronics being silent.
More care than a space shuttle launch
You might not be to far off, it does take a lot of preparation to be honest, a day of work went before I actually gotten to recording the tape (making the playlist to fit the length of tape, designing the J-card. And in this case wipe the tape before re-recording).
i bought this summer that teac deck all restored paid 650€ but was looking new either than working like new, i only stoped recording with efects as i play them using equalizer and a device i had in my father´s home studio, that puts less dynamic original sound at the same level as others this to not have songs that wrongly i set up the levels as some do go to the limit of the scale only by having bass kicks not the voice level as an example , but i do compilations on spotify and send the signal to my stereo amp passing through a dac of an old ES sony minidisc deck that improves the computer sound that i put flat without any efect and it has a DAC from altec lansing but nothing like this brand use to have in early 70´s to record them as they are on spotify with a crossfader of 7 seconds, i have a lot of maxell XLII-S of those years ,mid 80´s maybe and after when they become black ,only in the 90´s when they started to have a grey casing they become hard on rotation putting any deck out of tune due to the extra strenght the engine as to do to roll them tapes inside the casing , started only to use TDK AR, AD-X , AD and type II SA and SA-X and sony UX-pro cassettes that i got for free, when going to buy drugs 400kms from where i live a guy that had the best types of cocaine i ever experienced also Heroin ,so pure that doesn´t slide on silver paper and some boxes of cassettes of those i described and not knowing what to do with them as they had no sound ,he told me in Spanish ,i said to him ,if not needing them can i take some , he said to me "take them all"in Spanish (Queda-te con todas ,eres el mejor cliente que tengo) and i still have a lot of blank tapes, as i only record cassettes now , i only have some metal cassettes as they are not the best for the decks heads but i have some of each better metal cassette ,Sony Metal ES (mid 80´s)BASF Metal IV (till 1984) Maxell MX with the same black casing as the XLII-S and TDK MA, MA-X and the best MA-XG and Sony Metal Master with ceramic casing this last two the best ever metal tapes, the sony XS and XR were bad metal cassettes they were cheaper than a chrome UX-S ,they might sound good just after recording but in a small time they become unheardable
Haha, writing down recording levels in advance, I sometimes do that too if I notice there's a particular track sounding much louder than the rest.
One thing I noticed: you didn't recalibrate the deck before recording on Side B. I've noticed with my recordings there can be quite a substantial difference in levels between Side A and B, so I always calibrate again before recording on the other side.
Yeah, I write them down every time, noticed that when you make a true mixtape (with different artists and songs) they vary greatly in level where with the same artist (as in this case) the levels don't really differ much. That last part is something I never thought about. I simply thought the formulation of the tape is the same both ways but nice tip! I'll keep that in mind the next time I record a tape!
i really wanna get into making mixtapes like this but idk what anything is for :( im still new to cassettes
Don't be put off by the complexity of my video. Most of the settings and stuff I do is unnecessary to make a recording. You can start out simple as I did when I started out.
1. put in a blank or used tape in a deck (does not matter which of the two).
2. connect a source to the deck (Spotify, RUclips or anything in between will suffice).
3. press 'play' and 'record' together at once.
4. wait a second or 2 a 3.
5. start the music source.
And you are already recording your own mixtape!
Only things you want to keep an eye out are the sound level, you can test this out first by recording a part and rewind and listen to the tape.
And lastly you may want to look at how far the tape is done recording. You don't want your last song to cut out because your tape is full ;).
After side A is full, flip the tape and repeat steps 1 to 5.
Once you get the hang of it you can try more stuff to get better recordings/quality.
I and most others started out this way, just experiment until you get to proper result :)
If you need any help, let me know I gladly help you out!
@@tapehead-jeff thanks! the easy stuff im sure ill learn in no time (once i get a recorder) but im so curious about all the other stuff u did in the video, like the sound level checking, the frequency and all that other stuff. any videos u would recommend that explains all of that? id love to learn all the pro stuff so my mixtapes come out sounding great
Wave files from pc?? 😂 Nope we record from Lp with turntable, cd, usb
music 192. 24 bit but analog sound in all cases very nice
On tape recorder
Where can I download the cover template?
if in digital format there´s a software to level all your digital tracks
I've heard about it, thing is I have so many songs on my computer it would take months to level everything out, something I would want to avoid doing as you may understand.
@@tapehead-jeff yes it´s true i never leveled mine also, only did it to level songs in some cd compilations i made for the sound to be all at the same level when hearing it
A lot of method in the making. The advice I want to offer you is to not remove the tabs from cassette: they are not easily replaceable and at some point you might want to change your music. If you are manually getting past the leader to avoid it scraping on the heads chances are you also don't want your leaf spring contacts to go beyond their usual bending point because some bulging cap has been fitted in the tabs or even stay closer to their opening point for the slack in the covering tape. I usually start my recordings far later than just past the leader as the first few turns inevitably develop audible kinks in the tape where the hub tape retention tab has been pushing.
In my renewed years of dealing with decks and cassettes it never happened to me that I accidentally erased a tape with regular use. It happened that I erased some of my test tapes because I manually activated the record switch while working on decks with a mechanical multiswitch, something that would have happen even if the recording tabs were still intact.
The levels are indeed of a concern. Personally I use foobar2000 which is very sweet with EQ, peak and level meters, but you can't auto-level your tracks without modifying them, for that I might use my TEAC W-6000R with ARLS. Otherwise I resort to my other decks, usually of the 3 heads variety, in any case the tracks are laid out on a playlist file and spaced apart with 4 to 8 seconds of silence (except for limited titles) to let the automatic track detection systems of various decks do their job.
Well about the tabs, I have so many good tapes laying around that I never re-record onto them once finished (unless the recording failed, but I keep the tabs in until I took a complete test with my headphones on). Otherwise I simply stick some tape over them and re-record anyways.
The manual winding is sort of unnecessary, the deck in the video backwinds about a sec of playtime, it's more to gives me a precise indication on when I need to press record on the deck. For the warped beginning I use a intro music of around 11 seconds which mostly picks up on this problem and sometimes it even sounds pretty nice hearing the intro being warped and stretched only to come back to proper levels just before the music starts.
What I do not like however if fast winding of my tapes, the physical winding on the spools always looks very bad and uneven afterwards, also sometimes the tape tends to slide a bit left and/or right pressing onto the film of the casing making it run very stiff or even getting stuck on the next playthrough.
This Teac deck is a 3-head machine (not all of mine are though). Together with the bias setting make this my go-to deck for recording, I have a Pioneer CT-F1000 which still needs repairs, I like to also use this for recording in the future but that's something for later.
I had one accidental re-recording when I hastily pressed both play an record at once on a cheap deck, probably pressed it so hard it went past the safety mechanics of the deck, I only realized it after a minute or so when I saw the record light burning faintly. So I'd rather remove the tabs anyways that let them be.
To finish, manually adjusting the levels while recording gives me a more appreciated feeling, knowing I put so much effort in making them, opening my drawer of tapes and looking at them all knowing how many hours went into them warms me. It also make's me feel a bit scared knowing what all could go wrong when using them but that's the risk that goes into this hobby anyways.
@@tapehead-jeff You read my feelings. I too like the physical media, the fact that you have to take care of it and it will eventually wear out.
Concerning the uneven spooling of cassettes I've never had seizures or hard turning problems because of it but I've found worn out seized slip sheets in pre-recorded cassettes. Even BASF cassettes with the Security Mechanism still spool quite unevenly. Probably the best evenly winding cassettes are the TDK SA from the 80s, the ones strewn with button bumps in their slip sheets, they spool very evenly despite not being obvious as they do not have a big window on the hubs.
Okay, interesting. But why didn’t you adjust the track volumes in the original WAV files in the first place? This would have saved you alot of manual rec level adjustment in between tracks. Personally i like to prepare 1 WAV file per each tape side, where you are in full control over the play length, volume, track flow, etc. After that all you have to do is press record on your tape deck and let the tape run untill the end. Groeten :)
hmm making on big Wav file is not that of a bad idea to do! Take's some time to set up but make's it easier to use when actually recording, also making it easy to set up spaces between the songs breforehand. I do however like to do it manually, it gives a tape that bit more feel to it when I finally get it out of my deck still warm from recording. Also when I open up my drawer of tapes and look at them warms my heart knowing how much time went into each of them :D
Sorry for the late reply though, somehow I overlooked your comment! 'Groetjes terug' ;)
Because that's the hard way.
Wave files from pc?? 😂 Nope we record Lp with turntable, cd, even from MD Flag music 192. 24 bit but analog sound in all cases very nice!!
First Sound just before Le Journal Du Hard 😂
I want to get one of those Pavo A4 paper cutters! What a gorgeous, simple but practical piece of tech.
They sure are nice to use and sturdy, the blade is of good quality too! They aren't that expensive either, bought it at a hobby shop somewhere in 2018/19 for under €20.
Awesome how much work and dedication you put into your recordings. I'm recording tapes myself since 30years+ (in fact, I have never stopped using cassettes). I still use my Aiwa "walkman" as a portable sound source since I bought it in high school (I'm almost 45 now). For recordings I mostly use my Sansui deck (with original belts!) from the mid 80s which sounds great and a beautiful Fisher 'Studio Standard' deck (also from the 80s) which I bought for 5€ and fully restored.
I also record radio shows on tape and digitize them later to mp3s so I can listen to them in the company car (via usb). sounds weird but that's how I roll
I must admit I've been playing with tapes since 2007, though I remember them from when I was younger (turning 31 by end of this year). I also restore a lot of Hifi, almost everything you see in the beginning has been restored in the past. Buy it broken, pull everything apart, re-lubricate and replace what's necessary. For me it's the combination of music, tinkering and plain old devices that makes it worth my while.
I actually don't even have a tuner in this setup, and never listen to radio anymore. Where I live, they mostly play contemporary commercial music, with lots of commercial breaks and hosts talking uninteresting stuff. Though I can still understand the idea of recording of the radio if it is worth the while. Especially with radio shows, they get lost to time easily!
My 2007 tapes (which I did record of the radio) have a lot of nostalgic radio tunes and fact breaks from those days, even one silly advert which still makes me laugh. The tapes take me back to the days when I recorded them, which are a fond memory for me!
Keep doing what your doing, it's nice to hear someone else's take on recording tapes in these days!
I would suggest one alteration, record the radio shows to digital first and then onto tape. That way you have a high quality original.
My room looks similar to yours. 2 separate stereo systems, 30 speakers, 2 reel to reels, cd recorder, 3 pro grade cassette recorders, cd player, and electric guitar, and tv all wired to one of the cassette recorders. 1,000 cassettes, 700 albums and I've never counted the cds. For those who wonder, the cassettes from 1974 still play.
impressive job with awsome result. I also record to tapes - to casstettes I record from FM radio. I record interesting me AM radio to tapes on tube mono R2R just to have that nostalgia at hand in day time when is no enough reception. For LPs and some brand recorded (also by me in past) on past casette recorder and thus 90% having faulty azimuth I copy them after correcting azimuth to to my bigger stereo R2R to listen to it's one setting Unfortunately I find that only may be 40% of brand recorded casette tapes have any common azimuth so for recordings done not on my recorder I correct head to every casette. Also to secure full band I have two the same separate recorders - one of them only for recording, other for hard use.
Anyway I am far from dedication to technical perfection here shown. I wouldn't do it because no matter how good technicaly is source of recording it is still not all to asure final impression in listening. The list of conditions is long and bumpy. For example I just corrected my cassette recorder recording and reproduction levels without test tape and it took me some 5 hours . Before it was very erratic and because I purchased damaged casette recorder 44 years old it obviously was played by unkonown servicemans.
I use own concept of speakers and own concept tube amplifier and two other solid amplifiers with two way tone corrections and loudness corrections and expanded space option.
Nice to hear someone else about using analog media in these days. What you say is true, no matter how good the source and tape is, there is always something that affects the quality of a recording. But in a sense that is what makes tape media so interesting to me. It can take a long time to fix and fine tune a player/recorder especially when they are very old!
I also have multiple decks with different uses. My TEAC deck is used for recording (and playback sometimes). I have a Philips double deck for playback and a Pioneer deck which I intend to use for both recording and playback (still have to fix it). Besides that I have multiple other media types which I use a lot, both for recording and playback.
Thanks for sharing your take on the story!
I just plug my phone into the deck and start recording 😂
Why go through all the hassle when it is as simple as that indeed! 😋
you have to start a great deck , this teac was to die for allthough i already had the Z-7000 i had to buy something newer as the old one had thousands of hours of recording and playing, but always with maintenance done today it still works perfect either than the B215 from revox maybe the two best cassette recorders ever made also the CT-F1250 from Pioneer and the GX-630D MKII from Akai, nice set up by the way, you shouldn´t put the tape on the start ,just see the numbers on the meter counter or time counter as they need to be stretched perfect to record all equal, were my favorite cassettes at the time, those maxell and still perfect today
Thanks! It was a lot of work getting everything together, most of the devices where bought broken, repaired them myself or even made new stuff to replace missing parts. I'm very happy with the Teac, though it has some weird stubborn problem were it stops without reason, it looks like a small switch inside is not working properly, still have to look into that though.
Next to that, I don't really trust the time display, It's to inaccurate in my opinion. Forwarding it by hand does create some slack but the intro music I use catches the wow and flutter from the slack so the music sounds crisp and clear.
I watched the video normally until I was amazed at what you were recording, Posy!
It's a small world sometimes, though I must say I found Posy through recommendations from RUclips on one of his HiFi video's, later on I took the time to look at his website only to find out he make's his own music, the rest is history :p
Good job Jeff and and symptomatically i'm listening from AIWA AD-F850 Jeff -Tyzik if you are familliar .
And b.t.w great deck you got there Jeff this TEAC is the 2nd flagship the 1st is the 8030 .
I have to look into Jeff - Tyzik, quickly searched for him on Google, I do have a soft spot for Jazz so I'll give it a try soon!
I saw the 8030 too for sale when I searched for the 6030. But the 6030 I bought was very well priced and put up for sale in a neighboring country so shipping costs where low too. Could not find a 8030 close by nor for a good price either so had to go for the latter, but yet it sounds very great!
I did however found some posts online about people discussing these decks stating they where terrible, though I do not agree with that!
i have the same type of guillotine but three meters wide for maps or carts with soil quality at any level, bought it in the 70´s
Must admit mine is a bit newer (2020 maybe), but works like a charm, wasn't cheap though. Comes in very handy to make precision cuts otherwise impossible with a scissor or knife!
Bit weirded out by the rolling the tape forward. The beginning of a tape is never the best sounding, andt your teac rewinds the tape a little to tighten it so it's not at that point anymore anyway when you put the tape in. Why not just wait 10 seconds and then press play on the source?
Nice deck btw!
You have a sharp eye! Yes the tape is wound 'tight' by the machine even though I progress it manually (in this case it's a fruitless attempt by me). I still do it though, mostly to get a good approximation of the beginning of the tape.
Which puts us to the second part about the beginning (and end) of the tape being bad. yes again, though I'm aware of that. That's why I use a intro that lasts around 11 seconds. This part not only catches the bad section but also give a example of the volume to adjust to when playing back. In the end it sounds nice to have an intro, it sort of gives the recording a little extra touch. The most funniest part however is knowing my friends now recognize the intro tunes after they heard them so many times over the years 🥲
Hahaha, I also find myself being less picky about 'the first bit of tape' when there's a clear intro to the music. Generally though, I like skipping that bit as it tends to get slightly worse over time as well. As for the rewinding; Pretty much any modern deck does that, so when I saw you do the manual winding, I thought to myself 'wait a second, that teac is going to...'. And then it did. Mostly using Aiwa AD-F800/810 here (absolute gems for the money and about as good as an entry level Nakamichi) and yup, they do it too. That said all NAK CR/DR/CassetteDeck series do it too. Makes sense, you don't want to know how many people put the tape in with tapeslack hanging out. And then they blame the medium :D.
@@tapehead-jeff
@@rollingtroll I worked a lot with older 70's decks before going for this more modern take. On the older models you have to wind the slack out yourself so I'm a bit used to it. I went for the Teac not only because of it's design but also the Bias function which really gives a big difference in recording levels!
The Aiwa AD-F810 does looks very nice too! Seems to have all the good functions that a deck should have!
I'm no recording expert, just an old guy who remembers that being a common practice 50 years ago when making a mix tape and wanting as little dead space as possible.
@@peterjohnson1734 But the deck rolls the tape forward as well, so he only added dead space. Better option would be to listen out for tape hiss and start recording from there ;).
2:18 Is this real Windows XP, or just a template for Windows 10/11?
Not really both, it's 3th party software in combination with some fiddling of my own to make it look and use like Win XP, though it still has the useful parts from win 11.
I used Retrobar for the taskbar and OpenShell to overhaul the rest (loading bars, folder view etc.) I manually changed the sounds, pictograms and background as cherry on top.
I also used Winaero Tweaker but not sure if any of those changes are still in effect.
It does give a few bugs here and there in the explorer part of Windows but for the most of the time it works just fine.
I would have given you 10 out of 10? But I’m giving you a 9, Do you or anyone else know what he did wrong?
I'm happy with a 9 too :p but have no clue on what I did wrong, is it the winding part that is worthless (since the deck forwards itself)? You made me curious!
@@tapehead-jeff lol….its just something & nothing? Whenever I record on compact cassette tape…when changing the tape from side A to B I always give the heads a quick clean, new & especially older used tape get the treatment. Now I do not know scientifically if this makes a difference but in my head it does lol. Happy recordings👍. PS for recording get yourself a six head hi-fi vcr, I have 5 machines each purchased under £20, most of my tapes are new 3 or 4 hour each costing around 50p. 4 hours playback at near CD quality & most recordings come from any source….cheap as chips👍
It would be cool to get some explanation as to what you're spefically doing with tuning the deck, for instance
I was hoping the overlay text was enough, the video does lack some detailed information maybe, I did not want to talk in the video (my English sounds very 'dutchy' so went for the overlay text instead.
@@tapehead-jeff Nothing wrong with Dutchy English. Americans have so many different accents, we're used to listening carefully!
My "geek spot" sure lit up on this one - thank you and well deserved views, too! :)
Edit: typo fixed
Haha, thanks for the comment. Same here (ofcourse) It feels really nice holding a freshly recorded tape in your hand, knowing it's filled with your favorite music. Not to mention the end product with the custom J-card.
@@tapehead-jeff I have never heard of that J card thing - as I'm from the states, USA. I was just called it the insert
Guess now I have an official name for it, thanks. One learns something new everyday, and forgets something else in the process ! Lol
😁 Глупо подматывать ракордную плёнку - дека при загрузке кассеты выбирает петлю отматывая назад! 😂😅🤣
ты прав, это бесполезно, но я все равно это делаю
Nice job! I love to see that you use the noise reduction!
To be honest with you, I'm not a real fan of Dolby B. Used it before because it should make the hiss less noticeable (and it does) but it made the music sound dull. However with these recordings I took the gamble and tried Dolby S and must say this one does the job way better than B, and no remembering or switching Dolby afterwards too!
Loved making mixtapes!! It was an ART!
Yeah especially if you put a lot of dedication into it. Holding a fresh recorded (mix)tape still feels special to me!
whats the clock ticking in the background? i love clocks so it really interests me
We'll you can count me in, I got 3 'digital' flip-clocks and two* antique clocks of which you hear one ticking in the background. It used to be the driving mechanism of a church clock tower once. It's hard to show any picture via Google since it's unique.
In large description:
It's almost full brass with small steel parts to prevent heavy wear (like the anchor piece). It got no housing so only thing you see is the gears and braces, one massive leaded weight and the tailpiece. Furthermore there is a small enamel display to tell minutes and hours (which was actually used to know what the real clock on the tower was displaying).
It still has a fork on top that used to drive the display on the clock tower, it has no use anymore but it's still there.
I have to wind it up with a big 'key' which looks more like a crank in size. I can only wind it during daytime otherwise my housemates wake up by the clicking of the gears when I do so.
Changing the speed is done by raising or lowering the weight of the tailpiece and changing the time is done by lifting a metal part on a spring that unlatches one specific gear and rotate it manually until time is correct again.
Bought it from an antique store for a bargain since it was not working anymore, got it restored by a clock maker a year ago (which was no bargain).
I have no clue one where it came from, it could have been local but it could also have been from somewhere far abroad. Only thing sure is that it's at least a 100 years old looking at the parts and how they are made.
It has no chime btw, (I don't like that anyway). It's very nice to hear it tick when you go to sleep, some people hate it but it sounds like music to my ears.
In short description however: If you know what steampunk is, this clock screams it!
*I got another antique clock in storage which is interesting too but harder to describe, uses a steel ball on a seesaw, on every end of the swing it pushes onto a rod which makes the seesaw flip so the ball will slide to the other side (in a W shaped path) to push the other rod (and this continues until the spring is unwound).
EDIT, I got two video's of the clock I made last year, I'll upload them and send the link in another comment under this one, give me a sec.
Here's a link to the video I just uploaded on this clock:
ruclips.net/video/xYRBXYpO_JA/видео.html
You spend more time clicking that pen than recording.
Not to mention the many unnecessary clicks I make while waiting impatiently for the recording to finish :p
Just send it out to a duplicating co
That could ba an option, but the quality for duplication anywhere else is mostly mediocre at best. Where I live there is one dupe facility to do such thing but they can only duplicate to ferro (type I) tape which I do not really prefer.
Nice Rack !
Thanks! It took me a lot of time getting, repairing and setting up everything. I got more unusual stuff in storage and have another shelf waiting there too. When I finally gotten to buy my own home I want to fully display (and use) the entire setup! 😁
What stands are you using here?
They come from Ikea, I think they still sell them (at least in my country), there are many different versions of the design as far as I know. I looked it up for you, the design name is "FJÄLLBO" search for this on their website, they indeed still sell them.
@@tapehead-jeff Thanks :)
Hi, Jeff.
Hi John
Ottimo lavoro!
Grazie! 😁
No narration.
If you try to imply that I did not use narration, no I'm not really the person to talk a lot, I'd rather let the video and sound do the work 😉
EDIT: to be honest, I find my English still contains a lot of Dutch accent in it, which I don't like.
@@tapehead-jeff You should not worry about your accent Jeff, we watch darts here.
Barney, Michael Van G.♥️
Anyway, good luck👍🇬🇧👍
@@CdEmm50 Yeah if you hear them talk in what we call "stone-coal English" it sounds quite hilarious. My pronunciation is not bad, but when I make a video with narration I have to do it over multiple times just to get it right. I did made a video with narration nog long ago ruclips.net/video/-MnJi59fcgs/видео.html It's nog bad but I can do better though.
how'd you get the elcaset machine?
World wide web of course 😉 Ebay to be precise. Bought it in a neighboring country so the shipping expenses and risks are as low as possible.
I had to completely overhaul it though since it was barely working on arrival
Windows 7! Nice ;)
Almost, it’s Windows 11 with third-party software emulating Windows XP
Still recording cassettes....laughable!! 🗑️😆
At least I got you laughing 😌
I still record them, too ! lol
I'm not really laughing at you, I'm laughing WITH you. :)