This is my discovery for the new year. A month ago I just let my demo-mixes thru an oln hifi tower. Effect was so instresting that next day I bought Technics M24 deck, discovered a type II as the best for this purpose, experinment all night with meters and different amounts of pushing the tape... Such an adventure and really listenable results! Keep it up and thank you for the tips!
I have a Sony dual tape deck that has all the features. I run stereo mixes out into tape, either metal, or non metal, it works out really well. Sometimes even just running your guitar tracks out to tape then back into your daw can really change the sound. There are many possibilities with tape. Tape loops (hand cut, infinitely running, echos, etc etc) it really is endless. People cast away tapes as this archaic tech, but I see it as a complementary tech to modern day recording.
Been seeing loads of people using cassette decks on IG. I still have one of mine but haven't recommissioned it yet. Will give a go and see if it brings any advantage. I would love a reel to reel though
About Noise Reduction...Dolby NR is a 2 part system, compressor/limiter on the encoding, expanding on decoding. I seem to go a wayyy different route than you, I have heavy mixbus compression when I record, turn ON DBX during recording, SLAM the levels (depends on the song). I get great results from this because you get a ton of crunchy saturation, but your transients are usually intact and not blown out (tape saturation can kind of sound like a distortion pedal on the transients when you push too hard). I'm not alone on this, look up the "Dolby Type A Trick". Sure it fucks with your dynamics, but often times I want that from a lofi mastering attempt.
On my deck a Dolby B recorded tape sounds bad when its replayed with Dolby enabled. Mostly i like pushing low mids into under-biased Dolby B an re-record it without Dolby to get nice results. I didnt fully understand Dolby to this day and thats my technique xD
Thanks man good stuff. Keep the videos coming. i’m looking to cassette as a more affordable alternative to reel to reel to get a more analogue sound out of my daw, particularly vintage synth emulators and virtual drums.
I personnaly use a 3 heads cassette deck in a send bus as an effect to add paralel compression and distortion. This bus is recorded to an audio track and then I deal with the delay induced by the 2 heads by moving the track
@@kensmechanicalaffair Yes, I record the result from the tape on a track in my DAW. But you have to manage the delay between the 2 heads. Unless you want to keep this delay for artistic purposes you have to shift the track to compensate it
@@bobzmuda3940 True. I think "high end" analog is better in that respect but when you are not A/B-ing the two (high end analog vs digital) you will be hard pressed hear the difference on a two track master bus. There are many blind tests on RUclips where most get a 50% accuracy. Remember, this post is about Lofi cassette mastering. That is exactly what you will get - Lofi. I have a pretty nice Onkyo cassette deck from the 80's and have experimented. You get Lofi with slight dropouts when analyzing. Here is my new release using the J37 on all 10 tracks. There is no way I'm putting this through a cassette deck. masarone.bandcamp.com/album/signal-run
@@jmasno5 Yess, thats my favourite thing to do with the J37 vst, i have it running on a master bus, and craaaank the saturation, so its ugly, but i can fade it in behind the dry track for texture. alot more work involved, and still never quite as living and breathing as the master tape feels to me
I just started recording at home again and am planning on using a new digital 12 channel Teac mixer into Studio One. Once I have everything recorded and sounding the way I want I’m going to play it back into the room through my system because that’s when it usually sounds the best. Then I’ll use my Ribbon mic to record the mastered song into a 1968 Teac 3 mixer and from there into a cassette. The deck recording will then be fed back into the computer. I’m assuming they recorded a lot like this in the 50’s but I can’t really find out much about this method. I thought of this method because I do it all the time with my cell phone. Any suggestions?
So just go straight from my audio interface into my tape deck right? Do u record the outputs of tape deck back into daw or record the actual cassette tape of your final mix back into your daw? Thanks
You've nailed it. Thanks! First video of your and it's great. Subscribed. Hope there is more. BTW, are there any differences when between mastering to cassette and to Reel-to-Reel tape. Would be awesome to have your tutorial on Reel to reel too if that is relevant. Cheers
Thanks for stopping by leemski. I don't think there would be many differences between reel to reel and cassette. I would love to have a 1/4" 2-track reel to reel for mastering but alas I don't have one at the moment.
@@Govier Thanks for your reply. If I had one spare of a 1/4” 2-track reel to reel, I would send it to you. :) Your commitment to the tapes helps greatly other fans.
Type 4 tapes can’t be used with these machines. They can ruin the heads if you do. Only type ii or type I if you absolutely have to. Thanks for stopping by Elisha
use mixbus daw then master to a vcr with hi-fi then new way doing thing get audio interface with less 4 to 8 track in and out. then mix with a analog mixer outside the daw. and good info bro
hi get all my 1/8 inch from tapeline as i know how to set up the recorders i have a otari dp2700 to fill bodies after recording i have a reel to reel 1/8 deck emi btr4 slaves that are pimped thing is if you use cassette decks each one is running at it's speed one may be 10% on where you see racks to cassette decks each one will be out i have had 10 the same and after tests all not been right you can hear some sound slow
What about cassette's dynamic range? If I wanted some of that character but still preserve dynamics and definition, would cassette still be a good choice? I've got a 1/4 inch tape recorder at home but no money to calibrate it and buy the actual tape, so I thought of using my tascam portastudio and a type 2 Maxell cassette. But I'm just afraid of losing dynamics..
cassette would still preserve the dynamic range. there is definitely some high end frequency loss with cassette though and if you have access to a 1/4'' mixdown deck i would use that if it were me.
hi i have watch you video reel to reel against cassette for master i done i alot here cost ways cassette is better but service decks i fix all my decks tascam 30 can cost alot to keep running as over the years parts have to be changed alot cassette deck do go bad i use high speed 3 3/4 ips they do last longer for me the price of reel to reel tapes are mad
I have a 1973 Revox A77 reel to reel tape, and I really want to use this for recording, mastering (as you have suggested), and adding tape effects. I would love to see more video's on how to do these things (needn't be reel to reel tuts - I have a Pioneer double cassette deck too) Sub from me, so we can learn together
Dude, crushed this. Well done. Pumped for more cassette/music vids from your channel, Govier!
Thanks so much! I have bunches of songs recorded on cassette portastudios that I plan on doing live mix downs for. Stay tuned!
This is my discovery for the new year. A month ago I just let my demo-mixes thru an oln hifi tower. Effect was so instresting that next day I bought Technics M24 deck, discovered a type II as the best for this purpose, experinment all night with meters and different amounts of pushing the tape... Such an adventure and really listenable results! Keep it up and thank you for the tips!
I have a Sony dual tape deck that has all the features. I run stereo mixes out into tape, either metal, or non metal, it works out really well. Sometimes even just running your guitar tracks out to tape then back into your daw can really change the sound. There are many possibilities with tape. Tape loops (hand cut, infinitely running, echos, etc etc) it really is endless. People cast away tapes as this archaic tech, but I see it as a complementary tech to modern day recording.
and your guitar tracks, the ones that went through tape, are still in sync with the rest of the tracks in daw?
Been seeing loads of people using cassette decks on IG. I still have one of mine but haven't recommissioned it yet. Will give a go and see if it brings any advantage. I would love a reel to reel though
About Noise Reduction...Dolby NR is a 2 part system, compressor/limiter on the encoding, expanding on decoding. I seem to go a wayyy different route than you, I have heavy mixbus compression when I record, turn ON DBX during recording, SLAM the levels (depends on the song). I get great results from this because you get a ton of crunchy saturation, but your transients are usually intact and not blown out (tape saturation can kind of sound like a distortion pedal on the transients when you push too hard). I'm not alone on this, look up the "Dolby Type A Trick". Sure it fucks with your dynamics, but often times I want that from a lofi mastering attempt.
I get what you're saying. The more controlled the crest factor or peaking. You can run it into the tape without unpleasant spikes of distortion.
super helpful man, thank you! I am looking to do exactly what you are doing and record a band on a tascam 488. Appreciate the video!
Super cool content man. Subscribed for sure
On my deck a Dolby B recorded tape sounds bad when its replayed with Dolby enabled. Mostly i like pushing low mids into under-biased Dolby B an re-record it without Dolby to get nice results. I didnt fully understand Dolby to this day and thats my technique xD
Thanks man good stuff. Keep the videos coming. i’m looking to cassette as a more affordable alternative to reel to reel to get a more analogue sound out of my daw, particularly vintage synth emulators and virtual drums.
Well presented, no questions left unturned!
Thank you
I personnaly use a 3 heads cassette deck in a send bus as an effect to add paralel compression and distortion. This bus is recorded to an audio track and then I deal with the delay induced by the 2 heads by moving the track
So you record to tape then send back to daw?
@@kensmechanicalaffair Yes, I record the result from the tape on a track in my DAW. But you have to manage the delay between the 2 heads. Unless you want to keep this delay for artistic purposes you have to shift the track to compensate it
some daws have a time compensator per track, you estimate the ms delay and daw just buffers everything to align the track on the fly
I go from logic to my deck sometimes, im still learning. Thanks for the video.
Great Video. Good explaining. I like it !
That was cool, I like those tips!
Let's hear some comparisons. Cassette mastered vs in the box mastered. The waves J37 has a saturation option that's pretty believable.
J37’s saturation breaks up too easily and sounds very digital and thin how it breaks up. tape and analog will always break up more pleasingly
@@bobzmuda3940 True. I think "high end" analog is better in that respect but when you are not A/B-ing the two (high end analog vs digital) you will be hard pressed hear the difference on a two track master bus. There are many blind tests on RUclips where most get a 50% accuracy. Remember, this post is about Lofi cassette mastering. That is exactly what you will get - Lofi. I have a pretty nice Onkyo cassette deck from the 80's and have experimented. You get Lofi with slight dropouts when analyzing. Here is my new release using the J37 on all 10 tracks. There is no way I'm putting this through a cassette deck. masarone.bandcamp.com/album/signal-run
@@jmasno5 Yess, thats my favourite thing to do with the J37 vst, i have it running on a master bus, and craaaank the saturation, so its ugly, but i can fade it in behind the dry track for texture. alot more work involved, and still never quite as living and breathing as the master tape feels to me
Yea, except that warm ploofiness.
I just started recording at home again and am planning on using a new digital 12 channel Teac mixer into Studio One. Once I have everything recorded and sounding the way I want I’m going to play it back into the room through my system because that’s when it usually sounds the best. Then I’ll use my Ribbon mic to record the mastered song into a 1968 Teac 3 mixer and from there into a cassette. The deck recording will then be fed back into the computer. I’m assuming they recorded a lot like this in the 50’s but I can’t really find out much about this method. I thought of this method because I do it all the time with my cell phone. Any suggestions?
Very interesting presentation.
So just go straight from my audio interface into my tape deck right? Do u record the outputs of tape deck back into daw or record the actual cassette tape of your final mix back into your daw? Thanks
You've nailed it. Thanks! First video of your and it's great. Subscribed. Hope there is more. BTW, are there any differences when between mastering to cassette and to Reel-to-Reel tape. Would be awesome to have your tutorial on Reel to reel too if that is relevant. Cheers
Thanks for stopping by leemski. I don't think there would be many differences between reel to reel and cassette. I would love to have a 1/4" 2-track reel to reel for mastering but alas I don't have one at the moment.
@@Govier Thanks for your reply. If I had one spare of a 1/4” 2-track reel to reel, I would send it to you. :) Your commitment to the tapes helps greatly other fans.
Great tips, thanks for sharing them with us all
Really good video, this. Very helpful.
Great stuff, just subscribed!
Cheers to a fellow United fan!
Isn't cassette better for making copies once you get a mix on say a r to r, a cassette mix would come out sounding small
Why Type II instead of Type IV Metal Tapes?
Type 4 tapes can’t be used with these machines. They can ruin the heads if you do. Only type ii or type I if you absolutely have to. Thanks for stopping by Elisha
use mixbus daw then master to a vcr with hi-fi then new way doing thing get audio interface with less 4 to 8 track in and out. then mix with a analog mixer outside the daw. and good info bro
Thank You!
Good video. Lots of good info.
thank you bro
no problem
Very interesting and informative.
hi get all my 1/8 inch from tapeline as i know how to set up the recorders i have a otari dp2700 to fill bodies after recording
i have a reel to reel 1/8 deck emi btr4 slaves that are pimped thing is if you use cassette decks each one is running at it's
speed one may be 10% on where you see racks to cassette decks each one will be out i have had 10 the same and after tests
all not been right you can hear some sound slow
thanks for the tips!
What about cassette's dynamic range? If I wanted some of that character but still preserve dynamics and definition, would cassette still be a good choice? I've got a 1/4 inch tape recorder at home but no money to calibrate it and buy the actual tape, so I thought of using my tascam portastudio and a type 2 Maxell cassette. But I'm just afraid of losing dynamics..
cassette would still preserve the dynamic range. there is definitely some high end frequency loss with cassette though and if you have access to a 1/4'' mixdown deck i would use that if it were me.
Thanks a lot for this tutorial. Keep em coming, plz :-)
where were you when i was tearing my hair out? hahah
hi i have watch you video reel to reel against cassette for master i done i alot here cost ways cassette is better but
service decks i fix all my decks tascam 30 can cost alot to keep running as over the years parts have to be changed alot
cassette deck do go bad i use high speed 3 3/4 ips they do last longer for me the price of reel to reel tapes are mad
Subbed!
woahhh
Hey Laptop Funeral! Long time no see! Thanks for stopping by.
I have a 1973 Revox A77 reel to reel tape, and I really want to use this for recording, mastering (as you have suggested), and adding tape effects.
I would love to see more video's on how to do these things (needn't be reel to reel tuts - I have a Pioneer double cassette deck too)
Sub from me, so we can learn together
Recently got a £30 deck and tdk tape , check a few examples on my channel man, you inspired me to move to tape. Its a far nicer master than ozone
That tape deck sounds like it will do the job. Thanks for checking out the vid
Thorough as fuck, thank u
Yee
Casette not existing in our generation
Excellent tutorial / advice man. Keep them coming.
Thank you!